Liz Rapp
Could not finish it. The main character is very annoying. He keeps stopping and asking himself banal questions, and by the time he finally figures out whatever quandary of emotion or plot he is trying to unravel I am banging my head on the desk, since the author makes it quite obvious to the reader what is happening in the plot. I'm not a fan of this style of exposition where the character's thoughts are things like-“Wow, the weather here sure does change fast!” And “Hmmm I wonder how I missed all of these footprints on the path earlier. I'm sure that means absolutely nothing.” I exaggerate, but you really are left with the feeling that the story is being told through the point of view of someone who is quite dim-witted.
It's a shame, it started off so well, and I really enjoyed the creepy feel of a ghost story. About half way through I am starting to lose patience with it though. I find it incredibly bizarre that the author chose a new passion for ornithology as Jacob's dad's excuse for them taking that trip. It seems like she could have come up with just about anything else. Maybe Jacob is 18 and tells his parents he is going to backpack around Europe with friends or something. Maybe his dad is an anthropologist and wants to interview isolated island people. Maybe he just likes British beer. There's a scene after Jacob and his dad arrive on the island, where they go for a hike and stumble upon the nesting grounds of some sort of supposedly rare seagull. Jacob's dad immediately becomes entranced and wants to spend hours staring at them, conveniently leaving his mentally unstable son free to wander around by himself. Really? Doesn't it seem weird that he suddenly develops an overwhelming passion for birds?
I was listening to the audiobook, which is also part of the problem. He speaks too slowly and overly enunciates. He is also very bad at accents, it is quite distracting when he attempts to do Welsh and other British accents.
I thought this book was fascinating but too short for the author to really explain his ideas. The ending seemed abrupt.
While this was undeniably fun to read, it had some serious flaws. Most notably, the complete lack of believability of the way that the dystopian society is structured. I kept asking myself why the “factionless” just meekly go off to live on the fringes of society, doing menial work for the rest of their lives. Why don't they rise up and form their own faction? And what happens to their children, are also factionless through no fault of their own? The book is plagued by inconsistencies like these.
Eh. I decided to give this a try because I heard the audiobook was amazing, and I started it around Halloween so I was looking for something spooky. I had just finished Misery which I thought was great, and revitalized my interest in Stephen King novels.
On the plus side, the narrator is great! But also, the audiobook is 40 hours long! So you really have to be committed, or like me, scale the speed to 1.75. There was a lot I enjoyed about the novel, the main characters are wonderful. I enjoyed the way the adult and child perspectives coincided throughout the novel, as opposed to parts one and two of the movie where they are separate. The themes of friendship and banding together against adversary were wonderful.
IT's many personifications were appropriately terrifying, but gets a little repetitive. Here's another reference to a giant bird, or eyeballs, or leprotic hobos. Henry Bowers, budding psychopath, was terrifying. But by far the award for the scariest thing in the book goes to Eddie's mother. The one who tells him he's frail and has asthma even though his aspirator is full of water. The way the narrator does her voice is chilling.
And yeah, the notorious child orgy scene was weird, unnecessary and gross.
Also, does Stephen King really think women are hyper aware of their nipples at all times? You shouldn't described Beverly's emotional state by describing what her nipples are doing.
This book was really charming, a wonderful twist on a murder mystery where the protagonists are sheep.
Not for me.
It has the feel of a memoir. But as a work of fiction it was sort of puzzling. I kept waiting for Hassan to revisit the Indian cuisine of his youth, to revitalize old fashioned French styles with new flavors. The whole book feels like a lead up to this - from Hassan's apprenticeship to Madam Mallory, to his close friendship with Verdun, the master of traditional French styles. But instead Hassan fully assimilates into French cooking and culture, deciding to cook food simply in their natural juices, whatever that means. (It kind of sounded like spa cooking - steamed vegetables and fish with a sprinkling of herbs?) The book ends with winning a coveted third Michelin star. The award feels empty - we've already seen Mallory driven to grief and rage in search of it, and Verdun to suicide at it's loss. What is the point? For the book to close in celebration of Hassan's restaurant award just felt sad.
Also, the book has some really gross and pointless passages that overshadow the rest of the book, like “Papa was cursed, ever since he was a teenager, with an unattractive rash of blackheads, pimples, and boils across the broad expanse of his hairy back, and while Mummy was alive, the duty of popping the worst offenders fell on her. “Squeeze,” he yelled at Mehtab. “Squeeze.” Pap scrunched his face, Mehtab pinching the boil hard between her painted nails, the two of them yelping in surprise when the offending item suddenly exploded.” This is disturbing and gross.
