End of Ever After: A Cinderella Retelling
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"I had never wondered about Snow White once her prince kissed and whisked her away. I had imagined a...
Young_Adult Fairy_Tales
Mobilities
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Issues of movement - of people, things, information and ideas - are central to people's lives and to...
Urban Sustainability in Theory and Practice: Circles of Sustainability
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Cities are home to the most consequential current attempts at human adaptation and they provide one...
The Classical Economists Revisited
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The Classical Economists Revisited conveys the extent, diversity, and richness of the literature of...
Reaping Something New: African American Transformations of Victorian Literature
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Tackling fraught but fascinating issues of cultural borrowing and appropriation, this groundbreaking...
Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2067 KP) rated Stardust Trail in Books
Aug 23, 2022 (Updated Aug 23, 2022)
I bought this book when the author gave a talk at my local library a few months back. I’m glad I did. As always, I enjoyed the Hollywood setting, but I especially enjoyed the scenes that took Nate to the area I live. Granted, it has changed a lot since the time when the book was set. The story itself is strong with plenty of action to keep us engaged. I had a few things figured out, but I missed some other clues that Nate used to solve things. The characters are engaging, as well. This has the feel of a classic PI novel, so it has a bit more content than I would typically read. It also means that Nate’s sense of humor made me laugh as I was reading. Fortunately, I already have the sequel since I’m looking forward to visiting Nate again soon.
Radicals in Power: The New Left Experience in Office
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Our memory of Sixties New Left radicals often evokes marches in the streets, battles with the...
Polis Expansion and Elite Power in Hellenistic Karia
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In the third and second centuries BC, the city-states of Karia began to assert their independence in...
Sarah (7798 KP) rated Knife (Harry Hole #12) (Oslo Sequence #10) in Books
Nov 15, 2020
The previous books turned Harry Hole into a rather respectable person but without losing his impressive deduction and detective skills. His life is pretty much sorted. This book completely erases that and pushes Harry back into his alcoholic mess and also ruins his relationship with Rakel. I hated this. Was it really so hard for Nesbo to write a Harry Hole book that didn't completely ruin his entire life at the same time? As even the reveal at the end of this book just further adds to my despair of how much Hole and his life has been ruined.
There are some glimpses of the well written story you'd expect from Nesbo in this, but even the writing is very convoluted and drawn out. This book is at least 100 pages longer than it needs to be and features far too much unnecessary rambling and description. If it had been cut down, it may have made the plot a little easier to absorb.
I'm probably biased by my preconceptions about the plot of this book, but i really didn't enjoy it and even started skim reading towards the end. The whole initial plot plus the surprise twist ending just completely ruins Harry Hole to the point that I really hope this is the last book.
graveyardgremlin (7194 KP) rated Angelfire (Angelfire, #1) in Books
Feb 15, 2019
First off I cannot feel sympathy for the protagonist, Ellie, which is essential in a book like this. She's a shallow character who wasn't brought to life in the pages I read. It's hard to relate to a girl who has everything she could possibly want, saving her daddy's love, and while that can be possible in other books, it wasn't the case with this one. The concept sounded interesting and is what drew me to the book, but as I read, it just felt like a very, very poor imitation of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the television series) with minor differences. The truth is that a better writer could have overcome all these issues and made them his or her own. Quite possibly, even this book may have ended up being a good if many more rewrites and editing had been undertaken. Unfortunately the writing is weak, most especially the dialogue, and nothing inspired me to read on or to care what happens. Most of what I read was a question and answer session between Ellie and her Guardian, Will, which was very irritating to read. I urge all authors not to do this. Perhaps ANGELFIRE is too young for most adults and better suited for teens, but that's up to the reader in question.