Inga
I bought into the hype and got this from my local libary to see what all the fuss was about and man I am glad I didn't spend any actual money on this book. The writing was frankly terrible, I've read better written fanfiction, both in actual structure of the writing to the prose itself. Very little of this book surprised me, as soon as the rare dragon type was mentioned I knew Violet would bond with one. As soon as the big black dragon was mentioned I knew that she'd bond with him as well. Both Violet and Xaiden (if that's even how its spelled) were such mary-sue characters. There was such a chance to make more of their characters - have her overcome her physical weakness by anything other than “man up and get stronger” and to have Xaiden have any depth to his character at all would be great.
Special girl character, with her special hair gets special dragons and special dragon magic. And a special love interest.
The ‘romance'. What romance. He goes from hating her to wanting her on the flip of a switch. Their dragons being bonded was a poor excuse.
Sometimes the hype is a smoke screen. I am so glad I didn't spend any money on this book.
OMG I loved this book! I wanted to read it before watching the film and I'm so glad I impulsively downloaded it yesterday and finished it today. Makes you laugh out loud and remember that love really can conquer all.
URGH. Flat characters, flat writing, flat sex scenes and marital rape!! He was drunk and she took advantage of him! Hope the next ones better.
I really enjoyed this book. I loved the characters and the way they interacted with eachother. The magic system was very interesting too.
Will definitely be one I reread in the future.
This story was not my cup o tea at all. It was well written and was a very bleak look into our potential future. I got this book in a blind box and honestly would not have ever read it otherwise.
Absolutely terrifying. Fantastic read. Had the hairs all over my body rising as my latent monkey brain tried to get me to stop reading.
I struggled with the beginning of this book especially with how forceful and persistant Alec is with Tess. His repetitive gaslighting of her was hard to read at times.
I loved the middle of this book. Where she overcomes - to a point - what has happened to her and tries to move on and live her life. Her romance with Angel - while again seemingly forced on behalf of Angel - was lovelier to read than Alec???s determined ownership of Tess.
The ending? I was not expecting that at all. Although - in hindsight - it was almost inevitable. With the mental abuse Alec puts her through Tess was bound to snap eventually. The ending moved me to tears and the final paragraph will stay with me for a long time.
For as much as I detest Undine Spragg (and I really do, she's a terrible woman) I enjoyed this novel. I cannot, however, see me reading it again for pleasure.
This was one of the set books for my OU module Telling Stories: the novel and beyond. I LOVED this! It pains me to admit that this was my first Gaiman story and he does not disappoint! Charles Vess is a phenomenal illustrator and I loved the way that both modes intertwined to tell this story.
This was my first Le Guin and, having just finished it, I am still processing it. It is scifi of its era, very philosophical, exploring ideas about humanity and human thinking more than adventures in space which is how we think about scifi in the ‘modern' age.
This book is about society - a socialist ‘utopia' on the moon and its capitalist ‘sister' on the planet below. It is about anarchy, about how people rely on one another for their survival even if they don't want to.
It is very dry, like all philosophical scifi that I have read, though this was better than Asimov for me - I could not get on with how he wrote - I found Foundation very boring to read.
This, like Dune, is a book that warrants rereading.
This is by far the most challenging book I have ever read and its got nothing to do with the subject matter and everything to do with how its written. Entire chapters have no punctuation at all, there are no speech marks, words are deliberately missed out, or wrong words are used instead.
If I didn't have to read this as part of my module I'd never have gotten further than the first paragraph of chapter 1.
Well that???s me finished it. That was a tough read for many reasons. It seemed to have no definite structure, I felt as if the author was both remembering the story and telling it to me as it happened at the same time; it felt very ‘and then' in its telling.
The disconnect between the sometimes very poetical language and the sheer brutality that he was talking about was hard to wrap my head around at times; he would say something in a very poetic way and instantly follow it with a line delivered so matter of factly.
I picked this up after a search on how to read Shakespeare after finding out that The Tempest was one of my set texts for my OU module. I hadn't studied Shakespeare since secondary school so was aprehensive about going back to it. I am so glad I got this book! It really made Shakespeare more accessible to my mind and I am looking forward to digging into The Tempest now.
It was such an easy, enjoyable read that I read it in one day. The prose is easy and straightforward and Ben has a wonderful way of breaking down his examples in a way that is understandable and does not make you feel that you have been talked down to.
I would recommend this book for anyone wanting to understand Shakespeare better. I know I do now.
This is not a book I would have willingly chosen to read, its not really a genre I tend to gravitate towards. But saying that, I enjoyed this book more than I was expecting to. Yes, parts were difficult to read, without getting into too much detail there are some taboo things in this book. But at the heart of it it is a story of love and loss, of grieving for the life you though you were going to have but didn't, how the bitterness that some people hold onto when their lives don't turn out the way they wanted can poison future generations.
Would I recommend this book to others? Yes, but with warnings about the taboo sections.