I give! UNCLE!!

This book got the best of me. I can't think of the last time I threw a book down in frustration after 250 pages. How do I get that far and give up? Well, Christmas may have something to do with it. Whenever I'm visiting someone's home and reading a book, people feel compelled to walk up to me and start talking. If I go try to hide, they come and find me to "check" on me and then the talking starts. All this damn Christmas cheer (bah humbug) makes it hard to read a book that requires a lot of focus.

I feel sorry for anyone who is forced to read this book because it should only be read for pleasure. The sentences are impossible to parse and the plot itself is tough to decipher. Maturin had a lot of demons he was trying to exorcise with the writing of this book, and the plot and characters feel like a thin layer over this anti-Catholic lectures. I didn't even like the footnotes, which were equally nebulous.