Megan

Something about the writing kept me from fully enjoying this book. It felt a bit empty and lacking in personality. Perhaps that's due to having two authors... neither got to give their full style or writing voice. But I enjoyed the characters and thought the overall story was an interesting set-up for the rest of the series. So overall, not bad, not great, but I'm looking forward to the next one and will definitely watch the TV series.

I think my favorite thing about this author is how much credit he gives to those who have helped him. You don't often hear about all the undergrads who put in hours of grunt work to make research possible. I really appreciated that Dr. Seeley didn't just mention them as an after notes either. He highlighted their work ethic and importance to his successful research.

I'm definitely biased about this book because attending Dr. Seeley's seminar on “The Flight Guidance Mechanisms of Honey Bee Swarms” motivated me more than anything during my second semester of college. His enthusiasm for honeybee behavior is incredibly contagious.

I'm really glad I was encouraged to pick up this book so many years later. Dr. Seeley does a great job of explaining things in layman's terms and answers questions quickly after they enter the reader's mind.

I switched to the audiobook (narrated by Tim Curry) for The Reptile Room after not enjoying The Bad Beginning. This immensely helped with the repetitive writing, and I stomached the definitions and other such writing quirks a lot more. Tim Curry did a fantastic job narrating. I also love herpetology, so I was bound to like the setting a bit more. I liked that this book seemed a bit more dangerous (to me) and the orphans seemed quickly to understand they needed take matters into their own hands. I liked it!

Unfortunately I really wasn't a fan of Fledgling. The plot meandered around and never quite found its footing. I couldn't have been less interested in the final direction Butler took the story. I also wasn't really able to get past the ick factor, so it set my entire reading experience on the wrong foot and clouded everything else. I thought it was a unique take on vampires, but that's where the strengths end for me.

I originally rated this 3 stars when I created my Goodreads account. I had finished Mockingjay many years before that, so I rated the whole series the same. I knew I liked the final book less than the others, but oh boy did I forget how much less. I know I almost DNF'd it the first time around, and I almost DNF'd the audiobook this time. I almost never DNF audiobooks, and usually it's only because the narrator is annoying me.

I can't really put my finger on precisely why, but this book irritates me. It was such a lackluster end to a pretty good series. I felt for Katniss during the first two books, but I got really sick of the self-imposed martyrdom in this one. The fade-to-black should not be used for the conclusion of an entire series worth of physical and emotional conflict.

I definitely had a little nostalgia reading this, but it's not the most profound story. I really like Mercy and enjoyed her attitude toward outdated gender roles, but at times her character felt inconsistent. There were a number of things that went unexplained (probably to get the reader to pick up the next book) that were a crucial part of climax. It would've been nice to get the explanation in this book. Like many books in this sub-genre, I felt the end wrapped up way too quickly. There always seem to be a bunch of sentences in a row that wrap up all the loose ends in a single paragraph. I really appreciated the story of Dr. Wallace and felt is was a very interesting take on the typical “werewolf” story we've all come to expect.

The overall storyline of this book was not what I was expecting, and I didn't find it very interesting (though I see how it gets the characters in a lot of different situations and drives the plot forward). I find the idea of a zombie apocalypse that isn't actually the apocalypse intriguing. I really enjoyed the main character too. Overall this was a fun book with some boring bits and obvious parts, though 3 or so chapters near the end are 5-star-worthy all by themselves. I just didn't realize I was going to read a book about a presidential election, and that whole premise was a snooze, mainly because I'm in full-swing political fatigue in my real life. I wish there would've been more info about the reveal and follow-up with all of the accusations, but at least the character aspect was handled extremely well. An obituary that was written by the main character was also incredibly well done. The author writes very compelling emotions.

We used this textbook in my Forensic Molecular Biology class. It's a tiny bit out-of-date with numbers and such here and there, but it is very readable. Concepts are explained quite clearly and thoroughly. I think it was a really good choice for the class. The questions at the end of the chapter are usually great review, but occasionally there is one that isn't addressed well in the chapter. The questions also sometimes differ from the questions at the end of the corresponding slide presentations on STRBase. If you're a student, just keep that in mind.

The first story was fantastic. The holiday letter was pretty good, though the end felt a little like Sedaris was trying to be shocking. The rest were either okay, bad, trying too hard, or I've already forgotten them. I felt like the word choice at times was problematic, and some of the attempts at dark humor seriously missed the mark. It's clear it was published in the 90s.

The very very slight storyline formula change up was okay, and the children having to step into each other's shoes was good. Talk about morbid and gruesome too. But this book was just not very good overall.

