Ben Saufley

Man, I was really interested in reading this book and I did not enjoy it. It reads like a fever dream, and not in any sort of compelling or intriguing way. The heavy, invented colloquial speech is distracting. The plot is not ... really a plot, it's more of a montage of scenes. I found myself moderately interested in the flashbacks to Roland's childhood, because things actually happened there and there was a bit of an understanding of the world he lived in, and there were real secondary characters. Just about everything in the present was hazy and disjointed, void of character or place, and building up to a climax that really wasn't. This is only my second King book (the first was [b:11/22/63 10644930 11/22/63 Stephen King https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327876792s/10644930.jpg 15553789], which I really enjoyed even if I felt the ending got away from him), but my experience with this one was wildly different from the last. I think this book was written much earlier in his career and was maybe more experimental for him?The good news is that this is one series that I don't find myself compelled to finish. I have too many series to read already.

Just remembered this book. I loved it as a kid. Only 22 reviews?? Crazy.

Not a bad book, but it's got a lot of problems. I'm not an economist (/econometrician) or anything, but I would be reading and see a flaw in the logic that, sure, it was probably fine to overlook, but it would make me wonder more and more what other flaws the book had, that I had missed. I took it all with a grain of salt: many of its analyses declare positively that such-and-such a country is the best, or worst, or biggest overachiever, but the methods getting there take small liberties at every step, which seems like it would produce cascading inaccuracies (remember the movie Multiplicity?).

The reason I kept reading, after a certain point, was that it offered me a lot of interesting historical information - about soccer, and sometimes just about the progress of smaller nations that you don't hear much about in American high school history classes.

So it's absolutely worth reading, but I wouldn't take it too seriously.

Totally serviceable genre book. The resolution was pretty obvious from pretty early on, but I didn't guess everything.

I enjoyed it. As it wrapped up though, there was a bit too much going on. Too many red herrings or dark secrets. Even though that's kind of what these books are about, it was just a little too much. Still fun though.

I enjoyed it as I was reading it but it feels like only part of a story? I'm going to have to read Parable of the Talents to see if it completes it in a satisfying way. There was no real arc in this—perhaps a rising action, but maybe it rises to something in the sequel.

I was really excited to check this series out. I enjoy the LitRPG genre as I understand it, and I was excited to see that the “founder” of the genre was from an underrepresented group, which I'm trying to make an effort to be mindful of in my reading.

But only about two chapters in this book were particularly interesting or engaging.

The early hours of playing a new RPG are often full of grind. Sometimes, that's nice because it allows the brain to turn off, fall into a familiar pattern, get that dopamine rush from watching your stats rise. But if you were to simply describe this process to another person, even a fan of the genre, it'd be entirely mind-numbing. Sometimes, a good game spices up that process by adding unique lore, uncommon facets to the magic or other systems. Sometimes that can be enough to make the early hours more than a grind. It can add a layer of joyful discovery. But in this book, that wasn't the case. Nothing particularly original seems to exist in this world so far. It's all quite standard. What's worse, the protagonist is supposedly very familiar with the world, from the game. Not everything is apparently like the game, but much of it is. So why spend so much time on piddling exposition? Few interesting characters are met; almost no world building. Much of it is taken up by actual reading of non-metaphorical repetitive dialog boxes and prompts. It's truly like listening to someone describe their first ten hours in WoW. There's not even much of the characteristic “modern Earth inhabitant meets fantasy world” wit of the LitRPG genre, besides like one “FML” reference.

The story of the world and why the protagonist has been brought there is established in the prologue and then never mentioned again.

The book has no thrust, no real climax, and ends suddenly and unexpectedly. We still have neither a short term goal (besides “level up village”) nor a long-term goal.

The third act starts to introduce some characters and some conflict but it doesn't do anything with it besides a quick skirmish and I guess a sub-boss?

I dunno. I want to say I'll give book two a chance because it's a popular series and it's possible the author learned a lot from book one, but this one was no fun and I listen while running so it actually meant I skipped my run for a while because I the book didn't motivate me to return to it.

