Jet Silver

I liked this very much; the language, the characters, the heroine's eventual choice. Big Noodle as a name for a love interest, indeed. I have so met that guy.

I wish Colette was easier to come by. She seems to have been an incredible woman, with an impressive set of works to her name. The copy I turned up was falling apart and sourced from a regional library in Ballarat, a donated copy published in 1954. I wanted to keep it.

I still don't know what happened in this book, but it was a rollercoaster of a read. It will drive you around the bend if you like neat resolutions and reliable narrators - Micah is the definition of unreliable narrator - but it's well written and a world unto itself. Maybe.

Cute, if suffering from plot holes and a rather unforgivable approval of animal experimentation. And male-as-default syndrome.

I had such fun with this book. I can't remember the last time I laughed so much reading a novel. The characters were well drawn and so different from one another - I couldn't choose a favourite.

I did wish there were more lose ends wrapped up - WHY was Saroj uncomfortable with Meenal? - but overall a very satisfying, engaging read. I escpecially liked the tips at the end of some of the recipes.

I had a complicated relationship with Villette. The French-with-endnotes drove me to distraction, what with the constantly having to flip back and forth to understand what was going on. Footnotes. Footnotes are the way to go, Penguin, if you must make your primary text bilingual.

But I liked Lucy as a character, and the unreliable narrator thing was interesting. Frustrating, and intriguing as a literary technique. I loved her snarkiness, her sound knowledge that she is totally smarter than you, her stubbornness and self-reliance and bravery. And I think she had a crush on Ginevra.

I wasn't too fond of the plot-by-coincidence method - I can forgive this once or twice, but every major point that moved the plot forward hinged on a highly improbable attack of deus ex machina. Still, I don't do classics that often, and I am quite probably missing an understanding of how the genre works.

And the love interest. Was I supposed to loathe him? If so, the text is successful. I bitterly resented him becoming somewhat sympathetic toward the end, and so the ambiguous book ending suited me very well.

I keep waffling between this being a three star or a four star. It's stayed with me more than a three star read does, but there were parts I purely hated about this book. Also, the random, pointless ableism ought to have been cut.

I liked it a lot. I finished it, a bit ambivalent, then went off reading reviews on Goodreads, whereupon I found myself disagreeing wildly with people's conceptions of the characters. Clearly I must have liked the book very much, though there's something a little unsatisfying about the ending - perhaps the ratio of wrap up after so very much set up - that stops me from loving it. But I found it an engrossing read; unusual for a welded-on fantasy genre reader - I can't usually get too excited about real-world novels.

I loved getting to know the three protagonists, and I liked the split structure of the book, shifting in POV and point in time, but in large enough chunks that you could get a real feel for the three different voices. I liked that Tony and Roz and Charis have nothing in common but college, and are therefore friends for life. I loved reading of their friendships and their early lives. Zenia, I don't know.

Boyce was pure bottled awesome.

I didn't like that the common weak point for all three of them was their partner, but then, it seemed true. I did like that Zenia had reasons having nothing to do with the men themselves for doing what she did. Even if she is a cipher for every stereotype of female relationships.

I think I'll be thinking about this for a long while. And I think I liked Roz best. Maybe Tony.

Abandoned early in. Too close to home for me from an abelist perspective. This is not a critism of the book or author; I just don't want to read it.

I hate this guy's writing. He needs an editor. He can't keep his tenses or his POVs straight, he shifts to passive voice in the middle of a fight for Pete's sake, and he doesn't check his facts.

Dear Peter F. Hamilton, there is no such thing as an Australian Marine, and most especially there is no such thing as an Australian Marine serving in the Vietnam war.

I can't think of many books I've had to force myself to finish as much as I did this one. Mostly to see how much worse it could get.

I liked what I read of this, but I just do not have the brain for a choose your own adventure style book right now. Maybe another time.

This book holds the distinction of being the only one I have ever thrown across the room upon finishing it.

Usually I love Marsden.

Abandoned at page 50. The writing style grated for me, and not even the presence of a wolfhound could save it. Not a criticism, just a style mismatch.

Although, there did seem to be enough sneering at others' art tastes for one reason or another that if it hadn't been the voice that made me put it down, it might have been that.

Abandoned at page 106. Some of the writing is lovely but the loosely connected short stories thing very rarely works for me, and I'm bored.

Giving up on this for now. Too dystopic for the moment, which comes through a lot stronger in the book than it does in the film.

Okay, wow. I loved this book. I'm a bit knocked off my feet at how much I loved this book, because I liked the first in the series, but not any more than I like my average fun and well written urban fantasy YA novel. This one, though, is just ... wow. I don't think I know of any trilogies where the second installment is streets better than the first, but there you have it.

Maybe the way Sarah Rees Brennan has chosen to vary her POV character between books helps. Last time the narration stayed with Nick, who is awesome but not ... terribly sophisticated in his understanding of what's happening. Or vary varied in his emotional response, for that matter. Covenant has Mae as its POV character, and I love her so. I love that she is textually identified as a feminist character, and that she drives so much of the action. I love her tshirts, and her self confidence and bravery.

And I love that unlike most supernatural-fighting teen ensemble casts, the non-magical character with no special abilities and no weaponscraft is a woman, but one who is not a damsel, not ridiculously beautiful and not obsessed about that, and who insists on not being sidelined.

I'm excited for the next book, and for the narration character to be Sin. More awesome!

DNF at page 80ish.

On the list because: Mentioned in The Lonely City.