You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
additionaddiction 's review for:
Red Sparrow
by Jason Matthews
Now a major motion-picture featuring Jennifer Lawrence and Joel Edgerton as the lead characters, Red Sparrow is a gripping American/Russian spy-novel with lots of great back-and-forth narration from both sides. There were spies, double-agents, espionage, stings, and a slew of acronyms that kept me trying to remember who was who. As the reader I was constantly aware of more than either the Russians or the Americans but it never felt frustrating like can often happen in similar situations. I think this was partly because the characters were all very smart (with a few exceptions) and caught on to their current events quickly.
The writing in this book was great. It was both descriptive and concise (which seems contradictory). I believe this was the author's first book which is very impressive. One of my favorite things was realizing that a recipe was included at the end of every chapter based on some food that was eaten during that chapter. Once I realized that this was happening in every chapter I started to try to guess which food or meal was going to be listed at the end. I'd actually like to try to make a few of these.
A few gripes with the story (sort of spoiler-ish but not really):
The main story line started off great, but I feel like it got sort of derailed towards the middle. A secondary plot was introduced and wrapped up pretty quickly which felt a little too easy. It wasn't really necessary to the main plot and could have easily been replaced with almost anything else.
The "Sparrow" in "Red Sparrow" refers to the "Sparrow School" attended by Dominika, the main character. The actual title "Red Sparrow" is supposed to refer to Dominika (post-school) however no one really calls her that. Being the title of the book, you'd think this whole Sparrow business was a major part of the story but it really wasn't. I'd say after the first quarter or so of the book it was hardly even brought up anymore. Dominika does have a different nickname (asset name) which she is often referred to by, so I don't know why the book wasn't given that title, (or conversely Dominika's asset name should have been "Red Sparrow").
The writing in this book was great. It was both descriptive and concise (which seems contradictory). I believe this was the author's first book which is very impressive. One of my favorite things was realizing that a recipe was included at the end of every chapter based on some food that was eaten during that chapter. Once I realized that this was happening in every chapter I started to try to guess which food or meal was going to be listed at the end. I'd actually like to try to make a few of these.
A few gripes with the story (sort of spoiler-ish but not really):
The main story line started off great, but I feel like it got sort of derailed towards the middle. A secondary plot was introduced and wrapped up pretty quickly which felt a little too easy. It wasn't really necessary to the main plot and could have easily been replaced with almost anything else.
The "Sparrow" in "Red Sparrow" refers to the "Sparrow School" attended by Dominika, the main character. The actual title "Red Sparrow" is supposed to refer to Dominika (post-school) however no one really calls her that. Being the title of the book, you'd think this whole Sparrow business was a major part of the story but it really wasn't. I'd say after the first quarter or so of the book it was hardly even brought up anymore. Dominika does have a different nickname (asset name) which she is often referred to by, so I don't know why the book wasn't given that title, (or conversely Dominika's asset name should have been "Red Sparrow").