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Jack Of Diamonds (2012)

by Bryce Courtenay(Favorite Author)

3.83 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

174267948X (ISBN13: 9781742679488)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Bolinda Audio

review 1: After reading "The Persimmon Tree" & "The Australian Trilogy" I decided to read all of Bryce Courtenay's books because I loved them so much. I'm the type to find an author & read everything they have before moving on. I quickly found that Mr. Courtenay continues to use the same outline for the story over & over. He just switches up the characters names & their "special talent/interest" (boxing, music, law...) But they all follow the same steps & progression in life. They all have some disadvantage then a special older mentor... they all end up at the mines for one reason or another... He will even use the same language to describe a certain scene in the book. When Jack gets to the mine in the story (which really comes out of left field & has nothing to add to the plot),... more I've already had the mine described to me in so much detail in all the other books that I thought for sure he'd switch it up just to make it more interesting. Sadly he describes it in exactly the same way with exactly the same things happening there. I'm not sure if he didn't assume that people would read more than one of his books or if there was a clever plan that all these characters were contemporaries viewing the same situation from different perspectives. Either way, it has become so monotonous that by the time I get to the 5th chapter I can tell the rest of the story. After "The Persimmon Tree" & "The Australian Trilogy" I started at the beginning with "The Power of One" & read through his books in the order he wrote them until I got to "Jessica". Then I skipped ahead to "Jack of Diamonds" in hopes that aside from the Trilogy & Persimmon Tree he had deviated from his story line but was sadly disappointed. I may be TOTALLY wrong, having skipped ahead to his last book. I HOPE I am wrong. I hope "Jack of Diamonds" was his farewell to these characters that he obviously loved.... but I'm not sure I can get through another book that's the same story, different names given to the same main character with the same language & predictability. It is my opinion that this book will get a good review or bad review based on how many books the person had read by Mr. Courtenay.
review 2: I LOVED this book! Having been disappointed with Bryce's last few books, I decided to listen to his last one on audiobook (to give me a break from the Wheel of Time series). I don't know whether that played a part in my love for it, or whether I would have loved it just as much had I read it in the traditional manner, but love every second of it, I did! Yes, the main character is as usual, sickening good at everything, but somehow I felt him human and vulnerable despite this. I actually had to stop the book in two places (once in Vegas - not where you might expect though - and once right at the end) as I couldn't bear to find out what was going to happen! The very end made me cry...the fact that it is the last book of Bryce Courtenay's was a big part of that. What a storyteller! And I, for one, am so glad that he managed to tell this final tale. less

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