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3.77 AVERAGE
3.77 AVERAGE
DNF, I don't think I can rate it lower based on the amount I've read.
Endlessly fascinated by the setting and the actual walled city that this is based on, but I had trouble connecting with the characters and found myself not very interested in returning to finish the book. 2.5 stars
Yes. This was good. Much yes.
I flew through each and every page of this book just needing to know what happens next. It's incredibly interesting, dynamic, and edge-of-your seat story telling. I've been meaning to read a Ryan Graudin book for years and this absolutely did not disappoint.
I flew through each and every page of this book just needing to know what happens next. It's incredibly interesting, dynamic, and edge-of-your seat story telling. I've been meaning to read a Ryan Graudin book for years and this absolutely did not disappoint.
This was amazing.
First: this is not dystopia. This is not science fiction.
The Walled City covers some real and kind of scary issues like human trafficking, poverty, and addictions. It was written SO WELL, and so elegantly.
It disturbed me so much that things like that are happening and have happened. The fact that the Walled City was a real place was horrifying, and it really put me in perspective. I mean, Dai, Mei Yee, and Jin Ling's lives are what people really have to live, and maybe without the happy ending. That is awful, and I can't say enough how well it was written. I highly recommend reading this. It isn't a happy book, but it's still definitely worth the read.
First: this is not dystopia. This is not science fiction.
The Walled City covers some real and kind of scary issues like human trafficking, poverty, and addictions. It was written SO WELL, and so elegantly.
It disturbed me so much that things like that are happening and have happened. The fact that the Walled City was a real place was horrifying, and it really put me in perspective. I mean, Dai, Mei Yee, and Jin Ling's lives are what people really have to live, and maybe without the happy ending. That is awful, and I can't say enough how well it was written. I highly recommend reading this. It isn't a happy book, but it's still definitely worth the read.
3.5/5
Switched perspectives too fast, didn't leave any room for suspense.
Switched perspectives too fast, didn't leave any room for suspense.
It really feels like I've read this story before. While it touches on human trafficking, it has a broader storyline that feels like it's been done before.
LOVED IT!!!!! It was dark, intense, and just all-around FANTASTIC! :D
It's good to see a YA book that doesn't shy away from the darkness of its themes and content. I liked the characters and the sense of climax and resolution was great.
http://librarianosnark.blogspot.com/2014/11/review-walled-city.html
I caught this book on Netgalley as an Advanced Reader's Copy, open for everyone to read for the first 500 people. Intrigued by the idea of a 'Walled City', I picked it up after finishing my last book. This book took me less than a day to read, but that's not necessarily a good thing.
The Walled City tells the story of a young girl, Jin Ling, who's sister was sold into prostitution by their father. By an improbable amount of work, she manages to keep people from noticing her, or working out that she's female. Given that we don't know the time period this story is set in (except that it is the Year of the Dragon to start with and ends in the Year of the Snake), the setting seems even more far-fetched given that there are illusions to modern conveniences but they're guesswork.
The story progresses from three separate points of view: Jin, Dai, and Mei Yee. While not hampered by this much, it was a mild inconvenience when some chapters were barely a page long before jumping to another character and back again. Many of these chapters contained some vital information, but the book was over halfway done before the motivations behind the main story-line came to light. After that, it's a whirlwind of action, moving quickly and skipping days or weeks within the character's timeline to bring the story to a rather unsatisfying ending of mostly happy endings.
The story includes an author's note in the back, stating that the Walled City was real (it was located in Hong Kong) though if we're matching up the time frames, the Walled City in Hong Kong was evacuated in 1993-1994 (too late to be the year of the Snake as that was in 1989). She also states that the novel was never intended to be a historical fiction novel. Honestly, I'm glad because I saw nothing overly historical about it in there.
There's not a lot of redeeming hope for this book, the characters are mostly 2 dimensional, the setting while interesting falls flat without a proper explanation of how it grew up to be a den of thieves, and the ending is most unsatisfactory for me.
Read it if you're wanting a quick YA book to escape for a while, but don't expect much in terms of good characters.
The Walled City tells the story of a young girl, Jin Ling, who's sister was sold into prostitution by their father. By an improbable amount of work, she manages to keep people from noticing her, or working out that she's female. Given that we don't know the time period this story is set in (except that it is the Year of the Dragon to start with and ends in the Year of the Snake), the setting seems even more far-fetched given that there are illusions to modern conveniences but they're guesswork.
The story progresses from three separate points of view: Jin, Dai, and Mei Yee. While not hampered by this much, it was a mild inconvenience when some chapters were barely a page long before jumping to another character and back again. Many of these chapters contained some vital information, but the book was over halfway done before the motivations behind the main story-line came to light. After that, it's a whirlwind of action, moving quickly and skipping days or weeks within the character's timeline to bring the story to a rather unsatisfying ending of mostly happy endings.
The story includes an author's note in the back, stating that the Walled City was real (it was located in Hong Kong) though if we're matching up the time frames, the Walled City in Hong Kong was evacuated in 1993-1994 (too late to be the year of the Snake as that was in 1989). She also states that the novel was never intended to be a historical fiction novel. Honestly, I'm glad because I saw nothing overly historical about it in there.
There's not a lot of redeeming hope for this book, the characters are mostly 2 dimensional, the setting while interesting falls flat without a proper explanation of how it grew up to be a den of thieves, and the ending is most unsatisfactory for me.
Read it if you're wanting a quick YA book to escape for a while, but don't expect much in terms of good characters.