City of Light

What to say about the City of Light? Simply saying it was one of the best books I've read just doesn't seem emphatic enough! I had read favorable reviews of it, but it never sparked my interst. Turn of the century Buffalo, the PanAmerican Exposition, a headmistress and the Niagara Falls electric company just didn't sound like my kind of book. But then, a good friend recommended it--she has read...more

What to say about the City of Light? Simply saying it was one of the best books I've read just doesn't seem emphatic enough! I had read favorable reviews of it, but it never sparked my interst. Turn of the century Buffalo, the PanAmerican Exposition, a headmistress and the Niagara Falls electric company just didn't sound like my kind of book. But then, a good friend recommended it--she has read it twice--and I thought I'd give it a try 'cause we have similar reading tastes. I read the first page, and my opinion began to change. I eagerly turned to the next page, and the next, and. . . I became obsessed with Lousia, and the world around her, with the events that began with her or ended with her or just involved her. All weekend I read until I couldn't focus, needing to read, to know, to be a part of her world. Toward the end of the book I was torn between hurrying through to see how it would end, and dallying, to make it last. I don't know how to describe this book, how to sort it neatly into a genre. There is mystery and history, inspiration and romance, fact and fiction--it's all there. But more importantly, there is life, in the plot, the characters, the conflicts and the conclusions.   hide