Giu
After a third I gave up. I simply lacked the motivation to listen to this and not remembering the majority of the names mentioned. Thanks A Wiki of Ice and Fire, I guess, for providing all those chapter summaries. This way I could still find out how the story continues. Maybe I'll be more motivated for the sixth book should it ever be published.
Precise rating: 2.5 ⭐
This book annoys the heck out of me! It wasn't boring even once. I got through it very smoothly.
And at the same time, I didn't really care a lot about any of the characters. The story felt chaotic and uncertain. As if Wells didn't see the golden thread himself. There was a proper ending, but the way there seemed very rocky.
I also don't like Wells' writing style. It was fluctuating a lot between beautiful and diary entry that wasn't meant to be published.
Urgh, but it's still hard to give it only 2.5 stars!
Precise rating: 3.5 ⭐
This one is as brilliantly written as the others. I do like Cersei and Jaime and I wouldn't per se mind at all that this book strongly focused on those two characters. Though I felt so bombarded with politics and names in some of their chapters (gosh, is there anyone besides Martin and his helpers who understands the Frey family tree???) – I just couldn't follow at times and had to read summaries online.
I loved the happenings in King's Landing anyway. And Brienne's, Arya's and Sansa's chapters were great! Everything else was great in fact! And now on to the last book for now!
This book I picked, almost at random, in a book store a couple weeks ago. And now I'm so happy I did. I was into it from the start and loved the characters and how calmly it was written. And then the finale came as a complete surprise! I enjoyed almost every minute of this book.
Oh, Russo seems to like the verb to genuflect.
Precise rating: 4.5 ⭐
This book was absolutely brilliant! I can't get over how much I actually liked every single story. But “Story of Your Life” and “Liking What You See: A Documentary” were definitely the highlights!
Tower of Babylon
4.5 ⭐
Read it to my boyfriend over Discord, we both enjoyed it a lot and had a nice discussion about it afterwards!
While I could only manage a quarter of the book on my first try, on my second I got through it and I'm happy I gave it a second chance!
To understand how I feel about this book, one only has to read this review. “[...] because I was bored BUT I WAS JUST SO GOD DAMN INTERESTED.” Exactly my experience!
A very, very unsettling book! The second part I read in one sitting. It was so tense, it felt impossible to take a break. The ending is pretty insane and it took me a while to digest it. The whole book feels, somehow, metaphorical and straightforward at the same time, leaving you behind confused and disturbed—or at least me!
Precise rating: 3.5 ⭐
Only having read the blurb, I expected this to be a more or less classical haunted-house story. Little did I know that there is a whole Mitchell universe out there that connects several of his books! Since I've read The Bone Clocks before, it was fun looking for connections as soon as I realised they exist.
While I didn't get what I expected (though it was spooky), I absolutely liked what I got instead.
This book, more so than the first, made me realise how different the book series is to the TV series. So comparing the books to the TV show isn't the best idea, because it makes the books, at least for me, seem incomplete, since all the storylines besides Sookie's are basically non-existent.
Okay, to be fair, this is only the second part. I don't know at all what is yet to come. But that's my impression so far. Anyway, it was a quick, fun read (or, in my case, listening experience) and I love the trash-literature feel to it.
Precise rating: 3.5 ⭐
Phew, this book was quite an adventure ...
Looking back at all the different plot lines and characters, this story feels like several books in one. At the same time, it was surprisingly easy to remember all the characters. Although I'm not sure if every character needed the amount of pages they got – I think some of them would've done fine with less. It didn't happen often, but sometimes it felt a little bit drawn out because of that. But nevertheless, the characters were superb! Such a lovable protagonist!
All in all, I liked Cloud Atlas better, but if you loved Cloud Atlas, you probably wanna read this book as well!
Disappointing for me. I stopped reading after 70% or so and continued with a detailed summary instead.
While I really like the theme of this story, I guess I'm just not a sucker for old books. I have a hard time describing what usually ruins them for me, but it has something to do with how the characters behave. It is somehow unauthentic, as if books back then were written with a different intention than making the characters seem as real as possible. They feel more like those exaggerated characters from theatre plays or old movies. Just not my cup of tea.