The book jacket description and the quote from Philip Pullman about not being able to stop turning pages once one starts reading this book led me to expect a very different type of story--a literary "Arctic adventure" that would primarily focus on getting a balloon to the North Pole. Sounded exciting!

Instead the book's primary focus is the tedious love affair between two ridiculously pretentious people, narrated in fittingly pretentious prose. (Needlessly lengthy sentences, no missed opportunity to use a big word, foreign phrases that aren't translated, etc., etc.) Luisa, our protagonist's love interest, is a stereotypically "enigmatic" woman who distracts our scientist hero from his noble pursuit of Science by frequently removing her clothing, breaking his lab equipment, and forcing him to endure long parties supervised by her spinster aunt. The protagonist, meanwhile, is a misogynist who finds Luisa's supposed interest in his work to be laughable even while he finds himself completely unable to resist her feminine wiles. Their endless squabbles get old really fast, and the reader patiently waiting for scenes of Arctic adventure will be waiting a long, long time. They're there, but they're few and far between!

I can understand that people with different literary tastes might love this book, but it definitely wasn't a match for mine. ( )

WTF. The only reason I gave this two stars was because the ending, where everyone dies, was extremely satisfying. ( )