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yinanization's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
claireniehaus's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
awesomelybadbooks's review against another edition
3.0
Two grave robbers in Shanghai assist a group of academics - Professor Chen, Hao Aiguo, Little Ye, Chu Jian, and Sa Dipeng - as well as a Chinese-American, Julie Yang, to find the lost city of Jingjue where the academics hope to unlock the mysteries and Ms. Yang hopes to find her father who went in search of the lost city only to not return. Our grave robbers - Tianyi and Kai - with the help of their human map named Asat Amat brave the heat of the desert, the threat of dehydration, sandstorms, and an overwhelming sense of impending doom that may or may not be due to an evil force that has kept the lost city hidden and that senses the approaching group seeking out the secrets of Jingjue. I have gone back and forth with my feelings on this book. On one hand, it's an interesting read. On the other hand, there is something very, very dry about this book that, at times, made me want to stop reading. I think that, maybe, something got lost in translation from its original language to English? It felt as though something important was missing that I can't quite put my finger on. It wasn't a bad book, but it didn't inspire me to pick up the second one.
ladiicatherine's review against another edition
3.0
Two grave robbers in Shanghai assist a group of academics - Professor Chen, Hao Aiguo, Little Ye, Chu Jian, and Sa Dipeng - as well as a Chinese-American, Julie Yang, to find the lost city of Jingjue where the academics hope to unlock the mysteries and Ms. Yang hopes to find her father who went in search of the lost city only to not return. Our grave robbers - Tianyi and Kai - with the help of their human map named Asat Amat brave the heat of the desert, the threat of dehydration, sandstorms, and an overwhelming sense of impending doom that may or may not be due to an evil force that has kept the lost city hidden and that senses the approaching group seeking out the secrets of Jingjue. I have gone back and forth with my feelings on this book. On one hand, it's an interesting read. On the other hand, there is something very, very dry about this book that, at times, made me want to stop reading. I think that, maybe, something got lost in translation from its original language to English? It felt as though something important was missing that I can't quite put my finger on. It wasn't a bad book, but it didn't inspire me to pick up the second one.
ruthsic's review against another edition
2.0
The City of Sand has an interesting adventure wrapped up in a quest - a desert journey to seek out an ancient city with a queen of mythic proportions. Unfortunately, the delivery of the story was a snooze-fest. Look, I don't know if things literally got lost in translation or whether the form of the story is different than what you would expect in a typical YA lit book, it is super dry to read. It is fully fast-paced, but is so descriptive in it, it feels like an AI is reading out an epic adventure. (I honestly cringe to think about an audiobook like that *shudder* Think Text-to-Speech in Kindle)
Until right at the end, I was hovering at a 3-star rating. The pacing was dreadful but the world-building and the adventure was good enough to somewhat balance it. But then it ends in a very weird way, with barely any conclusion, and a random scene about drinking a lot of water (supposedly to show the end of the journey?) and I was like - I did not go through all this, bear with that awful writing for this! Like, even the chapter endings were weird - they were less of a cliffhanger and more like someone just randomly hit pause while you were streaming a movie. So I don't think it is entirely just an issue of bad translation, because the bare bones of this book seem unstable.
The characters have no development, their relationships with each other is described only through the eyes of the protagonist but it is all tell, no show. Suddenly mid-way through the book, it is revealed that two characters have hated each other all along (for no discernible reason) *looks around confused* and then they are bickering till the end. The dialogues - well, I am chalking that up to translation, because it just comes off as stilted and awkwardly misplaced. I am not even going to comment on the loose threads in this story because if there is a sequel, I am so not reading it.
The bottomline is that, despite what could have been an engaging story, this book was not enjoyable mostly because of the writing.
Received an advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review from Random House Children's, via Netgalley.
Until right at the end, I was hovering at a 3-star rating. The pacing was dreadful but the world-building and the adventure was good enough to somewhat balance it. But then it ends in a very weird way, with barely any conclusion, and a random scene about drinking a lot of water (supposedly to show the end of the journey?) and I was like - I did not go through all this, bear with that awful writing for this! Like, even the chapter endings were weird - they were less of a cliffhanger and more like someone just randomly hit pause while you were streaming a movie. So I don't think it is entirely just an issue of bad translation, because the bare bones of this book seem unstable.
The characters have no development, their relationships with each other is described only through the eyes of the protagonist but it is all tell, no show. Suddenly mid-way through the book, it is revealed that two characters have hated each other all along (for no discernible reason) *looks around confused* and then they are bickering till the end. The dialogues - well, I am chalking that up to translation, because it just comes off as stilted and awkwardly misplaced. I am not even going to comment on the loose threads in this story because if there is a sequel, I am so not reading it.
The bottomline is that, despite what could have been an engaging story, this book was not enjoyable mostly because of the writing.
Received an advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review from Random House Children's, via Netgalley.
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