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3.24 AVERAGE
3.24 AVERAGE
fast-paced
2.5/5
OVERALL IMPRESSION: This book has great imagery. From the very opening scene, I could picture everything perfectly. Carman does a great job of painting a picture for us to imagine in our minds. I really liked the scene towards the beginning of the book in the old elementary school library.
About halfway through the book, I felt like I got slapped in the face (in a good way) by something I never saw coming. And then after that, the book lost it's way for me.
I feel like the book switched points of view way too often and in the most awkward of places. I would have enjoyed the story much more if it had only been from Faith's (the main character) point of view.
My mind got very distracted while I was reading a lot of this story because I just wasn't interested in the story line. I feel like I don't know what the point of the story was. The characters were preparing for a battle, but I don't know what the battle was about or why it was occurring I also feel like I didn't know who many of the characters were or what their part was in everything.
I'm sure the next book will clear a lot of this up, but I will probably not be fighting to get my hands on a copy. It just wasn't for me.
Memorable quote: "Once everyone had a table, no one wanted these [books] anymore. But there's something different about holding them in your hands." (p. 40).
CHARACTERS: I didn't really feel a deep connection with any of the characters. I feel like they weren't able to develop enough for me to care about any of them, but I did enjoy the character of Hawk.
COVER: The cover is nice. It does make sense with the story and has meaning behind a vital piece of information that we find out.
*I received an advanced reader's copy of this book from Amazon for my honest review.
OVERALL IMPRESSION: This book has great imagery. From the very opening scene, I could picture everything perfectly. Carman does a great job of painting a picture for us to imagine in our minds. I really liked the scene towards the beginning of the book in the old elementary school library.
About halfway through the book, I felt like I got slapped in the face (in a good way) by something I never saw coming. And then after that, the book lost it's way for me.
I feel like the book switched points of view way too often and in the most awkward of places. I would have enjoyed the story much more if it had only been from Faith's (the main character) point of view.
My mind got very distracted while I was reading a lot of this story because I just wasn't interested in the story line. I feel like I don't know what the point of the story was. The characters were preparing for a battle, but I don't know what the battle was about or why it was occurring I also feel like I didn't know who many of the characters were or what their part was in everything.
I'm sure the next book will clear a lot of this up, but I will probably not be fighting to get my hands on a copy. It just wasn't for me.
Memorable quote: "Once everyone had a table, no one wanted these [books] anymore. But there's something different about holding them in your hands." (p. 40).
CHARACTERS: I didn't really feel a deep connection with any of the characters. I feel like they weren't able to develop enough for me to care about any of them, but I did enjoy the character of Hawk.
COVER: The cover is nice. It does make sense with the story and has meaning behind a vital piece of information that we find out.
*I received an advanced reader's copy of this book from Amazon for my honest review.
i read this in eight grade as a joke but i actually really liked it and i still think about it a lot
Took a long time to get to the meat of the story, weird changes in POV, not a fan of the writing style, still not sure where the plot of the story was/was going.
I read this book previously when I was in high school and didn't remember much about it other than I couldn't get past the first chapter of the sequel because I was so annoyed by the main character. I thought I would see how I felt about it now.
This book was so much worse than I remember.
The omniscient narrator POV is disjointed, and it feels like whiplash every time it happens. Most of them don't make any sense or just simply come out of nowhere. It honestly feels like it's the author's way of saying "hey, look how cool my plotting is" or "you should know that there's more to this." It doesn't leave any room for mystery or thinking for yourself.
The characters aren't great, especially the men. The girls are boy crazy, which I sort of expect with how the book prioritizes romantic relationships. But the guys are somehow all creeps. The main character's friend is a pervert. Her first love interest drugs her twice. Her second love interest stalks her and watches her sleep.
Then, there's the fact that the plot is so boring. It moves incredibly slowly and there are parts that I just can't get behind. I stopped reading when they got to the Field Games, which I'm sure had some importance but I just couldn't find it in me to care.
I just lost all motivation to even try to get through this.
This book was so much worse than I remember.
The omniscient narrator POV is disjointed, and it feels like whiplash every time it happens. Most of them don't make any sense or just simply come out of nowhere. It honestly feels like it's the author's way of saying "hey, look how cool my plotting is" or "you should know that there's more to this." It doesn't leave any room for mystery or thinking for yourself.
The characters aren't great, especially the men. The girls are boy crazy, which I sort of expect with how the book prioritizes romantic relationships. But the guys are somehow all creeps. The main character's friend is a pervert. Her first love interest drugs her twice. Her second love interest stalks her and watches her sleep.
Then, there's the fact that the plot is so boring. It moves incredibly slowly and there are parts that I just can't get behind. I stopped reading when they got to the Field Games, which I'm sure had some importance but I just couldn't find it in me to care.
I just lost all motivation to even try to get through this.
Can I give it zero stars?
I have spent a fair bit of time reading YA novels lately — particularly books in alternate versions of our world, dystopian, and post-apocalyptic. Not all of them were great. Some of them were phenomenal. But only two of them actually turned me off to the series and the author.
Pulse, by Patrick Carman, is one of those two, joining ranks with Uninvited, but Sophie Jordan. I won’t even write my own summary. Not worth the time. Read Amazon's description. However, I do want to draw attention to the final line of the blurb. "Patrick Carman’s Pulse trilogy is a stunning and epic triumph about the power of the mind—and of love.”
