John Lorenzen
This book was not very good. I wanted to read it before I watched the movie, right away it was nothing like what the movie which was actually a good thing because the movie was atrocious. I’m at a loss why this even exists and frustrated I wasted time on the book and movie. The story wasn’t terrible just plodded along.
After seeing the new trailer for the HBO series I wanted to read the book before seeing the adaptation. Years ago I watched the movie and I have heard the controversy surrounding the series. So I felt now was the time to read or in this case listen to the book and get my own perspective. My raw feeling after finishing this book was positive I found the story enjoyable and exciting. I would also categorize this book as grim dark and I do see the similarities between the book and the Catholic Church and I can see where the criticism comes from but I also feel this is just like many other fantasy or maybe better yet historical fiction. So from a readers perspective I don't see how this story is that much different that a book where the civil war or WWII have different out comes similar to Amazon's Man in the High Castle. From a Catholics perspective I take offense with the authors beliefs but I will continue to read the rest of the series as just a fantasy novel and try not to linger on the politics or read too much into the authors intent. Finally, one criticism I do have and it may be related to listening to the audio book instead of actually reading the book was that feeling that the story time jumped or changed directions a lot maybe that was the authors intent so story was told without have long sections to tell the full journey.
I decided to listen to this book after seeing the movie trailer. This was one of the most boring, uninteresting books I have every listened to. I actually increased the speed of the playback to 2x just to get through this book, something I have never done before. I would have been better off just DNFing this book instead of struggling to finish.
This was my second attempt at read/listening to this book. I DNF the book several years ago and decided to give it another go. I wish I would have DNF a second time but I stuck it out and finished listening to the audio book. To me this book was a complete mess, it started out as somewhat science fiction but then turned into this weird conglomeration of different genres. The story went from future mars, to a game that felt more medieval than scifi then throw in references to Roman gods all in a hunger game like setting on some planet. Getting through this book was absolutely torture, I hated almost every second of listening to this book, the story was uninspiring and the characters were just boring. I can not say there was any character in this book that I have any feeling for except hate. The “Game” was absolutely boring and unrealistic even for scifi. The only thing I like about this series is I find the cover art really well done but I will never read another book in the series. Huge waste of time, I would never ever recommend this book to anyone.
One of my favorite books is the Dante Club. After reading the Dante Club I became somewhat obsessed with owning a copy of Longfellows translation of the Divine Comedy. I scoured eBay until I found an 1891 edition. I always hoped that there would be a sequel and was so excited when I learned about The Dante Chamber. I wanted to recapture the same feelings I enjoyed reading the first novel. Unfortunately, this did not happen for me, I really struggled getting through this novel. I just could not relate to the characters like I did in the Dante Club novel. The book had too much backstory I found uninteresting and I found the story just moved along really slow. Finally, I am still confused with the very end of the novel and not sure I understood what exactly happened. It was not a bad book by no means, but just did not live up to the expectations I had based on my love of the first book. This being said, I would love to see more books written in this series if it can be done and I will probably still give the Dante Chamber a second try by listening instead of reading the novel this time.
I like James Patterson but I did not enjoy this book at all. The story was not interesting and the characters were boring. I will try another Private novel before I make a final decision on the Private series.
After watching the Martian, I was really hoping to enjoy this book but I did not. I found the main character uninteresting and the story fell flat for me. Unlike the main character in the Martian and his plight I really did not care for the main character of this book. I found the story boring and unengadging.