My favorite part of this book was the design of the book cover. It went downhill fast from there.
This is a fun read, but it's not very good. If you're going on vacation, this is a good choice to keep you entertained on the beach. I doubt you will remember many of the details in a few months. The overall premise is very interesting, a town completely enclosed by a force field, unable to leave, unable to receive anything from the outside. It also has Stephen King's somewhat iconic level of violence and bizarre profane slang, by which I mean phrases like “cotton picking,” and genetalia refered to as his “love machine” and her “breeding farm,” generally used to highlight the flaws in the antagonists, and thankfully these are terms I do not hear often, if ever. People in Maine must have quite colorful language, if Stephen King's writing is any indication. (Really though, are there people who talk like that?)
There are some minor and major problems to this novel. The characters are very one dimensional. The antagonists, namely Rennie and the other local politicians, start out as merely arrogantly unlikable. But then, in what feels like a really bizarre turn, it turns out that they have been going to church by day, cooking meth by night.
Another minor flaw in the plot, the government almost immediately shuts down cell reception to the town, as a sort of media black out. However, they allow the much bigger threat, the internet. People can make phone calls using their computers, using Google, Skype, or other services. So this distinction, which is mentioned repeatedly, between cell phones and the internet is weird. I personally would much rather have the internet than my phone, I can get a lot more information and connect with a lot of people. I can share pictures, I can write articles, I can call my grandmother or Wolf Blitzer. In an age where the lines between cell phones and computers is increasingly blurred, for King to make such a big deal about the government shutting one down but allowing the other is really nonsensical.
Another thing that I thought was weird-Barbie advises people to stock up on perishable meat. “Everything, but especially meat. Meat, meat, meat. ... “ When they run out of gas for their generators there won't be any way to keep that fresh. Isn't that a really weird choice? How about grains? Rice, oats, beans, peanut butter, canned goods. Shelf stable, long lasting, hearty and filling.
So overall not a bad read, but not a great one either. If you're a Stephen King fan you will probably find something to like about it.
I think one of the reasons that I didn't love this, is that I love the Temeraire series so much. Perhaps that is unfair, considering that the books have very little in common other than dragons. However, how Naomi Novik described dragon riding makes so much more sense than the world of Fourth Ring. In the Temeraire books, there is also extensive training for riding a dragon, but it's about using gear to assist you in staying on board, such as straps, saddles etc. It was ridiculous to me that these people were expected to go through what seemed to be a ninja warrior-style gauntlet to prove they could stay on a flying animal they had no experience with, instead of just giving them some riding gear. And the Tairn shows up wearing a saddle! Why would you not just give everyone a saddle from the beginning? The cadet death toll seemed to be entirely avoidable. I was wondering if there was going to be some kind of population control issue, or maybe it's a whole system of government control regarding the threat of conscription into a high-mortality death school, but I guess I'll have to wait for the second book to find out more.
Overall, I enjoyed the story, but I felt it was weak in world-building. I didn't have any clear idea of what their land was like outside of the war college. When Xaden gives Violet a saddle for Tairn, I was honestly wondering where it came from, is there some sort of leather artisan on the premises? This would have been a great spot to use a couple of sentences to flesh out the community they are living in.
My other big issue with the book is that I could not figure out what the dragons were getting out of these bonding relationships. Do they even like the humans? They don't seem to care whether they live or die, even after bonding with them, with a few exceptions regarding our main characters.
I found Violet genuinely annoying. She wants everyone to respect her, but then she does things like insist she be allowed to stay in a battle when she has no experience and has to be practically dragged away. She is also presented as being the smartest cadet in her year, but she lacks any curiosity about why they are there, or why the rebellion happened, or whether the things they are being taught should be questioned - even when evidence is right in front of her.
Also, there is a whole conversation about how we need to hide that feathertails are juvenile dragons, but it is going to be abundantly obvious to everyone when Violet's bonded dragon turns into an adult in a year...
As someone who regularly jogs through a cemetery in my neighborhood(Ivy Hill), and has done 5Ks through Congressional Cemetery during their annual Dead Man's Run, I found the author's interest in cemeteries very relatable.
The book was interesting, if a little dry at times. I skimmed some long rambling descriptions of architecture and cemetery layouts. But, overall the subject matter is fascinating, and parts of this book were deeply moving—the sections on Arlington cemetery, and the missing burial locations for the enslaved people at Monticello especially. There were also many fun and lighthearted tidbits, to think that cemetery planning may have influenced suburban neighborhood design! And Abraham Lincoln may be loosely responsible for the American tradition of embalming!
