Reviews

Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel

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lizbethandthelifeinbetween's review against another edition

Interesting premise, bad execution/wrong medium.

The interview style of this book is not doing it for me. It feels like the character work authors do to better understand their characters, not what you publish in a book. I keep wondering who this interview is and why they're so unprofessional before I get bored by the non-giant robot related life details about characters that have zero development. Stop telling me all this stuff. Show it to me. Write a book. This is a book, but it feels like character worksheets.

There is a mysterious giant robot that may or may not be alien and we aren't living in the moment with the characters. We are getting their final statements on the matrer. Maybe the author intended for us to feel like we are sifting through files trying to find out what really happened, but even that sort of story need and anchor and framing device which we don't have. This should have been a TV series if this is how the author wanted to tell the story, it does not work as a book.

massmarketfiend's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

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

4.5

this really worked for me. i listened on audio, which is the definitive way to go. it's a full cast narration and the performances are top notch. they really brought the characters to life and made me care (s/o to the casting director if there was one). not quite a 5 star because i'm not sure how much of my enjoyment came from the audio production versus the book itself, but i had a blast either way. i'm itching to start the next book; i haven't felt this way since i read percy jackson in middle school.

angeleone's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

annatherbook's review against another edition

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4.0

This was really really good! I love these kind of formats!

oek11's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This was certainly an interesting book - very different format than I'm used to, and paced differently. This book challenged me due to the format it was written in, but I like a challenge. I know the point of this book is to lead you around from person to person throughout a several year process, but some details were left out that would have been helpful, as well as certain things were too detailed and did not help move the book along.
Overall, I am glad to have read it, and also very glad to see how story graph's ersonalized recommendations lined up with how I felt about this book.

mehsi's review against another edition

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5.0

This was a pretty interesting book, not sure if I will read on, sci-fi is still not 100% my thing, especially adult science fiction. I love the cover!