One of the books on my summer 2019 TBR was Rora by James Byron Huggins. The book is a true story about the Waldenses, a religious group that was persecuted by the Spanish Inquisition. I first heard about this group in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, and learned about this book shortly afterward. Even though I heard about this book years ago, I didn’t buy the book until last year.
Sadly, although the story was decent enough, the book itself was just okay.
Joshua Gianavel lived in the Rora Valley in what is now Northwestern Italy. He was also a Waldensian, who are Christians that don’t adhere to the Catholic Church’s beliefs. They attracted the attention of the Spanish Inquisition, who decided to make war upon their religious community. In the process, Gianavel had to rise to a position of leadership within the community, helping the community fight for their survival.
What I Liked
I liked how Rora was based on a true story. I didn’t know much about their story before reading this book, other than a small passage in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. It took a lot of research to write a book like this. This story brought the characters to life. I feel like I know a lot more of what happened to these people after reading this book.
What I Didn’t Like
The writing in this book didn’t exactly draw me in. The wording of this book was a little bit difficult to follow at times. Yes, this book happened a long time ago, but the characters didn’t have to talk as formally as they did (as far as I know, the author wasn’t using direct quotes). There were also a lot of characters in this story. It was sometimes difficult to keep track of who was a marquise and who was in charge of what territory, and what did Britain have to do with all of this? This book would have been better to make all of this more clear. There were also characters that appeared quite a bit in the beginning and seemingly disappeared. Where’d they go?
Conclusion
Although I’m glad I read Rora, I was disappointed that it wasn’t written better. This is such an unknown event in history that it’s a shame that the book wasn’t a page-turner. It wasn’t a bad book, but I read so many excellent books that I enjoy enough to give four or five stars to that when I see a book that is just average… it is something of a letdown.