Book Review: The Birth of Venus

[sarahmichelef]

Read The Birth of Venus over the weekend while I was at my parents' house. I was engrossed. The storytelling is good, the flashback structure (the first chapter is in the "present" and then the rest of the book is everything leading up to the events of the first chapter) is well-employed. You care about the main character, Alessandra, if not really about anybody else (except maybe the painter). I loved the interweaving of 15th century Florentine intrigue into the plot - I didn't know squat about the fall of the de Medicis, and now I know at least a little bit. A good, fairly quick read. Not total fluff, but not high literature, either.