I actually really enjoyed the first 20 pages or so, with a high-stakes pizza delivery. It was funny and charming and I was looking forward to reading I actually really enjoyed the first 20 pages or so, with a high-stakes pizza delivery. It was funny and charming and I was looking forward to reading more; it reminded me of Infinite Jest. There would be more about the story that would remind me of Infinite Jest before the book was over, but that book is considered a masterpiece and Snow Crash is argued about on the internet about whether it's a parody or not.
The enjoyment stopped soon after that. It felt like reading r/atheism. Every page, every sentence, was convinced of its importance to the world. It felt overwritten, overproduced, and still, like every single Neal Stephenson book I have read thus far, couldn't manage to have a goddamn good ending.
Plus, a 15-year-old girl is highly sexualized and has sex with an adult and it's played for laughs.
Please see my review for Seveneves for the ultimate Neal Stephenson reading instructions....more
Sometimes I get to the point in a book that I call "hate reading." I'm interested enough - I want to know how the story ends - it's not actively insulSometimes I get to the point in a book that I call "hate reading." I'm interested enough - I want to know how the story ends - it's not actively insulting me - so I keep reading as quickly as I can to get to the end so I can move on with my life.
In addition, I like to read whatever the popular book is. Okay, I'm 5 years late to this one, but I figured since a movie came out it was really on me to make the time for it.
This is not my type of book. I'm only so-so on mysteries. I'm even more so-so on manic pixie swamp girls. But I need to be able to talk intelligently about it, so I read it anyway.
And here we are. Hate reading.
This review sums up everything I have to say about it, and better than I could write it, so I don't really feel the need to try to write it all again....more
I've only been so-so on the Liveship Traders trilogy. I thought this third book was building up to be something epic but not only did the ending leaveI've only been so-so on the Liveship Traders trilogy. I thought this third book was building up to be something epic but not only did the ending leave me flat, rape is used as a plot device. AGAIN. I'm not going to spoiler this review, I think it's important for people to know this going into it. Althea is brutally raped and no one believes her. She spends the last two hundred pages of the book cowering in the corner because of this rape. We had a whole goddamn trilogy to get on her side, to want her ship back, to care about her quest, and then LOL NOPE we're just gonna rape her and make sure she's with a strong man at the end! YAY! Even better, let's give her rapist a hero's death! YAY AGAIN! EVERYONE LOVES HIM! What's a little bit of rape to a pirate amirite.
So yeah, that colored my enjoyment of, well, everything.
There are a lot of points of view in this book, but we know the characters well by now and it was never confusing. What was confusing was the vast amount of storylines that ended up not mattering. Reyn especially in this book, who I really wanted to like even though his whole character arc is MALTA I LOVE YOUUUU, has a storyline that doesn't matter. Why was he even there? It happened several times where there would be pages of dialogue/discussion, an agreement would be made, and then something would happen that negated all of that anyway, so like, what was the point? Once, fine, but it happened enough times that I noticed it and it just made the whole book feel kind of like a waste of time.
The ending battle disappointed me. Thinking back on the Farseer Trilogy, there were few battles we were actually present for. Much of it was the small battles between people. When all the threads finally come together here for a big last battle, I was working myself up to be excited at the epicness (despite said rape from earlier). But it fell flat for me. The battle didn't really work.
I'm going to keep reading the series. And I hope there is 1000% less rape than there was in this trilogy....more
I really want to give this 4 stars, but too much bugged me.
I really enjoyed Assassin's Apprentice and the rest of the Farseer trilogy. I took a short I really want to give this 4 stars, but too much bugged me.
I really enjoyed Assassin's Apprentice and the rest of the Farseer trilogy. I took a short break, then hopped into Ship of Magic and her writing got...worse?? Somehow? It annoyed the hell out of me. I took an entire year off before getting into this book, Mad Ship, because of that. The writing suddenly became all telling, using a paragraph to explain a character's motivation instead of showing us what it was naturally. God it was frustrating! Her writing was beautiful in The Farseer Trilogy, I don't understand how it got so much worse for this second trilogy.
