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3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
Red Sparrow made my TBR list after I saw the movie trailer and was immediately intrigued. Since books are almost always better, I decided to read the book instead of see the movie. Unfortunately, I'm thinking this one may be better as a movie.
I felt like there was A LOT in this book. The audio book is almost 18 hours long and there was quite a bit that I felt could have been left out and would have made the story better. There were places where these unnecessary parts caused the pacing of the story to slow down.
Overall, the story was interesting and the narration was great. I do plan to still watch the movie, which I think I will enjoy more than the book. Something I never thought I would say. ha! I also think others may enjoy this book more than I did. I'm someone who doesn't typically read spy books, but enjoys the movies.
I felt like there was A LOT in this book. The audio book is almost 18 hours long and there was quite a bit that I felt could have been left out and would have made the story better. There were places where these unnecessary parts caused the pacing of the story to slow down.
Overall, the story was interesting and the narration was great. I do plan to still watch the movie, which I think I will enjoy more than the book. Something I never thought I would say. ha! I also think others may enjoy this book more than I did. I'm someone who doesn't typically read spy books, but enjoys the movies.
I enjoyed this book and will likely continue the series. However, at times it moved slowly (though the pace always accelerated afterward!) and several characters were perhaps unrealistically stupid.
I wasn't really sure what to expect from this book aside from being a typical thriller but it was a bit more in depth than what I had expected. While it was very action packed you did get the whole backgrounds of most of the characters which at times I wasn't sure was totally necessary and made the book longer. I was always waiting for one more twist and then there would be one and I'd wait for the next. Although the book was full of twists there weren't any that were super shocking, which is what I wanted and was waiting for. It did leave with a cliff hanger for the next book which I'm not sure I'll read. I would however like to see the movie since I think this will translate well to screen.
Cold War spy thriller set in modern day. Each chapter has a recipe, will have to try some of them.
I was looking forward to this book since I enjoy a good spy thriller and this won the Edgar Award for best first novel for 2013 but found it underwhelming. I thought the characters were pretty cartoonish, the plot seemed to take forever to go anywhere, and the author relied too much on the characters making stupid decisions to propel the action. The recipes that ended every chapter though were interesting and the narration by Jeremy Bobb was more than adequate.
The good: It's an interesting read. The protagonist's main "superpower" of reading mood via color feels innovative for the genre. Also, there's an intimate understanding from the writer of how intelligence operations function in a post-cold war era.
The bad: at times, the trials and tribulations of Egarova are trite. And her joeurney doesn't quite feel all that original as it reduces her motivations to the same old formula of "all because of love".
The ugly: Americans: GOOD, Russians: BAD.
The bad: at times, the trials and tribulations of Egarova are trite. And her joeurney doesn't quite feel all that original as it reduces her motivations to the same old formula of "all because of love".
The ugly: Americans: GOOD, Russians: BAD.
Horrible. I fought through the last 200 pages and for what?????? A horrible ending. I guess I got what I deserved by suffering through this ridiculous book. At the end of each chapter there are some recipes for food mentioned in the chapter. Why? I guess to add more words to the manuscript.
I had high hopes for this and I was pretty convinced that I'd like it a lot. Two stars feels a bit low but 3 would be too much given how much I struggled to finish this one.
The plot is solid and Dominika is a very cool character, but it didn't quite come together for me. Maybe it was that I wasn't taken by Matthews' style, or maybe I never cared about Dominika's CIA counterpart, Nate (who was a vague placeholder whose chief characteristic was "CIA operative". I could not tell you a single aspect of his personality beyond that he was pretty impetuous). There were some cool scenes and I loved Matthews' authentic descriptions of tradecraft, SDR's, surveillance techniques, etc. but everything else was a struggle.
Anyway, I dunno. I normally like spy thrillers despite rarely reading them but this one didn't do as much for me as, say, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
All that said I'm pretty convinced I'll like the movie when it comes out?
The plot is solid and Dominika is a very cool character, but it didn't quite come together for me. Maybe it was that I wasn't taken by Matthews' style, or maybe I never cared about Dominika's CIA counterpart, Nate (who was a vague placeholder whose chief characteristic was "CIA operative". I could not tell you a single aspect of his personality beyond that he was pretty impetuous). There were some cool scenes and I loved Matthews' authentic descriptions of tradecraft, SDR's, surveillance techniques, etc. but everything else was a struggle.
Anyway, I dunno. I normally like spy thrillers despite rarely reading them but this one didn't do as much for me as, say, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
All that said I'm pretty convinced I'll like the movie when it comes out?
Barely made it a third of the way through before putting it down. The writing is terrible to the point of distraction, the characters are not particularly interesting, and as such I lost patience finding out where the various plot threads would eventually lead. I have no idea why I bought this trilogy, but I'm not gonna waste my time finding out what happens.
Sometimes the POV changes were a little hard to follow. I don't know if it was the book itself or the fact that I was listening to it. Having a female narrator for Dominika would have definitely helped. Other than that, it was a fun spy thriller that I felt was timely considering the recent Spy Balloon drama. I kept thinking back to when I went through the International Spy Museum in DC. It was interesting to explore the world of espionage. The recipes at the end of each chapter were an unexpected delight. They left my mouth watering.