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frasersimons 's review for:

The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel
3.0

As always, I love the prose but find it could almost be set in any genre because of the glaring lack of description. Feels like play in prose form, which I dig. But for me, these books are always a mix. I love the flow and absolutely adore the dialogue. But then I get pulled out of the text all of the time because I legitimately have no idea where they are, what they look like, or what they’re wearing in some scenes.

Generally, scene setting is very small and I think there is a very large assumption as to what the reader can fill in automatically. Having no familiarity with the time period, I am basically always a spectator, rather than an active participant.