This analyst is very bad at her job.

Entertaining. Just about everything I expected from it. My wife and I had the mystery roughly figured out from maybe the midway point, maybe a bit before that, but I can say we were never confident that we were correct, which is just about all you can ask of this type of thing.

We were listening to it on Audible, which has four different voice actors for the four main characters, and we constantly had to pause to sort out which character was which. It was a while into the book before I realized I was confusing two or three of the dudes, and for a while I was forgetting which one had said which earlier on. I think that's just... high school drama, right? The names all blend together when you're hearing it secondhand.

It was fine. My biggest annoyance is that about half the book is spent running from the obvious truth that the protagonist is misjudging the situation and she absolutely refuses to consider the possibility. That might be a spoiler I guess but it's so, so obvious the whole time. I feel like it's written that way intentionally. But then... it's just annoying.

Bad copaganda. IA as cartoonish bad guy, right down to cartoonish names. I'm sure it's a product of its time. It could be worse, I suppose.

Oster's stance on COVID matters has been disappointing to uncover after making it most of the way through this book; but the book in general is a pretty level-headed and un-opinionated overview of data that I found helpful. I'm not taking anything in it as gospel, but it was at least a good high-level overview of a lot of topics, including some I didn't know I needed to know about.

I enjoyed the story and I appreciate Horowitz's meta approach but just because you're talking about the tropes you're engaging in (curmudgeonly male detective who just happens to be brilliant) doesn't absolve you from engaging in them. And to see this will be a series ... meh. I dunno, man. You say “if I were writing it I'd have chosen a different character.” You did write it. Why didn't you?

In fairness I think I might've liked this book more if I hadn't listened to it on Audible. The narrator's voice wasn't actively bad, but I think it had an impact on my enjoyment – she constantly sounded like she was on the verge of tears, and what should've been an intriguing adventure became just kind of sad and pathetic sounding.

The story itself, I think, was fine. Not particularly special – no shining moments that stood out and stuck with me; characters blended together and the arc of the plot felt kind of level through much of it. But the concept was interesting enough. Some of the mystical bits were kind of intriguing.

It did feel like it ended at the kind of ... beginning of the story. Not just in terms of a trilogy or whatever, but like, this arc seemed like it was just starting, regardless of the broader plot.

I probably won't read the next, but that may be more to do with the narrator than the book (if I read it at all, it'd be audio).

I knew that this account was written with an eye on defending Serbia, and I think that in some ways Dragnich did an admirable job discussing the motives of most parties. Unfortunately, what he most neglected was Serbia itself: despite his attempts to sound even-handed and fairly analyze actions of which he clearly disapproved from Croatia and Slovenia, he gave no thought to Serbia's own actions. When I looked up major players mentioned in the book, I found accusations (real or not) that were not even addressed by Dragnich.

Basically, this book helped to give me a good idea of how many Serbians may see their recent history, and to develop some impression of what actually happened. And while I believe that Dragnich has an agenda, I don't believe that he intended simply to force it upon people with this book. He obviously has a level of dissatisfaction with much of the recent history of the area and its leaders - Serb, Croat, and otherwise. But whatever the facts, he does Serbia a disservice in ignoring the larger issues and accusations against the country. It denies him the opportunity to properly address those accusations, and lends the whole book an air (hopefully undeserved) of propaganda.

I am looking for another book at this point that will address the issue with a more historical and detached approach. Open to suggestions.

Most of my feelings about this one are wrapped up in how it ended. Spoilers are not specific but will tell you what to expect from the ending so read at your own risk. It's tough to read a lot of this book because it's a lot of people being relentlessly cruel to each other and a lot of “they don't know what we know” frustration, but while I spent a portion of the book worrying that this would be one of those “everybody loses” kind of dark reads, it wasn't, and because the ending was satisfying, I ended up liking the book.

