samshort 's review for:

The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu

4.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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I'm going to be honest -- the first half of this book was a struggle, primarily due to the characters.  I found the large cast difficult to keep up with and each seemed poorly developed. I also took issue with the fact that the cast was so large but featured very few characters that were women. The few woman characters that did exist seemed to be sexist caricatures. However, after

Luo Ji's wife and child are forced into hibernation

I found the rest of the book to be very enjoyable. Cixin Liu is incredible at writing plot and coming up with invigorating twists, widespread social commentary, and explaining complicated concepts.  There were some maybe unnecessarily wordy parts but I think that contributes to his distinct writing style.