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3.9 AVERAGE
3.9 AVERAGE
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
adventurous
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Wow. Can’t believe I’ve never read this, it was so good!! Great attention to detail throughout. Wonderful description of life and combat in submarines. Can’t wait to watch the movie now.
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
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
Good book, very exciting. But a long read - I'm disinclined to re-read it.
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Nothing but propaganda with poor story telling. Americans good and everyone else is bad. Brown people are savages. Russian women are ugly. Racism doesn’t exist. Neither does poverty. Everyone wants to be Americans. Americans would never attack or kidnap. He even used the phrase “American Dream.”
It reads like a submarine manual for half of the book and then a “day in the work life of” for the other half. Pacing is bogged down with tons of jargon and textbook explanations of EVERYTHING and much of it is repetitive. You learn nothing about the characters and therefore do not connect to them. Yeah, there is some action but not enough to make it worth the read.
Think of it like reading the movie “fast and furious” and about 60 percent of it is details on how cars work, how to repair them, how to upgrade them. I’m talking details on how to change the oil step by step and so on. Then imagine that 35 percent of the story is them talking about their plan and doing so in detail. The last 5 percent is just normal book and action. Now imagine that but with submarines and the military. Unless you like all the details you aren’t gonna like the book.
Movie is way better.
It reads like a submarine manual for half of the book and then a “day in the work life of” for the other half. Pacing is bogged down with tons of jargon and textbook explanations of EVERYTHING and much of it is repetitive. You learn nothing about the characters and therefore do not connect to them. Yeah, there is some action but not enough to make it worth the read.
Think of it like reading the movie “fast and furious” and about 60 percent of it is details on how cars work, how to repair them, how to upgrade them. I’m talking details on how to change the oil step by step and so on. Then imagine that 35 percent of the story is them talking about their plan and doing so in detail. The last 5 percent is just normal book and action. Now imagine that but with submarines and the military. Unless you like all the details you aren’t gonna like the book.
Movie is way better.
adventurous
informative
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
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
Some good action, but I couldn't get over the extreme nationalist bs
adventurous
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated