The best thing about this book is its title. Then the beginning is also quite interesting, but after about the first one-fifth of the book, I thought this emperor has no clothes.

More than the plot or the characters what rubbed me the wrong way is the author’s writing style. It consists of telling not showing, badly constructed scenes, head-hopping especially after halfway through the book, and a lot of philosophical mumbo jumbo.

In the story, Roberto who works in a bank in Milan has recurring dreams of walking on a bridge starting from a cape but going through the stars without reaching the other cape. When he visits Sardinia, his mother’s hometown, he sees the two capes that he dreamt about. He manages to get himself reassigned to the bank there.

The two women in his life, Barbara and Lucia, gain importance in their own rights once he begins living in Sardinia. Barbara is witchlike in that she knows when and what anything is happening or is going to happen, and she is keen in helping Roberto reach his destiny, who she thinks is a higher being. Lucia is earthlier, with a more hands-on approach to life. Both women are stunningly beautiful, rich, sexy, and accomplished, and they are not jealous of each other even though they are aware of Roberto’s intimate relationships with both of them.

Barbara regresses Roberto into his past lives to open up his eyes to who he really is. Also, she belongs to an esoteric and possibly philosophical organization whose workings and goals aren’t clearly defined to the readers but one that has a hand in helping Roberto. She thus enables Roberto into the second career of astronomy, first by having him take several short adult education classes. In a short time, she has him working in astronomical observatories and universities in Europe, later transplanting him as an astronomer to Cape Canaveral, FL. (Well, the workers and astronomers in Nasa have to be cringing with envy at this short education of a person who manages to shoot upward to the top.)

I am not going to give away the ending, which was a letdown for me, but I think the plot and the characters could be better handled if there weren’t so many sermon-like passages that pushed the author’s beliefs on the readers. Also, the story could use numerous actual scenes that could be shown through character action rather than the author’s narration. Then there are several themes in it that compete with each other, clouding the main theme which is the nature of existence.

In short, I thought the story would be better served if it didn’t contain such a lot of hot air.

seeing how a good setup and a workable premise can be mishandled.

being lectured as a reader. I also didn't like the main character's fish-out-of-water attitude clashing with all the success that forces the reality of education in astronomy.

Then, Barbara wants to take Roberto to Mali to visit a native community whose inhabitants are the offspring of extraterrestrials and this is given much importance as if this place will definitely be visited by the characters; however, at the end of the novel, this wasn't as important and couldn't be brought to conclusion anyway, which means what was promised in the beginning isn't fulfilled at the end.

Yet, more than anything I didn't like the writing style.

kick myself for reading it to the end, which I did because I said I'd read it in ~Minja~ 's "CLOSED!The Monthly Reading Challenge"  Forum.

terribly disappointed.

is the heir to and CEO of an auto-making company in Italy that rivaled Ferrari, thus a very successful person who took to writing later in life. He lives in Sarasota, FL, and has other books.

as writers, I don't think we can learn from it. I am not against the beliefs and suppositions in the book; just the way the elements of the novel are handled.

I guess a huge success in one area of life causes readers to turn out high praises for the fruits of another area. I suspect, from reading the reviews on Amazon, this is what may have happened to this author and this book.

Still, I am not going to post this review on Amazon or Goodreads. Far be it from me to discourage another writer.

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Created May 11, 2019 at 10:43am • Submit your own review...