Book Review: taboo by susan johnson
Available on Amazon.
I have read this book many times. It is one of my favorite stories ever. Andre and Teo belong to my favorite couples' list. Their discourse is tight and precise with nuances that can easily be missed. Their relationship, constantly threatened by war, realistically unfolds to something deeper, given Andre's emotional reserve and Teo's present marriage. If you're looking for flowery declarations and endless angst and a steady streams of compliments bounced from one of them to to the other, you won't find it. Yet, so much is said without using words, and that is what I like about them. The sex scenes are explicit, and some reviewers say there is too much sex. It didn't bother me, one way or the other. I also noticed some references to how quickly they fell in love. I know couples who have fallen in love this way and went on to be married for years. I think the author could have been a bit more convincing in this regard, or perhaps, like romance authors today she could have simply told readers if they don't believe in love at second sight, then this book is not for them.
My other appreciation of this story is Susan's writing style. She animates the pages with action verbs and clean and uncluttered descriptions and the kind of varying sentence structure that controls the pacing perfectly. There are scenes in which Duras almost appears aerial. There are other scenes that are so visual, it's difficult to believe they are merely printed words as opposed to a video or movie. I only found one place in the book where I thought fewer details concerning the battles could have been used. Now, I didn't study the map and read every footnote, so readers who like to do this would need to evaluate their findings.
For me, this story was about Andre and Teo and a love trying to survive in the midst of war. The only thing I would like to have seen a glimpse of was some of Teo's life with Korsakov. He is the villain. Written at a time when there wasn't such a clamoring for multi-dimensional villains, the story has no scenes of Korsakov cuddling his favorite pet or taking out his neighbor's garbage. I didn't miss the suggestions of such a side of him because quite frankly some people don't have such a side and some people's good side and their negative side are one and the same. They like their vicious, dominating selves and there is little else to their nature that mitigates these characteristics. He came across to me as such a person.
My only regret is that this story was not converted to audiobook format. I'll close by saying, the author's portrait of Duras is the stuff bad boys in 1799 were made of, and if a man-doll ever looks like him, I'll buy one.
My other appreciation of this story is Susan's writing style. She animates the pages with action verbs and clean and uncluttered descriptions and the kind of varying sentence structure that controls the pacing perfectly. There are scenes in which Duras almost appears aerial. There are other scenes that are so visual, it's difficult to believe they are merely printed words as opposed to a video or movie. I only found one place in the book where I thought fewer details concerning the battles could have been used. Now, I didn't study the map and read every footnote, so readers who like to do this would need to evaluate their findings.
For me, this story was about Andre and Teo and a love trying to survive in the midst of war. The only thing I would like to have seen a glimpse of was some of Teo's life with Korsakov. He is the villain. Written at a time when there wasn't such a clamoring for multi-dimensional villains, the story has no scenes of Korsakov cuddling his favorite pet or taking out his neighbor's garbage. I didn't miss the suggestions of such a side of him because quite frankly some people don't have such a side and some people's good side and their negative side are one and the same. They like their vicious, dominating selves and there is little else to their nature that mitigates these characteristics. He came across to me as such a person.
My only regret is that this story was not converted to audiobook format. I'll close by saying, the author's portrait of Duras is the stuff bad boys in 1799 were made of, and if a man-doll ever looks like him, I'll buy one.
