Bryce
I watched the anime first, so I already knew most of it ahead of time.
Likable, fun characters. A nice (if derivative) fantasy plot, with a lot of good humor and creative ideas.
Solid capper to the series, #3 and #4 have been my favorites, even if this one didn't answer all my questions.
Carter & Lovecraft is a perfectly solid and altogether competent novel. The plot kept my interest, it was easy to like the main characters. And yet none of these things me to believe the book was more than just decent.
The story showed a lot of potential early on, with some delightfully weird and mysterious events. Unfortunately, these elements weren't as interesting once they were explained (kind of explained?). There are some smart ideas and very creepy moments early on, but none of things I liked about the book were present as I reached the last page.
This was fun! Sometimes it feels like it's trying a bit too hard (and reading the issues in this volume one after the after can be tiring), but for the most part this is a fun and funny comic. It's a nice reprieve from the doom and gloom of a lot of recent comic series.
Still fun, but more focused on light side stories than the main plot. Cool for fans though.
Reading this felt like a weird fever dream. A few of the other reviews say the same thing, and it's pretty apt. It's weird, kind of confusing, a little funny, a little touching, a little brilliant. The writing is pretty great, in my opinion, and I cared about these strange, complicated characters a lot more than I thought I would.
I can't put my thoughts into words all that well, not with this book. It took reaching the last page for me to really appreciate everything that had come before.
Interesting, strange graphic novel with nice art. It's very short, but it's an effective short story in comic form.
I received a copy of this book through the First Reads giveaway program.
One thing that stuck in my mind as I read this book was how hard it was to dislike. It was full of cliches, and I've read this story many times before. But above all else, it's enjoyable and unassuming and it never feels like it's trying to be more than that.
The setting, a small family vineyard in California, adds a bit of freshness. That's a good thing, as there's little fresh otherwise; it's the story of a family and all their complications in love and with each other.
I found the way some of the subplots were resolved to be pleasantly unexpected, what seemed dead-set on being trite ending somewhat differently. It would be a bit much to label anything as a “twist”, but the author managed to make the resolutions both authentic and crowd-pleasing.
All in all, don't go in expecting anything completely new. But if you're looking for a light, charming read, you'll find something better than expected here.
I want to read the next one! This was a fun and well-written story, even if it took some time to grab me. The simple illustrations littered throughout the book are charming, it's fun to see some of the characters and objects the way the author imagined them. Why can't we have occasional illustrations in adult novels?
I would have liked to see more of the hotel and the strange people that live there, and I'm excited to see how Stella finds out exactly what she is, and where she came from.
The world-building is great, the OASIS is quite fun to imagine, as is all the related tech. The world outside, and the complications that arise from the game, are not very fun to imagine at all. It's unusually cheerful dystopia.
The pop culture references invading every page are never very well-integrated into the story. As others mentioned, it's mostly there to pander to nostalgia. They are fun at times, but a good 50% could have been cut, let's be honest.
The characters were pretty bland, but by the end I was admittedly invested in their fates. The twist related to Aech surprised me, and I really wish the book would have delved into that a bit more. It would have made a much more three-dimensional character, and there would have been opportunities for some poignant scenes.
Despite all of this, I gave the book 4 stars. Mostly for its entertainment value, and pure imagination. With a slightly leaner plot and deeper characters, this could have been both fun and genuinely great. Alas, it's just fun.
After reading (and loving) “Death of a Family”, I thought I would read the classic Joker story. This one is more focused on the Joker's past, but it gives a chilling example of his insanity as well. I'd say it's more powerful than the much more recent Scott Snyder story, as I felt a bit shaken after reading it.
It's great writing. Great art. A great graphic novel.
As much as I love the Ghibli movie, this book is so much better. The movie leaves out most of the story in favor of a general feeling of plotless whimsy, and so the story here feels almost brand new. It's a truly great fantasy novel, easy to read and get lost in with memorable characters and imagination to spare.
It's not really fair for me to rate this book 3 stars, because it's a thorough and well-researched look at the golden age of detective fiction and the Detection Club. My rating just reflects my personal enjoyment; if this is something you think you would be interested in learning about, it's a great book.
