Tyler

Fantastic! I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Captain Hall's explorations into the arctic. I must admit I actually had no idea who the man was before reading this book, though I am quite glad I did. Hall was one of those men who was never content to be simply “normal”, and that quality shows itself quite readily throughout his entire life. Luckily for us, that makes for an excellent read.

Very well written, and kept me engaged throughout the whole book. Short story compilations tend to be a hit-or-miss for me, with some stories being vastly more boring than the others. White's book was certainly not that style however, as each story was just as interesting as the one before it. As for the stories themselves, I can't complain. I feel like there was a healthy mix of narrative storytelling, descriptions of the environments, and an overall sense of adventure, especially in the last few stories. Highly recommend.

I decided to give this book a shot after a glowing reccomendation from my wife. I don't think it struck me as game-changing as much as it did for her but it's still more than worth a read. It was pretty weird for me and some things weren't fully explained as much as wish they were. Maybe that's the point?

The story at its core is not bad at all. Far from the best book I've ever read but fair in most respects. There were many elements that seemed rather out of place in this rather short book, such as the briefly touched-upon alien spacecraft and left me searching for more. (Did I miss something, or was it simply left to the reader to fill in the blanks that Shepard left out?) Either way, the lack of any chapters whatsoever combined with the long and rambling paragraphs made it seem like a long stream of words with no breath in-between. Thus I subtracted 1 star from this otherwise almost-4-star-worthy novel.

Not a big fan. The stories, though sharing a common theme, still seem rather disjointed. I do enjoy short stories, but these are practically just a few paragraphs thrown together to form a vague narrative.

DNF. I decided to give this one a shot, and I could barely get past a few chapters. The characters are completely one-dimensional to a degree where I couldn't help but roll my eyes in the predictability of it all. The story is not complex and completely unbelievable. Definitely would not recommend unless you like shallow stories with shallow characters.

It's a good book, and has a very important message, though it does seem to be rather repetitive. Perhaps that's intentional? It seems as though it could be summarized by saying, “trust in God and be close to Him”. This book is also very short, which is as it should be. Any longer, and I likely would have reduced it by more than just one star.

If run-on sentences had a spokesman, Jewitt would be him. That being said, for a story written over 200 years ago, I can't exactly fault him for that. It was very well written otherwise, and Stewart did a fantastic job illustrating and annotating his Narrative. I'm glad I gave this one a shot, as I typically don't bother much with oversized books such as this. It was a great story, and I have no regrets spending my time reading it. I would highly recommend to anyone even remotely interested in the Northwest Coast, Natives, or even adventure as a whole.

I feel like this story has potential which deserves an extra star, but as it is currently written it is sorely lacking. The dialogue is poorly constructed in such a way that it ruins the immersion of the plot, and I simply could not look past it. There were some instances where I couldn't even tell what the character was trying to say, and at that point I gave up and decided not to finish the book.

I would describe this book as average. As a book of short stories, there are some that are better than others but not good enough to read more than once. In fact, I gave up on a few part way through because of a lack of interest. Though the better stories are worth reading and well written which deserves a few stars at least.

I've only ever read Crichton's Jurassic Park, and never really considered reading his other works until recently when I came across this in a used book store and bought it on a whim. I'm glad I did! I thought Congo was captivating throughout and was never slow through the entire read. He included details and historical facts in such a way as to interweave his story to real-life, which makes it that much more believable. I only ever give books 5 stars when I feel like it's truly deserving, and this is one of those instances, in my opinion. Highly reccomended.

I managed to finish the book, but two things really bothered me throughout. The first thing that really jumped out at me is how pretentious the novel read. Instead of focusing solely on the story itself, Kundera felt a need to make it seem much more philosophical than it really is. Which leads me to my next issue: the main character is a cheating asshole. That's really all there is to it. Though to be fair, I was warned of this in the synopsis on the back cover, and the ending does make up for it slightly. That being said, the story arc was fairly average, if slightly hard to follow at times. Deserves no more than 3 stars in my opinion.

