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authrcatlabadie's review
3.0
More like 3.75 stars. This is such a marvelous, beautifully lyrical book...but it's much, MUCH longer than it needs to be.
luckaye's review
4.0
A beautifully written & descriptive book that takes a little while to get going.
luaucow's review
4.0
I had a hard time getting into this series, because it's set in a world where all Celtic mythology is real and I knew nothing about it. As I got up to speed, I enjoyed it. The main character is mute, scarred, ugly and has amnesia. During the series we follow her on her quest to discover who she is and what happened to her.
lauriereadslohf's review
DNF because, shit, it’s boring
I have had a brand new paperback copy of The Ill Made Mute sitting in my pile of to be read books ever since I first bought it on a word of mouth recommendation back in 2001 or so. I probably should’ve read it then because now I have no patience for the tediously descriptive, wandering plot that comprises this story. That’s what happens when you realize you’re getting older and there are just not enough hours in the day to read boring books.
I’ll state up front that I tried to listen to this as an unabridged audiobook because I have faced the fact that I’ll never read all of the books in my pile in this lifetime. This may be part of the problem (but I really don’t think so). The narrator, a lovely woman no doubt, had such a sleep inducing, calming voice that listening to her read was like listening to a fairytale-like lullaby and I was nearly lulled to sleep from the very beginning. That coupled with the fact that after the initial scene, which was interesting enough to hook me, the book meandered on endlessly with nothing much at all happening for hours on end.
It begins when an adolescent falls into a dangerous plant that wipes its memory, makes it unable to speak and disfigures it horribly. I will say “it” not to be a big un-PC-meanie but because the unfortunate creature is disfigured so horribly the gender is no longer definable. It awakens to find a brutish crone hovering about and caring for its basic needs. The crone yells at and puts it to work when it recovers. Because of its ugliness the mute is forced to remain hidden behind a cloak and is rarely allowed to venture where others might see it. But the mute disobeys and sneaks out and thus begins the world’s most overly described adventure where every damn person it stumbles across just so happens to be a long winded spinner of tedious tales.
Now this all might have been tolerable if I didn’t feel distanced from every character who walks into the book and especially the eavesdropping mute who is the main character! I felt completely disconnected from him/her/it and thus the story was just insufferable to read and I gave up a little more than halfway. At one point the mute stows away on a ship and I had flashbacks of suffering through The Old Man and the Sea for class. Fortunately I didn’t have to finish The Ill-Made Mute to graduate, the perks of pleasure reading, and I’m calling it a day. I have the other two books in this series on audio as well but I’m not into self-torture this week and am going to delete them from my Ipod.
I have had a brand new paperback copy of The Ill Made Mute sitting in my pile of to be read books ever since I first bought it on a word of mouth recommendation back in 2001 or so. I probably should’ve read it then because now I have no patience for the tediously descriptive, wandering plot that comprises this story. That’s what happens when you realize you’re getting older and there are just not enough hours in the day to read boring books.
I’ll state up front that I tried to listen to this as an unabridged audiobook because I have faced the fact that I’ll never read all of the books in my pile in this lifetime. This may be part of the problem (but I really don’t think so). The narrator, a lovely woman no doubt, had such a sleep inducing, calming voice that listening to her read was like listening to a fairytale-like lullaby and I was nearly lulled to sleep from the very beginning. That coupled with the fact that after the initial scene, which was interesting enough to hook me, the book meandered on endlessly with nothing much at all happening for hours on end.
It begins when an adolescent falls into a dangerous plant that wipes its memory, makes it unable to speak and disfigures it horribly. I will say “it” not to be a big un-PC-meanie but because the unfortunate creature is disfigured so horribly the gender is no longer definable. It awakens to find a brutish crone hovering about and caring for its basic needs. The crone yells at and puts it to work when it recovers. Because of its ugliness the mute is forced to remain hidden behind a cloak and is rarely allowed to venture where others might see it. But the mute disobeys and sneaks out and thus begins the world’s most overly described adventure where every damn person it stumbles across just so happens to be a long winded spinner of tedious tales.
Now this all might have been tolerable if I didn’t feel distanced from every character who walks into the book and especially the eavesdropping mute who is the main character! I felt completely disconnected from him/her/it and thus the story was just insufferable to read and I gave up a little more than halfway. At one point the mute stows away on a ship and I had flashbacks of suffering through The Old Man and the Sea for class. Fortunately I didn’t have to finish The Ill-Made Mute to graduate, the perks of pleasure reading, and I’m calling it a day. I have the other two books in this series on audio as well but I’m not into self-torture this week and am going to delete them from my Ipod.
