Reviews tagging 'Cursing'

The Book That Wouldn't Burn by Mark Lawrence

5 reviews

angorarabbit's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous mysterious medium-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

3.0


Context: So I read my Libby books on the Kindle app and now I want to get all the silly achievements. Without giving Amazon any money.This was one of the five books on my GoodReads want to read list that was eligible for the Series Pioneer achievement and I only had to wait one day for my hold. So there you have it. Three of the other books still have holds, the fourth is not available at my libraries.
 
Clark Tech: The existence, maintenance and power supplies of the mechanism, assistants, and portals.These things have been running for thousands to tens of thousands of years. No explanation as to how the portals transport living beings instantaneously through time and space to where they need or want to be.I’m not certain, but I think a time travel rule was broken in the last chapters, 
 
In many ways this reads like a YA book.We first meet the main character when she is 10. In the first third of the book we spend most of our time with children. The adults do not have much character development. The children as they age do not seem to change much except to mildly flirt. The protagonist has a “chosen one” vibe and also “she is not like other girls”. Boys pretty much exist to help her with her explorations. Serious rule breaking is follow.jAlso I didn’t learn one new word. 
 
I really had high hopes for this book. I loved the ideas regarding the library, mechanism, and assistants., Although I’m always hesitant with time travel, the author does handle the time travel part better than many (time turners I’m thinking of you).It’s just that somehow the execution didn’t work for me. The writing was fine and for the most part the action taking place was clear. I was confused as to some characters motivations. The book was 3 stars going towards 4 until I got to the last 10 chapters (there are 70 chapters) then it starting slipping to 2 stars. It felt as if they were just the set up for book 2. 
 
I also twigged two major plot twists in the first 10-20 chapters. I hate it when that happens.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

hannxm's review

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

dips's review

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective medium-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

ashley_mrose530's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

It's taking me some time to figure out what I'm going to say about this book tbh.
I want to start off by saying that I did have fun with this book. The second half was actually pretty crazy with all the twists and revelations we get. It was so fun to watch those play out and be surprised by them.
That being said, I didn't get as immersed in this book as I wanted to. The beginning was really slow for me and though I think it was more or less necessary so we could understand the characters and the world, it did still drag for me.
And I'm not sure if it's because of that or something else, but I didn't really care for the characters as much as I wanted to either. I didn't connect with them like I should and that probably has more to do with the writing style. I don't think there was very much emotions from the characters as there could have been. We needed more moments where we slowed down with them and actually got their feelings about the events that were happening. There were so many moments where something big would happen to Livira -
like when she was promoted to librarian and then people were trying to kill her
- and then it would just jump to a few years down the road and we didn't get any sense of her reactions and emotions at that moment. Those would have been perfect times to give us something about her and help us connect to her, but we didn't get that which left me feeling very distant from them. I know the timeline needed to jump around a little bit to give us a sense of that happening in their lives and to keep the plot moving forward, but helping the reader feel connected to the characters is just as important in my opinion and I think it should have been focused on a little bit more here.
I do want to read the next one to see what happens and I hope that helps me not feel as distant from the characters, but we'll see. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings

kayceeisbookish's review

Go to review page

adventurous emotional informative inspiring mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

A powerful story on the effects of knowledge on society. Told in duel POV and across expanses of time, this novel definitely had me deeply rethinking about how I look at books and reading as a way to transcribe, hold, and pass on knowledge through time. This is a book that is thought-provoking and sticks with you a long time after you finish reading.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings
More...