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3.85 AVERAGE
3.85 AVERAGE
4 stars out of 5
The ground Hog day trope is one of my favorite tropes of all time, and as I have seen Dark recently, I was Craving something in that genre and after some research, I found this book.
The Movie "Edge of Tomorrow" was made based on this book.
Although there were some noticeable differences like the ending and the ethnicity of the main character.
The action scenes were fun to read about . The only problem I had was the ending, I was craving more of the story but unfortunately, the book ended.
All in all a fun Popcorn book.
“Our lives should be written in stone. Paper is too temporary— too easy to rewrite.”
In composing this review, I made every effort to find think of a story to which it compared, but came up completely empty. My apologies.
Please enjoy this randomly selected image.
In whichdisgruntled news anchor, Bill Murray, below-average grunt, Kiriya, is forced to relive the same day over and over again to become a better person, and through the power of repetition become a selfless Renaissance Man/community lynchpin supersoldier. The author compared his thoughts about the process to Groundhog Day playing video games, and it really is a perfect analogy. Over several repetitions, having been killed over and over again, one gradually becomes better at deflecting life-insurance salesmen a game, able to anticipate the movements of an opponent, until the ability to navigate through set pieces becomes mechanical.
The book has been adapted into a movie, starringBill Murray Tom Cruise and Andie MacDowell Emily Blunt with the considerably less ass-kicking title, Edge of Tomorrow.
This photo depicts Tom Cruise in full makeup as theuppity meteoroligist title character for the film adaptation.
The reasonMurray Kiriya repeats these days is utterly unexplained and deemed irrelevant to the main character's redemption tied directly to the slow invasion and terraforming humanity has endured for decades. The invaders are not preparing a world for themselves, but another species altogether. While discussing this from an omiscient viewpoint (the story is otherwise told from the perspective of Kiriya, Rita, or third person narrating for Rita) the author very pointedly raises the question of whether or not it is ethical to destroy a species for the sake of one's own needs only to have that position shouted down in favor of invasion.
The book is speedily paced, as one might expect from a book with battle at its heart, to the degree that when characters are built up outside of action sequences the story slows to a crawl. Fortunately, the overall work is short and the effort to muscle through these bits of exposition is minimal.
Murray's Kiriya's sense of isolation and melancholy grow steadily as his repetitions increase, as one might expect in an existence where every reset wipes clean the events of the days prior for everyone but himself. His frustration becomes more apparent in his romantic encounters with Andie MacDowell romantic encounters with Rita Vrataski, the resident supersoldier, yet they never fully manifest as his entire purpose in this book is to teach himself to sculpt ice with a chainsaw single-handedly win the battle and, hopefully, break the cycle of repetition.
There are hints of sexism, as one might expect in the frustrated world ofsmall-town society a mostly-male regiment from the perspective of a misogynistic and entitled news princess late-teen boy, and while this improves as the book goes on, the main character seems to consider women implicitly through his evaluation of them as sexual objects. There's not necessarily anything wrong with this characterization (Murray Kiriya is something of a schmuck), it initially comes off as anime fan service.
The conclusion is never in doubt(Murray gets the girl and learns to play the piano), but that never deters the reader from wanting to learn about the process. The book makes sure to say the requisite bits about the wonders of small-town, rural life horrors of war, and wraps up with the predictable yet satisfying conclusion, and tries to shoehorn some sentiment into the end.
Please enjoy this randomly selected image.
In which
The book has been adapted into a movie, starring
This photo depicts Tom Cruise in full makeup as the
The reason
The book is speedily paced, as one might expect from a book with battle at its heart, to the degree that when characters are built up outside of action sequences the story slows to a crawl. Fortunately, the overall work is short and the effort to muscle through these bits of exposition is minimal.
There are hints of sexism, as one might expect in the frustrated world of
The conclusion is never in doubt
Perhaps I'm doing a bit of the heavy lifting here, but I thought this was a searing, sardonic look at the atrocity of war and the horror of PTSD. Also there were mech suits, kaiju aliens, and battle glaives!
