Paul

A book-lover's book:
This was a beautifully written and very fun book. It is a winding and twisting story filled with Gothic themes and a dozen smaller stories entwined within it. What makes it a book for book-lovers is that it is about a boy whose life is turned upside down after reading a darkly beautiful book that seems eerily similar to the one you are reading. This book is essentially a statement on itself and to a greater extent, a statement on the power a book can have on those who read them.
Metaphor aside, the plot is great, the characters are great and the writing is superb. There are mysteries and surprises throughout and just as you feel you have a grip on what's going on, the story takes a mad and unexpected twist. The characters are flawed but lovable - even the enemies. The whole world has the feel of being a slightly fantastic version of real life; Devils and curses are everywhere, but in post-war Spain, it is still very real and gritty. Finally, the quotes and notable phrases are non-stop! This book did not change my world the way the main character's book did, but I had a lot of fun reading it.

This book aims to take a fresh look at the apocalypse by taking the standard concept of the world-wide collapse and standing it on its head by showing a more positive perspective. In many ways, it accomplishes that by showing that after the anarchy of trying to survive society crumbling, people will get bored just “surviving”, and might crave a good show, quality music and a renewed sense of community.
That said, it does fall into some predictable post-apocalyptic story lines but I guess some stereotypes are inevitable for such a popular concept. Another unique aspect is the heavily nonlinear plot-lines; the story follows a large number of characters over a large number of years, and the story can jump from one character 20 years after the apocalypse to a completely different person 5 years before the apocalypse almost completely randomly. Personally, I have no issue with breaking chronology or following multiple characters, but this was done a lot with about 8 different characters, resulting in a lack of flow.
On one hand, that gave a neat perspective as if everything is kind of a blur of then & now, and allows one to “step back” and get a feel of the whole situation. On the other hand, I couldn't really get attached to a character or a story because there were so many of both and not enough time to say much for any of them. If the book was maybe 1000 pages, a story of 8 main characters spanning 50 years could be really powerful, but fitting that all in under 350 pages just felt kind of messy.

This is a wonderfully strange book that is so subtly impactful that when I finished it, my first thought was “well that was a little odd.” Days later though, I realized it was one of the best books I had read.
Having never read it in school, I figured it was just another modern classic about war. But early on, you find out that Billy Pilgrim isn't just a WWII survivor, he's an alien abductee! (This excited the X-Files fan in me.) The story (and to an extent, Billy himself) jumps back and forth through time between Billy as an American soldier with no survival skills and Billy as a moderately successful eye doctor with a seemingly boring life... Until he mentions aliens and being “unstuck in time”.
The aliens aren't what make this book unique though. It shows soldiers as essentially frightened children, some of whom are brave, some cowardly and most dead before one really gets to know them at all. It highlights the actual human consequence of questionable war strategies. It forces you to take a step back and look at the world through a different set of eyes. This book will open the mind of anyone who reads it. At the very least, it will make you look at war from a different angle.

This was the best book I have read in years! Stephenson's vision of what the near future would be like in the face of apocalypse is more realistic and well thought-out than any other apocalypse type book I have read by far (and I've read a few).
Within this grand view of the world he portrays, piles of imaginative concepts and inventions are thrown in, from developments in robotics to human genetic modification. These little side-inventions contribute largely to how realistic this world feels.
The characters that drive this story are very well-developed, in some cases so much so that their traits take a life of their own. There is a refreshing number of strong and deep female characters, and for any fans of Bill Nye or Neil DeGrasse Tyson, there is a character that seems like an amalgamation of those two as well.
To read a book that was this well-researched and imaginative really forces the reader to push the boundaries of their own imagination, and in many ways, that is the whole purpose of fiction. Despite the large size of this book, I was upset when it ended. I just wanted to know every detail of the world the author created and I never wanted the joy of reading such a creative work to end.

