Michael Best
Probably 3.5. The storyline became a little extreme, but I really liked the development of Gunther in this book. Also, the Chandleresque wisecracking was far more restrained.
Not quite a Wow, but I did really like this book.
It has been a long time since I read New York Trilogy and another Auster (I cannot remember which) and I have no idea why I then stopped reading his books.
There is a pace and flow to this book which I loved.
A DNF for me. 300 pages in and I am so bored with this book. Please take me back to the antique shop, it is the only place I was happy!
Be aware, there is no real conclusion at the end of this book - it is merely set-up for the next in the series.
Rather different in format - a tale told simply by reference to records and documents. The concept was a little flawed, evidenced by the author's reliance upon some unbelievably detailed diary entries. I did enjoy the read.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. A very good spy story set around the Cuban missile crisis.
Really a 2.5 for me.
I thought there were some interesting ideas (accepting that the book stays within Wells's incorrect ideas on the science of the solar system), but the tale is far too long in the telling.
An unnecessary sequel - as so many sequels are.
For me the tale seemed to drag somewhat after about 2/3 of the way through and I was looking forward to reaching the end even more than Mustafa was looking forward to getting home.
I found the book a little soulless.
What happened to inverted commas around speech?
It's not perfect. I find I cannot say “wow” and give it 5 stars. Yet, my tears flow and my heart aches.
For me, one of a few early post war sci-fi books that stands the test of time, not because of the science (there is no attempt to make the book scientifically accurate) but because of the ideas and the quality of the writing.
Not my favourite in the series. Rather too heavy on the polictical lecturing and too light on the police procedural story.
A potentially interesting premise turned in to an increasingly over-wrought and unbelievable tale.
A DNF for me.
I rather enjoyed the set-up in which the history of the “special” books is explained. However, it then becomes incredibly slow, turgid and battle-heavy. Any deep meaning to be drawn from it escaped me. It just read like a rather boring “war-games” story.
I have rated this generously as a 3 star. Despite some of the subject matter, I found the story just a bit insipid. My peak Chevalier are ‘Girl with a pearl earring' and ‘Remarkable creatures', in both of which I was completely absorbed into the times and places she created - but here I felt merely to be a watcher. Perhaps I needed to have an interest in quilting?
It is more than 20 years since I first read this book. I loved it then. Now, I cannot for the life of me fathom why I did.
Oh, so many pages! Perhaps, if all the words were rearranged a meaning would be found?
I know that I did not understand everything in this book and, probably, barely grasped some of the ideas it plays with but I loved it.
Having heard so many good things about the books of Tana French, I am really surprised how much I did not like this book. It has been a real chore to finish it, perhaps because not only did I not like the narrator but I found him unconvincing.
There is a point near the end of the book, after the reveal of the real “brains” behind the main crime, where the narrator says he had never suspected that person but nor had we - except I reckon an awful lot of readers will have suspected from only a third of the way in.
Apart from the unnecessary social commentary interventions by Wells, this was an enjoyable, lightly comic novel.
3.5 really.
Beautifully written. I just occasionally lost the flow a touch by the use of Bangladeshi terms which I did not understand - my fault really.
Perhaps some rave reviews had raised my expectations too much, but I felt slightly disappointed with this book.
Unusually for me, I think I would have liked the story to be a bit longer. The family changed so much once money entered its life, that I wanted a bit more than just the “then and now”.
This isn't quit a 5 star Wow but it is pretty close. I loved its humour and humanity.