Ben Saufley - Reading

Books I've Rated 3 / 5

Ratings Breakdown

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

144

3.5

4

192

4.5

5

Ready Player OneA Novel

by Ernest Cline

Finished 2015-02-13

Pretty fun. Listened to most of it on audio. Something about the cover, and the way it had been presented, had led me to believe that this book was as bit more, I don’t know, literary? It’s not. It’s a fun science fiction adventure, and that’s about it. The language is plain, the characters are secondary to the adventure. It’s a nerd fantasy in the extreme, and sometimes that sort of takes you out of it a bit. But I am still a pretty big nerd. So I mostly enjoyed it, and now I’m moving on with my day.
Child 44

by Tom Rob Smith

Finished 2015-01-24
Revenge of the Witch

by Joseph Delaney, Patrick Arrasmith

Finished 2015-01-15

Picked it up because a movie’s coming out and I figured I’d read it before I (potentially) watched it. Having read it, I’ll say it looks like the movie won’t even be vaguely similar to the book.

Anyway: it was fine. The antagonists were not characters for the most part - more just abstract bad guys. But I did like some of the spookier writing. Not really a genre I care about, but it did give me the creeps a few times. Pretty formulaic; not a ton of world building at all - by which I mean I know next to nothing about the world they lived in. But not bad. Very quick. May pick up a sequel at some point.
Spell or High Water

by Scott Meyer

Finished 2015-01-13
Allegiant

by Veronica Roth

Finished 2014-12-15
The Martian

by Andy Weir

Finished 2014-11-12

It’s between 3 and 4 stars. I enjoyed it pretty thoroughly. In the end, it was more of a fun experience than a great book, so I went with three. It’s kind of how I felt about the movie Gravity: the actual plot, and anything they tried to do with it, wasn’t great. But the way they made you experience it was still really fun. Maybe I’m trying to describe hollow fun? But I don’t think this was quite hollow. Just … it leaned toward glib, when its subject matter could’ve been a lot more thrilling. It favored procedure over storytelling (“here’s how I’ll construct this tool” rather than any of the potential fear/introspection/character work that could’ve happened). The glibness made it entertaining – I laughed a lot as I read it – but maybe detracted from the end product.

I don’t know, mixed feelings: I really did enjoy it, start-to-finish, and I’d recommend anyone read it . But once it was over it felt a little shallow for what it could have been.
Directive 51

by John Barnes

Finished 2014-09-30

A lot of interesting ideas that then sort of wander and fizzle. I enjoyed it, but as a piece of fiction the structure and resolution (or even lack thereof) falls short.
The Legend of Eli Monpress

by Rachel Aaron

Finished 2013-12-12
The Spirit Thief

by Rachel Aaron

Finished 2013-12-12
Born Standing UpA Comic's Life

by Steve Martin

Finished 2012-09-30

Kind of wooden. Some interesting stories, intermittent funny and smart bits, but even at a short 200 pages, those bits seemed to be pretty sparse. Felt like he was trying to be serious or touching at times. Not sure. I get the feeling I might’ve loved this if it were on tape.
Bone, Vol. 7: Ghost Circles

by Jeff Smith

Finished 2011-12-01
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

by Stieg Larsson

Finished 2011-11-20

Solid. Second half much more interesting than the first half. A lot of tangential information seemed to slow the book down at times. And I hate, hate, hate, reading, seeing, thinking about crimes of the sort that were committed in this book. So… I’m glad I’m done with it.

That said, I’m going to have to see the movie. I can probably get through the awful parts. And if so, I bet the rest will be a hell of a lot of fun. The book at least lays the groundwork for that.
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

by Haruki Murakami

Finished 2011-11-16
Bone, Vol. 5: Rock Jaw Master of the Eastern Border

by Jeff Smith

Finished 2011-11-01
The Stonekeeper

by Kazu Kibuishi

Finished 2011-07-08

Having looked through some of the other Amulet books, I feel like this series gets much better. I like this one, but it’s clearly just a start, just getting its footing. It seems a little simple right now. It starts out beautifully (and tragically), but then moves to the pretty clichéd, “We have to move into this broken-down house in the middle of nowhere, kids,” thing (à la Spiderwick, Coraline, um … lots of horror movies), and then just as it starts to pick up again, it ends.

I was also disappointed because I love Kibuishi’s environments - his cities and backgrounds and such - and this book was almost entirely devoid of them. I felt like the characters were interacting in a vacuum too often.

The house robot at the end, though, is just more proof that my faith in Kibuishi is justified, and I’m going to buy book 2 very, very soon.

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Books I've Rated 3 / 5

Ratings Breakdown

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

5

#frontCover { fill: currentColor; } #spine { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 45%, #000 55%); } #backCover { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 78%, #000 22%); } Ready Player OneA Novel

#frontCover { fill: currentColor; } #spine { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 45%, #000 55%); } #backCover { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 78%, #000 22%); } Child 44

#frontCover { fill: currentColor; } #spine { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 45%, #000 55%); } #backCover { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 78%, #000 22%); } Revenge of the Witch

#frontCover { fill: currentColor; } #spine { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 45%, #000 55%); } #backCover { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 78%, #000 22%); } Spell or High Water

#frontCover { fill: currentColor; } #spine { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 45%, #000 55%); } #backCover { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 78%, #000 22%); } Allegiant

#frontCover { fill: currentColor; } #spine { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 45%, #000 55%); } #backCover { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 78%, #000 22%); } The Martian

#frontCover { fill: currentColor; } #spine { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 45%, #000 55%); } #backCover { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 78%, #000 22%); } Directive 51

#frontCover { fill: currentColor; } #spine { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 45%, #000 55%); } #backCover { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 78%, #000 22%); } The Legend of Eli Monpress

The Spirit Thief

#frontCover { fill: currentColor; } #spine { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 45%, #000 55%); } #backCover { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 78%, #000 22%); } Born Standing UpA Comic's Life

Bone, Vol. 7: Ghost Circles

#frontCover { fill: currentColor; } #spine { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 45%, #000 55%); } #backCover { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 78%, #000 22%); } The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

#frontCover { fill: currentColor; } #spine { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 45%, #000 55%); } #backCover { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 78%, #000 22%); } What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

#frontCover { fill: currentColor; } #spine { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 45%, #000 55%); } #backCover { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 78%, #000 22%); } Bone, Vol. 5: Rock Jaw Master of the Eastern Border

#frontCover { fill: currentColor; } #spine { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 45%, #000 55%); } #backCover { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 78%, #000 22%); } The Stonekeeper

Ready Player OneA Novel

Child 44

Revenge of the Witch

Spell or High Water

Allegiant

The Martian

Directive 51

The Legend of Eli Monpress

Born Standing UpA Comic's Life

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Bone, Vol. 5: Rock Jaw Master of the Eastern Border

The Stonekeeper