Darren
Contains spoilers
My biggest gripe with this book is the ending. If this were not the "last book" in the series, I would avoid a 3 rating, however, to end a series with so much vagueness on the future of so many characters. In the post interview, he did speak about future books around other characters, but _this_ story did not feel complete. Eragon's story does not feel complete. And if it is, what a bitter and lonely ending for all his suffering and accomplishments.
This series continues to captivate me. While keeping track of the multiple generations of Bob can be challenging, I always find myself disappointed when I reach the end of a book and realize there are no more installments to read.
I thoroughly enjoyed the latest book. My only criticism is that the ending felt abrupt and lacked a clear resolution in terms of its content and storyline.
First, if you're going to enjoy the audio version if this book, I thought the narrator did a great job. Often times a narrator can ruin a read for me, thankfully this was not the case this time.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and given that, have already began reading #2 in this series. While not my favorite book ever, I rather enjoyed the author's perspective of time travel, and the various rules that were laid on top of the concept. Specifically, that time “acts” on its own in many ways I thought was a rather unique interpretation of time travel theory.
I enjoyed listening to the audio version of this book. The concept was interesting, as most of Stephen King's works are, but felt that there were two main issues I couldn't overlook (SLIGHT SPOILER):
1) Stephen King's political beliefs bleeding on to the pages of his work. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but one of my pet peeves is when an author tries to push his opinions and beliefs on to unsuspecting audiences. If it's part of the story, a core part, then fine. However, this was not, and was a shallow attempt at taking digs at a specific individual/party.
2) Needless loss of life at the end. I get that they were kids, but the situation was such that I feel certain lives did NOT need to be lost, regardless of the mental maturity of the individuals with the capability of stopping the loss of life.
You could argue that those two issues shouldn't color my opinion of the whole book, but it's my review, so deal with it :)
I had high hopes for this book, given how much I enjoy watching Simon speak. As I began this book I found myself engaged and enjoying the book right away. However, as the book progressed I began to check out mentally, progressing that way until completion. The message is driven home early on in the book, and then it begins to feel like content was just piled on in an effort to increase the length of the book.
Additionally, I just couldn't connect with most of the analogies and metaphors that Simon attempted to use in order to drive a point home. The introduction of the “celery test” was almost comical, and then for the remainder of the book it was used as a validation for almost every point.
Yes, I almost completely agree with his push to “start with why”, but did not enjoy 70% of this read.
I love the concept of the story. However, the implementation seemed a bit off. I enjoyed the read, and will continue the series, but it seemed long-winded at times. As a quick non-spoiler example, at one point the author spent a good portion of writing covering the names, details, and short backstory of a group of mage's he was involved with. I would be okay with this normally, however, I don't recall any of those mage's having more than a mention through the remainder of the book. It just seemed like unnecessary character development. This type of divergence from the overall story, or activities happening at the time, happened a few times.
Given the above, gave it a 3, but would easily be a 3.5 if I could give it that :)
I thoroughly enjoyed the concept of the underlying theme of the book, however the execution could have been better. The author spent time going deep in some areas of explanation, but then grazed the surface of others. Additionally, the story seemed to climax and then end a bit abrupt. I think perhaps, this could have been drawn out into a series in order to allow for a better story line and implementation.
Enjoyed the first book, however this book seemed to introduce a few more holes in the story-line logic that I couldn't ignore. Additionally, I understand that this is a trilogy, however this was one of, if not the most, ill-timed transitions to another book. I feel like the author just got bored and decided to randomly end it.
SPOILERS FOLLOW:
I've been an Odd Thomas fan since I read the first in the series. I can honestly say that I never expected the series to end this way. Based on Odd's narrative, I always had the impression that he was going to have to wait a long time before he would be together again with Stormy, so when I started this book and he immediately began predicting his own death I was very disappointed. That being said, I enjoyed this book, and felt that the ending was fitting.
I do feel, however, that the climax and completion happened all to quickly. The story kept building, and then just sort of ended. Many author's take the build up too far, and the climax too long, but this felt the opposite. But, again, I did really enjoy the book, and would recommend it to others.
Given how much I loved Ready Player One, I had extremely high hopes coming into this read. I appreciate that E.C. was trying to stick to a similar theme, but the entire plot seemed so over the top, and far fetched, that I just never could get into it. I'd probably give it a 2.5 if Goodreads would let me.
When I started this series, I was thoroughly intrigued by the concept of the Maze Trials. As the series progressed, I kept waiting for the author to go into more detail on the “scorch”, and how the maze trials were setup to cure this biological disease. However, it seemed the author never quite made the connection himself.
That major disappointment aside, it seemed like book 2 and 3 were slapped together with superglue and duct tape. I'm not even going to comment on the “conclusion” to this series, as to be honest it just kind of happened, and I had to go back and read it again to make sure I didn't miss anything. As you can tell, I would not recommend this series.
It's almost as though this book was written by a different author. A few of the many things that bothered me with this series finale.
-Completely different chapter style (alternating POV of Tris/Four) from the first two books
-Way too much time spent on Tris/Four relationship
-This book seemed rushed, and cramped. She put way too much into this book, and as such left a lot of holes in the plot, and failed to explain the outside world to a level of detail that makes logical sense
Aside from the above, don't even get me started on the ending...
I enjoyed the book, which I listened to through Audible.com. The narrator for the book was sub-par, bordering on bad, but my ranking of this book on here does not reflect that.
While the book was good, the writing style seemed a bit amateur. Some scenes were covered in great detail, others just glanced over. I got lost while reading as to how much time had elapsed, as the author did a horrible job at conveying the current and elapsed time. I also feel the author portrayed the dialog of “teenagers” horribly.
All that being said, the book and premise was intriguing, and I'll likely finish the series. Hence the 3 rating.
