Author: Thomas Schlesser
# of Pages: 446 (hardcover)
Genre: Adult, Contemporary, Historical Fiction
Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
Synopsis: Fifty-two that’s all the time Mona has left to learn about beauty. Every Wednesday, Mona’s grandfather picks her up after school and takes her to see a great work of art. Just one. A different masterpiece every Wednesday for a year. Fifty-two weeks of consummate beauty. Fifty-two weeks of visits to the museum before Mona loses her sight forever. Together, Mona and her grandfather will experience a full range of emotions; their enchantment as well as their sadness will be complete. From Botticelli to Basquiat, Mona will discover not only the power of art but also the meaning of generosity, doubt, melancholy, loss, and revolt. At once a profoundly moving and beautifully crafted novel about the fullness of life and an enthralling guide to the world’s most renowned art, Mona’s Eyes is, at its core, a story about the deep and moving relationship between a young girl and her grandfather.
Review: This book shouldn't exist.
One of the worst reads I've encountered in a long time. Mona's Eyes weakly attempts a fictional plot that nonsensically ties to a long exposition on 52 different pieces of art. These two could be completely separated: the fictional aspect fleshed out into its own book unrelated to art, and the art pieces covered in a comprehensive textbook. Their union in this book is so forced that one wouldn't be lacking without the other.
The book is structured such that every chapter has a couple paragraphs of fiction at the start. This covers the "plot" that more like a slice of life on Mona's life as a young child in France (going to school, interacting with her parents) and a bit of a mystery on what's wrong with her eyes and what happened to her grandmother. Notice how art doesn't seem to be strongly tied to art or its history?
The rest of each chapter (probably 2/3s of it) is Mona and her grandfather Henry examining a piece of art. Schlesser is an art history teacher, and I horrifyingly learned that he uses Henry as a way to verbosely spout a bunch of facts to Mona (and the reader) about each art piece. Even worse later on, Schlesser uses MONA (an elementary schooler) in the same way which was very unrealistic for someone her age (no matter how astute). Any of these art pieces could have swapped out for a different piece, and it wouldn't have affected the plot at all.
It's the latter point that made this book such a long read; this is an art history textbook in the sheep clothing that is "fiction", where the fictional story isn't even worth reading in its current state. I received this book as a gift because apparently BARNES AND NOBLE has called it Book of the Year for 2025. I don't know what metrics they're using to chose this book: it's not very popular, and it's just not good fiction. I'm convinced money was traded to push this book despite mainstream audiences not liking it. I have 0 trust on Barnes and Noble's recommendations because they're definitely not recommending this book for the right reasons.
It's a shame because art history is already not a popular topic, and there's were actually some interesting points covered for some of the paintings. However, Schlesser's writing style reads like the ramblings of someone infatuated with the sound of their own voice rather than writing to appeal to an audience new to art appreciation. I'm actually more put off on the topic now than I was before reading this book.
I wasted ~2 months of my life trying to chip away at reading this book, with the only reward at the ending being able to write this review to warn people: do NOT read this book.
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