Little too descriptive for my taste; more telling than showing. Intrigued by the concept as I love art history, Van Gogh, and art theft during WW2 so I should have loved this 😭 It sounded like Da Vinci Code but with WW2 plus art history. I’m so disappointed because I want a book like this, I want to read this type of novel but not with this mediocre character writing 😭

I kept seeing reviews that this is a follow up to another book but no where on goodreads, Storygraph, or Netgalley does it say it’s part of a series

In the most derogatory way possible, you can tell this was written by a man 🤦🏻‍♀️ First the main character, who is an artist, talks about how his fave artist is a notorious anti semite but hey if you picked a fave artist based on their personal lives there’d be few left…um okay? Not a flex, PICK ONE OF THE FEW LEFT THEN you’re basically saying “yeah who care if he was anti semitic I just love his work/vibes and ✨separate the art from the artist✨” and this book is about Van Gogh why not make Like a fan of his?!

Second, he describes his girlfriend and the author says and I quote “no makeup, wet hair in a ponytail she looked sixteen” WTF IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?! Maybe I’m reading too much into it but it gave me creepy vibes-you could just say she looked younger than her age/young/anything other than sixteen as if it’s a good thing

Alex is the main focus of the book and yet it’s not from her POV but her boyfriends? Absolutely pointless but given the way the author writes (sexualizes/objectifies) female characters maybe it was a blessing