Jessica

Rowell's writing itself is as fun as ever (some great one-liners!), but the story and characters fell flat for me. First, I did not realize it was an actual story with the characters from the fanfic in Fangirl (I know. I didn't re-read the cover copy before I just dove in, okay?!). Though I don't think it would have been a much better book even if I had realized this before reading. Not only because the story should be able to stand on it's own, but also because not much really happens for the first half of the book. I didn't feel invested in the characters, whose whole backstory happened somewhere else, and the romance didn't feel earned. It also felt uncomfortably fetishized, which is a shame, because I think we need way more LGBTQA representation in literature, especially YA.

I'm as shocked as anyone that this one fell flat for me. It had such a promising start, but the characters are ultimately unlikeable, the narrative too repetitive, and the ending too unsatisfying.

I dunno. This book was really hard to get into. Nothing much happens until the final third, and a lot of the setup is confusing. I was intrigued by the world-building, but the characters mostly fell flat for me (not to mention the 3 main characters all seem to have the same exact voice; in my opinion it only fits one of them, and it's not the main guy). A gay male protagonist would have been so much more genre-busting if I thought the author did it for any other reason than to be shocking. I felt like I could see his hand a little too much throughout–everyone else in the book constantly uses pejoratives when discussing our “hero,” the hero himself is a rather one-note bottomless pit of self-loathing, and overall the sex scenes seem more about power and mastery than anything else, which makes it trope and not “twisting” (much less “taking an axe to”) “genre cliches” as suggested by the enthusiastic cover blurb.

I wanted to like this more since I really enjoyed the first book. I still loved Siobhan's voice, but the book mostly lacked plot, and the twist at the end: NO. I don't understand it in terms of the world that was built. It seems to serve no real purpose and left me with more questions than answers. It also felt manipulative. Like it was only there to elicit emotion, but since it wasn't tied to any greater purpose that I could discern, it was unearned emotion. There also seemed to be a lot of setup for potential political conspiracies and shadowy henchmen that just never really materialized. Which again left me wondering at the point of the whole tale at all.

WTF even did I just read? This is a super dark, but also super compelling and above all, super WEIRD read. I wasn't sure at first I was going to be able to stick with it because of the animal stuff (I really can't handle animal deaths in fiction very well), but I'm glad I did. It's unlike anything I've ever read.

Also, small gripe, but was anyone else bothered by the seeming continuity error toward the end? The beginning makes references to the 80s–80s cars in the garages, Wham and B-52s posters on the walls, legwarmers, Carolyn is only in her early 30s now, but was 8 on Adpotion Day–but then at the end he makes repeated references to Adoption Day being 1977. An error in the first printing only, perhaps?

Very beautiful writing and a few interesting characters. But overall, I felt not enough time was spent post-collapse or on the characters that I felt most invested in. Also, I'm for some reason really bothered by the fact that they never show/explain how that one village turned the lights back on!

Not sure what to make of this one. The art was certainly gorgeous, and I liked the darkness of the tale. However, it seemed to lack a cohesive plot, and I was left with too many questions.

It was interesting enough that I read the whole thing. Indeed, I was mostly engrossed because I was waiting to see if the many mysteries would be explained. A few were, but most were not, at least with any satisfaction. A very atmospheric tale with some truly lovely parts, but overall this book suffered from trying too hard. Too many characters, all lacking depth; the town is just too quaint and perfect as a setting and too obviously fake; both people and place names are far too telling; too much time spent on describing costuming. I think this author has a lot of potential, but this was a little too unpolished for me.

A decent enough idea and fast=paced writing, but this is the 3rd of 4th book in a month I've read where the baddies were Russians, Nazis, or both, and that is getting super old. If you are inventive enough to write novels like this, you are inventive enough to think of new reasons for bad behavior.

