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3.1 AVERAGE
3.1 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Really enjoyed hearing the story of Jim and Jane's relationship. The rest didn't do much for me.
From Part 2 on, it took a pretty wicked turn and was a lot more emotionally relevant than the previous section. It was still a pretty good book about love and cryogenics, but I was surprised by how much about love it actually was.
This book brought out the Goldilocks in me; I felt it at times too spare, at others too verbose, and only twice - in the heart-clutching opening and the ecstatic closing - just right.
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This novella reads as an interesting idea for a short story that never got edited down to size. It suffers from never really getting anywhere. Utterly forgettable characters don't help either.
Not every original idea is fantastic, and yet it seems hyperbolic to claim that this book is fantastically original. I was hooked by the novel concept and the shifting perspectives between the parallel storylines. However, I was disappointed by the end which seemed unresolved. What happens to the characters? Where does the story go next?
This is a short, sweet book with two authors. I read it even though I am still in the middle of Adrian's much longer *The Children's Hospital*, which I was enjoying, except for the heaviness of the hardcover. He writes about physicians in a distinctive way; in particular the surgeon-turned-chaplain was to me a great character. I also appreciate that the anti-corporatist angle doesn't completely take over the book.
Read this for the Tournament of Books and it's already fading fast. Some interesting concepts about what it means to live forever, what it means to be left behind by your partner, etc. Cryogenics pops up. The ending didn't stick for me. I was reading it on a tablet and just flipped through it.
This is a book about death, cryogenics, and the gap between our desires and the desires of our loved ones. It alternates between the story of Jane, a doctor, and Jim, her dead chaplain husband trying to get through a cryogenic afterworld. It’s about needing to forget the past in order to move onto the future but also needing to remember the past for the future to have meaning. It’s also remarkably funny, moving, and human.