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Dr. Tick Tock



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 PostPosted: Sun Jun 12, 2011 8:09 pm Reply with quote        
Hey! I have a tendency to rant out all of my opinions of the books I read on unsuspecting friends, so I figure I should put them here instead. I could make a blog but... this makes it easier to torture people with. Feel free to add your own and/or counter a review I made! (Nicely, I should add. Kindness and maturity is always appreciated).

Rules:
1. Follow forum rules (is this even necessary to put?)
2. Don't just say, "I hate this book" or "I love this book." Give an actual review, yus?
3. Tell me if this is in the wrong forum orz


Upcoming:

I'm getting the second book of The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, so I am going to reread that book, read The Wise Man's Fear and hopefully get up a review of both! =3

Dr. Tick Tock



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 PostPosted: Sun Jun 12, 2011 8:15 pm Reply with quote        
Riddle-Master by Patricia A. McKillip

It's pretty good. McKillip seems to have a difficulty developing sincere backstories for the characters, but in-story character development is very well done. I also really enjoy the writing style, she isn't afraid of description and avoids the (incredibly annoying) "lol hurrr this is what this character is thinking and what you should think about this character".

She starts the story off in a rather strange time- right after something "important" has happened, but the reader has no clue what said important event is. You do eventually find out, but I imagine many readers didn't like the book after being completely confused like that; she took on the assumption that her readers knew as much about the world's landscape, history, and culture, as she did. While this is a good strategy in some instances- it didn't work out well here.

However, it kind of follows the whole "riddle" theme of the rest of the book, and once you get a foundation of the world you're reading about, the story goes much more smoothly and you realize that when you don't understand something, you just have to sit back and wait until the "Ohhhh!" moment comes along.
Dr. Tick Tock



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 PostPosted: Sun Jun 12, 2011 8:26 pm Reply with quote        
Red Riding Hood by Catherine Hardwicke

I got through two-thirds of this book before I had to give up. I, personally, would advise you to avoid it. The writer doesn't seem to know much of anything, including the #1 rule of writers- DON'T TELL, SHOW. The plot, while an interesting and unique twist off of the classic Little Red story (by the Grimm Brothers, very good, I suggest you read all of their stories) was badly planned out. The actual plot doesn't come until you're almost halfway through the book. The whole beginning is essentially the main character going, "My sister is so wonderful. Oh, I love my sister. I couldn't live without her! She's so much better than me! Blahblahblah, the reader is 99% sure that something bad is going to happen to my sister =D."

The main character is also the stereotypical tom-boy, independent minded girl who is surrounded by superfluous friends and feels like "she doesn't belong." However, as much as the author tries to prove how intelligent and mysterious the main character is, the girl really only seems to have the brains of a haystack, and revels more on pretending she's a loner than actually being one.

Overall, Hardwicke's writing style is awful. The book is geared towards young adults, but the vocab, sentence structure, and plot devices are really only enough to entertain pre-teens who focus more on whether the guy in the book is hot rather than on the actual story itself. It may be a nice read for lower-leveled readers who don't care about shallow characters and lack of any real setting, but for everyone else, you're better off just watching the movie. (Which also isn't that great.)
ecco



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 PostPosted: Mon Jun 13, 2011 9:41 am Reply with quote        
Hey there Smile
I moved this to writing chat, since I think this is where it belongs now. Understandable for posting it in The Arts though - i checked the rules there and it does list "books", but this forum is pretty new and specifically for anything to do with writing, so I think it fits better here ^^

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Dr. Tick Tock



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 PostPosted: Tue Jun 21, 2011 9:13 pm Reply with quote        
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

I really enjoyed this book for the story aspect of it. Jemisin takes the reader on a fun adventure that keeps you hooked through the book. She obviously has story-telling skills.

What she doesn't have, however, is world building skills. This is the first book in a series, I believe, so I may be proven wrong when I read the others, but I was sorely disappointed in the lack of a tangible world. She only ever gives the reader an image of two cities- the main capital city, which much of the book takes place in, and the semi-barbaric city that the main character was born and raised in. But even these images are vague- I cannot picture what the streets look like, how the citizen's attitudes are around each other, around strangers, what smells waft through the air on a normal afternoon. These are things that make a scene come to life, even if it's only a backhanded scene. Within the two cities she describes, she focuses solely on the "big important" buildings within the community, and not the community and surroundings as a whole.

