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nooralshanti's reviews
161 reviews
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
1.0
I like dystopian fiction. I like young adult books and I am usually willing to overlook the predictability and other issues that come with that category as long as there's something else to keep me entertained such as compelling characters, for example. Unfortunately, I could not like this book.
It failed in too many ways. The world building was terrible, the writing style was slow and full of unnecessary telling, the main character is not only a Mary-Sue, she's also emotionless, and there is absolutely no moral aspect to a book that is about a society where kids fight to the death on TV! There was a lot of potential for great emotional scenes, a rebellion against the cruel Hunger Games, and character growth, but what we get is, instead, a story about a teenage love triangle where every article of clothing is lovingly described in detail but not an ounce of real emotion is allowed to come through.
In short, the Hunger Games isn't worth the hype. If you have somehow managed to avoid it until now I would keep on avoiding...
It failed in too many ways. The world building was terrible, the writing style was slow and full of unnecessary telling, the main character is not only a Mary-Sue, she's also emotionless, and there is absolutely no moral aspect to a book that is about a society where kids fight to the death on TV! There was a lot of potential for great emotional scenes, a rebellion against the cruel Hunger Games, and character growth, but what we get is, instead, a story about a teenage love triangle where every article of clothing is lovingly described in detail but not an ounce of real emotion is allowed to come through.
In short, the Hunger Games isn't worth the hype. If you have somehow managed to avoid it until now I would keep on avoiding...
Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson
There should be a "didn't finish" option. I may one day go back and finish reading this, the idea seemed great and everything, but the written dialects really annoyed me (I could barely put up with Hagrid in Harry Potter). I kept reading anyway, but when the main character's boyfriend showed up and she became a useless "can't resist him" idiot I stopped. Luckily, I was in the library when this all occurred so I just didn't check it out and moved on. I may try one of Nalo Hopkinson's other books at some point, though.
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
3.0
I decided to read this book because it was written by the author of Temeraire. The cover didn't do much for me and neither did the description, which seemed like a generic "this is going to be a love story" set up, but having read Temeraire I hoped the author would do something more interesting with the book than was suggested by the description.
She did. She had a good idea and her writing style is smooth and polished. However, it just felt like the idea hadn't been developed properly. She was writing about a magic world but didn't want to bother developing the magic style. She was writing about the wood, but didn't want to think too much about the wood's nature and how humans could learn to live with it, so she decided to come up with a hastily tagged on back story in the end.
It was like reading at least two different stories squashed together uncomfortably. First, there was the story of the girl who gets "sacrificed" and sent as a tribute up the sorcerer/lord in the tower because people are too afraid to say no to him and he protects them from things. A very medieval tale that could have gone two ways. Either with her bid to escape or with her falling in love with him. Instead, she hung around being useless and having no self-respect for about 50 pages before discovering that she had magic and THAT was the reason he had actually taken her up to the castle - because the KIng's law said people like her had to be trained. That explained his negativity, his coldness and constant insults and it made me happy because I thought "good, no silly romance plot." WRONG! They did end up falling in love anyways because... they did magic together and their voices flowed well together when they sang. WUT?
Also, I had the impression this was a YA book until I stumbled across a sex scene. What is happening? Is this what YA books are like now? Not to mention it was completely unnecessarily thrown in to the middle of the supposed action/war part of the book when the characters really should have been too busy for it... >.> Also, he's about 150 years older than her. Why is this a thing?
But let's talk about the second book. The second book that was squashed onto this one involves the royalty and their court politics, which the main character gets pointlessly thrown into. The only result of this is that she ends up witnessing and participating in the completely unnecessary massacre of hundreds of soldiers. Oh - and her best friend who had reached a dead end found something to do with her life. I'm still really not sure why this part was tacked onto the book. I feel like it was born out of the author's need to find something for Kasia to do that would take her away so the main characters could be more comfortable without having to "worry" about her and also for the author to draw attention away from the fact that she didn't bother thinking too much about how the magic worked or how the wood worked.