Then, instead of using, I don't know, anything else, she uses rape as a plot device. Twice. It's horrifying. She never used rape in the Farseer Trilogy. Women were as powerful as men and no one questioned it. I loved that about the Six Duchies. Well get ready to be triggered by Rapey McRaperson. Yay.
It's all about the worldbuilding for me. The characters may annoy me with their vapidness or their one-dimensionality. The writing may infuriate me with its paragraphs of explanations. But goddamnit if the world just does it for me. And what that means is there is space for epicness. Threads started 1000 pages ago in Ship of Magic come together here and it was cool. For the first time I wanted to keep reading to find out what was going to happen instead of feeling like it was work to make it through each chapter.
Wow there are so many absolutely glowing reviews of this. I'm going to have to take the middle road and say it was just okay. Too much "telling." Too Wow there are so many absolutely glowing reviews of this. I'm going to have to take the middle road and say it was just okay. Too much "telling." Too much buildup for a brief and unsatisfying payoff - the entire book is a setup for a sequel. Narampa was so frustratingly dumb, but I liked the other PoVs pretty well.
If the sequel were already out I would pick it up. Knowing me, by the time the sequel comes out (planned for 2022) I will have forgotten enough story details that I will not want to read it....more
This was quite the adventure told by a true storyteller. Thor Heyerdahl's writing proves he must have been an amazing man to know - smart, funny, and This was quite the adventure told by a true storyteller. Thor Heyerdahl's writing proves he must have been an amazing man to know - smart, funny, and headstrong. And literally strong, as he survived a 3-month journey across the Pacific with 5 other men for company on a tiny ass raft.
Some brief Googling shows we are still not sure if his theory he set out to prove was right or not. But he sure set about it with style. I loved the descriptions of the pilot fish, following the raft like it was their mama shark. The amount of fish they killed was a bit less heartening. But I guess I eat fish a lot so I'm killing them too.
I made an audible "oh!" of dismay at the fate of the parrot. Poor parrot :(...more
This is the idea of a world without anything breathing life into it. The pieces without the story. (page 453)
I couldn't have put it better myself.
I
This is the idea of a world without anything breathing life into it. The pieces without the story. (page 453)
I couldn't have put it better myself.
I read and did not enjoy The Night Circus. But I have never been one for circuses, and I am one for books, so I thought I would give her another shot. A book about the magic of books? Yes, please!
It all went wrong. Vastly, unbearably wrong. I'm not sure I can tell you why it went so wrong, but I'm going to try. In The Starless Sea, we are treated to an underground secret library in the Borges sense of a library (I highly recommend spending 20 minutes to read it if you have not). It is labyrinthine, perhaps infinite, full of mysterious doors, books, wine, and honey. Words are on everything. Stories without context, and therefore without meaning, perhaps more truly the horror of Borges than I had initially thought. Endless words mean exactly nothing. It is when they are put together and every other book you have ever read up to that point changes how you are going to read this one.
Reading is powerful. And dare I say, risky. If you read a book at the wrong time, you can never read that book for the first time again. It's all over. Tolkien would not reread books and advised waiting to taste certain vintages until you were older so as not to spoil them with youthful spirit (my words, not his). He believes you need the context of your life (and all those other books you read in the meantime) in order to fully enjoy them. If that is the case, every book you reach for you could be ruining. Forever. It is horrifying if you think about it too much.
What I'm saying is, context is important. The most important. There is not context in The Starless Sea. There is whimsy about stories - the word "stories" is said many many times - and literature themed cocktails and words printed on scraps of paper like scraps of paper have any meaning at all. There are endless repetitions of bees and swords and keys and honey like we are supposed to care about these things because we care about books. But there is nothing here to care about. The library is full of meaningless texts that are destroyed meaninglessly. We are treated to a meaningless insta-love romance and "symbolic" stories within the meaningless stories. It was all just such a waste. You can't put some random words in front of me and force me to care about them. This book wanted me to care about things because it cared about them and it never convinced me....more
Ah yes, I remember now why I found this series so frustrating. The bad guy is bumbling and obvious - there is no subtlety here. We are told he is bad,Ah yes, I remember now why I found this series so frustrating. The bad guy is bumbling and obvious - there is no subtlety here. We are told he is bad, shown he is bad, told he is bad again, read a conversation where someone is like, "But I'm just not sure if he's bad, and anyway it would be treason to say he was bad," shown he is bad. Again. Have another conversation where it would be treason to say he was bad. And then finally, the climax! Where guess what! Turns out...HE WAS BAD!!! Truly a shocking turn of events! Who could have foreseen this!?
