bookshelves: to-read
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bookshelves: 2009-read, bookclub-induced, picks, sci-fi
LOVED the first 5/6 of this book. It's everything a book should be: mysterious, a slowly revealed story, an engaging situation, interesting characters, and good solid writing.
...but I hated the ending. Right in the middle of the most important part of the book, the author just gave up and didn't write an ending. Instead we get a cop-out "this is all we found of a historical document and we'll never know the true ending". Bah to that. That's just laziness. It's possible to write a story without filling out the ending, but in this case there was too much build-up and not enough release. Left me unsatisfied. I'll never read it again because of this, which is a shame because the rest of the novel is so incredibly good. ]]>
bookshelves: 2009-read, fantasy, picks
Dear Mr Sanderson:
Have some commas, on the house ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,;;;;;;;
(and some semi-colons for good measure)
I'm going to give this 3.5 stars and round up to 4. The first half of the book was slow for me, and the writing style kept throwing me out of the story. As much as I loved Sanderson's Mistborn series, he uses a LOT of choppy sentences here.
But about halfway through the writing picked up, the plot picked up, and for the first time in about 3 books THE STORY ACTUALLY MOVED. Yeah, I know, I'm excited too. I thought some of the plot lines were nicely carried/resolved, and I can't wait to read the next book. I have hopes that Sanderson will be able to finish this beautifully and we'll all just shun book #10. ]]>
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bookshelves: currently-reading
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bookshelves: 2009-read, pans, sci-fi
This is a short book, so in theory it shouldn't take me long to read. But here I am, working on it for over 2 weeks and I'm only about 100 pages in... It just doesn't seem as robust after reading the Mistborn series. I think I need a little more recovery time from that series. Maybe I'll move on to the new WOT book (releases tomorrow!) and come back to this later.
Jesus, it took me almost a month to get through this thing. Thought the entire thing was pretty mediocre. Having read several Clarke books, Rama is still the only one I really care for. His books are far too sterile for my tastes, though intriguing ideas usually surface. ]]>
bookshelves: gave-up
I'm partway through this and I'm kinda stalled. At first I was enjoying reading about how "different" and "uber-mensch" John is. Now I'm just bored with reading the same thing over and over and over. Not sure I'll ever finish this. ]]>
bookshelves: to-read
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bookshelves: 2009-read, pans, sci-fi
The first half of this book was really fun, the whole idea of creating a “reflex” in a jumper (much like Pavlov’s dog) was interesting as a training method. The latter half took a nose dive for me.
It seems like the two protagonists have unending knowledge about all things – so much so that it pulled me out of the story because it was odd. Like Millie knowing what type of shingles were on the roof of the house; not just that she knew what they would feel/smell like, but that she knew the name of the type of shingle. The unending description of the planes and boat using boat/plane-specific terminology that I don’t know and don’t care to know. David seems to know absolutely everything there is to know about the corrupted police and thieves around the Venezuelan airport. It was a recurring thing throughout the book and it really bothered me.
For the record, I’m roughly the same age as Millie in the book, I’ve been with my husband for just shy of 10 years, we don’t have kids, and my training is also in psychology (though I’m working as an accountant). Now, on the complaints
The other thing I had an issue with is how every other word out of Millie’s mouth was how badly she wanted kids. And Millie and David both spend a large portion of their inner dialogs lamenting the fact that they were unable to have sex with the other person. Really? You’ve been married 10 years and your husband (who works as a spy for the NSA) disappears, and you only miss the physical part of the relationship?? And keep droning on and on and on about it like a 16-year-old not experienced with sex? It would have been nice to see the characters mature a little bit. Sure, sex is a big thing in a relationship, but it’s not the primary reason I would miss my husband. And I wouldn’t walk by playgrounds and bemoan the fact that he didn’t “knock me up” (her words) before he got kidnapped.
And while I’m complaining, I may as well complain about the use of the word “girlfriend” every time the characters were trying to be sassy.
The ending was a little too neat and tidy for me too – it read like a bad rom-com movie, where everything is wrapped up neatly and the girl finally gets a baby. Bah. Two stars just because I really liked the first half of the book.
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