Alex
That feeling when a person from Texas managed to create a better atmosphere of russian winter than most russian writers.
Don't get fooled by the picture and the description - it's a horror book in the setting of a remote area of 13th century Russia. It mixes real events and myths and it doesn't feel too cheesy.
I had a problem with pacing, it started very slowly and some events didn't bring anything to the story (maybe they will get a continuation in the next book).
In the second half the stuff gets real, some people go mad, some die and the atmosphere of desperation is quite scary.
The book has a lot of russian words and names and the audiobook narrator tried her best but the accent is still very strong.
All in all, it's a good book but I didn't decide if I will read the next one.
Ну нормальный такой ужастик. Антуража центра Москвы могло бы быть побольше, повторения одних и тех же фраз поменьше.
Вообще написано как-то не очень, некрасиво что-ли. Но озвучка Бобылевой отличная на мой вкус и песня после каждого эпизода настолько не в тему и настолько плохо спета, что даже хорошо и засела у меня в голове.
It's a decent continuation of the original trilogy.
It's quite different though - there is one very much main story about the expedition to Heaven's River. There is a side story about Bobs who drifted from the main one and started to act differently (I actually find the original Bob quite an annoying person) and relationships of those factions with humans.
It's still very interesting to read and most of the book happens not in space, which is a nice change of scenery. The audiobook again has an amazing sound quality and pleasure to listen to.
But the ending is quite weak IMO. Very tiny spoiler - in a way it is literally Deus ex Machina. But it's not that big of a deal.
Apparently there will be more books and I plan to listen to them for sure.
Really good sci-fi. I cringed on every reference to popular culture but the rest is very well written and kept my attention at all times. Felt vibes of both The Expanse and The Martian.
Just what I needed.
The sound in the audiobook is also really good (it's Audible exclusive), I was able to listen to it with open ear headphones on quite busy streets. I thought it was impossible.
A very disturbing story with even more disturbing conclusions if you can believe that.
The book is split into three parts: history of the Osage tribe and murders, the investigation and origins of the FBI and last and arguably most wild - modern day investigation by the author of the book. All three parts in the audiobook are narrated by different people. All of them are pretty decent but Ann Marie Lee who narrates the first part has one of the most pleasant voices I've ever heard and for some reason her voice fits perfectly into the world of early twentieth century Oklahoma.
The book is definitely worth reading.
This book has seemingly everything: war, love, passion. But why is it so uninteresting? At almost no point in the story I was like “I really wonder what happens next to that dude Lucius” and when it gets slightly interesting the author cold showers you with fifty adjectives in a row.
The audiobook narration is not great as well. The narrator has a really pleasant voice but the cadence of reading is almost inhumanly even. Also, how hard is it to check how to pronounce “Straße”?
Maybe I'm just burned out from books about war and need something lighter to read.
I didn't hate it but can't say I enjoyed it either. The main characters are cartoonishly annoying, the story is very slow and the book is very detailed. Like every little thing in the book is meticulously described: who drank how many coffees, which type of jacket they wore, where did they sit (man, it sure a lot of things to sit on), etc.
I liked one particular thing - winter
in Vermont. Almost all characters are going away during this part of the book and it was a definite plus.
The language is beautiful and Donna Tart narration is good but it's not enough for me.
Absolutely wild, unbelievable and still true story.
Apart from the dark genius of Paul Le Roux, it was interesting to learn about the interactions of governments and government agencies. Some of the DEA stories are absolutely bewildering, like using a confiscated yacht to stage fake drugs transaction or effectively running painkillers pill mill ring for couple of years.
The book itself is structured in a non-linear way and there were way too many characters for me to follow. Still worth it.
Sad book all the way but not a tragedy. Covers a large chunk of Zuleiha's life and it's not an easy life to say the least.
There is a lot of interesting trivia on the way - about tatar way of life, schizophrenia, revolution in Kazan and it aftermath and absolutely beautiful and unforgiving nature of Siberia.
A very well produced audiobook, with voice acting and sound effects. Not a theater level acting but still decent.
The story itself is a mix of detective and thriller. Some moments are pretty intense but some I don't know how to describe better than “basic”. Writing is good and I didn't want to stop listening (apart from the epilogue which is bizarre).
Did I get tricked into reading young adult fiction again? Yes. Did I enjoy it? Also yes.
It's a decent science fiction book. It brings up interesting themes, has a very American feeling (lots of descriptions of American nature and geography), some cool action. But it lacks what I expected from Blake Crouch's book - TWIST. If you read his previous books, you know what I'm talking about. This book shows everything pretty early and then pretty even until a mediocre ending.
It's not bad by any means but my expectations were different.
Also it has the most non-realistic thing I've ever read - US-wide high speed train system by mid 21st century, absolutely zero chance of this happening, I would sooner believe in teleport.
Собрание историй из жизни некоего Антона.
Кое-что мне было крайне интересно, например жизнь в северном Казахстане в 40-х (моя семья жила там же и в то же время после ссылки из Украины).
Но мне не хватило связного сюжета в книге несмотря на общую “душевность” повествования. К тому же очень тяжело следить за персонажами и событиями когда так часто меняются периоды и места, меняется третье лицо на первое (и это не всегда Антон) и обратно.
It's a sad book, no surprise because it's written mostly by a dying person in the prime of their age.
But, honestly, it reads like a self-backpatting story from a dude from Palo Alto with a twist that he died despite being rich, young and amazing.
Some of the things I found tone-deaf like pride in choosing a “calling” without ever acknowledging that it's a privilege of a few and saying that people stray from the God because of its non-empirical nature which is utter nonsense considering the moral failure of Christianity in America (and especially in fucking Palo Alto).
There are much better books handling the theme of dying, feel free to skip this one.
Another good book from Blake Crouch. Very interesting idea, lots of action and kinda melted ending (though I wouldn't call it bad).
Not sure what his recipe is but it's almost always a pleasure to read, especially if the book is on the short side.
If you need some relief from the pain and suffering of “serious” books, Blake Crouch is the way to go.
Absolutely amazing book. Very interesting insight into the life of one family of billionaires, in particular the second-third generation.
Opioid crisis is a heartbreaking situation and greed and corruption which led to it is just shocking. This book exposes the worst of capitalism and it definitely doesn't have a happy end - the opioid epidemic is still ravaging America and billionaires still getting richer on people's suffering.
Still, it's nice to read that there are still people who do the right thing and are genuinely trying to bring bad extremely rich people to justice even though the task seems close to impossible.
Must read.
