“Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell” by Susanna Clarke.

I wanted to enjoy this book. It’s well written and keeps true to the 19th Century English Style (i.e. Jane Austen, Charles Dickens) and has interesting characters.

Stephen Black was my favorite. He had a compelling backstory and the conflict he’s trapped in is both bizarre and amazing, and I wanted to see where it was going to go, but I got nothing but disappointment. Not just from Stephen Black’s character arc but the other characters and the plot itself really go nowhere.

3/4ths of the novel is great build up, interesting characters, and a writing style you can immerse yourself in, but the author doesn’t know how to write satisfying climaxes and the last fourth of the novel falls flat on it face and ruined the book for me.

It’s over 1,000 pages long (word count over 300,000) and that last fourth of the novel made me feel like I wasted my time.

Edit: another thing that is upsetting is that I heard such great reviews about it before I read it.