Nik
Okay, so I wasn't impressed by the first book in the series, but I have to finish a story that I've started. Sometimes, my stubbornness works in my favour. The writing has improved and I'm now thoroughly enjoying the series, impatient to find out what happens next with Max and her flock.
You think it's three stories, but it's just one. Masterfully crafted, exquisitely told.
The Big Bang theory. chuckle I read some of the Discworld books, years ago. I remember liking them, but don't really remember them. I begin the journey anew, then, and with the greatest of eagerness. The only reason The Colour of Magic gets three stars is because I'm certain that there are four- and five-star books in the series.
I really liked [b:Weapons of Choice 72989 Weapons of Choice (The Axis of Time Trilogy, #1) John Birmingham http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170826475s/72989.jpg 70652], but found parts of [b:Designated Targets 977145 Designated Targets (The Axis of Time Trilogy, #2) John Birmingham http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179952409s/977145.jpg 962041] a little boring. Looking forward to Final Impact, though; I'm kind of ready for this series to be over.
Picked this up on a whim because I wanted to read it before watching the series on Hulu. If I'd read it before, it would have been just another dystopian tale; but, given the way things are in the States these days, it feels prophetic and is absolutely terrifying.
Docked a star for the writing style. I know everyone's got their own and I should probably be more appreciative, but it just didn't suit me. So many commas...
A fantastic, substantial read. Very different from King's usual fare. (That's not to say that his other works aren't fantastic or substantial, just that I'm used to him writing straight-up horror, for the most part, and this is not that.)
I would've liked this much better had I not already seen the lovely film, which is very different from the book. This is why I like to experience the book version of a story before the film version.
EPICI have a huge problem with the rape culture in this series. If I thought about it, I'd have to lower my rating to one star across the board; but I've become very attached to the characters, so I put that part of the story in a locked box and I don't think about it.
It's a sweet story, but the book is kind of boring. I kept falling asleep while reading it.
Random unstructured bits ‘n' bobs from my brain, having just finished this lovely story:
- The pacing of Nora's understanding was a little bit annoying. Like, in the beginning, she just seemed a bit thick, needing the same thing explained to her countless times. But then, in no time at all, she developed this astonishing self-awareness and recovered an inordinate amount of self-worth. It was a bit whiplash-y.- The story pace is great. The writing is simple and things move along very quickly. Sometimes I love getting lost in the prose and sometimes I appreciate that the words simply escort me to the world and leave me to get lost in there.- I was enjoying experiencing each one of Nora's lives. The transition to yeah-so-then-she-basically-lived-hundreds-of-lives felt rather abrupt.- I *get* why Nora felt the best life wasn't her own and ultimately had to give it up, but I don't have to be happy about it.- I appreciate that Nora ultimately recognised that she wasn't worthless, that without her bad things happened in other people's lives, BUT the tidy ending with the glimpses of the lives she'd experienced was just a bit too saccharine.- The message of you-don't-know-what-you're-missing-if-you-check-out lesson felt really heavy-handed at the end. I don't know about you, but for me it also completely missed its mark. On the contrary, almost-suicide seems *much* more appealing now. Living hundreds of lives, seeing the world, a choose-your-own-adventure version of my own life, all in a single minute, and returning to this version of me with the memory intact of all those lived experiences? Are you kidding me? That would be amazing.
tl;dr: Definitely not flawless, but a great story and one that will stay with me for quite some time.
Frack. I mean...I just...frack.
I am so torn. This is a phenomenal, epic, horrible tale. It's really, really hard to look past all the -isms and dismiss them as a sign of the times. It's also hard not to give credit where it's due, to an author whose prose doesn't feel superfluous (quite a feat, given the book's length) and who managed to evoke sympathy—albeit fleeting—for those undeserving of it.
And so it appears I've talked myself into a 5. Frack.
Which would you like first, the good news or the bad news? I like to end on a positive note, so let's start with the bad news.
Boo:
The artwork is awful. I feel like a jerk saying this, because I read about the absolute love and admiration KMM has for the late Al Rio, but ... no. It's not just that the illustration doesn't match what I imagined, it's that it blatantly doesn't match what has been described to us by KMM throughout the series.
Over the years, we've gotten to know these characters. This va-va-voom character who's almost as tall as Barrons is not Mac. This va-va-voom character with the body of an adult woman is not the 13yo Dani. This bloated toad of a woman is not Rowena. These fae with demonic fingers and toes are not the Seelie described to us over and over again as physical specimens for whom even the adjective “perfect” falls short.
In KMM's introduction to the book, she talks about how this is really Rio's vision. If that's the case, it makes me sad; I can only hope that her own was different and more true, and wish that she had stuck to it. If I wanted this type of adolescent fantasy, Boris Vallejo does it better.
Some of the interactions are also quite strange. Barrons has been toned down and prettied up for an audience unfamiliar with the rest of the series. It takes time to get to know Barrons, so I can understand this choice, but it leaves the rest of us with a diluted facsimile who responds and speaks as we know Barrons never would. Blech.
