📚 Just Finished...

📚Just finished... review

5 stars

Behind every great man there's a great woman.

This is not an easy one to review. It has many layers, and those who have gone through some of the obsessions (even if not the same) will relate to and understand this book best.

It left me very sad and melancholy. A kind of sadness when one looks back at years passed and sees what has been lost, what has been given away, wasted, and scorned.

It is an historical fiction, so the expectations from males and females are well portrayed.

Dedication of a lifetime to the wrong priorities for the sake of others.

They are twins who feel like a single entity divided. One took the talent, the male presence, the success, while the other was forced into a life in the shadow as a secretary, sister, wife, mother.

At that time, marriage was a security for women. We could say her choices were false. She still plays the part of a mother/wife, but at least she chose to whom. Because this is from the perspective of musicians and creatives I took it quite to the heart and the most powerful thing to me in the book is when the character says that music or an artwork without the one it's for is just that, an empty tool, the fulfillment is in the listener's or readers reaction, adoration or rapture (an emotion that can't be faked, acted). Many times I tried to explain this to people, but those who are more pragmatic and less creative confuse it with wanting fame and attention. It has nothing to do with that. It may look like it, but it's more. From a well-executed recipe, to a nocturne or even a novel... the author captures the emptiness of the artists who have reached a point that is so hard to surpass. The author made me feel sad for the life the main character could have had if someone had given her a chance, and what her twin brother conquered and lost, leaving a life of emptiness and loneliness.

The novel drags a bit in the middle, but something perhaps we don't notice in the audiobook version.

#crescendo #bloomsburybooks

Thank you publishers and book influencers for the copy

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