Shawn Towner

I loved [b:The Fault in Our Stars 11870085 The Fault in Our Stars John Green http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327880382s/11870085.jpg 16827462] so I decided to give this one a try. I can understand why teenagers would like it, but I felt that this was more conventionally YA than Fault. All the characters are perfectly quirky until it's more emotionally useful for them to not be. It felt like I was reading about characters in a YA novel, rather than reading about people who just happen to also be characters in a YA novel, which is what the characters in Fault seemed like.

A book that needs to be read quickly. Not because it's a page-turner that you can't put down, but to avoid most of the terrible writing. There are some awful descriptions and horrendous similes sprinkled throughout the books like Bantha droppings at a Tusken Raider barbecue. The majority of these descriptions are unnecessary, more Wookiepedia name-dropping than actual useful exposition.
But you don't read a Star Wars book for the quality of its prose. (I recently reread Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire, and even though I enjoyed the book as much as I did when I first read the series, the writing is not good.) You read Star Wars books for the adventures of Han and Luke and Leia. Or at least that's why you used to read Star Wars books. This book is rebooting the canon away from a focus on the characters of the original trilogy. There's a brief interlude feature Han and Chewie (which could be setting up another Star Wars story line, one that seems much more interesting than what's going on here), Leia appears in a hologram message, and there are a few of the more minor characters like Ackbar, Mon Mothma, and Wedge Antilles. Unfortunately, there are also references to the detestable prequel trilogy, with unneeded mentions of Naboo and General Grievous. However, I admit that I enjoyed the battle droid character, Mr. Bones. He reminded me of HK-47 from the Knight of the Old Republic Game.
Without the original heroes to drive the story like in the Zahn novels, Aftermath relies on a bevy of new characters who band together to challenge the remnants of the Empire. For the most part, the characters aren't all that well-developed (again, we don't read Star Wars novels for Proustian insight into human nature), but they're likeable. The Imperial villains, while not as catchy as an Admiral Thrawn, present a realistic view of the broken, but not defeated Empire. They squabble, jockey for power, and struggle to determine the best course forward against the burgeoning New Republic. They are transitional villains, leading up to the last-minute reveal of a mysterious Big Bad. But they are appropriate villains, as this is a transitional novel, with the apparent goal of moving Star Wars nerd away from the Luke and Leia Star Wars of our youth.
I earlier compared this novel to the Timothy Zahn Star Wars novels, but I think the better comparison would be Avengers: Age of Ultron. Like Ultron, Aftermath is an enjoyable experience, but it lacks the greatness of works that came before it. And like Ultron, Aftermath strikes me as a very corporate production, a work designed to promote and set up upcoming Star Wars properties rather than stand alone as a work of its own. I recommend the book, especially for Star Wars fans. It's a fun return into the world of the original trilogy. And even though the major characters from that trilogy aren't present, this isn't a prequel-level disaster. It's a solid step forward towards what I hope will be a return to quality Star Wars films.

I feel dirty reading young adult fiction, but this book was listed in the Editor's Choice of the NYT book review, so I can use that to rationalize my intellectual downfall. The book is about an unpopular girl who is trying to honour her dead best friend's memory by putting on a play that she (the dead friend) wrote. That part of the novel I'm fine with. The topic of teenagers dealing with grief while still trying to be like teenagers is handled very well in the novel. Unfortunately, none of the characters are at all likable.

The characters in the novel all seem to be pseudo-ironic faux-hipsters, who love ninjas, breaking into song, and complaining about how American horror movies are vastly inferior to the Korean originals. The only way the characters in the novel could have been more like cliched wannabe hipsters would have been if the novel were set in a Brooklyn dumpster and they had been drinking PBR instead of Merlot. Also, there's a good bit of generally snotty teenage behaviour, but that's to be expected in a novel about teens.

The premise of the novel is grand. The grief of young people is handled very well. Unfortunately, the characters are like an unholy union of Glee fans and people who take pictures from 4chan and post them to other sites on the Internets, that is to say, people who desperately want others to think they are “cool,” “with it,” and “hip to the scene,” etc. For young people, I think this would be a great book. For jaded early-middle-aged shut-ins like myself, it's just a frustrating disappointment.

This book lacked all the things I loved about the other Peter Clines books I've read. The plot barely crawled forwards at times, and the characters were throughly generic and uninteresting. There were occasional moments where things seemed like they were going to pick up and keep some kind of consistent energy, but it was never sustained for any real length of time. I think I'll stick to his books about superheroes fighting zombies in post-apocalyptic Hollywood.

This book is Hollywood as Hell. It's a Hogan's Heroes version of a Chinese reeducation camp, complete with wacky scheming and a complete glossing over of any sort of harsh realism. The book features a trite view of reeducation: those who are supposed to be reeducated are actually the ones who end up doing the reeducation. It's the same sort of bland, thoughtless plot that plagues so many mediocre indie and foreign films. Combine that with a cliched and unimaginative view of canonical art, a dreadful third act, and a completely unnecessary temporary shift in narrative voice, and you get an awful, awful book. The only redeeming feature of this novel is that it's less than 200 pages long, so at least I only wasted and hour or so of my life reading it.

A book that I've often seen described as Pynchonesque, but I think it's more like Dickens: lots of characters, lots of digressing subplots, and a sympathetic view of the lower classes and downtrodden. Unfortunately, not all of the characters and subplots are really all that interesting. I couldn't stand the Philippines parts, which is a shame because a trio of most enjoyable characters were crammed into the plot, rather than being able to operate on their own. Also, I just couldn't get into Sayles' attempts to recreate the films, minstrel shows, and muckraking newspapers of the time. Pynchon has the talent for describing films and songs and making them still be engaging; Sayles, for all his talent in crafting characters and writing dialogue isn't quite at that level yet.