Which is unfortunate, because the wood could have been really interesting. The main character's journey to discover her own magic, her own roots and connection to the wood, and to heal it, could have been much more profound and meaningful. The wood started off being interesting. In the end, though, I just didn't care how many zombie-trees and random insects came out of the wood at them because it was pretty obvious the main character was going to make up some random spell and it would work and they would all make it out alive. Except those poor soldiers that got massacred for no reason. *sigh*
Something I did love was the way the main character (who tells this tale from her own point of view in first person) described the way her magic differed from the magic of others. It was cool. It was a great start to what could have been a well developed magic system. But it never got developed and so by the third time she used such a description I was bored.
The book was a little long and tedious as others have mentioned. It's not that the writing isn't good, it's just that it was spent describing pointless fluff. I think this goes into characterization, too. The characters weren't allowed to grow or change or even have motivations so it was kind of hard to care about the things happening to them.
I will say again, though, that the book contains some interesting ideas and I did end up finishing it and not hating it. It was ok. Not spectacular, not as good as I can imagine it had the potential to be, just ok. Perhaps what spoiled this for me even more and gave me bigger expectations was that I felt it was very heavily influenced by (and ripping off from) some Miyazaki classics like Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Laputa, and even Princess Mononoke. But without following through on the consequences or thinking it through at all the way a true MIyazaki epic does!
She did. She had a good idea and her writing style is smooth and polished. However, it just felt like the idea hadn't been developed properly. She was writing about a magic world but didn't want to bother developing the magic style. She was writing about the wood, but didn't want to think too much about the wood's nature and how humans could learn to live with it, so she decided to come up with a hastily tagged on back story in the end.
It was like reading at least two different stories squashed together uncomfortably. First, there was the story of the girl who gets "sacrificed" and sent as a tribute up the sorcerer/lord in the tower because people are too afraid to say no to him and he protects them from things. A very medieval tale that could have gone two ways. Either with her bid to escape or with her falling in love with him. Instead, she hung around being useless and having no self-respect for about 50 pages before discovering that she had magic and THAT was the reason he had actually taken her up to the castle - because the KIng's law said people like her had to be trained. That explained his negativity, his coldness and constant insults and it made me happy because I thought "good, no silly romance plot." WRONG! They did end up falling in love anyways because... they did magic together and their voices flowed well together when they sang. WUT?
Also, I had the impression this was a YA book until I stumbled across a sex scene. What is happening? Is this what YA books are like now? Not to mention it was completely unnecessarily thrown in to the middle of the supposed action/war part of the book when the characters really should have been too busy for it... >.> Also, he's about 150 years older than her. Why is this a thing?
But let's talk about the second book. The second book that was squashed onto this one involves the royalty and their court politics, which the main character gets pointlessly thrown into. The only result of this is that she ends up witnessing and participating in the completely unnecessary massacre of hundreds of soldiers. Oh - and her best friend who had reached a dead end found something to do with her life. I'm still really not sure why this part was tacked onto the book. I feel like it was born out of the author's need to find something for Kasia to do that would take her away so the main characters could be more comfortable without having to "worry" about her and also for the author to draw attention away from the fact that she didn't bother thinking too much about how the magic worked or how the wood worked.
Which is unfortunate, because the wood could have been really interesting. The main character's journey to discover her own magic, her own roots and connection to the wood, and to heal it, could have been much more profound and meaningful. The wood started off being interesting. In the end, though, I just didn't care how many zombie-trees and random insects came out of the wood at them because it was pretty obvious the main character was going to make up some random spell and it would work and they would all make it out alive. Except those poor soldiers that got massacred for no reason. *sigh*
Something I did love was the way the main character (who tells this tale from her own point of view in first person) described the way her magic differed from the magic of others. It was cool. It was a great start to what could have been a well developed magic system. But it never got developed and so by the third time she used such a description I was bored.
