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3.58 AVERAGE
3.58 AVERAGE
I might have been predisposed to like this book more if I hadn’t first read the author’s “Acknowledgements” that come at the end of the book. I found the second sentence, where she states that if you didn’t enjoy the book or if it didn't make sense to you, she'll come over to your house and act it out with finger puppets, to be condescending and insulting to her readers. I have a right to dislike a book without the author claiming I need it explained to me with finger puppets. That aside, the first 60 to 70 pages of the book felt like warmed-over, imitation Neil Gaiman, mixed in with a little Jonathan Carroll. Also straining my patience, this book contains the most unbelievable parental figures outside of a Roald Dahl story. But unfortunately Charlie Jane Anders doesn’t have any of the wit, style or imagination of those esteemed authors. I felt things got a little better story-wise around page 70 but still, there were many times I just wanted to quit this book and get on to something better. Part of my wanting to give up on the book was due to the author’s clunky writing style, which at times felt like the author was trying too hard to be hip. I also grew bored with the characters. It’s not that I disliked them, I just didn’t really believe in them. In summary, all I can say is that it must have been a poor year for science fiction if this won the Nebula award.
adventurous
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Late to the party, but this book is densely packed with wonder. I enjoyed every word.
This is a wacky, brilliant, joyous mess of a story that packs some huge ideas into a narrative that is part fantasy, part dystopia, part teenage love story. In a pinch you could say it's [b:Neuromancer|22328|Neuromancer|William Gibson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1167348726s/22328.jpg|909457] meets [b:The Magicians|6101718|The Magicians (The Magicians #1)|Lev Grossman|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1313772941s/6101718.jpg|6278977], but Anders layers on a fairytale style that is funny and tender, and her version of the near future is disturbingly plausible. You just have to go with it.
I feel like if I had read this when I was 14 it might have been my favorite book for a while. (But maybe don't go willynilly buying it for 14-year-olds, because there is weirdly a lot of sex.)
This book was wildly inconsistent. There were parts I really loved, parts I disliked, and a lot of parts that confused me. It's a mess of a book in kind-of a cool way, but I can't personally help but to wish that Charlie Jane Anders could have just decided that this was written for adults and not tried to make large parts of it some kind of weird YA paean to misfit tweens. She has a real way with language; I continuously found myself going back to reread particularly tickling lines or whole passages, but by the same token it felt like she just didn't know when to stop, an endless barrage of characters introduced with whimsical descriptions, or couldn't help herself from throwing in witty epithets in wholly inappropriate places. There are seriously parts of this book that are going to stick with me for the rest of my life, and also I think it's a solid 3.5.
This book was wildly inconsistent. There were parts I really loved, parts I disliked, and a lot of parts that confused me. It's a mess of a book in kind-of a cool way, but I can't personally help but to wish that Charlie Jane Anders could have just decided that this was written for adults and not tried to make large parts of it some kind of weird YA paean to misfit tweens. She has a real way with language; I continuously found myself going back to reread particularly tickling lines or whole passages, but by the same token it felt like she just didn't know when to stop, an endless barrage of characters introduced with whimsical descriptions, or couldn't help herself from throwing in witty epithets in wholly inappropriate places. There are seriously parts of this book that are going to stick with me for the rest of my life, and also I think it's a solid 3.5.
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
4.5 stars. Really enjoyed this! Good story about magic, science and nature intersecting near the apocalypse.
It was a book full of interesting ideas and a lot of potential.
However, a considerable chunk of the plot happened "behind the scenes" - our understanding of much of the main conflict is supposed to come from the characters reminiscing and their reflection on past events. I think it's supposed to signify that the constant "nature-vs-technology" war is irrelevant and the only thing that matters, the only thing that can save the world is love or empathy.
Unfortunately, this writing style just comes across as lazy, especially because the author is quite happy to spend a good chunk on detailing the childhood bullying of the main characters. Which is quite harrowing to read and then it becomes quite irrelevant in the second half of the book. Sure, it cements the idea of the two main characters staying loyal to each other. But if developed a bit more, this traumatic childhood experience could have fleshed the characters out more, especially as they became "superpowered" over the course of the book. It could have given an interesting nuance to the characters, the way they could have fallen back on bad coping mechanisms, developed during childhood, as their power, their importance and their responsibilities grew.
The author also glides over the part where the main characters are supposed to fall in love, which means that the book doesn't even hold up as much of a romance. We are just supposed to believe that the two characters are madly in love, but we never see them enjoy each others' company one small bit. At first they hang out due to sheer necessity, then they are being awkward around each other then there's a time skip and suddenly they are in love. There's a bit of chemistry between the characters, sure, but it's often undermined by the fact that they are constantly being horrid to each other.
All in all, the story reads as if the author was on a deadline or had a limit to her word count and she had edited out the wrong parts of her book in a hurry to finish it.
However, the chunky style does lend a certain kind of dynamism to the book. The author has an enjoyable writing style and if you don't mind too much that you have to invent much of the plot yourself while the author just gives you a couple flashes of it and you have to string together the story from these context clues, then you will probably have a good time.
However, a considerable chunk of the plot happened "behind the scenes" - our understanding of much of the main conflict is supposed to come from the characters reminiscing and their reflection on past events. I think it's supposed to signify that the constant "nature-vs-technology" war is irrelevant and the only thing that matters, the only thing that can save the world is love or empathy.
Unfortunately, this writing style just comes across as lazy, especially because the author is quite happy to spend a good chunk on detailing the childhood bullying of the main characters. Which is quite harrowing to read and then it becomes quite irrelevant in the second half of the book. Sure, it cements the idea of the two main characters staying loyal to each other. But if developed a bit more, this traumatic childhood experience could have fleshed the characters out more, especially as they became "superpowered" over the course of the book. It could have given an interesting nuance to the characters, the way they could have fallen back on bad coping mechanisms, developed during childhood, as their power, their importance and their responsibilities grew.
All in all, the story reads as if the author was on a deadline or had a limit to her word count and she had edited out the wrong parts of her book in a hurry to finish it.
However, the chunky style does lend a certain kind of dynamism to the book. The author has an enjoyable writing style and if you don't mind too much that you have to invent much of the plot yourself while the author just gives you a couple flashes of it and you have to string together the story from these context clues, then you will probably have a good time.
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes