The Book of Life

This review contains spoilers.

This novel lacked coherence, internal consistency, and failed to address the questions set up in the initial installment in the trilogy.

We are supposed to believe that Diana and Matthew are capable adults smart enough to have landed tenured positions at prestigious universities, but they fail to communicate, consistently make baffling decisions, and lack the short term memory that god gave a goldfish. Conflicts that appear toward the end of the book feel manufactured and artificially drawn out in order to increase the novel's word count, rather than to add substance or intrigue. For example, Matthew is kidnapped and unreachable toward the end, but this problem was already solved much earlier when Diana and Sarah created a locator spell to find someone whom they had never met and had almost no identifying information. In a world with consistent rules where the author actually has an idea of how the magic is supposed to work, they could have just done a locator spell to solve the Matthew problem, and probably with more success as they actually had information about the subject. Instead, we get dozens of pages of handwringing and woe as the main characters fail to think their way out of a paper bag.

Diana and Matthew's relationship is stagnant and infuriating. Throughout the series Matthew constantly dictates what Diana can and cannot do, claiming that he's not a controlling asshole, just "overprotective." Diana ignores him, things nearly go wrong, but it turns out that Diana was probably right to do things her way anyway. Matthew is perturbed, but ultimately grateful that things worked out. Repeat. Throw in a little bit of "blood rage," a disease that affects some vampires and is only activated when convenient for the plot and ignored at all other times, and there you have the entire progression of Matthew/Diana throughout the trilogy. The only thing that makes Matthew palatable is that the villain repeatedly threatens to rape Diana and her unborn children. Juxtaposing Matthew with an admitted serial killer and rapist is the best that Harkness could to do make him marginally less awful.

One of the plot twists (that could be seen coming from miles away) is that Gallowglass, Matthew's nephew, has been in love with Diana ever since they met during her time travel stint in the previous novel. He's been watching her from a distance and feeling the pain of his forbidden love for her entire life. At one point Diana concocts an ill advised and hastily executed plan, and after explaining it to Gallowglass she is amazed that he doesn't try to talk her out of it or shoot her down in any way. He responds by saying that's what she gets for falling in love with the wrong man. Congratulations, Gallowglass! You just said the only sensible thing in the entire book, and you deserve better than this sad, weird little universe has to offer you.

Speaking of how sad and weird this universe is, apparently there's an entire coven of witches in London who have had nothing better to do for several hundred years than sit around awaiting Diana's return to the present where she will save them(?). And the guy they create the locator spell to find? He appears for all of five seconds and then no one ever thinks about him again, but he instinctively knows that Diana is special and important. Ysabeau mentions something about how Venice would be underwater (har har) if it weren't for the de Cleremont's financial investments. There is apparently nothing, past or present, that would function in this universe if it weren't for this relatively small group of vampires and the people that orbit them. No other smart or competent people exist in this universe. It doesn't feel large and magical. This world is tiny and depressing and has very little room for expansion.

The reason that I stuck with this series down to the bitter end is because I was interested in the central mystery of the mysterious book from A Discovery of Witches. What is it, why is everyone after it, how did Diana's dad manage to hide it all of these years? So the book is made of creature skin and contains the memories of those who were killed to make it? Sounds promising, but once they find the book we don't get much more information than we already had, either about the book or about the existence of creatures in general. We get a little bit, filtered through Diana, but not in a way that convinces me that Harkness has an idea of how her universe works or fits together. Harkness lacked both the intent and the ability to follow through on her most interesting plot elements.

I liked the first installment in this series. I thought it was compelling enough that I wanted to see how everything wrapped up, and I really hoped that this would turn out better than the second book in the trilogy. I wanted to like this. However, any number of plot holes or inconsistencies should have been picked up by an editor. This whole book felt like reading a first draft. I am angry because I so wanted it to be better.