FINALLY

I really, really did not enjoy Vincent and Theo:  The Van Gogh Brothers.  When it was chosen to be read by the group that follow for possible Printz winners I tried and tried and tried.  And then I gave up.  Then it was chosen by the group I follow for Newbery winners and I knew I had to try again. But man, man, I didn't like this book at all.  I hated that it was written in the present tense.  I just hated it. Thing is, I thought I would love it!  I loved my art history minor is college.  I love post-impressionism.  While Van Gogh is not in my top five favorite artists, he is, for sure, in the top ten.  I love apocryphal stories about him, especially about his time spent living with Gauguin.  Gauguin was a wild dude!  But this book was just one of those that didn't do it for me.  At all.  While I loved Charles and Emma:  the Darwin's Leap of Faith, loved, loved, loved it, this one by Deborah Heiligman just made me struggle.    Interestingly enough I don't remember if CAE was written in the present tense or not!  I am going to see if I can find out...hang on...no, from what I can see from excerpts provided online, the book isn't written in the present tense.  Why was most of this one?  I swear, if I had been written in the past, I would have liked it to a four-star maybe!  I bet I would have. In any case, I am glad I finished it.  The book is REALLY well researched and so it seems to me that Vincent van Gogh was as troubled as many stories show him to be, and even more so.  But man, the tense thing just drove me crazy!  If you don't mind a story mostly written in the present tense, you might really like it though!