Tadhg
Enjoyed this quite a lot. Fortunately I've been forewarned that the second volume is significantly better - if I hadn't been, I would not have read this with as much... hope; by that I mean I probably wouldn't even be considering reading on in the series and would have given it 2 stars. Hopefully it does pick up in the second book for me
More of a 3.5 for me really. I really liked the beginning, but found the pace of the middle and end to be a bit too quick; this might be because I read it so quickly but I think the pace of the novel itself drove that. A lot of the major plot points seemed to just happen with no explanation such as Agnieshka's relatively sudden ability to control her magic
Contains some useful tips but is very consumerist. Some of the advice seems to be to get rid of stuff for the sake of getting rid of it because you can always but it again later. While that may be true, it's also very wasteful. There is a balance between the two.
I'm also not a fan of the idea of thanking my possessions for doing their job, it's ridiculous
I liked this well enough, it just felt lacking in some way. Once the stone appeared in the story, it felt like things happened very quickly with no time to process it - though that could be because I listened to it and it wasn't holding my attention for processing.
I like the world building so would pick up the second book for that alone - kind of similar to The Long Earth series with Kel as the only stepper, and magic :)
Well, to be fair I drifted in and out of this a lot; that could be blamed on listening to the audiobook rather than reading the book, but if it had been a good book for me it would have kept my attention. Annihilation reminds me of the first [b:Wool 12287209 Wool (Wool, #1) Hugh Howey https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327889474s/12287209.jpg 17263666] story in the sense that it's a self contained story which sets the scene for a bigger story (as I've heard Annihilation is in the Southern Reach trilogy) but the difference is that Wool #1 is a compelling story in itself. This book, not so much. Had Annihilation been a longer book (audiobook was only 6 hours at 1x speed) I would not have finished it; as it was so short I kept giving it a chance to improve but it didn't.
not too sure what I think about this book to be honest; really enjoyed the first half but the second half not so much, the pace was a bit too slow. My least favourite Sarah Waters book since Affinity (but I think my taste has changed significantly since The Little Stranger came out).
Would have been 3.5 stars
not as clear a plot as Ancillary Justice, a definite feel of ‘middle book' syndrome, setting up the next book. Very enjoyable nonetheless
More of a 4 star, but gets an extra 1 for the series overall. I especially like that Ning was everything her parents deserved
Read this as it was the banging book club pick for last month and they gave it rave reviews. Really similar to Silver which I read a few years ago and also loved, but this one has the added element of Sophie Stones' book and therefore of privacy after death. It's made me think about various biographies I've read and wonder how their subjects would feel about a book being written about them - and particularly I'm questioning whether I should ever read the book about Billy Tipton which clearly inspired this book and I've always planned to read.
I would have given this 3.5 stars if I could have. I think my enjoyment of Lagoon was spoilt by the rave reviews I've heard of it - which caused me to feel I was missing some deeper meaning throughout. I've also been in a reading slump.
This was beautifully written as expected and I liked the use of pidgin English even though sometimes I had to stop reading to figure out what it meant. I suspect that my enjoyment of Lagoon will increase over time as it marinades in my brain
This is a 4.5 stars for me.In a sense, not much happens (which can also be said about [b:Among Others 8706185 Among Others Jo Walton https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1317792367s/8706185.jpg 6449955]) though two lives shouldn't really be described as “not much”. This is a relatively gentle story and beautifully written - I can't wait to read [b:The Just City 22055276 The Just City Jo Walton https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1416448145s/22055276.jpg 39841651]
I'm really looking forward to the film, even though I usually dread book adaptations; this book is a film on paper (or e-ink screen).
At the beginning I found Mark irritating but it picked up when the Earth POV was introduced. The idea of rescuing someone from Mars is obviously ridiculous, financially alone, but the action was paced well enough to keep the voice in my head from saying “that would never happen”.
I think this book captured the atmosphere of climbing disaster memoirs really well, such as “Into thin air” and “touching the void”, and I love those kind of books so it worked really well for me.
I really wish I'd listened to the first book as well. the narration adds so much to this series for me
I don't get Neil Gaiman and this is probably the worst of his stories I've read. it wasn't helped by the poor artwork
I don't get it.
I did like it better than the film, which isn't saying much because I did not like the film at all. Only got the GN out of the mistaken belief that since the film was getting such rave reviews and was based on a GN that got great reviews that I'd just missed something in the film. I don't think I did.
There was nothing ‘special' about this story to me; nothing about it that stood out. Yes it's a first love story, but nothing about the characters made me care about them and major plot points happened really quickly without any importance really being given to them. The drug addiction came out of nowhere for me - I'll admit it's possible that I missed signs of it because I struggle with reading too quickly, particularly GNs, but I actually spent the whole book thinking she'd committed suicide.
I struggled with the font of Clementine's ‘handwriting', having to pause to figure out what the word was. It amuses me that in French ‘boohoo' is apparently ‘bou hou' :)
I read this in one sitting and really enjoyed it. I had several moments where I recognised what she was drawing and sat back from it for a few moments. I suspect this is a book that I will be thinking about for quite a while as it percolates.
I like the use of blank/single colour pages and the sparing use of colour for emphasis, whether a rebellious hair colour or an altered state.
the best compliment I can pay this book is that as soon as I finished it I downloaded Ancillary Sword.
I usually struggle with scifi but this was easy to get into and the pace of the book was perfect.
Interesting concept; turned out to be different from what I'm expected, but it worked well. I did get a bit tired of reading ‘darkness fell' or the ‘snow' chapters :)
meh. This didn't really feel like Jane Sagan. I wouldn't expect her ‘internal monologue' to sound exactly like her ‘soldier voice', but I'd expect to see similarities in the same person. While I did laugh during the sex chapter where she has no idea (or interest in) what John is talking about, that was about the only part of the novella that was engaging.
This book was gross, disgusting and repulsive :D. I'm not generally squeamish but there were times that I wanted to stop reading it. Glad I pushed through that though.
This was really well written, as I expected from Hugh Howey. Plot-wise, it doesn't really have one; I was expecting this because I'd read the Amazon reviews. The lack of plot probably would have bothered me if I had been expecting one, so there's a plus-point for reading reviews. Given this book is from the zombie perspective, the lack of plot makes sense because of the situation they're in.
I really liked the idea, but not the execution - much like [b:Redshirts 13055592 Redshirts John Scalzi http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348617890s/13055592.jpg 18130445] which I plan to give another try in hopes I was simply in the wrong mood for it. I doubt I will give this another chance.I view this as primarily a humorous farce type of book, but I only laughed a couple of times. Strange things were given really long descriptions which did not advance the plot - in certain places stalling it completely. It was a fast-paced book, which is not a problem, but some things seemed to just happen and not get any description (counter to the aforementioned too long descriptions). Perhaps the pace was too fast, not giving time for important plot points to sink in.Maybe I was just too excited to read it and had too high expectations :(PS - the Linux geek in me did like the computer stuff :)