I have a weakness for origin stories. The first stumbling steps into power before they are actually powerful. Because of that, I usually like the first book or movie of a series first. I love the setup and getting to know a new world. By the time the second book comes around, we know their weaknesses and their strengths and it is never as interesting. So the first 600 pages of this book were annoying to me, especially with the above "is he bad, yes he's bad, but let's show you again" refrain. However, the climax was AWESOME. I even got close to crying a couple of times.
I am hoping to continue with my momentum here and read the whole series - all 15 books of it. We'll see if that actually happens....more
A quick read. It did not stir many emotions in me, but I think I'll keep going with the series. I love viking shit.A quick read. It did not stir many emotions in me, but I think I'll keep going with the series. I love viking shit....more
This didn't get there for me. I needed it to be more of something though I am not sure what. It was barely mysterious - there were no shocking revelatThis didn't get there for me. I needed it to be more of something though I am not sure what. It was barely mysterious - there were no shocking revelations here. The characters were well separated and I had no problem telling them apart, but also they all kind of sucked and I didn't really care about their little "mystery." In the first 20 pages, a main character discovers she has been adopted and so she automatically distances herself from her family who has raised and loved her for 20 years. That alone was enough to make me dislike her. I'm not adopted, but I still feel like we would care about the people who acted as our parents even if they weren't our parents. Very frustrating.
Lots of extraneous little details that waffled between annoying and charming. The book is overly long because of this, especially when we already know the answer to the mystery from the get-go.
This is a personal preference in the types of stories I read, but delving into women's fertility issues or their urgent desire for a baby or really anything about babies at all I will probably dislike. I disliked it here.
I listened to this on audiobook and the narrator definitely added to my enjoyment of the story, although her voices for men all sounded exactly the same....more
I really REALLY disliked Clariel. Dare I give him another chance?
April 2017:
It was better than Clariel.
Unfortunately, the compliments endOctober 2016:
I really REALLY disliked Clariel. Dare I give him another chance?
April 2017:
It was better than Clariel.
Unfortunately, the compliments end there.
The world falls apart with any closer inspection, and was at its best with Sabriel. Any subsequent information forms more cracks than it fills in and now appears to be balancing precariously.
I am not sure how he has managed to become a worse writer with the years in between these books, but perhaps going into the Middle Reader universe with the Keys of the Kingdom series was a bad idea. He writes to us like we're idiots. These are not young adult books anymore, besides there being some dead creatures, and those have lost all sense of power and presence as the books go on.
I hope you are ready to be bashed over the head with some information because you will be told simple facts over and over again.
The final confrontation was a huge letdown.
Read Sabriel, MAYBE read Lirael and Abhorsen (though I didn't enjoy those nearly as much as Sabriel), and stop there....more
It's funny the things that stick with you. I first read this book while I was an exchange student in France, because it was part of the minimal selectIt's funny the things that stick with you. I first read this book while I was an exchange student in France, because it was part of the minimal selection of English books the school library had. Over the course of the year there, I read every book on that shelf. Foolish me, I had only brought three books along, thinking I would be a good student and only read in French.
It exists in a strange place in my reminiscences. There are certain images that were so crystal clear, but not nearly enough to fill up 1,200 pages of memory. I forgot the title for a few years and only had those strange snapshot memories, until I came across the movie once on Netflix, though I didn't watch it. No one I know has ever heard of this book or the movie. For it being a "Sweeping epic" supposedly on par with Gone With The Wind, you would think there would be...more. It seems to have fallen between the cracks of literature.
All the same, I decided I should read it again. Did I have a fond memory because of the escape it was during my year of exchange, or was it actually a good book?
The first 300 or so pages are the most compelling. For it being an epic love story, as proclaimed by the back of the book, the two lovers spend little time interacting with each other. Most of the love takes the form of pining from far away. By the time the narrative leaves Bhithor, the love story is practically forgotten.
