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3.84 AVERAGE
3.84 AVERAGE
Political in the best way. Creative, fascinating, and terrifying. The characters, plot, world, and book structure made masterfully complex and thought-provoking. I highly recommend this book.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and can completely understand why it won so many awards. It reminds me of [a:Kim Stanley Robinson|1858|Kim Stanley Robinson|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1217240935p2/1858.jpg]'s Mars series of books, which I liked but it took me awhile to get into. This book grabbed me from the beginning not only about the story but about the political and nuanced questions that were asked. Similar to the Mars series I'm probably going to be thinking about this for a good time afterword. I like it when I book makes me think. I'm usually more on the Fantasy line of things but this book and [a:Kim Stanley Robinson|1858|Kim Stanley Robinson|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1217240935p2/1858.jpg]'s make me want to get more into the SciFi genre more and more. Maybe it is because I'm getting older but I'm wondering more and more what will the future be like and with all our social debates where will end up. This book allows me to look at the good, bad & the ugly and ponder this question.
What bothered me most about this book is how spoon-fed information is, how bluntly themes are presented. The first two parts are actually quite enjoyable, but the other two are too insane to get behind.
3.25 stars
Characters: 184 (no, this is not a joke)
Take away: If you read this novel, only read book 1/part1. You will thank me later <3
Reasons I struggled with this book despite the premise being awesome:
1) To the best of my ability I counted at least 184 characters, I realized I was going to have to dig deep when I was only 13% of the way into the book and there were already 47 characters. So many of them were one-off characters that were never referenced again. Why do authors do this?!
2) This book was way too long. The story is broken into 4 books, the first book was an award-winning nebula short story from 1991. And I would say that if I had only read the first book I probably would have given it 4.5 stars. But the longer it went on the longer I was hoping it would end faster.
3) The moral philosophy was just too heavy-handed for my taste. There was a weird obsession with Lincoln and other founding fathers that I found to be really odd, and didn't fit that well into the story.
4) Some of the nicknames for the gene-edited and non-gene edited people were cringy. Donkey? Liver? Beggars? To hear characters talk about other characters with these names just annoyed and embarrassed me.
5) A 15 years old girl gets married to an old man and subsequently she has his children, and no one in the plot thought that was fucked up? wtf
6) And the final conclusion of the book had the stunning realization that poor and/or non-gene-modified humans have value. Wow
Characters: 184 (no, this is not a joke)
Take away: If you read this novel, only read book 1/part1. You will thank me later <3
Reasons I struggled with this book despite the premise being awesome:
1) To the best of my ability I counted at least 184 characters, I realized I was going to have to dig deep when I was only 13% of the way into the book and there were already 47 characters. So many of them were one-off characters that were never referenced again. Why do authors do this?!
2) This book was way too long. The story is broken into 4 books, the first book was an award-winning nebula short story from 1991. And I would say that if I had only read the first book I probably would have given it 4.5 stars. But the longer it went on the longer I was hoping it would end faster.
3) The moral philosophy was just too heavy-handed for my taste. There was a weird obsession with Lincoln and other founding fathers that I found to be really odd, and didn't fit that well into the story.
4) Some of the nicknames for the gene-edited and non-gene edited people were cringy. Donkey? Liver? Beggars? To hear characters talk about other characters with these names just annoyed and embarrassed me.
5) A 15 years old girl gets married to an old man and subsequently she has his children, and no one in the plot thought that was fucked up? wtf
6) And the final conclusion of the book had the stunning realization that poor and/or non-gene-modified humans have value. Wow
I couldn’t get through the first chapter - the descriptions of genetically modifying babies and a father so callously wanting to abort an unwanted, unmodified twin to keep it from “stealing nutrients from the good one” is just not something I can personally stomach.
Too scientific for me maybe but pretty good. Except for the end. Like the book end exactly where it was getting interesting ... It's frustrating.
challenging
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Just isn't very well put together collected into parts like this. Interesting premise (even on reread), but... not enough.
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated