John Lorenzen
This is one of those books that I did not want it too end. Seth Grahame-Smith is my new favorite author.
This was a real struggle to not DNF I was so bored reading this. I didn't care about the characters or really the story.
One of my favorite books is the Dante Club. After reading the Dante Club I became somewhat obsessed with owning a copy of Longfellows translation of the Divine Comedy. I scoured eBay until I found an 1891 edition. I always hoped that there would be a sequel and was so excited when I learned about The Dante Chamber. I wanted to recapture the same feelings I enjoyed reading the first novel. Unfortunately, this did not happen for me, I really struggled getting through this novel. I just could not relate to the characters like I did in the Dante Club novel. The book had too much backstory I found uninteresting and I found the story just moved along really slow. Finally, I am still confused with the very end of the novel and not sure I understood what exactly happened. It was not a bad book by no means, but just did not live up to the expectations I had based on my love of the first book. This being said, I would love to see more books written in this series if it can be done and I will probably still give the Dante Chamber a second try by listening instead of reading the novel this time.
This is the second book in the series and for me not as good as the first book, it was just ok.
After watching the Martian, I was really hoping to enjoy this book but I did not. I found the main character uninteresting and the story fell flat for me. Unlike the main character in the Martian and his plight I really did not care for the main character of this book. I found the story boring and unengadging.
I like James Patterson but I did not enjoy this book at all. The story was not interesting and the characters were boring. I will try another Private novel before I make a final decision on the Private series.
I decided to listen to this book after seeing the movie trailer. This was one of the most boring, uninteresting books I have every listened to. I actually increased the speed of the playback to 2x just to get through this book, something I have never done before. I would have been better off just DNFing this book instead of struggling to finish.
This was my second attempt at read/listening to this book. I DNF the book several years ago and decided to give it another go. I wish I would have DNF a second time but I stuck it out and finished listening to the audio book. To me this book was a complete mess, it started out as somewhat science fiction but then turned into this weird conglomeration of different genres. The story went from future mars, to a game that felt more medieval than scifi then throw in references to Roman gods all in a hunger game like setting on some planet. Getting through this book was absolutely torture, I hated almost every second of listening to this book, the story was uninspiring and the characters were just boring. I can not say there was any character in this book that I have any feeling for except hate. The “Game” was absolutely boring and unrealistic even for scifi. The only thing I like about this series is I find the cover art really well done but I will never read another book in the series. Huge waste of time, I would never ever recommend this book to anyone.
After seeing the new trailer for the HBO series I wanted to read the book before seeing the adaptation. Years ago I watched the movie and I have heard the controversy surrounding the series. So I felt now was the time to read or in this case listen to the book and get my own perspective. My raw feeling after finishing this book was positive I found the story enjoyable and exciting. I would also categorize this book as grim dark and I do see the similarities between the book and the Catholic Church and I can see where the criticism comes from but I also feel this is just like many other fantasy or maybe better yet historical fiction. So from a readers perspective I don't see how this story is that much different that a book where the civil war or WWII have different out comes similar to Amazon's Man in the High Castle. From a Catholics perspective I take offense with the authors beliefs but I will continue to read the rest of the series as just a fantasy novel and try not to linger on the politics or read too much into the authors intent. Finally, one criticism I do have and it may be related to listening to the audio book instead of actually reading the book was that feeling that the story time jumped or changed directions a lot maybe that was the authors intent so story was told without have long sections to tell the full journey.
This book was not very good. I wanted to read it before I watched the movie, right away it was nothing like what the movie which was actually a good thing because the movie was atrocious. I’m at a loss why this even exists and frustrated I wasted time on the book and movie. The story wasn’t terrible just plodded along.