Apart from this, she has an interesting and unique plot, and sincere characters who stay true throughout the book, as opposed to writers who bend their characters to fit a situation. Jemisin obviously knows her characters within and without, and has no trouble writing their reactions to certain events.

I would call the book a worthwhile read. It may not necessarily boggle your mind, and there are few plot twists that cause the, "HOLY CRAP I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING WHAT IS GOING ON" emotions. But, if you stumble across this book on a lazy day, it wouldn't be a waste to read.

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Elrakis



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 PostPosted: Thu Jun 21, 2012 7:36 am Reply with quote        
End of Eternity, by Isaac Asimov

The book begins in medias res, and the first chapter should actually be somewhere in the middle of the book. By some reason Dr. Asimov just decided to yank a chapter from the middle and place it first. This gives the book a confusing start, bet if you manage through that chapter, an interesting story awaits.

There are many aspects in this book, since it's about a time travelling organization, which might take some time to understand. The thing is that the author have pieced these details together in a clever way which unfolds in an unexpected and mind-blowing ending! As allways, Asimov is an entertaining writer.

A less good thing in the book is the romantic sub-story. Not that I neccessarily oppose myself to romance, but lets just say that romance wasn't really Asimovs strength to write about.

Anyhow, after that first chapter, a good book with an awesome twist! Worth reading. And for those who read other books by Asimov, like the Foundation or Robot series, there are a few details here and there that relate to those stories. Kind of easter eggs.
Mellonin



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 PostPosted: Mon Dec 10, 2012 11:46 pm Reply with quote        
The Kingkiller Chronicles

This is actually an on-going series, with more than one book, but I'm going to lump them together because the style of writing stays consistent through the books.

One of the most astounding features of this series is how the author has managed to weave together two different stories without making it seem like he is jumping back and forth between them. Not only that, but the two stories take place at two different points in one character's life; the main character, Kvothe, is telling his life story to a man known as "Chronicler'. However, that life is far from over; as he is telling his tale, there are events unfolding around him that he is being drawn into, whether he wants it or not. The cast of characters in both 'stories' come alive in a way that you really care about them; they are far from two dimensional, and you can't help but like even the bad guys in the story, because they are made out to be so REAL.

The author has managed something else here, as well; he has created a balance between descriptions of the physical surroundings and the actions of the characters. Often times, I am bored to tears with descriptions of the world, of the scene in which the characters of one book or another find themselves. However, this doesn't happen even once in Mr. Rothfuss' work.

All in all, an amazing series that is far from over - only two books have come out so far, and the main character is barely into his mid-teens - that I would recommend to ANYBODY who enjoys action, fantasy, or even a bit of steampunk for it's blending of Magic and a bit of technology. It's even a bit of a mystery/romance novel, without being too heavy or going too deeply into descriptions of acts that aren't child-friendly.
Dr. Tick Tock



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 PostPosted: Tue Dec 11, 2012 12:51 am Reply with quote        
NJRKDLNGRJKEGNLT I FREAKING LOVE KINGKILLER CHRONICLES AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH


.___. that is all.

except not really because wow I'm honestly surprised at how much it's catching on. when I read Name of the Wind I couldn't find anyone who had ever heard of it. Now I stumble across people who have read it without even meaning to. EEEEEE EXCITEMENT I HOPE IT BECOMES SUPER FAMOUS AND GETS A MOVIE ADAPTATION.

