The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing

Most Recently Read Book:

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Traitor to the Nation

Volume One: Pox Party

By M.T. Anderson

I'm going to do my best to give an objective view of this book even though I really did not enjoy reading it. I usually enjoy historical fiction, and I truly respect this author for documenting such an interesting and probably commonly overlooked part of history. The book was very confusing to me, mainly because I really do not think the exposition was very well-written. I can see why the author left the exposition so vague, because the main character himself was very unclear himself where he was from and who his mother was but to me this was far to confusing for the reader. The author definitely took his time in explaining the life of Octavian, and for me it was too drawn out. I think what also added to my dislike is the fact that I didn't really have prior knowledge to what was going on in Octavian's life that it made it hard for me to really understand what was going on. After reading the explanation the author gives at the end it kind of clears things up, but I still wasn't happy to have spent so much time reading the book. I wanted to give it a fair chance by trying to at least finish it, but I would only reccommend this if you truly have an interest in this particular historical time or the experiments that were conducted, and even then I wasn't a fan of how it was written. I didn't really explain what the book is about...so ask me if you are wondering.