Deigge
I read "The Ophiuchi Hotline" right before this book so I'll talk about both of them for a bit. While they are both part of the Eight Worlds series, they are not connected in any way besides sharing some common ideas of the world. The author also clarified that there isn't any consistency and you can't put these books in a chronicle order. If you read any kind of Eight Worlds book before this is kind of an important information. Personally I was put off my the inconsistency at first until you throw out the whole concept of these books being connected. The good thing about this, you can choose the books you find interesting without missing anything. Ophiuchi Hotline and Steel Beach are different kind of books, personally I liked Steel Beach way more than Ophi Hotline. Do you like a faster paced book with a bit more action and "higher" scifi? Choose Ophi Hotline. Rather want to read a slow burning book which is more focused on thoughts and emotions and living on Luna? Choose Steel Bach.
Now to the book itself. It is confusing. At least at first. I think it takes around 100 pages until you actually get into the story and feel like you can follow. Some of this makes sense later but I also think the author just likes to give you the feeling that you just zapped into a tv show mid season. There also isn't a clear "goal" or story path early on. The book plants ideas, thoughts and problems but the story doesn't just focus on fixing things or overall progress with these things. A lot of times the journey is the reward. In my opinion The Ophiuchi Hotline had very thin world building which made me sad since I thought the world is pretty interesting. Well, this book is full of world building! And I love it.
Personally I found that the book only got good in the second half. The first half was kind of slow and lacked a bit of a goal for the whole story.
Also it is one of these sci-fi books that just throw all kind of concepts and vocabulary at you from this imaginary world and it takes a long time to slowly understand how the world functions.
The overall worldbuilding feels rather thin and mostly focused on explaining some bits here and there that are useful to the story but not beyond that.
Since the book is rather short it is definitely an enjoyable story and a really nice sci-fi world!
Best non fiction book I read in a while. Sarah does a really good job at conveying her thoughts and emotions at that point in her life and makes the book feel like a smooth roller coaster. But the roller coaster is going down hill all the time. At the end you spend a lot of time shaking your head and thinking “this can't be real”.
Overall it is such an interesting topic and a good view inside the company behind Facebook.
I kind of have a love/hate relationship with this book. I love the style of it, how the whole story is told through emails. And how the book is able to work with very little overall informations about the characters but still doesn't feel empty. I liked Leo more than Emma. Emma felt really annoying sometimes and it felt like she was more “wrong” (spoilerfree, vague description) than Leo overall.
Now the things that I really didn't like include spoilers.
I personally found the line towards virtual/emotional cheating was crossed too fast and too easily. When I read around 1/3 of the book I already thought that if I found this kind of conversation in my partners inbox I would consider it cheating. Or at least would be hurt that my partner didn't shut it down right away. Thats the next thing, there is so much said but no one really asks the question “Is this cheating?”. Leo does take a few jabs at it but overall he is fine with the thought. Which doesn't make sense since his ex girlffriend cheated on him!On top of that the book doesn't do a good job at displaying cheating as something bad. Everything is so... soft. Emmas husband discovers her emails and his reaction is to basically go on his knees and beg Leo to have sex with his wife. What the fuck?! And there aren't any consequenses overall. Leo isn't a saint but I feel like he was better at assessing the whole situation and realizing that he has to back off at some point. But Emma was in full on cheating mode and got sensitive when Leo would point that out. Emma was also really focused on the looks of people.
I really liked the idea of the story but for me the pacing just feels off somehow. But it definitely is not a boring read. Also the book doesn't answer anything and just creates question after question. I don't like the characters or the story enough to continue with the next book, so I'll be left without answers I guess.
The setting was really interesting and the author's writing style felt quite unique, definitely something different. I liked the overall tone, but the story itself didn???t go very deep. Certain details and situations were repeated a lot, which made it feel a bit dragged out and overly padded at times. Still, it was an enjoyable read if you???re in the mood for something light and quirky.
It was interesting to finally read the real story of Frankenstein instead of just knowing the usual clich??. Some parts felt a bit drawn out, since Frankenstein spends a lot of time talking about his suffering and choices. Still, it was cool to see how different the book actually is from what you???d expect.
Hat sich ein bisschen angef??hlt wie ein Krimi-Dinner, spannend, aber mit vielen Verd??chtigen auf einmal. Das Ende war teils vorhersehbar, teils ??berraschend. Die Charaktere waren ehrlich gesagt ziemlich anstrengend und nicht gerade sympathisch. Trotzdem unterhaltsam, wenn man auf Psychospielchen steht.
