How Beautiful They Were by Boston Teran

3.5 Stars

This book swerves between two viewpoints - that of Nathaniel Luck which is told in "real time" and that of his erstwhile stage manager which is told in a flashback style. It does make for a little confusion at time as they are not clearly delineated and it sometimes took several lines before it clicked in my brain why the perspective had suddenly changed. This was not helped by the fact it didn't engage me as much as I thought it would. Largely this is down to the actual writing style which not only seeks to tell a story set in a Victorian era but seems to try to emulate the writing style of the period as well as evoke the prevailing attitudes and living conditions of the time.

There is also a heavy handed attitude to morality throughout and almost a "look at how barbaric it all was" view point. All the way through the reading I was reminded of the old maxim "The past is a different country, they do things differently there". Whilst we should not forget atrocities that man perpetrated against man for simply being born with a different coloured skin, having a predilection for the same gender or into a penurious household this book seems to beat you around the head with it. There is no subtlety evident in the telling and rather than a mirror being held up to our collective pasts you are bludgeoned around the head with it.

What saved the book for me was the glimpses in to the raucous theatre life. The characters that inhabit these shady theatres and Nathaniel Luck's reflections on his craft and how he could improve, how he could captivate, how he could bring real life to the stage and make it interesting. His personal journey is also interesting with all it's meanderings in to despair and joy.

To be honest, the whole thing is done better by Martha Conway in The Floating Theatre.

THIS IS AN HONEST REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK RECEIVED VIA BOOK SIRENS.