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3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
It's about time I read a story where the Norse Gods--well, all of them really, but read the book and you'll see--get some play. We all know that the Greek Gods were capricious and fickle, but apparently that's just a pantheon thing.
I love the character development, and the treatment of the trickster archetype. I think it would be challenging to write a good trickster in a compelling way, but Card delivers.
I love the character development, and the treatment of the trickster archetype. I think it would be challenging to write a good trickster in a compelling way, but Card delivers.
Card's ability to pick me up and fly me away to another world has only grown more potent with time. I'm delighted to hear that he has plans for many more books in the Mithers Mages -this world brings together his ability to make abstract concepts like space and time clear enough for a lay person, and his fabulous powers of imagination to make something up that doesn't exist but we wish it did! After quite a string of depressing YA fiction about characters who I can barely stand to read about, let alone admire their lives, Card's hopeful outlook on our potential as human beings to be kind and generous and make a difference was really refreshing.
Actually 1 star is probably enough. I really loved Ender’s Game but this was a great disappointment. A very strange mix of juvenile toilet humour and occasional adult themes, not to mention interminable explanations/descriptions of how gates work.
I received an advanced copy of The Lost Gate from Goodreads. Yay! So here is the review that was requested:
The book started out really great. It had an interesting premise and I thought the story had great potential - A boy who finds out he is a gatemage in a place where gatemages are immediately killed and he must somehow learn about his powers and survive, etc. I was excited and blew through the first couple of chapters.
Then, it just got really weird. The book went in a completely different direction from the beginning and Danny, the main character, turned into a bratty, selfish, unlikable, delinquent. I found it difficult to trudge through several chapters of him just being a jerk, basically.
And what is up with the sexual situations between a married woman and a little thirteen-year-old boy? Uncomfortable and unnecessary in a book like this.
When the story finally lined back up with its beginning, the book got much better. I enjoyed learning about gatemagery along with Danny. It turned into a fun book that held my attention.
I also really enjoyed the story of Wad that was interspersed throughout the book. It was well told and I found that I cared much more about Wad that I did about Danny.
I gave this book three stars, but I think if several chapters in the middle could be ripped out and forgotten, I would give it more.
The book started out really great. It had an interesting premise and I thought the story had great potential - A boy who finds out he is a gatemage in a place where gatemages are immediately killed and he must somehow learn about his powers and survive, etc. I was excited and blew through the first couple of chapters.
Then, it just got really weird. The book went in a completely different direction from the beginning and Danny, the main character, turned into a bratty, selfish, unlikable, delinquent. I found it difficult to trudge through several chapters of him just being a jerk, basically.
And what is up with the sexual situations between a married woman and a little thirteen-year-old boy? Uncomfortable and unnecessary in a book like this.
When the story finally lined back up with its beginning, the book got much better. I enjoyed learning about gatemagery along with Danny. It turned into a fun book that held my attention.
I also really enjoyed the story of Wad that was interspersed throughout the book. It was well told and I found that I cared much more about Wad that I did about Danny.
I gave this book three stars, but I think if several chapters in the middle could be ripped out and forgotten, I would give it more.
Not bad....a little verbose, especially considering it is supposed to be more YA than Adult fiction.
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I listened to this one on Audible and it is a good YA book. Aiden has been listening to it too. the beginning bugged me a bit. The story was good but the tenses seemed wrong. I was listening so I can't be sure but my gut was too much passive voice. If you can get through the first 3 chapters, this seems to pass... or I got used to it.
It's no Enders Game, but I'll probably read other books in the series. I was much more interested in the Greek girl than in anyone else in the book, so I hope she becomes more important as the series goes on.
Did you love Ender's Game?
Are you interested in seeing what the YA/fantasy genre has to offer?
Do you love stories about tricksters?
Are you interested in seeing people and creatures from myth living and interacting in the modern age?
Do you want to read a book that makes you think or keeps you on the edge of your seat?
If so...DO NOT READ THIS BOOK.
Seriously you guys, I'm finally done with the thing, but the whole my face has looked like I was sucking lemons and smelling sour eggs. It was just a weird weird book. I really wanted to like it, and I did until Danny ran away. Once he left the compound he turned into a raging asshole with sex issues.
This book has a lot of gross underage sexual stuff, and not like "Oh he kissed a girl and that was nice" or "She was in a bikini and it made him feel strange" but Danny legitimately gets molested by an older lady when he's around 12(?) and NOBODY CARES. They tease him about ‘liking’ the fact that she started trying to have sex with him and in the same passage they talk about how inappropriate it was that she MOLESTED HIM. Combine that with Danny’s constant worrying about pedophiles, taking off his pants whenever he gets in trouble (wtf?!?) and Wad’s whole mess of a sexual/baby-making storyline and this book just has more issues than even Kinsey could figure out.
I've been listening to this book at home in the evenings and my husband will start bitching about how awful this book is, so you know, it's not just 'cause I'm a ~lady~ and have delicate sensibilities or anything. It has serious problems with the way sex and puberty is discussed.
*From a classroom point of view, what grade level is this? I wouldn't even read this with high schoolers due to fear of parent outrage.
#reposted from my audible review
Are you interested in seeing what the YA/fantasy genre has to offer?
Do you love stories about tricksters?
Are you interested in seeing people and creatures from myth living and interacting in the modern age?
Do you want to read a book that makes you think or keeps you on the edge of your seat?
If so...DO NOT READ THIS BOOK.
Seriously you guys, I'm finally done with the thing, but the whole my face has looked like I was sucking lemons and smelling sour eggs. It was just a weird weird book. I really wanted to like it, and I did until Danny ran away. Once he left the compound he turned into a raging asshole with sex issues.
This book has a lot of gross underage sexual stuff, and not like "Oh he kissed a girl and that was nice" or "She was in a bikini and it made him feel strange" but Danny legitimately gets molested by an older lady when he's around 12(?) and NOBODY CARES. They tease him about ‘liking’ the fact that she started trying to have sex with him and in the same passage they talk about how inappropriate it was that she MOLESTED HIM. Combine that with Danny’s constant worrying about pedophiles, taking off his pants whenever he gets in trouble (wtf?!?) and Wad’s whole mess of a sexual/baby-making storyline and this book just has more issues than even Kinsey could figure out.
I've been listening to this book at home in the evenings and my husband will start bitching about how awful this book is, so you know, it's not just 'cause I'm a ~lady~ and have delicate sensibilities or anything. It has serious problems with the way sex and puberty is discussed.
*From a classroom point of view, what grade level is this? I wouldn't even read this with high schoolers due to fear of parent outrage.
#reposted from my audible review
