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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I decided to read The Gypsy when I found out that Megan Lindholm and Robin Hobb were in fact the same author. Being a huge fan of Ms Hobb's books, I wanted to read anything else that she had written, and this was the first book that I was able to find. I will say from the outset that this is not a good reason for purchasing this novel. The Gypsy is initially a rather slow and confusing story. I found the disjointed, soap-opera style of story telling rather irritating, and the need to constantly check back to find out who is who made progress rather slow. Once the style and characters became established, after about 100 pages or so, the story does begin to take shape and the novel becomes more enjoyable. The blend of fantasy and reality; the cross-over between the world of the cop Stepovich and that of the gypsy brothers was intriguing, although I did feel at times that occurrences in the fantasy world were a little too abstract and difficult to follow. Overall the book provided an interesting diversion, but not the gripping read that I hoped for.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I really wanted to like this, being a fan of the musical version [Songs From the Gypsy] by Boiled in Lead, but I have to admit that I'm not impressed. The sections concentrating on Stepovich the cop are fairly compelling, but the sections about the various Gypsy brothers and especially the Fair Lady [who's the villainess] are so vaguely described as to not engender any interest. Plus the subplot involving the seduction of Stepovich's daughter by the Fair Lady seems forced, like it was shoehorned in at the last minute to give Step a personal stake in the story. Overall I found that large parts of this novel just dragged interminably. I didn't feel like hurling it against the wall when I finished it, but I didn't feel like my time had been well spent either.
Format:Paperback
As this book begins multiple character perspectives immediately assault the reader one after the next, yet strangely the characters are so vague as to make little to no lasting impression. This initial confusion diminishes slightly after about fifty pages, but it still makes this novel somewhat of a struggle early on. The puzzling stream-of-consciousness style to the writing throughout and the continual references to individual characters by numerous names also doesn't help matters.
In order to derive the most pleasure possible from `The Gypsy' I think the reader has to suspend most thought-processes i.e. make the decision almost from the out-set to allow events to wash over you, without even attempting to unravel the mysteries alluded to in the story, or make sense of the alternate fantasy land that runs parallel to the events of the main plot. `The Gypsy' becomes much easier and more enjoyable once you do, but as a huge fan of Megan Lindholm in particular, I regret having to admit that this book is more often a chore than it is a pleasure.
The main protagonist is a tough, misunderstood police officer called Stepovich who we meet as he finds himself exiled from his family home and enduring the frustration of being partnered with a fellow cop who shows a decided lack of interest in making sure justice is served. Stepovich is the readers' only anchor to an unnecessarily dense and convoluted story. While I do think you'll be surprised to find yourself absorbed once various character threads start to entwine in interesting ways, thus casting light on the greater themes of the story, for the majority of this novel character motives are ill-defined and the story feels confused as a result.
`The Gypsy' is a novel with a format very evocative of the gritty American TV cop show and with a narrative reminiscent of graphic novels that absorb with evocative first-person voices. While I can't deny that `The Gypsy' is ultimately an experiment that is unsuccessful, I had the strong impression throughout reading it that the meat & bones of the story would make a hugely engaging television/film experience. But as a novel, with so little to the story for the reader to truly latch onto, the end result is sadly unappealing.
In order to derive the most pleasure possible from `The Gypsy' I think the reader has to suspend most thought-processes i.e. make the decision almost from the out-set to allow events to wash over you, without even attempting to unravel the mysteries alluded to in the story, or make sense of the alternate fantasy land that runs parallel to the events of the main plot. `The Gypsy' becomes much easier and more enjoyable once you do, but as a huge fan of Megan Lindholm in particular, I regret having to admit that this book is more often a chore than it is a pleasure.
The main protagonist is a tough, misunderstood police officer called Stepovich who we meet as he finds himself exiled from his family home and enduring the frustration of being partnered with a fellow cop who shows a decided lack of interest in making sure justice is served. Stepovich is the readers' only anchor to an unnecessarily dense and convoluted story. While I do think you'll be surprised to find yourself absorbed once various character threads start to entwine in interesting ways, thus casting light on the greater themes of the story, for the majority of this novel character motives are ill-defined and the story feels confused as a result.
`The Gypsy' is a novel with a format very evocative of the gritty American TV cop show and with a narrative reminiscent of graphic novels that absorb with evocative first-person voices. While I can't deny that `The Gypsy' is ultimately an experiment that is unsuccessful, I had the strong impression throughout reading it that the meat & bones of the story would make a hugely engaging television/film experience. But as a novel, with so little to the story for the reader to truly latch onto, the end result is sadly unappealing.
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