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Amaris Kale



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 PostPosted: Tue Dec 11, 2012 12:42 pm Reply with quote        
The Casual Vacancy - J.K. Rowling

My first impression of it was that it's a little bit... clunky, the book is densely populated with a rich variety of characters and it is a little hard to follow, perhaps that is the intention, but I did find it pretty hard to get in to for the first part really; however, by the second part you start to get who the characters are and think about what may or may not be happening with them - there are some who are very difficult to like, some that you might laugh at and others who you wonder about.
Rowling is well known for her well written characters who are easy to relate to, however, with the density of the character base in the novel it could seem that she has been slightly too ambitious to begin with, as the characters don't seem to click in to place until the second part of the book. This does change though (well, it did for me) and most of the characters have left an image in my mind of how they might look and react, but not all, there are some that are just a little bit... meh, and that would be the best word for them, I feel like I just don't care about some of townsfolk, but for those I don't care about there are characters who really annoy me, and some that make me feel sorry for them. I haven't yet felt happy for any of the characters, but this is not a happy book, this is not a book filled with magic or promise, it begins bleakly and doesn't improve a great deal.
Without going too much in to what happens in the book (spoilers!) I can say that the final parts of this book had me in floods of tears, though I am a bit of a wimp - it wasn't the happiest of books.
It is incredibly well written, but we all know that J.K. Rowling is an incredibly talented story teller; however with the amount of characters that were included in just one book it felt a little bit crushed together, though it did start to flow more easily the later you got in to the book, but I still found that I had to decode who was from where and what was going on at points.
The characters, though many and sometimes a little complicated are built up incredibly well, as you would expect from Rowling - the ability to form a character with what seems like such a delicate, but effective process to just create an emotional attachment with the reader is something that isn't new to her at all; the characters are built like a spiders web, the reader is given hints and then those are added to later in the story, and all the while the reader is kept wondering and wanting to read more.
The plot wasn't a particularly strong point for me, in that the subject matter was actually quite dull - I mean, local politics doesn't exactly scream excitement does it? But it is most certainly a page turner, mostly because there isn't a good place to really stop when you're reading, and you want to find out more about the characters - in my case, especially about Krystal Weedon (who remained my favourite character throughout the book).
In all the plot was not the most exciting, but the novel was - it wasn't something brand new, or experimental; the language was plain, the characters and plot a little complicated, but it was a fantastic read and I am only sorry that I wasn't able to read it over the past week, or I would have been long finished by now.
I would recommend this book to anyone, though perhaps not if I knew the person to be a bit of a prude, there's no magic in this book, just cursing, sex and some more cursing!

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Mellonin



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 PostPosted: Tue Dec 11, 2012 7:07 pm Reply with quote        
Dr. Tick Tock wrote:
NJRKDLNGRJKEGNLT I FREAKING LOVE KINGKILLER CHRONICLES AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH


.___. that is all.

except not really because wow I'm honestly surprised at how much it's catching on. when I read Name of the Wind I couldn't find anyone who had ever heard of it. Now I stumble across people who have read it without even meaning to. EEEEEE EXCITEMENT I HOPE IT BECOMES SUPER FAMOUS AND GETS A MOVIE ADAPTATION.


I actually hope that it NEVER gets a movie adaptation. I don't think anybody could ever represent Kvothe properly. Not to mention -- can you imagine how much they would have to cut out of just one book to fit it into the 2 - 3 hour time slot for a movie?! It would totally ruin how epic both the books are!
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 PostPosted: Thu Dec 13, 2012 10:26 am Reply with quote        
Ah, I really love the Kingkiller Chronicles too, very very much. (Though I do agree with Mellonin, and have never much liked book-to-film adaptations. Unless it's Harry Potter, but that's not nearly as dense as these books.)

I'll probably write up a review of A song of Ice and Fire when I've finished the latest book (on the fourth one now).

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superbinka



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 PostPosted: Mon Sep 23, 2013 12:03 am Reply with quote        
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

It's a classic, and a book everyone's heard of but nobody's read. I'm about halfway through and it's taken me a couple of months, this thing is massive. (My friends all started reading it at the same time and affectionately call it The Brick.)

Great book, great plot, but Hugo does tend to ramble a little (a lot), and no, I didn't need to read two hundred pages on the Battle of Waterloo to understand that one little paragraph on Pontmercy and Thenadier's meeting.

I'd recommend it to anyone who is a STRONG reader, who is persistent, and who has a big bag to carry it around in, because while it is a Brick good enough to be in a wall, it is wonderfully descriptive and a beautiful story.

(If you don't think you can manage, at least watch the movie. Or a stage production.)
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