Suzie

The middle felt a little unfocused, but great read otherwise.

Giving this five stars as it had a profound impact on me as a teenager.

Re-reading today, I found some of it quite dry and a little bit trite, but the ending still really resonated with me and I feel that it achieved exactly what it set out to do.

Interesting book. Very condescending.

Unlikeable protagonist, and not entirely sure what the point of the novel was other than ‘this guy is a jerk'.

Fun, fast read.

Good idea, but poorly executed. The pace drags and the two main characters are not interesting.

Overly long, but the final few passages are extremely beautiful.

I... have no idea what to make of this book.

Quality of the stories was uneven. Some stories were excellent - particularly the story about the bridge and the trickster dogs - but others felt rushed or a little pointless.

Still one of the best page turners...

A good premise, and technically good writing that was nonetheless really a pretty boring read. There was no authorial voice and the characters felt pretty one-dimensional. Plus there were a few plot points that really stretched the limits of credibility.

Had a weirdly hypnotic feel to it. Conclusion was slightly disappointing, but the build up was nice.

Amazing.

Still applicable, despite how old-fashioned it reads. Solid advice.

Classic Vonnegut. Not his best book, but still highly readable.

I love Asimov, but this collection felt like some of his weaker stories frankly.

Really scary when reading at night, in a tent, by myself. Less scary in the morning, in my parents house.

It's Stephen King, you know the drill.

Sharp, funny sci-fi. A likeable main character, who romps through space getting into increasingly serious trouble and escaping it with the skin of his teeth. Lots of technobabble, plenty of high-speed chases, and a supporting cast of likeable oddballs make this book very readable.

This is a hard book to read. Heart-wrenching. It isn't fluffy and it isn't feel good. At some points you feel like you are drowning in everything nasty and wrong about people. You keep reading even though you don't want to, even though you can see that is no way out that isn't going to be uglier and more horrible.

This is not escapism. It is not sparkly vampires and unicorns and a world where being the hero is just about picking the side of light and good. This book is hard, because there is no right answer and because it is real.

This is the kind of story that stays with you, that makes you angry and sad in equal measure. It forces you to look at the terrible things in this world, and then issues a challenge: do something about it.

Fun detective novel. Very much full of old-fashioned manor houses and diamond thieves with a bit of colonialism thrown in for good measure. Interesting to see the start of this genre, and there's enough tongue-in-cheek humour and self-awareness to help the book rise above its flaws. A bit long-winded, but only by modern standards.

A slightly surreal book, that reminded me of my home town. Vaguely mundane, vaguely threatening, you are constantly left wondering what is about to happen, but nothing really does. It did not blow me away, but it was a clever bit of writing.

About the lasting effects of the Second World War, and the rapidly changing culture that we inhabit. A reminder of the blank (and sometimes terrifying) future we might face, and a vivid description of the past that we share.

I was expecting the ending to be more climatic, after the slow pressure build-up to the storm. Instead, I felt vaguely unsatisfied at the end, and felt the prose itself was somewhat over-the-top. Nothing about the book really lingers with me.

The concept of this novel is great, but the execution is middling and the ending a bit anti-climatic. Decent enough read.

Writing about the horrors that faced the Jews during WWII is not an easy thing to do. Sadly, this book offers little more than a flat one-note description of events that most people are familiar with. The characters are one dimensional, either heroic or evil. They talk to each other in clichés. The writing is redolent of a Mills & Boon novel and is not up to carrying such heavy subject matter.