Dan Simmons is so hit or miss for me. This was a big, fat, overlong miss. And be forewarned that there is no real horror or even thriller in this lengthy tome. If you enjoy overly technical exposition on how to climb mountains and what gear to wear and bring, you may enjoy this more than I did. But not only could this volume have been about 3/4 slimmer (Simmons doesn't even get to the meat of the story until nearly 500 pages in!!), but it needed a much heavier-handed editor as well. Many, many, MANY sentences are repeated verbatim not just once or twice throughout the book, but half a dozen times or more. And when we finally learn of the abomination the book is so named for, it is such a ridiculous “twist” on historical events that it'd be laugh-out-loud funny if it wasn't such a tired trope. I mean, really, the bad guys are Nazis? How inventive. If I had known that's the kind of payoff I'd get for sticking with this, I would've stopped reading 100 pages in like I was sorely tempted to do.

An excellent debut. The few twists weren't that hard to guess and Clara's endless self-admonishments get old pretty quickly, but the writing itself was so beautiful that these things are easy to overlook.

Three or four really stellar essays (especially the one by Barbara Kingsolver), but overall the collection fell kind of flat for me.

2.5 stars, really. Intriguing concept and I really enjoyed the scenes that focused on glassblowing. But most of the rest seemed rather far-fetched for the time period, and 2/3 of the sisters are highly annoying for a large portion of the tale. The book also could've used a stronger hand with edits, especially at the beginning. I almost gave up reading as it was just progressing so slowly. I'm curious how much some of my quibbles are related to the translation itself. . . . Also, the whole Strobel subplot felt like it was leading to something larger (especially since it was so jarringly out of place with the rest of the novel) that just never materialized. Unless that gets picked up again in the next book in the series.

Quirky little comic with an inventive narrative style. Well drawn, intriquing premise, but ultimately unsatisfying for me. And too short!

Quirky, creepy without being too creepy, somewhat predictable, but fun concept and I love the typesetting.

A good October read–surprisingly creepy with an interesting twist at the end.

This book will make you never want to eat anything with unpronounceable ingredients ever again.

A bit predictable, but overall very charming. I may have even shed a tear or two.

Thoroughly enjoyable–I even laughed out loud at times. I think the story might have packed a bit more punch, though, if I hadn't known going into that Fern was a chimp. Still, a very fun read, especially for a story that is ultimately about loss and facing hard personal truths. I will look for more from this author.

An incredibly satisfying and beautiful end to the series.

I really enjoyed the unique voice of the protagonist and found her worldview to be very poetic. But ultimately I think the book could have used a bit more editing, as many of the scenes had a tendency to drag on without really advancing the story. I was also super appalled by the Missus character, and to a lesser degree by Mister and Rodger Marvin as well. The ending doesn't offer any closure, either, and though I know there are hundreds of good reasons to do this in a novel, it rarely sits well with me.

I have very mixed feelings about this book. Parts of it I really enjoyed, other parts really made me cringe. I'm a sucker for time traveler stories, especially those set in Europe between the Middle Ages and Victorian Era. So those parts were super fascinating. And overall, I do like both Jamie and Claire as characters. However, the romance was a bit trying at times, especially after Jamie beats Claire practically senseless, and then she somehow comes around to feeling this was justified. I mean, WHAT? Stockholm syndrome if I ever saw it. I feel wholly manipulated by the author into somehow rooting for this adulteress and abuser while at the same time being revolted by their actions. And the whole last bit with Jamie and Randall felt completely unnecessary to me. Did we need to have such brutality spelled out in detail? I think it would have been far better to just let our imaginations decide what really went on in that dungeon.

All that said, I will likely continue the series for the same reason I've continued others I found slightly distasteful: the need to know what happens next is too strong a draw!

I know this might be heresy to say because this is supernatural canon, but I found this book pretty boring and had to force myself to finish. Parts of it were super interesting, but I think most of my general disinterest stemmed from the lack of present-time action and characters to root for.

I'm not sure I actually liked or even understood this fairy tale. However, the writing is gorgeous and the tone very evocative, so an extra star for that. More sensitive readers should note that this is a fairly brutal tale. If you are squeamish it all you might not even make it past the first 20 pages.

I hope there's going to be a sequel for this, because questions.