While I found plenty of interesting anecdotes, along with some perspective on influential detective novels of the time, overall this book was fairly long and often dry. A lot of names and dates and discussion of novels that would certainly be appealing to someone truly fascinated by this topic—that someone is not me, unfortunately.
I doubt I would have given this a second look if I wasn't purposefully looking for something I wouldn't normally read. But I'm glad I did. Not every story is a winner, I've read enough short story collections to expect at least a few duds. It is, however, very consistent. Consistently charming and well-written and even insightful.
I was impressed by how invested I could get in a lot of these characters, despite some of their stories being 15 pages or less. Considering I've read a few novels with 300+ pages recently that were populated with bland and unlikeable characters, this is quite a feat.
Good job, Mr. Levithan. This was way better than I expected.
This is a very fun novel with some nice historical insight. The characters definitely grow on you, and they even have a satisfying arc over the course of the story. Fun book!
It wasn't a book I expected to like much, but I thought I'd give it a try.
The first chapter surprised me, it was grittier than I expected. The book as a whole still isn't any dark, macabre fantasy, but it's more mature than it seems. The writing is nice, sometimes quite great, and the characters and story caught and held my interest. I really enjoyed the book, and it's one of the few times I've eagerly awaited a sequel to a random book I picked off the shelf.
What an odd book. Like everyone, I've read “The Lottery”, and this book is a really excellent expansion of Shirley Jackson's obvious skill for dark, gothic stories. I'm glad I finally read it.
It didn't completely live up to my expectations (which, let's be honest, were set pretty high by the gorgeous cover and description), but Uprooted is still a very enjoyable fantasy novel. I wasn't too taken by the romance between the Dragon and the protagonist, but I loved the friendship between Kasia and Agnieszka. All in all, definitely worth reading.
The structure of showing the same man's death at different points in his life is an interesting one. It's enough to make an engaging and possibly thought-provoking book.
And in some cases, the right people can run with that concept and turn it into a brilliantly profound work.
The art, first off, is great. It evokes emotion and life, and it's just plain nice to look at. The story, the thoughts on life and death and stories themselves, that's what makes this graphic novel a brilliant piece of fiction. It's powerful, aided by pitch-perfect writing. It's memorable and beautiful and is as hopeful as it is melancholy. I loved this book.
I had a good time reading this book. While I can't shake the impression that much of it felt like it was intended to educate rather than entertain, but for whatever reason I had a fun time reading this. It's a short read, and there's some nice historical detail in it.
I liked I Feel Bad About My Neck more, but this wasn't a bad book at all. It was interesting, just not really funny. I read it in an hour or two, and it worked well as a bit of light entertainment.
I received this book as an ARC from a First Reads giveaway.
The message is nice. It celebrates perseverance and drive, or “grit” as the book calls it. My main problem is that it doesn't say anything that hasn't been said in a hundred books like it.
It's essentially a series of examples, successful people that failed and got back up. Mixed throughout are stories of how the authors succeeded against all odds. These examples have a self-congratulatory tone, all in the third person, and some of their advertising triumphs (the Wendy's story struck me as particularly egregious) have a strange feeling of shilling for the companies they represent. Which is their entire job, technically, but it's not the feeling I should get when the examples are meant to inspire me.
The book is perfectly competent otherwise, it's not bad at all. Just repetitive. It could be summed up as “Hard work is what separates the dreamers from the doers, and a lot of successful people faced a lot of failure and rejection.” This, while a good message, is repeated over and over with nothing new to add.
“Grit to Great” doesn't follow its own advice. If you want to set yourself apart from the hundreds of competitors, you have to put in the extra work to make yourself stand out. Unfortunately, this book doesn't do that.
The Kingdom of Gods is a messy novel. It juggles so many different plot points and characters at once, some handled worse than others. It's a disjointed book and the weakest of the trilogy. And yet, for whatever reason, I found myself fully invested for (most of) the duration of the story. There were plenty of things I didn't like (unnecessary characters that only complicated things and added nothing, some general weird character inconsistency), but the beautiful prose and fascinating world kept me interested.
Never anything less than fully engaging, this book (the first part of a trilogy) is absolutely worth reading. The plot is very good, the writing fluid and fun, but the characters are what make this story so great. Likeable yet flawed, as all the best characters are, they're what make an otherwise good fantasy adventure into something great.