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This is an impossible read. No, I am not contradicting my rating, but that is exactly how this book feels. It is a very straightforward story. No twists, no turns. It is exactly “The Redemption of Michael Hollister,” and, yet, for some reason, I couldn't put it down. I was surprised when I noticed that I was almost at the end of the whole thing and things are still moving the way they did from when his redemption story started. I'm probably not expressing this all good. Let's just say, overall, it's fascinating.
It's a beautiful story and it makes you feel all sorts of things. You laugh, you cry, you get proud... Yet, the story is told in a very-easy-to-read format. It flows very well and it's not difficult to just keep telling yourself, “Just one more page” while not noticing how far you've gone.
This story is more than a bit disadvantaged.
Dominick Davidner is an average joe living a good life until a school shooting where he takes the bullet for one of his students. His quest is to find his way back into love. Under other circumstances, this whole premise might have worked (although, I am a bit skeptical), but this story follows one of a suicidal depressant old man whose life practically ended when he lost his older brother as a teenager and another of a serial killer.
The book can be read as a standalone, of course, but it is Number 3 in a series and, in a box set, it is also the third presented. Odds are, you will read this as #3.
Since it directly follows the story of Michael Hollister (the serial killer in book #2), Part I of Dominick's story is a bit tedious as most of it is the same stuff you already read and/or know about from Michael's story.
Part II is Dominick doing all the wrong stuff and you just know they are the wrong things.
Part III was him still not really learning. He knew what was going to happen, but all he did was a feeble attempt at changing the course of things. It was like one chapter in over 60. His real response was just to get a gun. That got more attention.
It was still OK because the side story, that ever-present element in the Middle Falls universe, was very interesting. In this book, we learn more about the things up there and we see a bigger perspective in the whole thing.
Overall, 1 and 2 were fast reads, got me into the stories, got me interested in the protagonists and made me feel all sorts of things. This was one wasn't like that. Before this book, I was looking forward to the rest of the series. Now, I'm not so sure.
Title is completely misleading. It's more about “Ancient Egypt” than “Egyptian Mythology”. It makes sense to add some history for context, but there is just too much “context” in this book there is hardly any mythology anymore. Title should be changed.
It was OK - that's why the two stars. I was really interested at first because it was supposed to feature Irish folklore, but there really wasn't much about that in the book. Story is just fine, which means it's not enough to make me want to read the next books.
It's a proper end to the story of the Baudelaire siblings, even if it's not actually the end.
It's tagged as “mystery” and “thriller” so I was looking for that throughout the entire story. It was a very straightforward read. Nothing quite mysterious nor thrilling. The ending felt like it had to be cut short. It's a fast read, though.
Brilliant read!
I was almost disappointed when the mystery started sounding like it's gonna be too easy, but I'm glad it didn't go in that direction. Other than that dip, it's been an interesting read.
It's madness!
And not in a good way. It's scary to think that this book tells a story of a possible future. With people raising concerns about privacy and security and not enough people caring more about them, this story may just be what we have in store for us some years ahead.
Reality will probably not be written out the same way, but we should all learn to care more about where we're taking technology.
Definitely a good read. I'm glad I didn't abandon the “Gods and Mortals” collection after Elsker. “I Bring the Fire” has been worth the reading time. The story runs at a steady pace and the narrative is a seamless blending of the present and past events.
The story starts out nice, with all the action, but then it practically grounds to a halt afterward. From then on, it becomes quite a pain to read and the errors scattered throughout does not help. Could really use an editor. (And also a graphic designer for the cover.) The story doesn't really start again until basically the last couple of chapters. But there might be something here.
It's interesting, but it would have been more interesting if the story didn't start very late in the book. Much of the part before that is really just a lot of Sanaa loves Jiro, it's almost like the bigger plot was written as an afterthought. Towards, the end, Sanaa became even more questionable as a character - one moment she has not hurt a person, the next she had no qualms about beheading someone.
Too much of the romance and not enough of what I was expecting in a story involving seers, Norse gods, and Ragnarök. Kristia, throughout the entire book, only reminded me of Bella (Twilight) in that, all the while, the only thing she is thinking about is how to change herself so that she can be with Ull.
I gave this book a read because the Norse mythology angle was interesting, but the only thing I'm glad about now is that I got this book for free included in the “Gods and Mortals” collection from Amazon.
It doesn't feel like the best introduction to the three myth groups on the cover, but I can say it's nice. The style is very inconsistent (some parts narrative, some parts descriptive, etc.) and the transitions between styles don't work. Due to the nature of the stories of the Greek gods and the arrangement in the Greek section, some stories are duplicated. There are also typographical and grammatical errors scattered throughout. It does say, “3 manuscripts” so, I guess, these were to be expected.
