Mara
Most of my stars are for Paul Newman himself, he was an interesting man who led a life worth telling the story of, which made for a decent book (I listened to this as an audiobook). The author did a good job covering the bases and leading the path through that life, but I found the writing style a bit smarmy from time to time. It had that feel of someone trying to shoehorn extra large words into their writing in order to appear more intelligent. This did not help the audiobook reader any, as he mispronounced many of the smarmy words. My favorite was when he did the standard English speaker thing of saying the title of the film Das Boot as one would say ‘boot' in English - always good for a chuckle from a German speaker.
This book was everything I wanted it to be and more. Thanks Britney, for everything.
I did not enter into this book looking for vampire smut, but that's what I found, and I am never not delighted to find vampire smut (even if it's relatively light smut). Always find it funny when the characters Richard and Kahlan it through a book.
At this point I was really just burning through these books to finish the series. They do take a bit of a downward turn after the first few, and the first book remains the most compelling. The whole thing with adding in Ayla's accent, in the audiobook version, is rather jarring.
Each of the books that make up this volume stands alone just fine, they read as complete works. The part that left me a little dissatisfied was that often the characters that carried over from a prior book, who may have been main characters that whole time, in the next were snuffed out in a few words. This is probably because the books were not written (or at least not published, but I would guess also written) in the order they're presented here, which is chronological to the story. So it was probably more that one book was written, then Butler took the thread of a side character and traced it back, writing a prequel about them. So reading them in this order, you've developed an attachment to a main character from book one, and that character appears a handful of times in book two and then gets a one sentence end to their story as an aside in the epilogue. It didn't ruin the stories or anything, but it made it a little strange to jump from one book to the next. I'm not sure if I would advise someone starting this book to read them in the order they were written instead of how they are presented here, or to do as I did, it may or may not make much difference.
The four books also have fairly different themes and pacing. You're following one basic thread of happening through a long period of time, but the kinds of characters imagined and the kinds of events in each are quite different from each other. It's a nice breadth, but when reading the whole thing in one go, it can be a little jarring.
I appreciate the amount of effort that went into a book centered around dragging historical figure Nathaniel Hawthorne. A masterpiece of a burn.
Mostly heartbreaking, but also funny. Made more powerful by being read by the author.
Starts off really slow. I had to fight through the first half, unlike the first two in the series. It picked up toward the end, but just in general didn't have the same magic as the others. Maybe instead of what it was, it should have been a 100% Gratch centered book.
Fascinating account of some upsetting history. The book balances several difficult elements, humanizing the people involved while still going in to the science and politics.
The worst part about reading this book was knowing that men need to be listening to it at least as much as women do, but far, far fewer of them will. Not to get knocked down a peg by the henpecking regarding what their ilk do wrong (although ok, yes, there is some wry commentary to blow off steam, deservedly so)! Rather because it would make all of their work so much better, more meaningful. All you dudes who are making shitty things that don't serve half-ish of the people who would use it could very easily be doing better if you just like...spoke to a woman. Seriously, just try it. And try this book.
It's all correct and interesting information that's important to be talking about, but I also didn't necessarily learn tons - I already know most of how the systems are fucked up. It's an interesting spin on the topic, something of a reversal of how things seem to often default to being seen from the heterosexual as base assumption. I wish there had been some deeper exploration, and perhaps a few more varied perspectives from additional authors.
This is a fascinating and important story, but difficult to read. Not in terms of actual writing or length, just that the subject matter is brutal.
The story is a little dated at this point, or rather it is “of an era” that is not quite like today but not all that far in the past yet. Some of the references and humor are a bit particular to that, but there is plenty about the premise that is still hilarious to make up for it.
This was a fun reworking of classical Greek myths, keeping the basic elements but stripping the silly heroics.
Listened to this as an audiobook.
As with the second book, I was a bit worried that this wouldn't hold up, because it changes the setting fairly dramatically. I didn't give it too much thought though, I was too busy being infuriated by the ending of Valley of Horses, which stopped literally mid conversation, so mostly I just needed that gratification of finishing the thought. Sometimes, I kind of want to punch Jondalar in his giant dick.
I got pretty bored of the shock factor gross out stuff, it wasn't infused into the story in a very engaging way. I read The Jungle in high school, maybe at that time the edginess would have entertained me more, but right now I want more nuance in my gross out horror.
Lets be real, I bought this for the funny title and cover design. I did actually read it though, and found it funny.
Years after reading this book I still think of it as “Richard and Kahlaning it” when the obviously-going-to-end-up-together character couple don't commence with the boning you know they're going to do in a book or two, and just spend chapter after chapter very narrowly evading each other's underpants.
Listened to this as an audiobook.
I was a little worried that with changing so much about the setting and characters of the story (from the first book) that it wouldn't hold up, but it expanded the story in a great way. For a while I was worried this was going to go the Sword of Truth series direction - the second book of that series should really just be titled [SPOILERS] Richard and Kahlan Don't Fuck. But all is well, Valley of Horses turned into cro magnon porn! I am not sure I can really endorse that aspect as great writing or plot or anything, but I have a soft spot for the hilarity that is sex scenes in novels. Especially when they are read aloud.
The description lead me to believe there would be perhaps some supernatural (fine if not, but could have been interesting) or more history, but it's more of a “it turns out the bad guy is just abuse as usual” kind of tale.
I liked hearing more about Michelle's background than I'd known before, and that she was frank and open about her life leading up to the political spotlight. It lost me a bit once they were in the White House because I'm less of one for inspirational texts.
The book had an engrossing plot line that was well narrated. At times it leaned a little in the feel-good life-lesson direction for me, but not enough to stop me reading.
Chilling, sad, upsetting story. I was already fairly familiar with the general historical events but the book went into much more detail.