The Mirror and the Light

  After not being a huge fan of Wolf Hall I ended up being very pleasantly surprised by its sequel Bring Up The Bodies.  As a result of how much I liked Bring Up The Bodies I went into The Mirror And The Light with fairly high expectations.  Unfortunately, these expectations were not met, and I feel that this book is a lot more like Wolf Hall than its sequel.    That's not necessarily the worst thing.  Despite my personal apathy towards Wolf Hall from an emotional standpoint, I will admit that it's very well-written and is clearly the result of a lot of research into the time period.  The same good qualities are firmly present in The Mirror And The Light.  Mantel puts in just enough levity to make the book not drag (too much) and it's clear that she knows her stuff.     One thing I will give this book in comparison to Wolf Hall is its character work.  Perhaps it's because we've now spent three books with these characters, but I feel like Mantel is just better at making her characters ones that a reader can get attached to here compared to Wolf Hall.  Thomas Cromwell remains an interesting if unsympathetic protagonist and King Henry is a fascinating central figure as well.    But that's where my praises end because this book does drag a decent amount and it does so without making me care about it.  The fact that I feel so apathetic towards a 750-page book that I just finished is a bad thing.  I don't think The Mirror And The Light is an awful book or even a bad one.  But it is just... lacking something that I know Mantel could provide.