Yay:
The story of the Fear Dorcha is a very cool one and, despite my aversion to how most of the characters have been realised, I'm glad I read it. The character himself is one of the ones depicted best—creepy and mysterious in all the right ways. He's not alone: the shades are how I envisioned them, as are the rhino boys (save for horn placement) and the grey lady. It's a testament to KMM's descriptive prose and Rio's skill that these characters so closely matched the ones painted on my mental canvas. But that's what makes the deviations all the more disappointing.
The introduction in the beginning and the inside look at character sketches and the *Fever world at the end are themselves worth the price of admission. They kept me from regretting my purchase, but couldn't save the book's rating.
If you can find this on sale, it's worth adding it to your collection for the background info alone; at full price, I wouldn't bother.
I really don't like reading a book after having seen the film based on it. I can't help but see the actors in my head when I read the story, and I'd much rather see the ones my brain creates from the author's descriptions. Bah. Still, this is a good book. Hard to believe it was Chuck Palahniuk's first. If you've seen the film, you already have a pretty good idea of how he writes: staccato sentences, mired in small details, repetitive. Somehow, he makes the sum of these off-putting parts a good thing.
I think this was my first fictional autobiography. It dragged a bit, in places, but overall it was an interesting and (mostly) entertaining read. But, y'know? The end really grated. The whole thing was full of soooo much angst, and in the end? All wrapped up so nicely and neatly and positively and innocently and legally. And annoyingly.
I really didn't expect to like this book so much, especially because it's another in a recent parade of books whose main characters I found unlikeable and irritating. 😂I often find stories like this predictable, but this one kept me guessing until the end. \o/
I love Holly Gibney! It was so great to spend some more time with her. She's like King's Marple.
It took two chapters for me to decide I hated the format of this book. It took three more for me to change my mind and decide that the book's format is brilliant; I may have liked it more than I liked the story. If you don't like instalove stories, you won't like this. Your eyes will roll too much and you will give yourself a headache. I hail from Bollywood, the land of instalove, so I didn't mind it here. It's been a while since I first watched Before Sunrise (Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy), but it felt like that type of movie in book form: strangers meet, engage in altogether too meaningful dialogue entirely too quickly, fall in love.
I have a soft spot for stories set in NYC. A Queens boi myself, I could relate to Flushing boy taking the Garlic Express (7 train) into Manhattan.
My only real problem with this story is that Daniel and Natasha didn't feel like kids. It felt like kid things were thrown into the story to make me believe that they're kids and not young adults in their mid- to late twenties. Kid things like high school references, pre-college stressors, etc. But their feelings and their articulation of those feelings and their analysis of and conclusions about their lives and the world around them just felt way older. That's not to say that I wanted them to be less perceptive and their dialogue less mature; rather, I wanted them to just be the ages they sounded.
Nothing earth-shattering, here, but this is a sweet, quick, enjoyable read.
5 for the subject matter, 3 for the book. I'm not a big nonfiction reader and I didn't know much about Ginsburg. Thanks to this book, now I know a little bit. It was a quick read, and I'm glad; it was about as much real life as I can manage in a single dose.
I want RBG to live forever. What an amazing, determined, focused human being. And cheeky, too! #lifegoals
Well. That was surprising. Part I of the book was kind of boring, and I had resigned myself to Burned being a disappointing instalment in the series.
And then.
I should have seen it coming. I should have guessed. In hindsight, it could have been nothing else, no one else. All the signs were there, but I missed them. And it changed everything.
Parts II and III were so good! I'm still grinning. I love invisible Mac. I mean, I thought it was a creative and really funny way to finally, finally give us some answers.. I especially enjoyed going behind the scenes at Chester's and being privy to the private interactions of the Nine. And holy moly has Dani turned into something, eh? I hope she doesn't stay Jada forever, but wow, what a fierce, powerful being. It's amazing to see how she has realised some of her potential. I think Dani's lust for life is important to make her whole, though, so I hope the fractured can be made whole again. Also, I had thought that the Highlander series was completely separate from this one, but upon reading the guide at the end, it appears there's a connection after all; so now I want to read that one, too.
Despite the darkness, there was much more humour in this story than I was expecting, and the execution was really enjoyable. It flowed smoothly with no jarring bits. Lots of fun and a great addition to the series.
I didn't even know that the film was based on a graphic novel. That's so cool! It felt just a bit disjointed at times and for the first time I felt that having watched the film helped me to understand the progression of the story a little bit better. It's a moving story that is fundamentally different from the film. Well worth a read as it's a wholly different experience, really. I think I might try reading it in the original French.
Meh. If you liked [a:Dan Brown 630 Dan Brown http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1206553442p2/630.jpg]'s [b:The Da Vinci Code 968 The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2) Dan Brown http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255581720s/968.jpg 2982101], you might like this. I didn't, and as I was reading this book, I thought, “Really, there are better stories to copy than that one.”
