Gio'

Expectations were very high for this book after having been mesmerized by Station 11 and The Glass Hotel. Unfortunately I found this book lazy and small in scope, an unneeded appendix to The Glass Hotel with not much to say.

The books started ok, and the world building was promising, but then it dragged too long and became too conventional. By the time I was done I had no desire to read the follow-up books.

As most knw by now, this book hits hard. The story is intense, and gives you the constant sense of desperation of knowing that things will not necessarily improve. The author is great in keeping the pace and tone not too heavy, so reading this book is not a chore, but it will definitely make you think. I have now read 3 books from this author and only one “Harlem Shuffle”, wasn't great.

Having moved to Spain a couple of years back, I wanted to close some of the enormous gaps in my understanding of the unique history of this country and the reasons of the huge differences with other countries in the EU. The book definitely helped and gave me a decent knowledge. There is a certain amount of repetition that does create some confusion. This could have been avoided with a tighter editing process.

I admire the author's courage in following up Le Otto Montagne—one of the most successful and well-regarded books in recent Italian literature—with a work of such small scope. However, I found this book quite dull and unengaging. It reads more like a personal diary where very little happens, and I’m certain there are more compelling books on this subject.

The plot is pretty weak and the world building is quite limited, much much inferior to old's man war. There's some humor here and there to lighten up the scene, but in the end is a very forgettable book.

The book started real silly and after a few minutes of listening I really though I had made a mistake starting this audiobook. But I soldiered on and gave it a little more time and the book got a little better. Yes, there are some scary moments and a satisfying ending. I also wished that I could know more about the characters of the story, and that's a good thing when you're left wondering how would the story continue. But, in the end, I feel that this is a forgettable story. We'll see if they make a decent movie out of it.

What a bummer! The book was really good for about 70% of its length and then took a huge dive. Cop outs, cliches and crazy coincidences really destroyed the story. Unbelievable literary suicide. This is my second encounter with this author, the first one being watching the movie "La ragazze nella nebbia" that he directed and was adapted from one of his books. Similar problems... For me it's enough evidence that this author is not for me.

Having read everything that Stephen King has ever published I feel I have the right of a negative review, every once in a while. This is a pretty minor book in SK's career. There aren't memorable characters, the plot is bland and, unusual for the author, there are a couple of “cop outs” that lower even more the level of the story. Forgettable.

After reading the Underground Railroad I somehow expected something with some punch from the author. This book is actually a crime/heist book and the story is not that original. A lot fo characters types that have been used hundreds of times in books and on screens populate the story. On the plus side, the prose is very slick, the characters, even though unoriginal behave consistently with the story, and, after adjusting to the rhythm I enjoyed the work of the narrator. If you're short on time and only want to read meaningful books, this is probably not a priority.

The book is definitely not a masterpiece from beginning to end, but it does achieve moments of greatness at times, especially in the second of the three parts. The science is not overbearing and the story is epic and powerful. Having said that, the writing style is a little dry so some of the more descriptive parts lose some steam. Overall a fantastic achievement from the author!

I had this book on my list for a few years. Why would a Russian writer publish a book in Italian as original language? A lot has been said about the authenticity of the facts in this book, so I'll just focused on the literary qualities. In general, the author writes well enough, but there are a couple of aspects that show immaturity in my opinion: some of the translations of the nickname of the character take a cartoonish connotation in Italian and that breaks the imagining of the story very frequently. I wonder if the translations in other languages rectify this problem of the original edition. The other issue is that, when a new character is introduced, the author always take a tangent by extensively describing the character's background. While this is interesting the first few times, it does get old and unnecessary by the end of the book.
Even though the book has evident literary limitation, it still reaches 3 stars from me because of originality and because it introduces the reader to a world that is not that known.

I kind of new what was expecting going in, so why was I so disturbed by the excessive grimness of the book? Hard to say. As always this author pushes situations and cliches to the limit as emotional tools. As a person who doesn't understand anything about hockey, I started to question if the situations described have any resemblance with possible realities.
On the other hand, the writing style is powerful, and the characters have a way of staying with you, so maybe I fell a little bit under the emotional manipulation. I'm not sure if I'll read the third book when it will be published in English.

This is probably not the most wonderful book of Crichton. Maybe the setting forces a little of “normality” to the plot and make it a little less memorable. It was still an enjoyable read and I felt that a movie adaptation would have a lot of potential. Unfortunately I read the reviews of the movie that was made and the look pretty bad.

The book is a little “smaller” in scope than the previous books. A smaller story with smaller characters and smaller organizations. Yet all the ingredients are still there and they make for a quick, enjoyable read.
Maybe the characters are showing some “fatigue”. I'll definitely read the next book, but I'll keep my expectations in check.

This book was much better than I tough and filled a lot of gaps. I was 18 in 1992 and went crazy about Nirvana, like other millions of people. Since then I have not changed my mind, they were one of the greatest bands ever existed.

While I like some of the songs from Foo Fighters and I owned their first few CDs, I never really became a fan and so I never delved too much in Dave Grohl's life.

This book was a much needed, for me, education on how an artist can grow up, with perseverance, to achieve their goals.

On the minus side, I don't personally agree with some of the nature vs nurture opinions that the author has and also, I think that he used a little too many times the "how did a guy like me get here" structure.

These are minor things, the book is good.

What an incredible book. The stories are so incredible and there are so many that many some of them would deserve their own book. Entire different underworlds are described in such detail that is very difficult to remember that only some of the stories are entirely true. In many moments, while reading this book, I was taken by surprise by how much the book still have to give. Just when I thought it had given enough, it would go in a totally different and new direction. One of the most impressive book I read. It made me feel again like when I was reading Jules Verne books as a kid.

This book is really good. It is fascinating how expansive the world created by the author is given the subject. Superbly written with fully developed character, it is a truly engaging story.

While this book is considered a masterpiece by many, I found it just ok. Maybe I had to read too many of these stories growing up in the South of Italy to find any surprise in it.

Very short read. Hard to call it a book. Most of the concepts expressed should be very well known, but they are nicely exposed and organized. While I wholly agree with the author with almost everything, I cannot say that there is enough originality to justify more than 3 stars.

This is a minor Gladwell book. Not that interesting and not the usual entertaining style. It does deliver some good information but the it continuously overstates the importance of it all.

I truly enjoyed this book. Written with very slick style and somehow the author is able to use complex and highbrow words and a particularly sophisticated italian without sounding obnoxious. The stories of these two lives are beautiful and intense. I listened to the italian audiobook and the narration was also very very good.

The book comes out of the gate roaring. Innovative, fun and interesting, but then... more of the same for the entire book to the point of quickly becoming repetitive and boring. It picks up again at the end but that wasn't enough to cancel the feeling that this is a short story excessively stretched to a full book.

One of the few books that I had to stop reading halfway (I usually take the decision to stop reading much sooner, but this time I made a mistake of hoping that it would get better). The tone is excessively light to the point of being childish, the intertwined romance is silly and the story doesn't go anywhere. Very dull.

This is a difficult book to rate. There are many positive and negatives. On the negative side, like in The man called Ove, the book is full of cliches and the characters all do dumb things, so the reader can see from a mile away where the things are going. This aspect makes the plot almost amateurish. On the positive side, I have to be honest with myself and admit that I could not put the book down and I wanted to know how it ended...