The Curator

By: Owen King

Narrated by: Marin Ireland

Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

From New York Times bestselling author Owen King, who “writes with witty verve” (Entertainment Weekly) comes a “richly imagined” (The New York Times) Dickensian fantasy of illusion and charm where cats are revered as religious figures, thieves are noble, scholars are revolutionaries, and conjurers are the most wonderful criminals you can imagine.

It begins in an unnamed city nicknamed “the Fairest”, it is distinguished by many things from the river fair to the mountains that split the municipality in half; its theaters and many museums; the Morgue Ship; and, like all cities, but maybe especially so, by its essential unmappability.

Dora, a former domestic servant at the university has a secret desire—to understand the mystery of her brother's death, believing that the answer lies within The Museum of Psykical Research, where he worked when Dora was a child. With the city amidst a revolutionary upheaval, where citizens like Robert Barnes, her lover and a student radical, are now in positions of authority, Dora contrives to gain the curatorship of the half-forgotten museum only to find it all but burnt to the ground, with the neighboring museums oddly untouched. Robert offers her one of these, The National Museum of the Worker. However, neither this museum, nor the street it is hidden away on, nor Dora herself, are what they at first appear to be. Set against the backdrop of an oddly familiar and wondrous city on the verge of collapse, Dora’s search for the truth will unravel a monstrous conspiracy and bring her to the edge of worlds.

©2023 Owen King. All rights reserved. (P)2023 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

maybe it's me

I wanted so much to love this story. The characters and the premise seemed interesting at first but it was SO MUCH WORK trying to figure out what was going on. I think the relatively undefined place and point in time made it extremely unrelateable. I'm all for fantasy, revolution is an interesting subject, magic is wonderful, but my inability to understand the environment of the story just made everything feel mixed up and impossible to follow.
Maybe I'm just not that smart.

Boring

Got this book based on the many good reviews. I find it slow, boring, and poorly narrated. I kept thinking that maybe a narrator who didn’t treat it as if he were reading an inorganic chemistry text might have brought it alive, but… The main character was such a non-entity. The story that revolved around her had no drive. The author was laying down the rules of his world, but forgot there should be an interesting story to bind the ingredients together. Caveat: I did not finish it. I got within 1-1/2 hours and threw up my figurative hands, so maybe it all came together?

Shame

After reading sleeping beauties and enjoying it quite a lot. I had high hopes for The Curator. Sadly it was a downfall and chapter after chapter I had to force myself to get through it. Sleeping beauties was clearly held together by his father as this was to me a complete waste of my time. I begged for it to end as quickly as possible.

Must have the patience

I saw Mr King speak about this book recently and he was definitely right when he said you needed to give it some time to develop. He stated that the first 30% of the book was set-up for the story. Knowing that, I stuck with it. I was intrigued. It didn't go in the direction I thought it would so it was a surprise. At times though I did find it difficult to follow. It could've just been me (as it is hard for me to get out of my head sometimes),but generally with stories like these you need to pay close attention.

*Potential spoiler alert*

I had high hopes for Ike and wanted to see him get a happy ending. He didn't get the one I wanted but at least he got one.

Pedantic at every turn

Slow, pompous, way too many characters and not enough tie in or development. Even the reader seemed bored by it (which is saying something since she’s usually phenomenal). There are better books out there in this genre. Go listen to one of those. Sadly this missed the mark in about every way.

The narrator is a favorite, but…

It took me months to get through it after giving up on the hardcopy. Even listening on Audible, the story just did not engage me enough. I honestly had a hard time sticking with it until the end. This is definitely not one of my favorite books by the author. This would probably be one of those book to film situations where the film is actually better. If an adaptation is ever made.

Enjoyable but not for everyone

If you like weird stories that don’t necessarily have a linear plot but manage to entertain you with rich, witty language and interesting characters, then give it a shot. Kind of David Fincher-esque. I think a second listen might bump the story up to 4/5.

Very unfortunate for Owen

The story was very drab all the way until the last chapter. The narrator was good but honestly this is the least I have enjoyed of any book related to the King family authors.

Molto bene non scrivi

È una bellissimo

Duro a dentro a ma molto worth it bishwa

Lui è più migliore a suo fratello

Ma entrambe è buoni

Un figlio prendere sue gambe

I wanted to like this but....

I kept listening, hoping that the story would get better and the narration would become more animated.