Coffee2words

Let Sleeping Gods Lie is the fourth of Dianne's books I've read, and I'd have to say my least favourite.

It wasn't because the characters were bad, or the story uninteresting. No, the issue I had was with the overuse of similes and metaphors.



Some of them were so bad I actually cringed when reading them. Arms like burnt chicken wings, a face splitting like a can of beans... it was a bit much. Which is why this book has obtained my 'editing required' shelving tag. I think removing some of the random details would make it crisper and a lot nicer to read and most certainly would bump up my rating to at least 4 stars.

This aside, I loved the characters, even the bad ones. I felt that they all played their parts really well. The story flowed nicely and kept me interested. I liked the variety of characters too, we weren't left with cookie cutter families, I liked the messed up family unit of the Landau's, I mean I wouldn't for a second want to meet them, but I liked the complexities of their family unit.

When you add to this story the questions around religion and beliefs, it just all came together in a gnarly mess that somehow just seemed to work.

A decent book if you can overlook the weird similes and metaphors, and by a fantastic Aussie author to boot.