Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by cpriz
The Rook by Daniel O'Malley
4.0
Couldn't decide if I wanted to give this a 3 or a 4 star rating. I think I'm at a 3.75 so I rounded up.
Not the kind of book I read on a few levels! It's kind of Harry Potter and it's kind of Bartimaeus Trilogy and it's kind of more YA than I anticipated but it's also pretty good. I like the way the world-building was done and the world is pretty genius. I like how supernatural it is--enough but not too much. Very believable and relatable (I'm not into escapist fiction). I couldn't tell how much I liked the protagonist's character at first...it seemed inconsistent but turned out to be necessary. The plot progressed brilliantly and I found myself tearing through dozens of pages at a time. Also the letter frame was wonderful and put to perfect use.
Some things I didn't love: there were about 150-250 pages throughout the book that were total slogs. Unimportant and not well written. I felt like different people had written the book and one of the authors should have gone into something else.
The level of snarkiness. Sometimes perfect. Othertimes immature, forced and unbelievable. Not to mention unnecessary. This was particularly apparent around Shantay's character (who still irks me). I felt like she was an disconnected capitulation to stereotypical sidekicks and sudden YA friendships. And then she was gone.
Overall, good book. Think I'll give the sequel a look though I've heard it isn't as good. I'm glad I read this one though.
Not the kind of book I read on a few levels! It's kind of Harry Potter and it's kind of Bartimaeus Trilogy and it's kind of more YA than I anticipated but it's also pretty good. I like the way the world-building was done and the world is pretty genius. I like how supernatural it is--enough but not too much. Very believable and relatable (I'm not into escapist fiction). I couldn't tell how much I liked the protagonist's character at first...it seemed inconsistent but turned out to be necessary. The plot progressed brilliantly and I found myself tearing through dozens of pages at a time. Also the letter frame was wonderful and put to perfect use.
Some things I didn't love: there were about 150-250 pages throughout the book that were total slogs. Unimportant and not well written. I felt like different people had written the book and one of the authors should have gone into something else.
The level of snarkiness. Sometimes perfect. Othertimes immature, forced and unbelievable. Not to mention unnecessary. This was particularly apparent around Shantay's character (who still irks me). I felt like she was an disconnected capitulation to stereotypical sidekicks and sudden YA friendships. And then she was gone.
Overall, good book. Think I'll give the sequel a look though I've heard it isn't as good. I'm glad I read this one though.