I do feel like Melville missed a huge opportunity when talking about Congressional Hill Cemetery. He mentioned that they have apiaries, but not that they sell the honey, and it is called “Rest in Bees.”
Overall, well worth a read!
I enjoyed this, but it was slow going at the beginning. It kind of reads as if it is the second book in a series. There's not enough world building / exposition at the beginning, which made me feel kind of lost.
Overall though I really enjoyed the characters, and it did pull together at the end.
Overall this is a quick, fun read. However, I didn't feel it quite lived up to The Unhoneymooners, which I really enjoyed. If you're a fan of the genre and a fan of Christina Lauren, I'd recommend it.
The characters felt a bit flat and the plot was a little flimsy. Rusty and Melissa, the show co-hosts and the novel's antagonists, were really sad. I was sort of hoping they would have a sweet reconciliation arc of rediscovering why they fell in love, but the further we got into the novel they became almost cartoonishly unlikable.
I did enjoy James and Carey's relationship, but kept getting hung up on aspects that didn't really make sense.
-Why did this HGTV-esque show need to hire an engineer, and if they did need an engineer why was James getting coffee for Rusty, who was doing the actual engineering?
-James working as Rusty's assistant due to lack of job prospects was odd (especially since he almost immediately gets a civil engineering job after the show implodes)
-I'm assuming a lot of these reno shows are largely fake anyway, so what does it matter if Melissa is the stage talent and Carey is the designer? Couldn't they have worked this out in a professional way? Lots of artist work for companies that technically own the art they are produce, it's just part of business
-James and Carey's break-up motivation didn't make any sense. Him having a private conversation about his job with his boss is in no way a betrayal of their barely week long relationship
-Carey's motivation to stay in her job is about finances and health insurance - but when she quits she immediately buys a house and discovers she can live a year without a job and still afford health insurance
-Sorry, I am really stuck on this engineering thing. They mention a hundred times that he is an engineer but never elaborate. It just feels like the authors didn't really do any research into fleshing out their characters. They didn't even mention what kind of engineer James is - computer, electrical, mechanical etc. was he building bridges in his previous job, was he writing software? All it would have taken was two or three sentences of exposition to clear this up. It would have made way more sense to make James a designer.
I received an advanced copy.
I really enjoyed this, though found the sections from Henry's POV rather dull. If it had been entirely about Adeline I would give it 5 stars. I would have loved to have many more sections of her wandering through history, instead of the small glimpses we get.
The plot is fine, if a little boring. However the protagonist was very unlikable. Flighty, unfaithful, and apparently so indecisive she can be persuaded to move to another country or get married with little effort, as she appears to have no opinion on either matter. The peripheral characters are much more interesting, while Eilis appears to just float through the book with little consequence.
I did enjoy reading this. The sections describing his family adapting to life in Lyon, learning French, making friends, going to school, were really engaging. The descriptions of the city, its food and history were likewise interesting.
But the book also felt a bit disjointed. For example, near the end of the book, Buford takes a trip to a lake where a unique freshwater fish can be found. He goes to some trouble to convince the local fisherman to take him out on the lake, however the next page Buford is instead tracking down he local flour miller, without ever again mentioning the lake or describing the fishing he went to such lengths to experience.
I also found his defense of the abusive working conditions he experienced at a top tier kitchen to be strange and off putting. (Where pots are thrown at workers, people are regularly hit, name calling and cursing or expected, all in the name of holding up some ideal of cuisine.) Kudos to Hortense for getting out of there and getting into the fashion industry. I imagine her perspective on that kitchen would have been a lot less favorable that Buford's.
I think I fall into the category of people who wished they were reading Station Eleven instead.
Some parts of this book I thought were really great, descriptions of the Hotel Caiette, glimpses of ghosts you're never really sure are there, Leon's moments of happiness with his wife in their RV, Vincent's remembrances of her mother. But these moments felt really short, and then we'd be back to the Ponzi scheme that seemed to take over the plot about a third of the way through the novel. I don't know, if you're really interested in rehashing Bernie Madoff and the financial crisis of 2008, give this one a try. There's a moment near the end where another character describes Vincent by saying something like “You know how rare it is to meet someone who really loves their life? She would work 8 months and then spend the rest of the year traveling the world.” And I found myself thinking, wow, I really wish that had been part of the book, instead of mentioned in passing by a character who is only around for two pages.
The Nerdette Podcast had a really great discussion about this novel. It was nice to hear that the guest reviewer shared my “meh” opinion, though the host herself did really enjoy the book.
This was a pretty good, short read. The characters were well developed, the story heart felt. I wish it had delved more deeply into the scifi elements, or questioned further the ramifications of bringing people back to life, even if only for a short period of time.