And goodness the audiobook is so bad. Children and narrator were too quiet and the adults were so loud it could blow out your eardrum. The adult voices were incredibly annoying too. Can't wait to return to the Tim Curry narration soon.

I honestly don't get the love for this series. It's super repetitive and the only character with any actual personality is the narrator. The Baudelaire children's dialogue is exclusively exposition. We're told everything about them. It's just boring. And the vocabulary lessons! The constant inclusion of definitions is grating. Given the mature themes of the story, this is a serious disconnect. The author seems to both think that children don't know much and need to be spoon fed and that they can handle death, abuse, and neglect. Maybe I give kids more credit than most adults, but I believe most kids don't need the definitions. I understand it's kind of a joke, but if that's the main purpose of the definitions then it's far too repetitive. However, definitions done like the one on page 74 are great. And finally, the poor communication trope is frustrating. I understand the charm in this series, and I plan to finish it out, but it really does it's best to irritate me.

This is the most disgusting piece of mysogynistic trash I've ever read. I don't think Robert Kirkman has ever met a woman in real life, and he definitely doesn't view women as equals or quality individuals who can contribute positively to society.

Aside from that, there was horribly cheesy, awkwardly paced, and incredibly unrealistic and forced dialogue.

The worst (best?) example of telling and not showing I've ever read.

Typos, for real.

———-

Here are two reviews that say the things I want to say better than I can:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1558593435?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2570187542?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1

———-

Here's an excerpt from an article as well:

My biggest problem with the comics is the general trend toward an essentialist view of gender roles. Kirkman seems to think that men and women are fundamentally different in ways that go beyond the physical/anatomical, and those differences include men being generally more action-oriented, better leaders, and more rational, while the women are more passive, emotional, and better at domestic tasks (cooking, laundry, sewing clothes, taking care of children). There are of course a few exceptions. Amy is a good shooter, while Tyreese can't shoot to save his life. But these are just that: exceptions.

The feeling I get from the books is that men are meant to be leaders while the women are meant to be in the kitchen. And the fact that Kirkman keeps saying “I'm only being realistic in terms of what I think would happen in a zombie apocalypse” suggests that this is what he sees as the natural order of things, rather than just social constructs. If you push the logic of the comics far enough, you could argue that all the social advances in women's rights are what's artificial - all it's gonna take is a cataclysmic event like a zombie apocalypse to return things to the way they were always meant to be. 

http://irrelevantcomics.blogspot.com/2010/11/sexism-in-walking-dead-ongoing.html

Look, I wasn't NOT going to read a book called GENERATION SHIP when I spend half my life telling people that's one of my favorite tropes/settings/etc. I was always going to like this. Was it perfect? No. Did I enjoy my time and keep wanting to read because I'm just a simple woman? Yes. I'd say this was maybe a little long and occasionally suffered a TINY bit from the “set on a spaceship but you forget they're in space” issue that a lot of generation ship stories run into. It never lasted too long though, and the political intrigue abounded. I'm so happy this wasn't one of those generation ship books where they never reach the planet and instead turn around to go back to Earth while still in our solar system. Authors are doing that too much lately. I want to see the planet you spend the whole book telling us about!!! Thank you Michael Mammay for delivering on that promise.

I don't love the hopping around that the individual issues do within the volume. It lacks cohesion and makes me wonder if my copy is messed up somehow. I definitely prefer when the issues within a volume tackle a specific storyline or general theme. The humor is exactly what you expect, and you should enjoy the stories enough if you've made it this far already.

If you can put aside the extremely problematic aspects of this book (it's a ‘product of its time' as the kids say), it's quite an interesting read. I don't think I've ever read another classic that takes a stance on animal rights and addresses current (at the time of publishing) animal rights topics. There are some moments where I thought, “Okay Michael Crichton, I see where you got the idea for Jurassic Park.” I'm definitely not the first person to see the parallel there, and I won't be the last. There was also a lot of social commentary about humans and our beastly nature. Like I said, it was interesting.

This book is so gross, completely lacking in substance, and utilizes time travel in the laziest way (not to mention it introduces a few glaring plot holes). I can't get on board with the outrageous level of accepted misogyny, manipulation, controlling behavior, and rape that happens. The author attempts to set Lessa apart and show that she's “not like other girls” by showing that every other woman in the world is ugly, smelly, stupid, incompetent, etc. in some way. It's lazy and horrible. Other than that, the world building really isn't there, and most of the book is sitting in meetings or in a cavern talking about what's going to happen without anything happening.