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4.15 AVERAGE
4.15 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Me, reading this for about the 100th time: Wow, did you guys know that Nation by Terry Pratchett is good? Like, really really good? Like, a masterpiece actually.
Novel of all time, attested to by the fact that my copy is starting to fall apart with how many times I have read it.
Favourite line this time around, no context: Will you ask him not to be?
Made me weep. Can't possibly express how much this book means to me, but here's my very inadequate attempt.
Novel of all time, attested to by the fact that my copy is starting to fall apart with how many times I have read it.
Favourite line this time around, no context: Will you ask him not to be?
Made me weep. Can't possibly express how much this book means to me, but here's my very inadequate attempt.
Okay...this book is so good, I don't even know where to start. I haven't even finished, yet already I want to read it again and again and buy a copy for every friend I know with children so that they can share it with them and raise happy little humans with a firm grasp on the way the world really works and the importance of questioning. Just questioning...and imagination.
This is a strange one to rate...
I loved some parts, but somehow didn't fully click with the book overall.
I enjoyed the exotic setting, and the different lifestyle of the indigenous people on The Island.
I also found the plot interesting enough - a big wave wiping out a lot of land and the survivors having to somehow help each other even if the are from vastly different cultures and don't understand each other.
While I love Pratchetts humor in his books with Death as a main character, it somehow didn't work as well for me here. And the plot while starting off well somehow stalled more than I would have expected. Some of the characters didn't really make much of an impression on me, instead I kind of stayed indifferent to them.
I still finished it and it wasn't bad, but it won't be one of my favorites.
I loved some parts, but somehow didn't fully click with the book overall.
I enjoyed the exotic setting, and the different lifestyle of the indigenous people on The Island.
I also found the plot interesting enough - a big wave wiping out a lot of land and the survivors having to somehow help each other even if the are from vastly different cultures and don't understand each other.
While I love Pratchetts humor in his books with Death as a main character, it somehow didn't work as well for me here. And the plot while starting off well somehow stalled more than I would have expected. Some of the characters didn't really make much of an impression on me, instead I kind of stayed indifferent to them.
I still finished it and it wasn't bad, but it won't be one of my favorites.
I loved that I thought it took place where it did, and in fact it did not. If you have read this, then you know what I mean...if not READ IT!
Another fantastic book from Terry Pratchett. This time we are following adventures of Daphne, young english lady that finds herself on an island that isn't on the map, and Mau - stuck between being a boy and a man, which tries to find sense in life after tragedy and lead the nation.
Full of typical Pratchett humour it is a sweet and sour tale about growing up.
Full of typical Pratchett humour it is a sweet and sour tale about growing up.
What do you call a book that is so good that you have to keep reading it even though you don't want to finish it because you know that you will never, ever read anything like it again? A reluctant page-turner?
This book is everything. It is clever and cute. It's brilliant and breath-taking. It's hilarious. It's different and delicious and delightful. It's tender and it provokes deep thoughts. It's amazing.
This book is everything. It is clever and cute. It's brilliant and breath-taking. It's hilarious. It's different and delicious and delightful. It's tender and it provokes deep thoughts. It's amazing.
I aim to read everything Pratchett wrote and published Here’s a review of the Discworld novel I read last month. When I bought Nation, I buried it deep behind the other, more “fun” books by him. Didn’t think I’d like it as much and decided I’d try reading it some time before I died.
But a reading challenge made me take the book out and dust it off. I loved it from the very first line. It opens on an adolescent boy completing a ritual that lets him join the ranks of “men”. And when he returns to the island he calls home, a tidal wave has obliterated everything. He performs the last rites on the bodies of everyone from his village. And the way the scene is written breaks your heart. But that’s just the beginning of the amazing thing that this book is.
There are characters raising questions about religion — ones that we daren’t ask. And characters rebelling against their place in the society. There are elements of the plot related to colonialism and the rape of cultures by the victors. There is humor at the expense of the practice of getting royalty as inheritance. There is an absence of a non-native character who knows better than the “savages” and civilizes them. There’s growing up of children far earlier than they should have had to and forming a society. And finally, there are teenagers who are capable of taking practical decisions like they do in real life.
All of it is packaged with Pratchett’s characteristic sense of humor, wittiness, and well…Pratchettiness. Don’t NOT read this book if you love satire and Pratchett!
I love Terry Pratchett's books and have read lots from the Discworld series. I enjoyed his "exploration" of new territory, in a place that was emphatically NOT the Pacific Ocean. Unrolling a story of almost unfathomable tragedy and loss doesn't seem like something Pratchett would be very good at...but he is. And...he eventually makes you laugh and see yourself and your world in the flawed and fragile human beings in the worlds he creates.
adventurous
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
relaxing
medium-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:
No