Rant: I was dead wrong about historical fiction

Always thought historical fiction was just boring textbooks with fake names. Read "The Narrow Road to the Deep North" by Richard Flanagan last month and it wrecked me for a week. Anyone else have a genre they dismissed until one book proved them wrong?

2 comments

2 Comments

cooper.nathan16d ago

Gotta play hard disagree here lol. Most historical fiction is just dusty stories with modern people cosplaying in old clothes. Flanagan's book gets praised because it's the exception, not the rule. @willow244 mentioned The Hating Game, at least romance knows what it's supposed to be. Historical fiction either lectures you about war crimes or makes you sit through 500 pages of someone eating bread in Victorian England.

willow24416d ago

lol "wrecked me for a week" is such a mood though. I swore off romance novels for years until I accidentally read "The Hating Game" and then I had to apologize to my book club for being a snob about it.