The book was a little long and tedious as others have mentioned. It's not that the writing isn't good, it's just that it was spent describing pointless fluff. I think this goes into characterization, too. The characters weren't allowed to grow or change or even have motivations so it was kind of hard to care about the things happening to them.
I will say again, though, that the book contains some interesting ideas and I did end up finishing it and not hating it. It was ok. Not spectacular, not as good as I can imagine it had the potential to be, just ok. Perhaps what spoiled this for me even more and gave me bigger expectations was that I felt it was very heavily influenced by (and ripping off from) some Miyazaki classics like Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Laputa, and even Princess Mononoke. But without following through on the consequences or thinking it through at all the way a true MIyazaki epic does!
The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay
2.0
Guy Gavriel Kay is one of the best fantasy writers today, but Fionavar was by far his weakest work. If you are looking for an introduction to Kay's works I would highly recommend you skip this trilogy and move on to his other, much better works.
It's been a while since I actually read this (and I never plan on doing so again, haha) but I do remember a few of the main detractors very vividly. Here they are in no particular order:
- Modern people get transported to fantasy world
- Very obvious and heavy handed lifting from Tolkien
- Love triangle
- King Arthur tip-off plot
- Characters are forced to live out the story of KIng Arthur/same story keeps being repeated through the generations
And so on.
Of course Guy Gavriel Kay has the biggest excuse for copying Tolkien since he worked with Christopher Tolkien on writing the Silmarillion, but still. It just doesn't work. It doesn't seem like it's own thing because too many elements have been copied.
Unlike many of the reviewers here I did get through all three books, but it was tough going. Any of Kay's other works would serve as a better introduction to his writing.
It's been a while since I actually read this (and I never plan on doing so again, haha) but I do remember a few of the main detractors very vividly. Here they are in no particular order:
- Modern people get transported to fantasy world
- Very obvious and heavy handed lifting from Tolkien
- Love triangle
- King Arthur tip-off plot
- Characters are forced to live out the story of KIng Arthur/same story keeps being repeated through the generations
And so on.
Of course Guy Gavriel Kay has the biggest excuse for copying Tolkien since he worked with Christopher Tolkien on writing the Silmarillion, but still. It just doesn't work. It doesn't seem like it's own thing because too many elements have been copied.
Unlike many of the reviewers here I did get through all three books, but it was tough going. Any of Kay's other works would serve as a better introduction to his writing.
Car Wars by Cory Doctorow
4.0
Review from my goodreads blog:
https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/14444482-review-car-wars-by-cory-doctorow
I just discovered a new little gem by Cory Doctorow. It's a great sci-fi tale of what would happen if self-driving cars become widespread and used all over the world. It looks at social, political, and personal impacts of this on various characters.
The story is free to read online here:
http://this.deakin.edu.au/culture/car...
I encourage all sci-fi lovers to check it out. It's not only well written, it's also beautifully illustrated with not just illustrations, but also qute little animations that really help set the mood for the scenes.
https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/14444482-review-car-wars-by-cory-doctorow
I just discovered a new little gem by Cory Doctorow. It's a great sci-fi tale of what would happen if self-driving cars become widespread and used all over the world. It looks at social, political, and personal impacts of this on various characters.
The story is free to read online here:
http://this.deakin.edu.au/culture/car...
I encourage all sci-fi lovers to check it out. It's not only well written, it's also beautifully illustrated with not just illustrations, but also qute little animations that really help set the mood for the scenes.
Dead Letter by Benjamin Descovich
3.0
An interesting tale set in a fantasy world that seems like it would be worth exploring more. A little bit too much was left "mysterious" for my liking, but it is a prologue to another tale so I suppose that makes sense. I liked the mystery of the main character's investigations, but I wish some of her relationships had been more fleshed out. Overall, an enjoyable tale with some interesting characters and a good start at world building.