Reviews

Marathon Man by William Goldman

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camille57's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

mixxie67's review against another edition

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4.0

An instance where I definitely preferred the book to the movie. I'm not a snob and that isn't always the case with me. The book seems more immediate and intense to me. It is a case of the novelist's ability to show different points of view without sacrificing continuity.

martyfried's review against another edition

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4.0

Very quick read; I enjoyed the book, and the clever humour. An interesting story, and one that could have been longer.

alida_f's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Content Warnings

rupashribalaraman's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

rosie_reader's review against another edition

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5.0

The perfect novel.

sarahtokar's review against another edition

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4.0

Fast read - good twists and unexpected turns. Much better than the movie.

jfranco77's review

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4.0

It's hard to say too much about this book since it has a lot of twists and turns. Goldman calls it his "thriller" - there are Nazis, and spies, and double agents, and love interests, and fights, and gunfights, and more. Most of it is enjoyable, if very much of the 70s and very much of Goldman. Not as funny as The Princess Bride, but you can see that humor occasionally. The second half was better than the first, so if you're on the fence, I'd keep going until the end.

teaxmillions's review against another edition

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3.0

I think I'd give it more of a 3.5. Kept me on my toes and had clever turns of phrase in it. However, I felt like it didn't hold me completely toward the middle and the end, which should be when I'm feverishly turning pages to see how it all wraps up, and I didn't have that. The protagonist, Babe Levy, I also didn't particularly care for, so that also might be why it slowed down for me. It changed from weird, mysterious stuff that was going on with Scylla to seeing if Levy would make it out of his predicament, and I didn't care. Any good characters just didn't end up being a huge part of the plot, unfortunately.

Spoiler

I really liked Scylla and his introspection, and I enjoyed the weird prologue at the beginning that didn't really end up mattering to the plot again, but again, they were short-lived in terms of importance.

Spoiler

Particularly in this book, I didn't see why Scylla would have a reason to double-cross Szell, or why Scylla would essentially lead his adversaries to his brother's house. What was the point of it? Supposedly, Scylla didn't say anything important to Babe, so there's not even a little bit of mystery to it. It just seemed like there was all of a sudden a plot that wasn't explained. This continued with the hint that the father might have been involved in the same type of work that Scylla was in, which was then never talked about again.

Overall, it was an alright read. It was short and I got through it pretty quickly.

cuddlygryphon's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Content Warnings

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