Reviews

All Clear by Connie Willis

klparmley's review against another edition

4.0

I want to read this series again, knowing who I will see again later.

julowe's review against another edition

4.0

A decent historical fiction novel. The dithering characters are frustrating, setting up a false tension - 'will they succeed despite themselves?' vs succeeding against circumstances.

katieinca's review against another edition

4.0

Definitely the second half of one giant book, not to be read in isolation.
Takes a long time to rev up, and also a long time to figure out what's happening to whom, but some of that is intentionally mysterious. Then it hits its stride and you can't put it down for, oh, I don't know, six hundred pages or so. Great finagling of character and setting and OF COURSE timelines. I learned A TON about World War II, and I enjoyed it, which was... unlikely.
But the "oh no we've destroyed the universe" "oh wait everything is fine" and repeat ad infinitum gets a little wearing eventually. There's a lot of heart in this book, as much as it's a bit bogged down in its own time travel theory whatchamawhozits.

sophie_rose's review

3.75

Love all of the characters, gripped by the story and guessing how everything would turn out.

bananabary92's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

kendallpenn's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

ruthalice's review against another edition

adventurous informative tense fast-paced

4.5

This is a two part story about a group of historians sent to various parts of World War 2 and find themselves in a tricky situation. 

It’s incredibly well researched and the author is a great story teller (although has a  slightly annoying habit of leaving every chapter on a cliffhanger). Despite both being pretty long books - I just didn’t want them to end. If you’re not interested in time travel or life in WW2 it won’t be for you as it doesn’t have any other features that are particularly outstanding (ie no great romance, no unusual writing style or huge plot twists).

dancinrio's review

5.0

Don’t think that you can just read this book without reading Blackout first. It is absolutely not a stand alone novel, it is the 2nd part of one enormous book which has been split across two books.

Having said that, I very much enjoyed the whole.

grayjay's review against another edition

3.0

I found it difficult to get through this book and it was mostly the sense of completion, it being the fourth book in this series, that got me through.

Somewhere in the two long books that make up the expasive Blackout/All Clear duo is one good shorter novel. There are very strong and likeable characters, there is a good overarching story, and there is good historical research.

Unfortunately, the good parts are overshadowed by tedious dialogue, internal monologue, and extremely repetitive actions and plot points. The characters are constantly reviewing possibilities: if I hadn't done this, than this wouldn't have happened, so this wouldn't have happened and this wouldn't have happened. If so and so hadn't done this than this would have happened. I know it's a novel about time travel and possibilities, but it's excruciatingly repetitive.

runsforcoffee's review

adventurous emotional mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0