I don’t know why I picked this book up in the first place, and when I did, I have no flaming idea why I continued reading it. I didn’t like teenage books even while I WAS a teenager.

I can see how it can be helpful. It deals with braces, spine problems and mastrubation, yes. I can also see how it must have been rather revolutionary when it appeared. I still don’t like it, however. Had I wanted a booklet on scoliosis and mastrubation, I would have read a booklet.

What bother’s me isn’t the message the book is trying to convey, whe bothers me is the story – or the lack thereoff. The plot is VERY… linear. There is an inner plot there allright – Deenie is trying to deal with things and maturing in the process, yes. But an outer plot is – nonexistent, except for the love story, which is weak and not very engaging.. Not to mention a subplot.

The characters are cardboard at best; there’s no depth even to the main character. The relationships between the characters are stereotypical and… well, let’s put it this way: you need SOMEWHAT developed characters in order to have relationships between them.

The worst of all is – there is no self irony in there, not a trace of it, except from the lusy Empire State Building joke. It’s a first person narrative, for gods sake. It CAN’T work without some self irony.

So, yes, I can see how this book can be useful, and no, I don’t like it, not a tad. What I tend to like about a book is the story, the characters, the writing style. I liked none of it.

A wonderful book! I used to be somewhat sceptical about Pratchett’s young adult Discworld books, for some reason, but ‘Amazing Maurice’ is not that different from the ‘grown up’ books at all.

It reminds me of Watership Down and of Bromeliad. Love it!
:D

Amazing book! I love Moist, I love Adora Bell, I love Groat, I even love Boris the Horse. I was rather sceptical in the beginning, having in mind that Pratchett is now ‘doing institutions’, so to say. I mean, he’s written about theatre, opera, newspapers, police, not to mention the university. And while I love his writing, I wasn’t really able to imagine how a book about a post office could be made fun. But… it’s Pratchett, and it appears he can make ANYTHING fun :D

(still waiting for books about hospital and prison, though ;) )

No matter how much I like Zelazny, I didn’t really like this book. Too many religious and philosophical questions in there for my taste (so call me shallow). It felt more like a sophisticated (or should I say SCIFIsticated) debate than a real novel. Zelazny and Dick wrote it masterfully, did good job with the characters and all, but I prefer a story for the sake of story itself rather than stories that serve for proving or exploring a point. Not my cup of tea.

Well, I’ve finally finished the book – and I say finally because it took me long enough. At one point, I just stopped being overly eager to read it. At one point, it just stopped being overly interesting. I mean, I LIKED most of it, I just didn’t get too emotionally involved. I still like the characters a lot – ALL of them – but the pace didn’t suit me at all. Too much retelling, somehow, too many explanatory dialogue. And when it came to action, I just didn’t feel the proper tension.

Honestly, the ending was ancticlimactic, for me. Too few of the old PoV characters were there, in the end, so, yet again, I couldn’t get really emotionally involved. I new I SHOULD care about what would happen, but somehow didn’t, not much. I get the feeling that the battle was well thought out, but I couldn’t FEEL it, somehow.

Now. It seems I’ve pointed out only what I didn’t like. I rated it as ‘worth reading’, though. I love how folklore and legends are mixed in with everything else. I love demythologizations. And characters are rather well develpoed.

Besides,It’s just the first book in a series, and there were a lot of things tht needed explaining. I will definitely continue reading the series… just not at once. I need a short break.

I finished The Rule of Four this morning. Didn’t like the book overly, but the last 15 pages or so appealed to me in a way (sappy ol’ me… ;) ).

The interesting part is: there are two mysteries in this book. I wasn’t overly interested in either of them. The first one – the one connected to a book and Renaissance didn’t work for me simply becaue it didn’t follow the old rule for writing mysteries: the reader must have all the clues the hero does for solving the mystery. Well, I’d say most of today’s readers don’t speak dead languages and aren’t experts on Renaissance texts and the like… No way I could solve any of Paul’s ‘riddles’. No way I could even try. That’s probably why it didn’t hold my interest for long. There were some interesting facts, but that’s all.

The second mystery -the contemporary one – wasn’t overly mysterious, that’s all.

Some parts of the book didn’t ring quite true for me – the college atmosphere didn’t, for some reason. Maybe I expected too much. Maybe I expected another ‘Secret History’ (by Donna Tartt).

What I did like was the relationship the four friends have. That WAS interesting (although it didn’t get quite so interesting until before the end). It seems to me that friendship is the only thing the authors REALLY know something about from personal experience and, as it usually happens, it’s the part that worked best for me.

I’m not sorry I read the book, but am not overly happy either.

It’s a great book, although it took me some time to finish it. Some 100 pages or so in the middle weren’t as interesting as the rest of the book, and that’s where I got stuck (but I have lots of things to do at the time). Anyway, when I got back to the book, I finished it in two days, reading 250 or so pages a day. It’s super-interesting, thecharacters are fascinating as always, and… it’s a tad sad. Almost made me cry.

This is my personal favourite in the Farseer Trilogy – lots of plot, intrigue and the like. And poor Fitz is suffering as always. I love Hobb’s writing!

This is one of the best series I’ve ever read. True, The Assassin’s apprentice is just a warming up; the true, big story begins only in the next book. But I love the way Hobb writes her characters. It’s not only Fitz (who, IMO, is the best written and developed character in fantasy so far), but all the other characters. They feel so, well, REAL. There are many fantasy books where I feel the characters are my imaginary friends. But Hobb writes hers in such a way that I feel they are my NEIGHBOURS, living just around the corner.

Cherryh has apparently written a lot of books, but I’ve read only the four Morgaine books )Exile’s Gate being the fourth). After reading it, I have listed Cherryh as one of my favourite writers; I have listed the Morgaine books as some of my favourite books. And I’m infinitely grateful to the friend who had recommended these books to me.

Cherryh’s style is simple, terse and strange in a good way. It’s quite refrshing to read a fantasy written like that. The characters are well developed, but the best part are the relationships those characters have – tense, tentative, ambivalent, changing all the time; there are also lots of split loyalties. All in all, Cherryh’s writing reminds me of Icelandic sagas at their best.