Olga Yolgina

I forgot that chronologically the story begins with The Prelude to Foundation and at first was a bit confused, because expected to hear another story )))
From all the Foundation series books this one was (and apparently still is) one of the most difficult to enjoy. All those time jumps with so little context make the book a bit chaotic and impossible to “live in” for me. Plus I'm very bad with names, so having three sets of characters doesn't help much )))
I was thinking about going down to 4 stars, but decided to let it be. It's still Asimov and I still know that these are basically pieces of a puzzle that will play out in later books.

Frankly, it felt a bit overhyped. Maybe I just expected something absolutely mind-blowingly funny and wasn't able to see the story for what it is. If I'm right, this is supposed to be for the sci-fi genre the same as Pratchett is for fantasy. And Pratchett's version worked much-much better for me. The kaleidoscope of species, guide entries, flashbacks, characters and stories failed to amaze me. More like made me want to stop the Earth and take a breath.
Still on the fence about continuing the series.

Либо в первый раз я книгу до конца не дочитала, либо напрочь забыла всё, что было после второй истории.
По сравнению с современной фантастикой, Стругацкие пишут совершенно непривычно для меня. Местами смешно, но в целом слишком близко (на мой взгляд) к советским реалиям. Интересно, как эта книга читается в переводе, без понимания этих самых реалий, сколько нюансов теряется при этом.

Книга (и история) оказалась более длинной и сложной, чем я ожидала.
Поначалу было трудно избавиться от стереотипов, которые окружают книгу и по-настоящему понять что именно я думаю про темы, которые в ней поднимаются.
В итоге, я не могу присоединиться ни к лагерю тех, кто поносит книгу как дешёвую порнографию, ни к противоположному, который считает произведение шедевром.
Да, чувствуется рука мастера, ощущение присутствия в голове Гумберта полное. Но не могу сказать, что мне понравилось там находиться, скорее наоборот. Продираться через некоторые моменты было очень сложно.

A thorough explanation of a solid approach.

I've been interested in finding out what exactly the Dogme approach entails and how I can use it in my classes. This has been an insightful journey and thought I don't see myself burning all my coursebooks and going 100% into Dogme teaching, I found tons of ideas that with a bit of tweaking can be incorporated in my mostly lexically approached lessons.
A must read for any CPD-oriented teacher, even if just to understand what Dogme is.

There were some good parts. Like Inigo's and Fezzik's stories, their adventures together. These parts were meaningful and captivating, they made sense (at least more sense than everything else). They were alive and three-dimentional. They evoked compassion.
One bad thing in Inigo's story is the duel. It was so anticlimactic. I feel that having no duel at all (Count escaped at first, he could have just turn out to be a classic bully, who caves in when confronted by someone stronger) could have had more sense than this mockery.

Buttercup and Wesley. Well, here I have more ‘but's. Their love didn't feel real, earned. Even with all the supposed tragedy. And, for frack sake, what the hell happened with “he had just one minute left”? He just shook death off (sorry, Taylor) like a mild cold? Rigor mortis - no big deal? Another “What have I just read?” moment (of which I had plenty throughout the book).

And, of course, my pet peeve of this book - what the hell with all that confusing history of writing the book? Why take 10% of the book with it and make it sound so real (and so uncomfortable - I felt almost disgusted by how his family treated each other)? What was the point of all that?

Overall, I now have read The Princess Bride. Not a fan, but can see what all the fuss is about.

This was a real gut blow. Such a journey Matty had through the two books. And there was at least some hope right until the moment Leader said that Matty needs to use his power and I understood that he needs to use it on the Forest itself. That was not something he could survive. And even though he healed everything and everyone, his sacrifice feels like such an awful loss. It doesn't seem fair that a bright soul like Matty should die in order to save people from their own vices.
I only hope that they don't waste this sacrifice and don't go back to Trade Mart (and whatever it represents) ever again.

This was NOT an easy read. It's been about 15 minutes since I closed the book and I still have the hibbie jibbies all over. Some parts of the book were heart wrenching, but the ending was full of hope and love and it made all the difference in the world.

I cannot imagine my kids reading this, though. Even when they reach 13 or 15.

Throughout the whole book the pace felt a bit slow and dragging, even though a number of significant events happened. But the ending... I was going to take a break from WoT and catch up on some of my other readings, but there is little I can do now to stop myself from plunging into A Crown of Swords ))

What the hell was that?
I definitely did not expect my main question about Gideon to have this answer.
An I definitely don't get something about the Epilogue.
And it's such a bummer that Alecto is still unpublished and who knows when (if?) it will be.
I do hope that Nona is directly related to all this mess, maybe even making it a bit messier, but at this point, who cares.

This turned out to be a weird one. Too many faceless and so utterly uniform aliens that they don't even need their own names. It kinda worked with spiders in the first book, but this time it just felt hollow. There was an attempt to introduce diversity in the end, but at this point they were mostly just other names, without real personalities behind them.

The parasite problem, Kern's solution and their eventual ‘living happily after' was interesting, but a bit predictable and in the end - anticlimactic. It took more pages running from the parasite than opening these-of-We's eyes to the total wrongness of their existence. And they're just like 'Oh, OK, We's bad, let's make peace'. Hm...

I liked Fabian's arc though. Totally nailed the ‘enough this underestimating males bullshit' development. I think he had the strongest personality in this book and I'm happy for him that in the end he managed to keep this newly found confidence and build on it.

I didn't know what to expect with this book, and, to be honest, started reading it only because it's up for discussion this month in the Sci-fi and Fantasy Book Club here on Goodreads. I've been a member of this group for ages, but somehow couldn't get in the flow. Finally I've read a book in time to join it's discussion on 26th. Now I just need to not funk it, as I tend to do.

Having said that, would like to add that I enjoyed the book a lot. The only other time I came across Chernobog and other Slavic pagan myths was in American Gods and I had very (veeeery) mixed feelings about that book. I still can't bring myself to read anything else by Gaiman after AG. This one felt a bit like the fairy tales I grew up with, but had a nice fantasy spin.