I do think this book is partially to blame for my interest in India, especially as a fantasy setting (the other influence being the movie adaptation of A Little Princess). Get this - M.M. Kaye was 70 when The Far Pavilions was published. Perhaps she wanted to remember her childhood and formative years there. India is described in truly loving terms, almost caressing in how she explains the East, clashing with the West. It is easy to be enchanted by it, to smell the smells, and imagine all the things she describes.
It was just kind of long, though, and the last two hundred pages were especially unworthy to be included. All I could think was maybe she had a relative that fell in the battle she so painstakingly describes. I really didn't care much, as it seems at every opportunity, our hero Ash loses the narrative and it goes off on someone else's point of view, also one of the reasons why there is not much love story.
Overall, I can't recommend it, unless you either really like historical fiction or India....more
Not a great ending to not a great series. The family bloodlines are so damned complicated and I don't know why it was necessary. I didn't just stop caNot a great ending to not a great series. The family bloodlines are so damned complicated and I don't know why it was necessary. I didn't just stop caring about who was related to who, I NEVER cared. And...that's basically what the entire book is about. Bloodlines and weird settings that get described endlessly. I normally love the way Tanith Lee describes stuff but it wore on me big time in this series, maybe because of the narrator's voice.
It felt like half a book. I realize there are sequels, but that shouldn't get you out of creating a book that is partly self-contained.
All of the inteIt felt like half a book. I realize there are sequels, but that shouldn't get you out of creating a book that is partly self-contained.
All of the interactions felt slightly OFF to me. Nothing about the dialogue landed quite right. I could almost chalk that up to being on purpose, but there weren't quite enough hints dropped to make that possible. Instead, it was just really stilted.
I have a deep, abiding mistrust of second person narration. One chapter here or there is all I can manage before intense judgment and grimaces. Almost a third of the book was in second person narration. Ugh....more
This was a struggle to get through. I ended up resorting to a goal of 10 pages a day to make it to the end. It gets 2 stars because there was some evoThis was a struggle to get through. I ended up resorting to a goal of 10 pages a day to make it to the end. It gets 2 stars because there was some evocative imagery that is going to stay with me, but there is no story. No story at all.
My favorite line was: "Smoke exited the chimneys in remarkably thin and solid lines. The children took note of this for their future drawing." It encapsulated the smoke and the children and the drawings we all know from children that draw smoke like that in very few words.
Actually, the story is New York City. If you don't really care about New York City, you probably won't love this book, because there is nothing else. There's no climax or denouement or characters we care about. There's just New York....more
I've never been so proud to have read a book. I'm checking this one off as a life goal. Look at all those shelves I can put it under! That is truly epI've never been so proud to have read a book. I'm checking this one off as a life goal. Look at all those shelves I can put it under! That is truly epic....more
I would say probably more like 3.5. It was really readable and I couldn't put it down. Because of the story telling method, however, none of the charaI would say probably more like 3.5. It was really readable and I couldn't put it down. Because of the story telling method, however, none of the characters ever managed to leave the page. It was mostly other people telling stories about what had just happened in letter form. Because of that, it never became an emotional mother/daughter tale to me.
But then again, I have unresolved issues with my own mom, so maybe it has more to do with me as a person than as a reader.
Also, it took place in Seattle, which everyone in Portland always likes to politely poke fun at. On top of that, though none of the action takes place here, there is a lot of mention of "Lakeside High School." This happens to be where my brother works. That made it a little more awesome, as I wasn't expecting it at all....more
I skipped the last 100 or so pages as it got into a lot of stuff about poetry that I had little interest in. Probably really interesting from a historI skipped the last 100 or so pages as it got into a lot of stuff about poetry that I had little interest in. Probably really interesting from a historical stand point but just not much of a page turner.
I'm reading this for a class called Northern European Mythology. The professor had us start here because the prose is a little easier to penetrate than poetry, and she is spending a lot of time explaining what the hell all the gods are up to. The names and such can get really confusing.
But let me tell you, this has NOTHING on the poetic Edda. The poetic Edda is like, WOW, and this is, well ok. It would have been nearly impossible to jump straight into the poetic Edda though, so this is a really great starting point if you are interested in learning more about Norse mythology. Just don't ignore the poetic Edda....more
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