Ich pers??nlich fand das Buch an manchen Stellen einfach zu langatmig. Es dauert unglaublich lange bis die Story sich in die G??nge setzt, vor allem weil der Klappentext schon den Hauptplot vorweg nimmt. Ich hatte erst ab ca. 200 Seiten das Gef??hl, das sich endlich mal mehr bewegt und man vom Anfang weg kommt.
Aber was ich sehr mochte ist, dass das Buch mit der Zukunft und “neuster Technik” arbeitet, die heutzutage nat??rlich alles andere als zeitgem???? ist.
Es f??hlt sich wie sehr bodenst??ndige Science Fiction an, ohne gleich in Richtung Cyberpunk o.??. abzufriften.
Auch das Ende fand ich an manchen Stellen nicht so sch??n. Manche Dinge h??tte man sich auch einfach sparen k??nnen, da sie nicht zur Geschichte beitragen.
Z.B. Warum muss Lukas an Krebs sterben w??hrend die anderen ihren Autounfall ??berleben? Es tr??gt nichts zur Story bei und gibt mir einfach nur das Gef??hl, dass der Author zeigen will, das selbst die nettesten Menschen Pech haben k??nnen und umgekehrt.
Personally I found the middle of the book a bit too long and sluggish. I felt like it didn't need so much of it to get the point across. But the description of the worls is so unique and I liked learning about them overall. I must say, I found a lot of the things that happened predictable in some way. There wasn't really a plot twist or reveal that surprised me, besides one thing towards the end.
Another reason why it felt kinda predictable were the similarities to the movie “Your Name. It's not a 1:1 copy obviously but the book does remind me of it, which made my own thoughts and ideas drift towards the concept of “Your Name” instead of going into it completely “blind”.
At first I was sceptical, since the book is working with such a heavy topic. But a few pages in I fell in love with the book! Frankie is such a nice character and the way he sees the world is refreshing. Some moments really hurt and made me realize how empathetic I was for all these characters. But I won't spoil anything, in my opinion the book works best if you just dive right in and just see what happens!
At first, all the timejumps are confusing and it is hard to keep track of all the different things that happen. But the different timelines slowly get clearer and it is easier to read. The story doesn't really have a clear goal or anything that keeps you hooked, but it was nice to read and since it isn't super long you also don't lose interest so fast. The sci-fi elements were really cool but sadly pretty rare (besides the concept of jumping around in time). Had pretty strong Douglas Adams vibes while reading them and I wish there were more sci-fi elements or at least that they feel more finished.
Overall it is a very cool book and I really like the sci-fi spin on the Eurovision Song Contest. But personally I felt like the actual story was pretty short, a lot of chapters were used for talking about all kind of alien species and grand prix that happened in the past. I have no problem with worldbuilding, I even think it is a must for sci-fi but here it was just too much and not that well excuted. Most of the time it didn't blend in with the story and you basically just take a break of the main story to read a wikipedia article about alien species xy. On top of that most of the informations were just flavour and not relevant for the story at all. The flow of the book didn't hook me at all because of that.
Ich finde, das Thema des Buches ist mal was anderes und auch die Umsetzung ist sehr gut gelungen. Es sind flie??ende ??berg??nge und keine abgehackten Kapitel, bei denen zwischen den Personen gewechselt wird.
Man kann auch gut einige Stunden mit dem Buch verbringen, habe ca. 3/4 des Buches in einem Abend gelesen, ohne das ich das Gef??hl hatte, eine Pause zu brauchen.
Mein gro??es Problem mit dem Buch: Es ist alles so vorhersehbar. Es gibt keine Spannungskurve und gr????ere Plotpunkte sind schon meilenweit im Voraus erkennbar oder man kann sich zumindest gut denken was passiert. Mir hat einfach ein Plottwist gefehlt, etwas, was das Buch in eine Richtung lenkt, mit der man so gar nicht gerechnet hat. Dadurch f??hlen sich manche Stellen im Buch auch einfach langwierig an.
Auch finde ich Escher als Charakter manchmal etwas... anstrengend? Komisch? Ich wei??, dass der Charakter so gedacht ist, aber irgendwas hat mich an der Ausf??hrung gest??rt.
Aber alles in allem ist es ein cooles Buch f??r so 2-3 Abende und es macht allein wegen des Konzepts Spa??, das Buch zu lesen.