An excellent combination of adventure, technical realism and geek humour make this book a home run for modern sci-fi and modern fiction over all.
I chose this book for my book club (before the movie came out) knowing that most of the club members didn't like sci-fi but they all loved this! In fact, I was probably the most critical because I expected a little more fantasy and fiction. Instead this book plays out with the most realistic possible scenario for what would happen if a manned mission to Mars went wrong. That Chris Hadfield complimented its accuracy in a review attests to that point.
Watney is a lovable character, and the switching perspectives between Earth and space/Mars keep the pace of the book at a can't-put-it-down speed. I highly recommend this book! (Even if you don't like science fiction)

The unbelievable living conditions this family went through is enough to grip any reader. Anyone who thinks “I had pretty crazy parents” has nothing on Jeannette Walls.
But what really makes this story unique is the perspective Walls writes from. She recreates her memories and feels them as she experienced them at the time, rather than reflecting back on them with her current perspective. The result is that you begin by seeing her father as a genius and a hero and her mother as brilliant and creative, and as she grows, she begins to portray the good with the bad. Writing this way, the reader can understand why she seems to hold an unwavering loyalty to her parents in spite of the obvious neglect and mistreatment she suffered.
The book is packed with symbolism and complex relationships, and though it may not be a factual autobiography so much as a story based on her actual childhood, it excellently portrays her emotions toward a family which put her through horrific experiences while showing her unconditional love. It's a true must-read.

What a heart-wrenching and beautifully written book! The author spent ten years on this story, and you can tell. I was skeptical about this book from the beginning, because although I enjoy historical fiction, I feel that WWII can be overdone, and the concept of a French-German relationship during the war did not appeal to me as an original story. However, I couldn't have been more wrong about the book.
It is impossible not to empathize with the two main characters, and the development of the secondary characters was just as gripping. I personally fell in love with Frederick, a young Nazi who struggles to fit in.
Probably one of the novel's strongest traits is how it portrays Nazi soldiers as more than just goons. The other fascinating feature was the beauty and depth of description used to portray the perspective of the blind girl. The way the cities and houses are described make you almost feel like you are blind.
For all its description and depth, it does not drag at any point. The book is written in short chapters with a back-and-forth timeline that forces you to want to read more. Furthermore it is written over a back-story of fantasy and folk-lore, with a deep underlying symbolism, which gave the plot far more life than one usually gets from a historical piece.
I hold back on giving it a perfect score because despite how well-written the characters are, the main ones can feel too perfect, and though the story was deep and powerful, it did not impact me in the same way others stories have. All in all though, it was a beautiful story.

I loved the first two books in this series as was among the first people to put my name on the hold list for this, but despite being ready to love it, I was quite disappointed.
Admittedly, writing a massive historical piece about the politics of the 60s and 70s has many more challenges than writing about the World War eras; specifically there was no single all-encompassing war to write around, but multiple loosely connected events. But Follett for whatever reason felt the need to get characters personally involved in every major event, which created a series of scattered and totally unrealistic story lines with very little cohesiveness or character development.
The interactions between families felt forced and unnecessary unlike in the previous stories, and his attempt at writing conservative characters who did not come off as evil was a total failure. Do I regret reading this? No. The parts that concluded the stories of the original characters was very touching and I was satisfied with how everything was tied up. But as a stand-alone novel, this book really dropped the ball.

One of the most popular books from the Nobel-winning author, this first book of the Cairo trilogy brings to life a culture and history which is incredibly unique and largely unknown to Western society.
Though the style of writing is very descriptive and the focus on character and custom over plot-line can make this a difficult read, it is definitely worth the time. The book wonderfully portrays the dissonance between the time's popular party-culture and radical Islam, both of which rule the society. It gives a personal view into family lives, individual struggles, and political strife all at the same time, with diverse and complex characters, strong and weak, hypocritical and devout. The book can drag, and the first half can be particularly slow, but it is worth the patience for the intimate experience it inevitably delivers.

Prepare to be violently thrown into the historical world of Canada in the early days of colonization. In a setting where our documented historical knowledge is scattered and incomplete, Boyden flawlessly brings to life the history and mysticism of the natives during the first years of interaction with the French.
Switching between the perspectives of a young Iroquois woman, a Wendat chief and a French missionary, this novel explores the lives and politics between warring native tribes, and the natives' attempts to co-exist with the French. The book is unique in that it seems to transcend bias, neither portraying the natives as innocent victims of circumstance, nor as uncivilized killers. Instead it goes into full detail of their gruesome torture tactics, their burial rituals and their sense of honour and respect. It then lets the reader be the judge.
The switching perspectives are all written in first-person which can be confusing at first, but once you get to know the characters, the reader can identify the characters immediately. The traditional chief, bold girl, and devout missionary are all loveable in different ways, and the minor characters work as archetypes for natives and native struggles to occur in Canada, making the story both symbolically rich and educational. This was my favourite book of 2014 and I recommend it to every Canadian.