CONTENT WARNING: (no actual spoilers, just a list of topics)
Things to love:
-The tone. This translation was excellent. It read seamlessly, and got a lot of humor and sarcasm in there to boot, which is the hardest thing to translate in a way that feels natural. I thought this book nailed it. I was shocked and over my head, I was confused, I was angry, determined, desperate, hopeful and doomed at intervals. And throughout there was this sort of Catch-22-esque undercurrent that this is both tragically futile and dangerously funny.
-The characters. Rita, the sergeant, the mechanic (sorry, I listened to the audiobook and names aren't my strong suit) were all very interesting. I liked seeing a Japanese take on stereotypes and positive characteristics. It was just "not western" enough that I had things to think about during more predictable plot points.
-The imagery. Friends, this is about a very unstable dude in a mech suit with a battle axe, and his even more badass battle-axe wielding lady friend. That's just fun. But aside from that, a lot of the aliens, futuristic elements and the world we glimpse is startling and full of implications.
-Examination of the trauma of war. For the vast majority of the book this felt like the story of someone trying to cope with PTSD, and I thought it was told in a way that resonated with a lot of my knowledge on the topic. It felt bleak but also had a "well, what else are you going to do?" sense to it that felt very honest to people struggling with mental health issues. It wasn't an easy thing to read, but I thought it handled that well.
Things that weren't the best (caution, some spoilers--headings are safe):
-Plot familiarity. It's Groundhog Day meets Catch-22 with mech suits. You know how this story is going to go.
-Overlong battles. The battles weren't the interesting part. As with all stories of this ilk, the psychology of the person stuck in time is what's fascinating. I thought the battles were well-described, but they weren't really what I was here for, after the first few kills so that I could enjoy the battle axe mech component.
-The ending. This was the only point that I'm not sure the translation was perfect. The end came on a bit abruptly and I'm not sure how or why this was what their solution had to be. It also kind of shattered the allegory I had going on (real spoiler), which was one of the things I enjoyed about the ongoing story.
A 3.5 star read rounded up because I was pleasantly surprised and would recommend this to others who like these types of stories. I also can recommend the audiobook, which I thought was well performed.
Note : I'm aware that the author has stated he just wanted to write a book with game kills/ saves as the plot device, and that's disappointing to me, but art is always a conversation and I am happy with me take on it.
CONTENT WARNING: (no actual spoilers, just a list of topics)
Spoiler
graphic violence, war, racism, depiction of mental illness, loss of a loved one.Things to love:
-The tone. This translation was excellent. It read seamlessly, and got a lot of humor and sarcasm in there to boot, which is the hardest thing to translate in a way that feels natural. I thought this book nailed it. I was shocked and over my head, I was confused, I was angry, determined, desperate, hopeful and doomed at intervals. And throughout there was this sort of Catch-22-esque undercurrent that this is both tragically futile and dangerously funny.
-The characters. Rita, the sergeant, the mechanic (sorry, I listened to the audiobook and names aren't my strong suit) were all very interesting. I liked seeing a Japanese take on stereotypes and positive characteristics. It was just "not western" enough that I had things to think about during more predictable plot points.
-The imagery. Friends, this is about a very unstable dude in a mech suit with a battle axe, and his even more badass battle-axe wielding lady friend. That's just fun. But aside from that, a lot of the aliens, futuristic elements and the world we glimpse is startling and full of implications.
-Examination of the trauma of war. For the vast majority of the book this felt like the story of someone trying to cope with PTSD, and I thought it was told in a way that resonated with a lot of my knowledge on the topic. It felt bleak but also had a "well, what else are you going to do?" sense to it that felt very honest to people struggling with mental health issues. It wasn't an easy thing to read, but I thought it handled that well.
Things that weren't the best (caution, some spoilers--headings are safe):
-Plot familiarity. It's Groundhog Day meets Catch-22 with mech suits. You know how this story is going to go.
