Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.99 AVERAGE
3.99 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
Incredibly clever concept/arc, dull in places yet intriguing in others.
I’m not entirely sure I get it, I think I do, but who knows 🤔
It took an age to get through but I’m glad I persevered!
📖☁️📖
I’m not entirely sure I get it, I think I do, but who knows 🤔
It took an age to get through but I’m glad I persevered!
📖☁️📖
This was a really long read but man, I loved it. It was shocking, really difficult to follow, confusing, sad but so brilliant. It was definitely worth it.
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Disclaimer: I won this book in a Goodreads FirstReads giveaway.
Probably the worst book I've been able to finish in a long time.
Cloud Atlas is six short stories blended together to form one novel. You read the first half of each short story, then there's a weird middle story (I didn't touch it, I'll explain why), and then you read the second half of each short story in reverse order. I didn't find any pretty connections created by this format, and it just left me struggling to recap what had happened when I had previously read the story. The stories move in chronological order (and then reverse chronological order). Also, there are similarities (a birthmark shaped like a comet shows up in every story, and each character reads about the next (or previous) story in their world.
The stories all share similar themes of hierarchy. What are the implications of hierarchy? How the hell are these hierarchies forming? Why? and so on. Nothing particular interesting or new here, just kind of interesting to watch the hierarchies change throughout the stories.
The largest strength here is the variety of Mitchell's voice. Honestly, aside from the thematic similarities and connections, I would struggle to realize that these were all written by the same author if they were separated. His voice, setting, and characters, point of view, narration style, all change drastically from one story to the other. It's interesting and does show that definitely has some writing talent.
The redeeming parts of this book are the characters. They're all volatile (but don't break their own character's logic or act crazily), and then there are a lot of them. Mix them all together, and voila. The stories were unpredictable and interesting as you followed the main character (except for the last story and the middle story). It was twisty and fun, kinda like a science-fiction thriller.
Unfortunately, the tension is broken by the weird halving of the stories. Also, this is written in that "complex science-fiction" style that I absolutely detest. You're thrown in media res , but in a disorienting and sharply jarring manner. It's kind of stream-of-consciousness style, and we are thrown proper nouns, locations, and references without any explanation. If you grin and keep moving through it, you'll get it eventually. But it's such a horrible feeling to finally get into the rhythm of a story, get interested in a rapidly moving, volatile plot and characters, only to have it reach the halfway point and you sadly watch the rug fly out from under your feet. Then you have to do it again. Also, the last (then first) story doesn't feature this redeeming quality at all. It's a trite, predictable tale of a dystopian future where clones start attaining conscience/awareness/whatever generic term you wanna use from this kinda thing. The main character is a clone achieving this "human" quality for the first time, so she's very stiff and detached. This means it doesn't have the tension, snap, or pull of the other stories. Also, the plot moves in a really trope-like manner. There was nothing there that hadn't been done already in a million mediocre Young Adult dystopian novels. I know this was written before that trend, but it still sucks reading it now, and to be honest, all of this was already done in George Orwell's 1984 anyways, so let's just move on already.
I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, but I still finished it. Thanks Goodreads FirstReads giveaway.
Probably the worst book I've been able to finish in a long time.
Cloud Atlas is six short stories blended together to form one novel. You read the first half of each short story, then there's a weird middle story (I didn't touch it, I'll explain why), and then you read the second half of each short story in reverse order. I didn't find any pretty connections created by this format, and it just left me struggling to recap what had happened when I had previously read the story. The stories move in chronological order (and then reverse chronological order). Also, there are similarities (a birthmark shaped like a comet shows up in every story, and each character reads about the next (or previous) story in their world.
The stories all share similar themes of hierarchy. What are the implications of hierarchy? How the hell are these hierarchies forming? Why? and so on. Nothing particular interesting or new here, just kind of interesting to watch the hierarchies change throughout the stories.
The largest strength here is the variety of Mitchell's voice. Honestly, aside from the thematic similarities and connections, I would struggle to realize that these were all written by the same author if they were separated. His voice, setting, and characters, point of view, narration style, all change drastically from one story to the other. It's interesting and does show that definitely has some writing talent.
The redeeming parts of this book are the characters. They're all volatile (but don't break their own character's logic or act crazily), and then there are a lot of them. Mix them all together, and voila. The stories were unpredictable and interesting as you followed the main character (except for the last story and the middle story). It was twisty and fun, kinda like a science-fiction thriller.
Unfortunately, the tension is broken by the weird halving of the stories. Also, this is written in that "complex science-fiction" style that I absolutely detest. You're thrown in media res , but in a disorienting and sharply jarring manner. It's kind of stream-of-consciousness style, and we are thrown proper nouns, locations, and references without any explanation. If you grin and keep moving through it, you'll get it eventually. But it's such a horrible feeling to finally get into the rhythm of a story, get interested in a rapidly moving, volatile plot and characters, only to have it reach the halfway point and you sadly watch the rug fly out from under your feet. Then you have to do it again. Also, the last (then first) story doesn't feature this redeeming quality at all. It's a trite, predictable tale of a dystopian future where clones start attaining conscience/awareness/whatever generic term you wanna use from this kinda thing. The main character is a clone achieving this "human" quality for the first time, so she's very stiff and detached. This means it doesn't have the tension, snap, or pull of the other stories. Also, the plot moves in a really trope-like manner. There was nothing there that hadn't been done already in a million mediocre Young Adult dystopian novels. I know this was written before that trend, but it still sucks reading it now, and to be honest, all of this was already done in George Orwell's 1984 anyways, so let's just move on already.
I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, but I still finished it. Thanks Goodreads FirstReads giveaway.
challenging
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This was a hard book to rate. I found the first half of the book super hard to get into, but the cliffhangers kept me interested enough to continue. The second half went much faster. Overall it was just ok. Some of the characters were very unlikeable. My favorites were Luisa and Sonmi.
Cloud Atlas is a delightfully puzzled and richly imagined story, if perhaps a bit too overwrought. The narrative follows six characters at different points in time and space, who share one soul-- this reincarnate theme is the generally obfuscated but one of the few factors legitimately linking the characters.
Each of five stories is interrupted mid sentence and a new story picked up until the sixth unfolds entirely and the earlier narratives are seen through to their ends. The style is clever though at times feels clever for clever's sake rather than producing a meaningful stylistic relationship to the narrative. Each story features at least one callback to another story, which again feels winking rather than contributing.
But, like my favorite Taylor Swift song, style can be plenty compelling all on its own.
Each of five stories is interrupted mid sentence and a new story picked up until the sixth unfolds entirely and the earlier narratives are seen through to their ends. The style is clever though at times feels clever for clever's sake rather than producing a meaningful stylistic relationship to the narrative. Each story features at least one callback to another story, which again feels winking rather than contributing.
But, like my favorite Taylor Swift song, style can be plenty compelling all on its own.
A set of 6 interlaced stories. The center story with Zachry and Meronym and the surrounding stories of Sonmi are the most interesting. But all are very detailed descriptions and characters. Cf. George Saunders
6 interconnecting stories, travelling back and forth in time, and not chronological. The writing style matched the time period the story was set. all this means a long, dense read (500+ pages). I enjoyed it but took me a while. The second Adam Ewing story in particular dragged on for me. Maybe one day I’ll re read with a better understanding now completed