Getting real Book

*Rated 2.5/5 stars

Read this one for uni - not really my kind of thing, but I managed to get into the first half. It was interesting seeing the story of a tyrant, with no excuses made over his awfulness and his violence shown in full course. It's a brutal story, one full of bloody scenes, but it appears to show the harsh realities of war and conquering armies.
Sadly this seemed to be a tale of two halves - part one was built up wonderfully, with politic alliances and tensions fuelling the dialogue and relations between characters well established. But part two just seemed to throw in as many dramatic scenes as possible, almost verging on ridiculousness. I mean, one character convinces another to kill them by claiming they have ointment making them immune to such a wound? Not forgetting the armies and kings popping up and dying all over the show, with no real threat looming. It felt like a case of "how many dramatic, violent scenes can we throw in to shock the audience?" and ultimately just fell flat after all the carefully crafted build up from part one. It was a weird one...