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3.9 AVERAGE
3.9 AVERAGE
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
N/A
adventurous
challenging
informative
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
informative
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
medium-paced
This was a tough one. The closest I’ve come to a DNF in a long while.
I went in with the expectation that it was going to be a five star read for me. I was looking forward to diving into a Tom Clancy novel for a long long time. I don’t think this has discouraged me from trying another, but it’s certainly made me put off starting another for a while. With these being one of the more renowned books, and a shorted one at that, it seemed like the perfect place to start. I’ll read Without Remorse next, and if that doesn’t hit, I might have to give up on Tom Clancy for a while.
I’m a character first reader, so naturally my biggest problem with this was how little I felt attached to any of the characters in this. Jack Ryan is fine, but hardly enough to command the attention of a reader for the length of this novel. Every other character really fell flat for me. Most are just throw away characters that are inserted in order to explain something.
Which leads me into my second problem, and maybe my biggest problem. The detail. I usually love a good detailed novel, but there is so much explanation of every nut, bolt, and rivet that it was just too much to absorb. I couldn’t hold any information, and every bit of it seemed like reading words for the sake of reading words. Maybe that’s just a me problem and I’m not smart enough to retain such details. But there are huge sections of this that did not carry any weight. I couldn’t down for hours and read pages upon pages, and when I was done, I couldn’t even say that the story was moved forward. That really killed this for me and made it such a slog.
Biggest disappointment of 2024 so far.
I went in with the expectation that it was going to be a five star read for me. I was looking forward to diving into a Tom Clancy novel for a long long time. I don’t think this has discouraged me from trying another, but it’s certainly made me put off starting another for a while. With these being one of the more renowned books, and a shorted one at that, it seemed like the perfect place to start. I’ll read Without Remorse next, and if that doesn’t hit, I might have to give up on Tom Clancy for a while.
I’m a character first reader, so naturally my biggest problem with this was how little I felt attached to any of the characters in this. Jack Ryan is fine, but hardly enough to command the attention of a reader for the length of this novel. Every other character really fell flat for me. Most are just throw away characters that are inserted in order to explain something.
Which leads me into my second problem, and maybe my biggest problem. The detail. I usually love a good detailed novel, but there is so much explanation of every nut, bolt, and rivet that it was just too much to absorb. I couldn’t hold any information, and every bit of it seemed like reading words for the sake of reading words. Maybe that’s just a me problem and I’m not smart enough to retain such details. But there are huge sections of this that did not carry any weight. I couldn’t down for hours and read pages upon pages, and when I was done, I couldn’t even say that the story was moved forward. That really killed this for me and made it such a slog.
Biggest disappointment of 2024 so far.
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A classic thriller novel that spawned a whole genre, I primarily read "The Hunt for Red October" as part of my submarine reading list. There were almost too many twists to follow, and certainly a lot of characters to keep track of, but it was engrossing, to say the least. There is just enough history and naval action sprinkled in to keep it interesting, while being wholly a work of fiction.
adventurous
tense
medium-paced