Reviews

All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

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bookph1le's review against another edition

3.0

I'm between a 3 and a 4 with this one. I loved many things about it, but the overall effect felt slapped together, and the lack of cohesion killed the book for me somewhat. Rather than feeling like a complete story, it kind of felt like one of those stories where you write one paragraph, then a friend writes the next, the another friend writes the next, etc. You may end up with some awesome individual scenes, but the whole ends up lacking a unifying vision.

melanietrumbo's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

jordanglass's review against another edition

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reflective

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

marlfox580's review against another edition

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Child abuse and graphic bullying was upsetting to me. I didn't really like the boy character. There didn't seem like there would be a happy ending and was very depressing.

clhtdr's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

s_h_a_r_i's review against another edition

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2.0

What a ridiculous book. It started out so sweet and fun, and morphed into a total mess of failed attempts at showing us how unique and interesting the two characters are, while they're both rather obnoxious human beings whom I really wanted to smack in the face.

Sub-plots appear and vanish, void of reason or meaning. Pop culture references show up to make us feel some geek pride (thank you, Ready Player One, for popularizing this bad habit). Very important stuff happens because it does, yet we're supposed to be impressed by it. People are supposedly cool-like because they... what? Have weird cool hair? People do something, but seem to lack any motivations or logic more sophisticated than occasional anger.

I wanted to like this book but I couldn't. Needed more birds, perhaps.