I really enjoyed a lot of this book. The style is fun and smart; the way it kind of meandered into the main plot was interesting rather than insufferable, and somehow the very unavoidable presence of the author's voice (which often takes me out of a book) engaged me and kept me reading. But the actual plot of the book was actually kind of weak/straightforward and strangely concluded (what even was the “sleeper cell” the book is so bluntly named after?). Interesting and enjoyable read that was ... I don't know, a little bit of a mess in the end.

Despite its age, the adventure it presented and the concepts within felt neither dated, nor clichéd, nor unoriginal. There's an atmosphere in the stark style of writing that lends itself to the waning days of life on planet Earth. Very quick but fascinating.

I don't think I understood this book. I found it interesting, written in a way where the topic was kind of danced around rather than directly explained, but then it ended and I don't know that I understood what was being danced around, for the most part.

I picked this book up as some pulp to listen to while running. The first half set up a lot of intriguing clues and presumable red herrings, and I was hoping it'd be a fun kind of mystery/thriller in the vein of (if not as good as) Girl on the Train, etc. It seemed like it might be. But it ended up feeling closer to a cheap Lifetime movie than anything else: most of the secrets are unveiled or at least heavily telegraphed in the early second half, and... well, spoilers:

SpoilerThe final chapter before the epilogue, which reveals that the protagonist was in on it all along (...?), seems to imply that the entire thought process of the character, through the whole book, relayed in the third person, was ... a lie? If she was in on it, why was she so confused the night of his disappearance? Why was she shocked to find he was alive? Why didn't she seek him out? It's a pretty ham-handed effort at the “unreliable narrator,” a trick which can be mind-blowing when successful, but there's not even an attempt at an explanation here. I think there was something about medication? But the medication was not properly established up to that point, if so. Or even properly asserted at that point.

I don't know. Maybe I'm being too harsh. I liked the first half. I just felt like it unwrapped poorly, and Spoilerthe weird attempt at a final twist didn't come off well.

Pretty predictable at a certain point, but overall enjoyable.

I loved The Paper Menagerie—one of my favorite books in recent years. It was full of life and really fascinating ideas and characters. I didn't feel the same about The Grace of Kings, which felt, for large swaths, like a summary. I only really settled into an understanding of the main characters and the thrust of the novel in probably the second half of the book, and even then many new chapters started by introducing characters, spending a while telling their back story, and then having them pop into the “present” timeline just to vanish for one reason or another. By the end of the book, it had established a rhythm and had focused more on the lives and stories of a few primary characters, and I enjoyed that. But I'm giving it a 3 because much of the book was spent summarizing great historical events and jumping around a bit confusingly in time, and not focusing on the human elements of the story.

Better than Dan Brown. A bit of a strange anticlimax though. The last third of the book was a bit of, “is this the big secret? no, is this the big secret? No... is this? ...oh, it's over?”

That's probably an exaggeration. But there was at least some of that confusion about what the whole thing was about, as the end approached. Anyway, it's still better than Dan Brown. I enjoyed it. I'd probably read something else by this guy.

3.5 - 4, but they don't allow half stars. Pretty fun. I feel like it kind of fizzled at the end and honestly, SpoilerI didn't go much for the whole Sadie saga, which became the focal point as the book went on. But it was still mostly very interesting, moderately smart, and a fun time-travel adventure.

This has been my favorite of the series so far. It had a bit more of an actual arc. I'm getting the impression that Susan Cooper is really good with words and description, and great at creating some compelling hints at the mythology of her world (it may sound silly but the book titles are just... so good), but not as good at creating overall plot, story arcs. Each book seems to have Will or another kid just kind of bounce around while big things happen to them, which is I think common in children's literature but here those big things often don't even swell to any sort of climax and denouement—they just sort of happen. I had some of the same trouble with the Narnia books. This book, though, broke out of that a little. Having finished the book I have a general sense of what the arc was, what the purpose of the adventure was, etc. I liked it better than the previous ones for that reason, and I'm definitely interested in picking up the next one.