Take a photo of a barcode or cover
mv33sv5's Reviews (78)
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
What scares me the most is that many of the ideals enforced in this book’s society are coming back full force in our own society. Especially the Commander’s. Policing women’s rights, keeping them in the unknown, and of course exploiting that system for your own gain by bending the rules, risking not yourself but those women you take from.
To many far right men we, women, are just vessels around a breedable womb. We’re dumb, we are superficial, we whore ourselves out and ask for it.
This book is getting scarily close to reality when it comes to its ideas. Gilead might as well be any place in our world in the future.
Hard read, but necessary.
To many far right men we, women, are just vessels around a breedable womb. We’re dumb, we are superficial, we whore ourselves out and ask for it.
This book is getting scarily close to reality when it comes to its ideas. Gilead might as well be any place in our world in the future.
Hard read, but necessary.
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I’ve seen a lot of reviews complaining about the racism and misogyny. And while those claims are more than valid, I’m of the opinion you should always consume media with its publication date in mind. This was written during a time where this was normal and so, I did not let it take away my enjoyment of this book.
That being said, there’s other things I take issue with. This book suffers from the strong beginning - horrible middle - strong ending syndrome. I got hooked pretty fast, but I felt my interest deplete near the 300 pages mark. Things just slowed down too much, got drawn out too much. The last 150 or so pages and especially the ending compensated quite a bit, but it still feels like this book didn’t need to be quite that long.
Another thing I disliked was Puzo’s need to overexplain things. Plot points would be discussed again ten pages after they were brought up, giving the feeling as if the author didn’t trust his audience to pick them up. Other than the feeling of being underestimated, it also slowed down the narrative a lot.
I did enjoy the storyline. It was well set out and written in a way to keep you curious. Who betrayed who and what will happen next? I especially liked the ending chapter where we follow Kay. It feels like a nice way to round the story out, but also give you the feeling that the cycle will continue, even if Michael doesn’t want it to.
Overall a pretty decent read, interesting characters and a strong plot.
That being said, there’s other things I take issue with. This book suffers from the strong beginning - horrible middle - strong ending syndrome. I got hooked pretty fast, but I felt my interest deplete near the 300 pages mark. Things just slowed down too much, got drawn out too much. The last 150 or so pages and especially the ending compensated quite a bit, but it still feels like this book didn’t need to be quite that long.
Another thing I disliked was Puzo’s need to overexplain things. Plot points would be discussed again ten pages after they were brought up, giving the feeling as if the author didn’t trust his audience to pick them up. Other than the feeling of being underestimated, it also slowed down the narrative a lot.
I did enjoy the storyline. It was well set out and written in a way to keep you curious. Who betrayed who and what will happen next? I especially liked the ending chapter where we follow Kay. It feels like a nice way to round the story out, but also give you the feeling that the cycle will continue, even if Michael doesn’t want it to.
Overall a pretty decent read, interesting characters and a strong plot.
challenging
dark
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Starts out a bit slow, but picks up soon enough. I love how we’re inside of Katniss’ head meaning we know just as much as she does.. which is nothing.
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This was a lot heavier than I thought it would be. During multiple chapters, I got lumps in my throat and I had to take a break.
The way this book shines light on a multitude of issues without it feeling too jumbled is impressive. Poverty, violence, religious wars, being queer in Glasgow in the 90s…
Reading this as a queer person who’s dealt with being cast out, with having physical altercations just because of my identity.. it was hard.
One quote really stuck with me, because it is something I experienced back when I was on the cusp of becoming a teenager, still figuring myself out:
“James turned away. He knew if they caught him staring they would have a hundred names for him before he had a name for himself.”
I returned to that page a lot, and I will continue to whenever I think about this heart wrenching story.
I recommended this to people who can stomach it. It’s really not an easy book to get through so please take care and check for trigger warnings.
The way this book shines light on a multitude of issues without it feeling too jumbled is impressive. Poverty, violence, religious wars, being queer in Glasgow in the 90s…
Reading this as a queer person who’s dealt with being cast out, with having physical altercations just because of my identity.. it was hard.
One quote really stuck with me, because it is something I experienced back when I was on the cusp of becoming a teenager, still figuring myself out:
“James turned away. He knew if they caught him staring they would have a hundred names for him before he had a name for himself.”
I returned to that page a lot, and I will continue to whenever I think about this heart wrenching story.
I recommended this to people who can stomach it. It’s really not an easy book to get through so please take care and check for trigger warnings.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Violence
challenging
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
With the direction our society is taking, this was an impactful reread.
More extended review to be written later maybe, maybe not.
More extended review to be written later maybe, maybe not.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Many times I have tried to break the spine of this book, but it would not bend. And I think that describes Circe perfectly.
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
New characters and character POVs, insane plot twists, very enjoyable character growth and not so growth.
Banger book.
Banger book.
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
For someone who claims to be a big fan of the sport, Asher knows as much about it as someone who’d binge one season if Drive to Survive and maybe saw like 15 laps of a random race somewhere, but big on that maybe. This book is littered with inaccuracies about Formula One, which is unacceptable when you make F1 the base setting of your book. If only they were minor, I’d not be annoyed. But if you’re gonna write a sport romance, I’d expect you to do some basic research about the foundations of said sport.
Horrible racing language and inaccuracies aside, the writing is just bad. I’ve seen better Wattpad writing than this and we all know Wattpad isn’t the place for good fanfic. The dialogue wasn’t as snappy as intended and the characters had little to no substance. Up until around 130 pages in, the only interaction between our main leads were them thinking about fucking each other. Constantly.
Conflict is also not a thing in this book. Whenever something happens, it gets resolved in the same chapter. Nothing has consequences.
Lastly, using crashing that happened and affected real people for your bad fiction book is nasty.
Horrible racing language and inaccuracies aside, the writing is just bad. I’ve seen better Wattpad writing than this and we all know Wattpad isn’t the place for good fanfic. The dialogue wasn’t as snappy as intended and the characters had little to no substance. Up until around 130 pages in, the only interaction between our main leads were them thinking about fucking each other. Constantly.
Conflict is also not a thing in this book. Whenever something happens, it gets resolved in the same chapter. Nothing has consequences.
Lastly, using crashing that happened and affected real people for your bad fiction book is nasty.