Reviews

The Ivory Tower by Kirstin Pulioff

marieby's review

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5.0

Amazing dystopian short story. This story just leaves you wanting more. One of the best short stories I've ever read.

gianouts's review

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4.0

Well written short story with excellent scene setting in a dystopian world akin to Nazi concentration camps. I felt that the book ended too quickly and felt myself wanting more.

cassie_jean's review

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3.0

This short story reminded me of Harrison Bergeron.

kcrosswriting's review

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3.0

This is a really fast read that was enjoyable to read.

There were several things I liked about Ivory Tower. Pulioff has great characters here. They have traits that stay very consistent. The MC, Simone, is a stubborn, independent orphan. I liked those characteristics because then I rooted for her. Her friend Christine was sufficiently wary and stayed that way.

Organizationally, it felt like a pretty well put together story.

She builds the suspense over The Ivory Tower really well. I couldn't wait to see what that was about.

Overall, however, it lacked a sense of originality from the rest of the dystopian stories that I've read. This didn't make it a bad read, but it didn't make it one that stuck out, either. By the time we actually got into the anticipated Ivory Tower, I had already predicted what would be in there.

Puliof created a dystopian world, but with such a short space for storytelling, the details were given in a way that felt anti climactic and similar to other stories. How many ways can the world end, I guess?

To give Puliof credit, it's hard to create any kind of original dystopian world, especially in a novella, but that's always what I was hoping for. The ending was good because it was realistic, but again, not surprising.

At the end of the day, it was an enjoyable read, one that was fast and easy. Because of this novella, I plan to read more of Pulioff's work, and already have her other full length novel on my Kindle to read.
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