-Overlong battles. The battles weren't the interesting part. As with all stories of this ilk, the psychology of the person stuck in time is what's fascinating. I thought the battles were well-described, but they weren't really what I was here for, after the first few kills so that I could enjoy the battle axe mech component.
-The ending. This was the only point that I'm not sure the translation was perfect. The end came on a bit abruptly and I'm not sure how or why this was what their solution had to be. It also kind of shattered the allegory I had going on (real spoiler)
Spoiler
that Keijei was experiencing trauma that kept him locked forever in his headA 3.5 star read rounded up because I was pleasantly surprised and would recommend this to others who like these types of stories. I also can recommend the audiobook, which I thought was well performed.
Note : I'm aware that the author has stated he just wanted to write a book with game kills/ saves as the plot device, and that's disappointing to me, but art is always a conversation and I am happy with me take on it.
3 1/2 stars. Minus a half point for the unnecessary and poorly written descriptions of all the women's boobs!
Yeah, this rocked. What a fantastic twist on the concept of a time loop. I loved that the main character leveraged it in a way to use the extra time to his advantage, rather than just plotting out and predicting each detail of the day. The world building was amazing, from the aliens to the technology. Loved all the smaller details, such as the need for a universal language within the UDF.
Rita is one of the top women characters of all time, she was so cool and didn't apologize for it. I think the author wrote her in a way that showed me her skills, rather than just telling me. The same with the main character, it really felt that he was building that base over time.
I'll admit, while I respected the ending, I don't love the mechanism that was used to get there.
Yeah, this rocked. What a fantastic twist on the concept of a time loop. I loved that the main character leveraged it in a way to use the extra time to his advantage, rather than just plotting out and predicting each detail of the day. The world building was amazing, from the aliens to the technology. Loved all the smaller details, such as the need for a universal language within the UDF.
Rita is one of the top women characters of all time, she was so cool and didn't apologize for it. I think the author wrote her in a way that showed me her skills, rather than just telling me. The same with the main character, it really felt that he was building that base over time.
I'll admit, while I respected the ending, I don't love the mechanism that was used to get there.
Spoiler
The whole "I've just come up with a theory that only one of us can make out," seemed pretty flimsy. They were the only two people who had ever experienced it, so it seems strange to be so rigidly set on that idea. However, symbolically, it made a lot of sense that there could only be one, playing back into the theme of creating a "false hero."
it took a while for this to get going for me. i really liked the back story of the creatures, and the ending. some of the gender politics were a little too backwards for my taste.
I liked this more then the movie which I'd seen before reading.
Exciting, interesting and entertaining sci-fi thriller novel. Very quick read. Loved it.
All You Need is Kill is a very cool title but as it turns out it makes as little sense as Edge of Tomorrow in relation to the content of the novel. Or film.
A thoroughly enjoyable sci-fi actioner that shares more than it's quota of similarities to Heinlein's Starship Troopers (the book people, not the movie) as a green cadet learns to become a dedicated killing machine of alien beings. Only with a fun computer game style reboot time travel gimmick. Killer Cage is a fun creation and his growth is handled with skill and subtle precision, whilst despite the alien killing premise there are very few battle scenes to bore the pants off of those of us who don't go much in for bloodshed and carnage.
It's a fun, fast read and sufficiently different from the Tom Cruise movie to make this a highly worthwhile experience.
A thoroughly enjoyable sci-fi actioner that shares more than it's quota of similarities to Heinlein's Starship Troopers (the book people, not the movie) as a green cadet learns to become a dedicated killing machine of alien beings. Only with a fun computer game style reboot time travel gimmick. Killer Cage is a fun creation and his growth is handled with skill and subtle precision, whilst despite the alien killing premise there are very few battle scenes to bore the pants off of those of us who don't go much in for bloodshed and carnage.
It's a fun, fast read and sufficiently different from the Tom Cruise movie to make this a highly worthwhile experience.