xtinetreasure's review
3.0
I picked up this book because I remember reading it sometime throughout my high school career and absolutely loving it, unfortunately this wasn't the case on the second go-round. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I remembered what some of the major plot twists were and that ruined it a little bit for me, because there are some GREAT twists and turns in this book but I think that may have been the main factor in my love for it the first time I read it. While the plot has good premise and, like I said, has some great twists and turns, what I noticed this time was the lengthy, over-the-top writing style. While there are some absolutely beautiful turns of phrases in this book, the majority of these are just too much. A lot of it could be said in a much more direct and shortened manner without the copious amounts of describing words used, and it would probably be a lot better off for it as only about one or two in every ten of the superfluous sentences actually hits the mark with creating the scene/setting/mood. The world-building throughout the story has some great potential (wind-ships and stormriders - what's not to love about that idea?), however, I felt this potential wasn't achieved anywhere near as much as it could have been, there were a lot of things that were only mentioned briefly or just kind of skipped over while almost too much time was spent on other factors. All in all a book with a lot of potential that wasn't fully achieved and after getting back into the story it was still enjoyable, although not a favourite of mine anymore, and I will still pick up the rest of the series and continue on to see what will happen.
snixo048's review
1.0
this book was disappointing. the same story could have been told in a book about a quarter of the length. I was unimpressed by the prose and bored through most of it. I am unlikely to read the rest of the trilogy,
torts's review
4.0
The writing could be a bit tedious at times, but it was overall a pretty interesting read. I enjoyed the seelie/unseelie folklore-inspired things, but for some reason found the air-ships and whatnot to be kind of irritating. Also, the last sentence bugged me. I felt like it kind of undermined the characterization of the protagonist...and I realize that it was kind of inevitable but the ending still kind of disappointed me.
I can see why this book was praised as the new Lord of the Rings-type saga. But I never really liked [b:The Lord of the Rings|34|The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, Part 1)|J.R.R. Tolkien|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1156043001s/34.jpg|3204327] (couldn't even finish The Fellowship of the Ring...kind of like how I couldn't get very far in this book the first time I tried to read it....hmm).
Also, what's up with the heavy-handed vegetarianism?
I can see why this book was praised as the new Lord of the Rings-type saga. But I never really liked [b:The Lord of the Rings|34|The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, Part 1)|J.R.R. Tolkien|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1156043001s/34.jpg|3204327] (couldn't even finish The Fellowship of the Ring...kind of like how I couldn't get very far in this book the first time I tried to read it....hmm).
Also, what's up with the heavy-handed vegetarianism?
celiaedf12's review
3.0
A nice take on the cliched mystery orphan story in a fantasy world very much inspired by a variety of Celtic myths. I really liked it, and the Celtic mythology aspect as something I enjoyed as well.
annasirius's review
2.0
2.5
I wanted to like this book due to the beautiful descriptions, yet I quickly started to skim over these in the vain attempt to find the story.
This is a novel centred around learning more about the protagonist's identity, and it is a story that assumes that the readers sticks with it because they are intrigued enough by this quest and empathetic enough towards the main character. However, because the protagonist is so featureless for a long time and literally everyone around them is hard-hearted, I neither cared for the main character nor developed an interest in the world, no matter how many words are beautifully (and sometimes excessively) strung together to describe it.
I believe my main problem is that the story was told from a third person perspective that gave us occasional glimpses into the main character's thoughts and feelings but always remained rather distant. Since the protagonist already knows so little about the world and the reader is rarely told more than the protagonist knows, why not at least let us intimately connect with their personal thoughts & feelings? This would also have created a three-dimensional character, rather than this sketch of a suffering, ill-treated person. The problem is in the title: 'The ill-made mute'. Really?
I wanted to like this book due to the beautiful descriptions, yet I quickly started to skim over these in the vain attempt to find the story.
This is a novel centred around learning more about the protagonist's identity, and it is a story that assumes that the readers sticks with it because they are intrigued enough by this quest and empathetic enough towards the main character. However, because the protagonist is so featureless for a long time and literally everyone around them is hard-hearted, I neither cared for the main character nor developed an interest in the world, no matter how many words are beautifully (and sometimes excessively) strung together to describe it.
I believe my main problem is that the story was told from a third person perspective that gave us occasional glimpses into the main character's thoughts and feelings but always remained rather distant. Since the protagonist already knows so little about the world and the reader is rarely told more than the protagonist knows, why not at least let us intimately connect with their personal thoughts & feelings? This would also have created a three-dimensional character, rather than this sketch of a suffering, ill-treated person. The problem is in the title: 'The ill-made mute'. Really?
brian's review
2.0
A not very surprising twist at the start, leading into pages and pages of description about the minutiae of everything around the main character leading up to the start of a quest type adventure.
Never really got that involved in any of the characters, and there weren't any real surprises or moments of suspense.
Never really got that involved in any of the characters, and there weren't any real surprises or moments of suspense.