No. The book was neither stunning, epic, triumphant, powerful, or showed any signs of love. It was sick.
Before I go too far into everything else wrong with the book, I feel it’s important to point out that Pulse is one of the worst point-of-view hopping novels I have EVER read. Literally, from one paragraph to the next we can be in the heads of everyone in the scene — whether that’s two people or five. It also makes me feel like entrenched authors who make the New York Times list (for who knows what after reading this book) can publish books no matter how poor the quality, as if their editors just don’t care anymore because they just want to sell more books. Aspiring authors and those who haven’t made that prestigious list could never get away with writing something this bad. Mini-rant over.
The pacing of this book is so slow I nearly gave up halfway through. Yes, halfway. I pushed myself that far and the plot still wasn’t really going anywhere. I won’t read the other books, but I would bet that they can all be condensed into just one book (assuming they are paced as poorly as this one).
It’s important to understand that a lot of this book just establishes the world and shows Faith hanging out with her friend Liz or getting used by the a-typical slimy jocky-type guy. Nothing about Faith’s character feels compelling or strong. She gets sassy, sure, but much in the way any teenage girl does. Sass doesn’t make a person strong.
Aside from showing a flair for Faith being sassy and full-on rude to people who don’t always deserve it, she has not just one stalker, but three. Two of them — Dylan and Hawk — actually watch her sleeping. And not once, but every single night. They watch her and track her and sleep in her bed (with her permission, sure, but after being caught watching her outside her window, which is creepy and wrong on its own).
The world is interesting and overdeveloped, but the characters fall flat and border on restraining-order level obsession with Faith. And she takes it all in stride, accepting the way they watch her, follow her, and obsess about hanging out with her.
Most importantly — and I mean this from the bottom of my very soul — Pulse glorifies obsessive, poor behavior for men, as well as making it seem like girls should be okay with that behavior.
Everything about this book lacks a pulse. Can I have my money and time back?
I have spent a fair bit of time reading YA novels lately — particularly books in alternate versions of our world, dystopian, and post-apocalyptic. Not all of them were great. Some of them were phenomenal. But only two of them actually turned me off to the series and the author.
Pulse, by Patrick Carman, is one of those two, joining ranks with Uninvited, but Sophie Jordan. I won’t even write my own summary. Not worth the time. Read Amazon's description. However, I do want to draw attention to the final line of the blurb. "Patrick Carman’s Pulse trilogy is a stunning and epic triumph about the power of the mind—and of love.”
No. The book was neither stunning, epic, triumphant, powerful, or showed any signs of love. It was sick.
Before I go too far into everything else wrong with the book, I feel it’s important to point out that Pulse is one of the worst point-of-view hopping novels I have EVER read. Literally, from one paragraph to the next we can be in the heads of everyone in the scene — whether that’s two people or five. It also makes me feel like entrenched authors who make the New York Times list (for who knows what after reading this book) can publish books no matter how poor the quality, as if their editors just don’t care anymore because they just want to sell more books. Aspiring authors and those who haven’t made that prestigious list could never get away with writing something this bad. Mini-rant over.
The pacing of this book is so slow I nearly gave up halfway through. Yes, halfway. I pushed myself that far and the plot still wasn’t really going anywhere. I won’t read the other books, but I would bet that they can all be condensed into just one book (assuming they are paced as poorly as this one).
It’s important to understand that a lot of this book just establishes the world and shows Faith hanging out with her friend Liz or getting used by the a-typical slimy jocky-type guy. Nothing about Faith’s character feels compelling or strong. She gets sassy, sure, but much in the way any teenage girl does. Sass doesn’t make a person strong.
Aside from showing a flair for Faith being sassy and full-on rude to people who don’t always deserve it, she has not just one stalker, but three. Two of them — Dylan and Hawk — actually watch her sleeping. And not once, but every single night. They watch her and track her and sleep in her bed (with her permission, sure, but after being caught watching her outside her window, which is creepy and wrong on its own).
The world is interesting and overdeveloped, but the characters fall flat and border on restraining-order level obsession with Faith. And she takes it all in stride, accepting the way they watch her, follow her, and obsess about hanging out with her.
Most importantly — and I mean this from the bottom of my very soul — Pulse glorifies obsessive, poor behavior for men, as well as making it seem like girls should be okay with that behavior.
Everything about this book lacks a pulse. Can I have my money and time back?
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Although I enjoyed this book a lot, I left the last page with the feeling that something was missing. I'm still not sure what that "something" was, but this book definitely didn't live up to all my expectations. Nevertheless, I enjoyed many of the characters and felt a connection with many of them. So, to summarize my thoughts, this book "got it done" but held nothing extra. Pulse achieved, but didn't overachieve...
Semi-apocalyptic, teenagers with special abilities; sort of has a "Divergence" feel to it, but of course it is completely it's own story. It was pegged as a type of romance, but that's hardly the central theme. In fact it's barley a side item.
In this story, there are those inside The States and those outside. How and why the States were created is part of the mystery. The main character, Faith, discovers that she has the first Pulse; the ability to move things with her mind. I don't want to give away the plot, so I'll just say she finds out about it and starts learning to control her powers.
In this story, there are those inside The States and those outside. How and why the States were created is part of the mystery. The main character, Faith, discovers that she has the first Pulse; the ability to move things with her mind. I don't want to give away the plot, so I'll just say she finds out about it and starts learning to control her powers.