MixedBookreporter\"Lucy’s first-person narration kept me hooked. At least for a little while ... But then Lucy began to falter. She started to become not uninteresting, but inconsistent with herself, which is far worse ... [Czapnik \'s] prose is varied and written in a very readable way ... when the book ends and I still don’t know who Lucy is, I don’t consider it a good thing. In spite of all this, I wouldn’t say that Lucy doesn’t have her moments, and The Falconer is a solid read because of that ... But as a celebration and a critique of life, love, and what it is to be a woman and a person on planet Earth, this book has a lot to say, all of which Czapnik says with a deftness and uniqueness I’ve not seen much elsewhere.\
Daniel Mason
PositiveBookreporterSo, this may be a war story, but not one that chronicles great battles thundering across the landscape. No, this is the tale of the people behind the lines—those who not only watch the atrocities of war unfold, but whose job it is to deal with them after they do. To say the least, then, this is not a book for the queasy or lighthearted. It’s more than just a gore fest, of course—much more—but as a student of medicine himself, Mason doesn’t flinch when it comes to detailing all the soldiers’ various afflictions, physical and mental. This immersive approach is at once frightening and fascinating, making you cringe as often as it piques your curiosity for the grotesque ... Margarete, the real star of The Winter Soldier ... is genuinely one of the most well-written characters I have ever encountered in my literary travels. Just when you think you have a bead on her, she’s always three steps ahead ... However, for as beautiful as Mason’s prose consistently is, describing everything from faces to trees in the most exquisite manner, it does clog up the story at certain points. His writing is very heavy and symbolic, which I can absolutely appreciate, but when a description of a scene gets in the way of what could have been a scene through-and-through, it doesn’t sit well with me ... Regardless ... This story of love, war and medicine can be called nothing less than a modern achievement in excellent character-building.
