Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by luluwoohoo
The Dangerous Kingdom of Love by Neil Blackmore
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
The Dangerous Kingdom Of Love by Neil Blackmore
☀️☀️☀️☀️⛅
A contemporary take on one of history's greatest men (just ask him), this novel is witty, charming and unfailingly captivating from start to finish.
There is such style and personality in Blackmore's writing - it is without a doubt the star of the book. Bacon's worldview is 'futuristic' within the story but also in the post-modern concepts and language employed to describe it, which involve many direct asides to the readers. It is the writing's self-awareness that lures you into trusting Bacon's perception of things, only to realise by the end that he's a wonderfully unreliable narrator who is as flawed as they come.
The examinations of power and society's hierarchy are textured and well placed to establish Bacon's baseline narcissism, particularly his relationship with Mrs Turner in which we start to see the cracks in Bacon's narrative perception. The power imbalance between himself and George is mirrored with that of George and the King, though naturally we are provided with very different takes on each. Blackmore also digs into identity through the feeling of otherness - in this case, mostly queerness - and history - how it's written, and who by - with a great deal of care. For an arguably heavy handed book, there are a lot of nuanced ideas to be found.
Selling an utterly unlikeable character as the main narrator is a tough pitch at the best of times but Bacon is impossible to hate thanks to Blackmore's skill and quality of writing. This book appears to be (by Goodreads standards) very under the radar, which is a real shame because it's a gem of a book!
☀️☀️☀️☀️⛅
A contemporary take on one of history's greatest men (just ask him), this novel is witty, charming and unfailingly captivating from start to finish.
There is such style and personality in Blackmore's writing - it is without a doubt the star of the book. Bacon's worldview is 'futuristic' within the story but also in the post-modern concepts and language employed to describe it, which involve many direct asides to the readers. It is the writing's self-awareness that lures you into trusting Bacon's perception of things, only to realise by the end that he's a wonderfully unreliable narrator who is as flawed as they come.
The examinations of power and society's hierarchy are textured and well placed to establish Bacon's baseline narcissism, particularly his relationship with Mrs Turner in which we start to see the cracks in Bacon's narrative perception. The power imbalance between himself and George is mirrored with that of George and the King, though naturally we are provided with very different takes on each. Blackmore also digs into identity through the feeling of otherness - in this case, mostly queerness - and history - how it's written, and who by - with a great deal of care. For an arguably heavy handed book, there are a lot of nuanced ideas to be found.
Selling an utterly unlikeable character as the main narrator is a tough pitch at the best of times but Bacon is impossible to hate thanks to Blackmore's skill and quality of writing. This book appears to be (by Goodreads standards) very under the radar, which is a real shame because it's a gem of a book!
"When had I stopped being the person who had so seriously, so avowedly, kept love in abeyance all my life? I tried to think of how he had been able to seduce me so; no, I don't mean sexually, I mean in the marrow in my bones, the blood in my veins, in my teeth, and lungs and belly."