Books I've Rated 2 / 5
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Year One
Finished
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The Paper Magician
Finished
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The Gunslinger
Finished
Man, I was really interested in reading this book and I did not enjoy it. It reads like a fever dream, and not in any sort of compelling or intriguing way. The heavy, invented colloquial speech is distracting. The plot is not … really a plot, it’s more of a montage of scenes. I found myself moderately interested in the flashbacks to Roland’s childhood, because things actually happened there and there was a bit of an understanding of the world he lived in, and there were real secondary characters. Just about everything in the present was hazy and disjointed, void of character or place, and building up to a climax that really wasn’t. This is only my second King book (the first was [b:11/22/63|10644930|11/22/63|Stephen King|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327876792s/10644930.jpg|15553789], which I really enjoyed even if I felt the ending got away from him), but my experience with this one was wildly different from the last. I think this book was written much earlier in his career and was maybe more experimental for him?
The good news is that this is one series that I don’t find myself compelled to finish. I have too many series to read already.
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Red Queen
Finished
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Greenwitch
Finished
I kind of want to give more stars because this isn’t really bad but it’s really … it’s not a full book. It’s one thing that happens, and more than that it’s a thing that happens to the children and basically requires no participation. This is a feeling I’ve had about the series for a while: the mythology and prophecy are really interesting but then the kids just experience it. They just watch great uncle Merry be cool, and they basically don’t do anything. They’re more passive even than many other kids in a genre full of kids mostly experiencing adventures rather than participating in them. Combine that with the fact that this feels like a short more than a full story, and I can’t really give it a particularly good rating. I’m still going to read the next one, though.
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We Are Legion (We Are Bob)
Finished
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Let My People Go Surfing The Education of a Reluctant Businessman
Finished
There’s some interesting stuff here but it’s shoved between hypocritical self-aggrandizement (so much disdain for “businessmen” while simultaneously describing himself as the same thing in different words), weird takes on science (in one breath bragging for creating polyester garments; in the next ranting about the risks of nuclear power and GMOs), and company promotion. Some thoughts about what a business can do to be responsible in the modern world, some thoughts about what humankind can do to stem the tides of climate change … these were good things. But they were delivered in weird patches and at times filled with assertions that made many assumptions I wasn’t willing to make.
He has a weird relationship with science. And he says “dirtbag” a lot in a context that I’d never heard before, but I guess that’s a thing.
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Daemon
Finished
First: it’s one half of a book. Apparently book two vindicates a lot of book one, but I’m not sure I want to give Suarez the pleasure of making me read a whole second book after this one.
Second: it takes a really interesting and plausible near-future premise and then, in the final act, switches to absurdist sci-fi. Killer robots, man.
Third: there’s a nightclub scene very early on that is awful, unsettling, and unnecessary. It’s supposed to, maybe, make the character bad? But then a few scenes later, the narrator clearly wants us rooting for him.
I guess that’s it, really. Disappointing after some strong setup.
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The Eye of the World
Finished
Everybody loves this series but this first book, at least, I found it immensely boring. The characters were largely interchangeable - if I didn’t know from elsewhere that Rand was the protagonist, I’d have confused him with Mat and Perrin, whom I definitely confused for each other. The arc of the story had little real momentum, with a lot of wandering, occasionally interrupted by portentous language that I assume was meant to heighten tension but meant nothing to me, and culminating in a conflict that felt a little out of nowhere and anticlimactic, even with its grandiose themes.
Interestingly this wasn’t one of those fantasy novels that gets caught up in so many of the trappings: dense, faux-old-timey language, overdescription, chapters full of world building and history, etc. And it’s not of the “grimdark” variety either. This should’ve been right up my alley. But since I first picked it up years ago I’d never been able to finish it. I finally just powered through – sometimes a book needs that push – and in the end … meh.
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Before I Fall
Finished
Intriguing premise mostly plays out like an after school special. Got it on Audible because it got good reviews and is going to be a movie. I imagine it’ll be better as a movie. As a book it’s … YA I guess. I’ve gotten used to expecting that popular YA resonate with adults as well as kids but this feels mostly like sure, I guess a teen might get something out of it.
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Prince Caspian
Finished
Next to nothing happened in this one. It was almost like a book between adventures except at the end they were like, “our adventure is over! Guess we’re going home!”
I want to keep reading this series and probably will because there’s so little time commitment but you kind of expect with series like this the world evolves and expands over the course of it; not so here. This one felt less substantial than the first, which already felt a little light. Will the kids ever actually do anything? They’re mostly just experiencing everything so far.
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Elizabeth's Legacy
Finished
Had some kind of fun ideas but the execution wasn’t great. The writing style felt amateur; I felt the author’s presence too much, both in the language used and sometimes in the concepts (the spell-shooter may be an interesting twist on paper but its description and use were … I don’t know, not compelling). The pacing and arc of the story were offputting, and the protagonist, more even than many others, was entirely along for the ride, making almost no decisions himself.
It wasn’t awful, and I imagine some kids will get a kick out of this series. But I think I’ve been spoiled by other YA that holds up for adult reading.
It doesn’t help that you find yourself forced to compare it to Harry Potter - Ben is Harry, Charlie is Ron; but no Hermione to balance out those two personalities! As the book goes, it distinguishes itself from HP, and really that contrast not a fault of the book itself, but you’re going to get those comparisons when you write about an orphaned boy who discovers a secret magical world right under the noses of modern-day England. And when the comparisons come, it’s no surprise which series wins.
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The Three-Body Problem
Finished
I was really looking forward to this book and I think I just … don’t get it.
I talked to my father-in-law, who is Serbian, a while back about how he enjoys reading Russian/slavic authors, even in English, because their thoughts are structured in a familiar way to him – I felt the opposite here, wondering if what was being said would click more with me if I had grown up in China. That’s not a criticism, really, just an observation. Much of the book felt like it was told as an allegory that I just wasn’t getting, or a fable with a moral that went over my head. The characters all seem motivated by some emotional resonance with the Three Body game that I feel expected to understand, but I definitely don’t.
The surface story, beyond any attempt at finding a deeper meaning, was intriguing but ultimately underwhelming. Like I said, I feel like there’s more meaning beneath it all but I don’t feel particularly compelled to continue the trilogy because I suspect it would be similarly lost on me.
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Invasive
Finished
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The Bullet
Finished