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wrentheblurry 's review for:
Special Forces: Soldiers Part I -Director's Cut
by Aleksandr Voinov, Vashtan, Marquesate
DID NOT FINISH
2.5 stars.
Initially, I loved this book. It was intense, visceral and very different from most of the books I've read. Then time passed, and I made small progress towards finishing it, and my love lessened. Then slowly I started to become annoyed by it. It just became too repetitive. The word choice, the scenes, the sentence structure (specifically where one word is a sentence, followed by several other one-word sentences) got up my nose.
Finally, at 40% into the book, I couldn't go on reading it normally. Still, Voinov is a decent writer, and the sex scenes were completely worthwhile. So I began skimming. For the remaining 60% of the book, I mostly just read the scenes where the two main characters are together, with a page or two of plot development thrown in so I would have some idea of why they were even together.
Because I was compelled to "finish" it, and because the sex scenes did not ever cause me to roll my eyes, that counts as 3 stars. Yet it is way, way too long, I never felt connected to the characters, and at a certain point I had read enough sex scenes between the characters that I could predict what would happen in the next one with some amount of accuracy. That counts as 2 stars, which gave me my average.
I am surprised it's a free title, the author has clearly poured a ton of work into the project, and deserves to be rewarded. The book may would have worked better for me if it was broken into two (or more) separate titles. I think there are sequels which are also super long.
I very much like getting to know only a few characters well, so I was pleased that only Dan and Vadim were the focus here. But, even at the end, I didn't care about them. As I said, I never connected with them; they felt too predictable and superficial. I didn't enjoy the military theme and that may have had something to do with my bias against the characters (and setting. and plot.).
In the end, I know several people that love this title, and I can understand why. I hope that I've been explicit enough as to why I don't. :)
Initially, I loved this book. It was intense, visceral and very different from most of the books I've read. Then time passed, and I made small progress towards finishing it, and my love lessened. Then slowly I started to become annoyed by it. It just became too repetitive. The word choice, the scenes, the sentence structure (specifically where one word is a sentence, followed by several other one-word sentences) got up my nose.
Finally, at 40% into the book, I couldn't go on reading it normally. Still, Voinov is a decent writer, and the sex scenes were completely worthwhile. So I began skimming. For the remaining 60% of the book, I mostly just read the scenes where the two main characters are together, with a page or two of plot development thrown in so I would have some idea of why they were even together.
Because I was compelled to "finish" it, and because the sex scenes did not ever cause me to roll my eyes, that counts as 3 stars. Yet it is way, way too long, I never felt connected to the characters, and at a certain point I had read enough sex scenes between the characters that I could predict what would happen in the next one with some amount of accuracy. That counts as 2 stars, which gave me my average.
I am surprised it's a free title, the author has clearly poured a ton of work into the project, and deserves to be rewarded. The book may would have worked better for me if it was broken into two (or more) separate titles. I think there are sequels which are also super long.
I very much like getting to know only a few characters well, so I was pleased that only Dan and Vadim were the focus here. But, even at the end, I didn't care about them. As I said, I never connected with them; they felt too predictable and superficial. I didn't enjoy the military theme and that may have had something to do with my bias against the characters (and setting. and plot.).
In the end, I know several people that love this title, and I can understand why. I hope that I've been explicit enough as to why I don't. :)