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kylios 's review for:
All the Birds in the Sky
by Charlie Jane Anders
I'm really mixed on this one. The story was quite fun and imaginative, and was so full of many important themes, including a brilliant ending. It takes place in a near-future San Francisco, in the middle of the big money tech world full of hackers and inventors, but with a cultish underground magic-wielding group, it adds a bit of Harry Potter vibe which plays nicely with the science and technology.
The first page or so immediately gives you the sense of the writing style - fast-paced, simple, and perhaps a little overly quirky. None of these are necessarily bad things, but not at all what I was expecting since I didn't really know much about the book except that it had been nominated for some awards.
My biggest gripe though is that I felt like the world that the author crafted was too big for the size of this book. Many parts of it felt rushed as she filled in years' worth of essential backstory in just a few pages, and then immediately relied on that backstory to further the plot. With such a fun and interesting world, I would have loved to see chapters dedicated to filling in some of these details and introducing essential characters, and I felt like I came away not really knowing the main characters as well as I could have by the end of the book.
Overall, good story, great themes, and wonderful imagination, but the writing and the pacing left something lacking for me.
The first page or so immediately gives you the sense of the writing style - fast-paced, simple, and perhaps a little overly quirky. None of these are necessarily bad things, but not at all what I was expecting since I didn't really know much about the book except that it had been nominated for some awards.
My biggest gripe though is that I felt like the world that the author crafted was too big for the size of this book. Many parts of it felt rushed as she filled in years' worth of essential backstory in just a few pages, and then immediately relied on that backstory to further the plot. With such a fun and interesting world, I would have loved to see chapters dedicated to filling in some of these details and introducing essential characters, and I felt like I came away not really knowing the main characters as well as I could have by the end of the book.
Overall, good story, great themes, and wonderful imagination, but the writing and the pacing left something lacking for me.