j wren pennington

Noir. I wanted to like it a lot more than I did.

so cute!

exceedingly enjoyable.

this was supposed to be about awesome ladies adventuring, turns out is a romance, and not between the ladies :(

still reasonably enjoyable, though the number of issues unresolved with 10 pages left was a real bummer. 500 freaking pages with no resolution blows.

this would have garnered a 4 if we could revisit a bit of our protagonists ingrained views on gender. it's harder to ignore in future fiction. that said, excellent book. i will read it again.

if i had known there were going to be 90 of these, i would never have started this..,.

OH MY GOD THE TYPOS!!!!!! also, realistic fantasy books have this tricky part where they have to transition the protagonist from not believing in magic/fearies/vampires/wereturtles etc to believing and interacting with them. in this book the author tries to have the protag still be a skeptic at the end, so for every damn mystical thing the protag makes some realistic explanation for it and it is awful. just distracting my awful. there are a number of other issues as well. however, it was entertaining enough that i finished it. so there ya go.

This one elicited a lot of feels. It is a solid first book but has some first book tendencies: areas that are slightly stilted, mildly jarring transitions in tone etc, but they are pretty minimal.

More importantly though:
1- i woke my partner up multiple times by laughing uncontrollably, so maybe don't read this in bed if your partner has to wake up early, or on airplanes.
2- Zach Anner's is a necessary voice, describing an experience that the overwhelming majority of people never see and are never confronted with. We need diverse books to combat our narrow preoccupations with our own lives.

yes friends, you read that correctly, i gave this book 5 stars. i don't give many books 5 stars.

i want to think more on it before i write a lot more, but i just finished it and am grinning like an idiot.

this is a thoroughly engaging, wonderful book, however, i'm having a hard time describing it because it feels totally different from most things while also feeling so comfortable and familiar.

between the language and the strength of the characters we are introduced to, i swear this book like your most favorite pair of comfy pants. the language is so...personable. i really don't know how else to describe it. it is totally solid, so much so, that i almost forgot i was reading. i guess it just sounds the way i think? i don't know, i will think on this more...

the characters, while at first very reminiscent of firefly (that was enough to make me like it), are crazy well developed and engaging. whether they are like any other thing, i love them and i want to see how they are doing and cannot wait to read the next book because i love them.

i just finished this today, so maybe on further reflection, i will figure out the magic here, but there is some kind of magic that makes this story and these people absolutely darling.

so, i failed to read the foreword before the book and apparently that tempers one's expectation.

i think it was supposed to be so bad that it's good, but it just felt kind of bad.

does exactly what i need it to.

i can't say i agree with the low reviewers here, but i'm also not in with the 5 star reviewers.

it's a good book.

there are certainly a fair number of truly unique ideas on display. there are also a fair number of cultural differences that i think are maybe a little distracting to non-chinese readers. i think if your an american or european without something like the cultural revolution woven into the fabric of your society, it would be hard to experience a true flow. “wooden characters” have been blamed on translation but i feel sure it is a cultural difference instead. beauty and complexity are there when describing the environment, there just isn't a lot of what (especially) americans would expect in terms of description of people's inner lives.

i'm not a physicist, so i cannot really speak to the veracity of the sci in the sci fi, but it seemed pretty sturdy, and i dare say i learned some things. i did stop to look several things up, and i appreciate being challenged by difficult or unfamiliar concepts.

i cannot exactly pinpoint why this isn't a better book. it's a good book, but it took me two months to read, which is entirely unheard of. the story was original and compelling, but also kind of anti-climactic. the writing was well done, but not un-put-downable. i will undoubtedly come back to it, maybe i'll change my mind.

not what i was expecting. to explain, after the election my interests took a dive into the macabre. this sounded melodramatically appealing.

interesting concept. the writing isn't bad, might even be good for what it's supposed to be, but felt clunky and haphazard as an experience (which may be the point, in which case, bravo!)

i know some high school kids who will squeal over this one.

i think i might want to rate this higher, but i admit that i am a little lost. i suppose i need to read the other two...which i find kind of irritating. unless, i figure out that all of the clues where there and i just missed them. i don't know...stay tuned.

fantastic writing and character development though. great of POV.

grit. it's worth it.

compelling read. i only got bogged down in verbiage a couple of times.

it is however a little heavy handed. much of the artful metaphor was drug out and worded to death, though this is a fairly petty complaint.

i really need a book club discussion of this trilogy. i feel like there are some things i did not get.

this is a horrible book.

if you like compelling scary books, this is a fun one. the story line given to you to throw you off track is a little ham handed, but it was still fun.

the love child of a better written Neverwhere and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

like everything else china mieville writes, there is a wealth of truly original ideas that are both clever and well executed. it's rare that you get both.

sherlock holmes as asperger's affected father and son. cute, well written, culturally relevant....

unexpectedly good book. don't let the cover fool you, it makes it look a lot more goth-y than the story really is. i would place it firmly in science fiction, AND, even better, not white people science fiction! not saying that is makes any major cultural statements, but it's nice to see sci-fi with names that derive from eastern languages. and i'm not exactly sure why, but i got a distinctly doctor who feel from it....

it's YA, but for upper levels. not because of anything naughty, but conceptually, it migh be difficult to follow.

well that was fun!

i'm not 100% sure about anything in this book. the protagonist; i like her, i hate her, i'm annoyed by her, i identify with her, etc. i suppose that's why it's so good.

i am also quite sure that my thoughts on this book will change as i sit with it.