My first Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart kept my attention the whole way through. This particular novel is outside my usual genre, and I'm glad I broadened my horizons by giving it a shot. His descriptions are fantastic without going too overboard as some writers tend to do. I will certainly be reading his other work as well. So long as it's just as good, I'm sure I'll be pleased!

Not a huge fan. It's a lot of fluff and could've been a lot shorter while still getting the message across. I did learn a couple things seeing as I'm fairly new to investing, but I feel like I could've learned the same on a 5 minute YouTube video. I would pass on this book, especially if you already know the basics.

While I do disagree with some of what Borg writes, I do respect his opinion. It was very well written, and for the most part, I do agree with much of what was discussed. As a christian, this book was helpful to me in terms of learning more about my faith than what is commonly preached in church itself.

I'm very glad I recently found Sidney Sheldon as an author. He has an entire lifetime's worth of work to look forward to! I've been enjoying his novels very much, and this one is certainly no exception. The characters are believable, and the plot was plausible, though a bit over the top. I've come to expect his slow build-up of tension and plots throughout the story, with a fantastic “big surprise” at the end. Though I was expecting it, I had no idea what exactly it would be, and that's as much as I could ask for.

Some portions certainly haven't aged well, and the humor was rather bland in my opinion. I finished it, but feel as though I really wasn't missing much.

DNF at page 122.

I will start off by saying that I love Irving's style of writing. This is my first novel I've read by him and from what I can tell, he certainly knows how to construct a narrative. That being said, the story itself appears rather scatterbrained. I honestly can't tell if this is supposed to be a murder mystery, a drama, or simply the internal monologue or some Indian (but not really Indian?) Doctor. The characters are fairly interesting, but I'm not even to page 200 and there's aleady a massive cast of names that need to be kept track of. That fact combined with the slow storyline and reading some other reviews saying this only gets worse as it goes on, I simply could not keep my attention any longer, and I decided to set it down.

Well written, but nothing I haven't heard before. Some of it was written in such a way that it helped me understand a few key points better than I have in the past, but overall this feels perhaps more suited to someone who is not already a Christian or is considering the faith.

This novel read like one of those classic old 80's young-adult horror movies. The characters are flawed (which is not a bad thing) but the main antagonists could have used a bit more depth. As for the plot itself, it kept me engaged throughout and felt rather nostalgic to me even though this was the first Christopher Pike book i've read. That by itself caught me pleasantly off gaurd enough that I was willing to increase my otherwise 3-star review to 4.

Perhaps I'm relatively uncultured, or poorly versed in Chilean poetry and literature, but I feel like much of this book went well and clearly over my head. Somehow, I finished it however. Though I'm not exactly sure why.

Gave this one a shot after being mildly dissapointed by Briggs' other novel, The Vanishing People. My biggest issue with this, is that it does it's job too well. Briggs delved way too deep for my personal tastes (which I honestly should have assumed based on the book's size) and included seemingly incredibly obscure creatures and individuals. I would've preferred a broader and more general overview rather than this rabbit-hole.

A very easy 5 stars for me. Perhaps i'm biased as a Maine resident myself, but I thought it was incredibly well written and narrated throughout. If I were to compare it to another work, I would say it was on par in tone and quality with Kristin Hannah, as I got significant The Four Winds vibes from this novel. Highly reccomend!

I didn't think I'd care for this book, but I was pleasantly surprised! Very glad my wife suggested it to me, as it is one of the best I've read in quite a while.

This book was incredibly hard for me to put down. I feel like it was very well written throughout, except for the ending. With so much tension and intrigue leading up to the “dramatic conclusion”, it felt like a bit of a let down, almost like the author couldn't really decide what to do and ended up writing something shorter than orginally planned to save space. That's not to say it's not worth reading though. It's certainly one worth your time, in my opinion of course!