To be fair, the low review isn't really because the book is super bad. I'm just not a big fan of romance (read it as part of a book club). But I enjoyed the second half way more than the first. Also was really glad when catherine switched over to first names for some people because there are like 4 people with the same surname and overall there is often some family involved which means you mostly have at least two people with the same surname. Also was a bit disappointed with the ending.
It changed from catherines POV into the authors POV and just rushed through all the stuff. I didn't expect it to keep going in the same detail then before but the change in pace felt a bit too much. Also it felt kinda disappointing to work towards them being a couple the whole book only for it to be kept so short.
For me it wasn't that much of a cozy read. I feel like if you have cats and really love them, some stuff that is happening is more triggering than wholesome. I liked the stories 2, 4 and 5 but really disliked 1 and 3. After the third story I was thinking about putting the book down because I felt mostly uneasy reading it up to that point. But I think, story 2 is my favorite and also what I thought what most stories would be before reading the book. Also maybe I just didn't gst it but I felt kike the ending was a bit open. You got the connections and some stuff that was implied but I just feel like there is something missinh to tie everything together.
Overall not a bad read but it feels very shallow. Some stories don't really have a conclusion and if they have one it is super short and just left me thinking “thats it?”. Also the “main character” (the repairman) barely shows up and you never really learn anything about them. It feels weird having this recurring character without having any information about them.
Personally the book is too expensive (I paid 17???) for the stories it has.
After the first book I was sooo excited to continue the story but was let down so fast. Too many characters which made the pacing sluggish and the distribution of “screentime” felt very uneven. Also personally it felt like too much bad/negative happening? I know it's a distopian novel but it was more of a frustrating read compared to the first book. I also didn't like how the book ended, with all the negativity throughout the book I wished it would end in nicer way to make me actually pick up book 3. I found faradays story line the most interesting and wished it would have gone deeper into the history of the scythe. It makes me sad that this story line was left absolutely open and I have to read the next book to know how it goes while I dislike most of the other story lines. But I must say I liked the addition of the thunderheas stuff. Making him more present and showing more of his thinking and how he works.
I really like the pacing of the book. It a good medium-pace and it never feels too fast or too slow and also everything that happens has some kind of relevance. One thing I really liked about the writing is that the author is able to convey what is going to happen in a way it feels like you figure it out on your own. There aren't any super sudden plot twists but not because the book is boring but because the writer kind of lets the situation dawn on you. Also the writing really keeps you on a short leash? Like it makes sure that you get the right feelings and thoughts to tie this story together. And for such a story which is mainly about stuff like death and suicide it feels like a very good read. It isn't heavy on your shoulders or makes you super sad all the time. It's a really interesting story that keeps you hooked.
Habe mir das H??rbuch angeh??rt, welches wirklich toll vorgelesen war. Die Plottwists waren gut gemacht und zumindest einige gar nicht vorhersehbar. W??hrend es am Anfang einfach nur witzig und absurd ist, tauchen mit der Zeit ernste Themen auf, die meiner Meinung nach auch gut eingebaut wurden. Das einzige was mir nicht gefallen hat ist der Einschub der Sicht der Polizisten welche ein paar Mal passieren. Ich empfand sie eher als st??rend, da sie nichts wirklich zu der Geschichte beigetragen haben und die paar Informationen die der Leser durch sie bekommt, h??tte man bestimmt auch anders einbauen k??nnen.
Der Titel klingt erstmal nach einem sachlichen, faktenbasierten Buch, tats??chlich erz??hlt die Autorin aber gr????tenteils sehr pers??nlich aus ihrem eigenen Leben. Das hat zwar spannende Einblicke erm??glicht, vor allem in die historische Einordnung, bei der einem nochmal bewusst wird, wie wenig davon im Schulunterricht je Thema war. Trotzdem h??tte ich mir zwischendurch mehr Zahlen, Hintergr??nde oder auch einfach Antworten auf die Frage ???Wie denn stattdessen???? gew??nscht. Der Ton ist oft sehr direkt und wirkt teilweise so, als w??rde man selbst getadelt, das hat es mir an manchen Stellen schwer gemacht, wirklich dranzubleiben.
It's not a bad book but for me the timing was just not right. I started it while also reading Scythe from the same author and it just felt too similar somehow. I can't even pinpoint what is similiar because obviously the premise is very different. It's probably more about them having the same writing style and both are about death in a way. This book just didn't catch me and it actually took mew some time to finally decide to DNF instead of dreading to finish it.