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matt_and_cheez's Reviews (493)
I loved this book as a thriller. To me it had The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo vibes with its frozen, isolated setting, and its protagonist as an amateur sleuth talking to a cast of suspicious characters. I did guess the killer about halfway through the book, but it was still thrilling to see how things would unfold.
I hated this book as a book. Clearly it was rushed through translation and publishing at least in the US edition. It's full of spelling and grammar errors, weird formatting issues, and awkward-sounding English. The protagonist is meant to be American yet he uses British terms in dialogue. The translator did not do this book a favor.
If you can ignore problems like that and press on through the novel, it's well worth it.
I hated this book as a book. Clearly it was rushed through translation and publishing at least in the US edition. It's full of spelling and grammar errors, weird formatting issues, and awkward-sounding English. The protagonist is meant to be American yet he uses British terms in dialogue. The translator did not do this book a favor.
If you can ignore problems like that and press on through the novel, it's well worth it.
I've been interested in this conspiracy-laden mystery for a couple years now, and was happy to finally pick up the book. Eichar not only transports us to 1959 into the final weeks of the missing Soviet hikers, but also takes us along with him in his 2012-13 investigation of the event. He switches between the perspectives of the hikers, the search party, and himself, which I found to keep the book moving faster.
That being said, I rated this under 5 stars because generally non-fiction drags on for me, no matter the topic. That's completely a personal preference and doesn't make me recommend this book less. Definitely pick it up if you're interested in conspiracies, Cold-War history, mountaineering stories, and investigative journalism/literature.
That being said, I rated this under 5 stars because generally non-fiction drags on for me, no matter the topic. That's completely a personal preference and doesn't make me recommend this book less. Definitely pick it up if you're interested in conspiracies, Cold-War history, mountaineering stories, and investigative journalism/literature.
This was such a refreshing fantasy read for me. The concept of magic creating a deadly, cancerous plant to sprout with every spell cast was a cool idea. The universe had a great selection of characters, settings, and your typical fantastical elements like war, intrigue, and magic.
What I found disappointing and unexpected was that the novel is broken up into a handful of short stories. It's not one cohesive tale, although some characters are mentioned or overlap in someways across the text. I would've preferred this to be one tale, as I felt things weren't neatly tied up, and left me wondering what happened to a lot of these characters.
I would still recommend if you're looking for something a bit out of the ordinary.
What I found disappointing and unexpected was that the novel is broken up into a handful of short stories. It's not one cohesive tale, although some characters are mentioned or overlap in someways across the text. I would've preferred this to be one tale, as I felt things weren't neatly tied up, and left me wondering what happened to a lot of these characters.
I would still recommend if you're looking for something a bit out of the ordinary.
The Dune series has without a doubt become one of my favorites of all time. It's pushed me into the sci-fi genre, which I've always placed beneath fantasy and didn't find interesting. I'm thankful now that I'm appreciating the genre more and more.
I rated this installment lower than its predecessors just because I found it less intriguing, but only slightly. The Atreides children, for whom the book is titled were not likable in my opinion. While I don't think every character needs to be likable, there were only a couple characters I was really rooting for, and some were not the main protagonists.
The world Herbert created is Tolkien-level rich and this third installment doesn't disappoint in that regard. Though, what I find so special about Dune is that its very much a philosophical text as well as a grand epic set in space. Characters often have visions and streams of thought that tackle issues like time, reality, and humankind's place in the universe.
I rated this installment lower than its predecessors just because I found it less intriguing, but only slightly. The Atreides children, for whom the book is titled were not likable in my opinion. While I don't think every character needs to be likable, there were only a couple characters I was really rooting for, and some were not the main protagonists.
The world Herbert created is Tolkien-level rich and this third installment doesn't disappoint in that regard. Though, what I find so special about Dune is that its very much a philosophical text as well as a grand epic set in space. Characters often have visions and streams of thought that tackle issues like time, reality, and humankind's place in the universe.
Dracula has taken the top spot of my most favorite Victorian novels. It's important to go in expecting vampire cliches obviously, since this work implanted many of them in our public psyche. It's also good to go into this novel expecting artifacts of that era- men taking the lead, women being the likelier victims, demonized mental illness, and poor understanding of medicine compared to today. That being said, I still found the novel and characters quite enjoyable.
Stoker does a great job in keeping us immersed in the gothic-type atmosphere with wolves, dark, dirty manors, graveyards, etc. And although I knew the basics of how the story would go, I still found the build-up to be exciting, and some of the gorier and darker details to be perfectly scary.
I did hope for more of an epic ending/final battle, but recognize that maybe that's a modern-day American's expectation. However, contrary to my general opinion of Victorian literature, I didn't find the majority of this work dry or hard to get through. Some sections of dialogue were written phonetically which was a bit annoying, but it was still easy to get the gist of what they were trying to say.
I had read Dracul, the contemporary "prequel" to Stoker's classic, right before delving into the original work. The original beats it by a long-shot. Will definitely be picking this back up again in the future.
Stoker does a great job in keeping us immersed in the gothic-type atmosphere with wolves, dark, dirty manors, graveyards, etc. And although I knew the basics of how the story would go, I still found the build-up to be exciting, and some of the gorier and darker details to be perfectly scary.
I did hope for more of an epic ending/final battle, but recognize that maybe that's a modern-day American's expectation. However, contrary to my general opinion of Victorian literature, I didn't find the majority of this work dry or hard to get through. Some sections of dialogue were written phonetically which was a bit annoying, but it was still easy to get the gist of what they were trying to say.
I had read Dracul, the contemporary "prequel" to Stoker's classic, right before delving into the original work. The original beats it by a long-shot. Will definitely be picking this back up again in the future.
I would rate this 3.5 stars. It was a fun, whimsical tale with surprising (sometimes abrupt) moments of dark violence. The novel mode of magic presented in the world was refreshing, but was a bit cliché. The pace of character development felt a little rushed, but the characters themselves were likeable. Some elements of the setting, particularly dialogue, felt anachronistic at times, but overall an amusing magical tale.