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3.62 AVERAGE
3.62 AVERAGE
Very well done intertwining a coming of age tale with darkness of sci fi apocalypse.
The best dystopian fiction I've read so far. Here's why:
1. NOT a trilogy! Hooray!
2. Protagonist was believably awkward, not kick ass girl who thinks she's plain but is secretly beautiful and loved by all the boys.
3. This one showed how the world changed, instead of dropping you in a strange world.
4. Great coming of age story that just happens to take place during the apocalypse.
1. NOT a trilogy! Hooray!
2. Protagonist was believably awkward, not kick ass girl who thinks she's plain but is secretly beautiful and loved by all the boys.
3. This one showed how the world changed, instead of dropping you in a strange world.
4. Great coming of age story that just happens to take place during the apocalypse.
I read this book in about 3 days. I thought the ideas behind it were great but the cause of the slowing would have been more of a plot twist at the end if she had included it. At times it got very repetitive but I would recommend as a light read
The premise of this book was very engaging and unique, which made this book a hard one to put down. I finished it in a few hours, but it didn't leave me feeling satisfied. I felt like there was a lot of, "but eventually, it would get worse", or "we had no idea how bad XYZ would be", etc. There were so many allusions to greater catastrophe that were never really fleshed out. As far as apocalypses go, it didn't seem so bad, even though there were some very heartbreaking moments. I never really felt that true sense of fear, panic, or "the end". The story and characters don't really stand out, despite what I thought would be a very cool end-of-the-world scenario. I also felt that most of the major plot points were predictable. Overall, not the worst book I've read, and not too badly written, but I think it needed more work before publishing. Readers would not have shied away from a longer book that was better developed.
It's been a very long time since a book got such a grip on me. The story is tied to the Earth's rotation suddenly slowing drastically. The narrator is an eleven-year-old girl at the time. What seemed to resonate with me the most were the passages about dealing with abnormally long days and nights. At this time of the summer, the days are so long and it's always time for bed before the sky is even fully dark. Somehow the descriptions of trying to sleep during full daylight touched on something very familiar. I found it terribly difficult to put the darn thing down! The rest of the story--parents struggling through marital troubles, an elderly grandfather struggling to find a reason to continue living, and fledgling love that is more friendship than passion--was pretty convincingly done. The story is very localized; it's not about what happens on a global scale (and it doesn't need to be). The idea that humanity's time on this planet is someday going to come to an end--that ever-lurking fear that we all have to live with--was well expressed.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
It was perhaps more of a 2.5. There were parts I really liked, but overall found it too bleak. I like when there is hope left, and this book left me hopeless. There were no miracles, the world getting worse and worse, with lots of bad science.
I appreciated the originality of the story. I had never imagined this type of dystopian future. I liked Walker's use of language, but at times I felt that the poetry of her way of blending words distracted from the story she was telling, as if she was wrapped up in creating a phrase instead of furthering her story.
dark
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
The first word I thought of when I finished this book was bleak. It’s definitely not a book to read if you’re looking for something happy or uplifting. I think my only real complaint about this book was I was hoping for a better ending. Not necessarily a happy ending, but a meatier ending, maybe? The story just kind of ends abruptly and I didn’t get enough closure, I guess. A great speculative fiction book seen through the eyes of a pre teen girl.