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    Kingdom Builder

    Kingdom Builder

    Games

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    Kingdom Builder, winner of the German „Spiel des Jahres 2012“ award, now available on iPad! ...

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Book Divas (227 KP) rated Light Years in Books

Dec 12, 2017  
LY
Light Years
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Though I personally didn't find myself connecting with the characters the story line kept me interested until the end. This book is packed with a bit of everything from a dysfunctional and broken family to a deadly virus and the author's writing style often takes on a poetic voice which I believe is the real reason why I enjoyed reading it. When I first reached the abrupt ending I was left with a bitter taste in my mouth but I went back and read the last three chapters again and the ending took on a different meaning for me. I recommend that this book be read with an open mind. I will end my review with some of my favorite quotes.



"You have nothing to lose here, whatever happens. You just be yourself and let go of the results."



"The world is everyone's oyster if they step up to crack it open."



"Can you feel it? The wind? That's God's hand, washing you clean."



"If you begin with a belief that the world is flat, you'll never be able to conceive of it as a sphere. Your brain will just stop there, deciding that it knows. It will never allow you to consider an alternate perception."



{I received an E-ARC via The Fantastic Flying Book Club and the Publisher via NetGalley and made no guarantee of a favorable review. The opinions expressed here are unbiased and my own.}
  
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Marylegs (44 KP) rated Station Eleven in Books

Aug 14, 2019  
Station Eleven
Station Eleven
Emily St. John Mandel | 2015 | Fiction & Poetry, Science Fiction/Fantasy
8
7.9 (29 Ratings)
Book Rating
Station Eleven follows a number of characters affected by the disintegration of modern civilisation and society caused by a mutated flu virus which wipes out around 99% of the world wide population. Flitting back over a series of timelines, including the start of the pandemic to focus on the lives these characters had before the virus, what happened to them after this virus became apparent and beginning the destruction of the lives they knew. The story also skips into the future to see how their lives changed and how they had to adapt to their changing world. There are a number of characters to follow and as the book progresses links form between some of them, but this is not the focus of the story.

I won’t go overly into details about the characters it is best to discover them yourselves. I was pleasantly surprised by how good this book was. Receiving it as an advanced review, I didn’t really know much about the story other than it being based in a post-apocalyptic world. Upon receiving the book I was slightly put off by the blurb stating it was following a group of traveling actors and musicians and that it was trying to show how art still had a place in this post civilisation world. But don’t let this put you off, I’m glad I didn’t. Whilst the story uses the actors and musicians in this ‘Traveling Symphony’ as a point to allow cross country movement and show that some people as trying to survive but also to enrich other people’s lives, that wasn’t really what gripped me. It was the relationships this characters had made, the stories about how they used to live and what they had been forced to do in this changing world that kept me turning pages.

I would recommend this book, and I would probably re-read again and possibly try some of the authors other works. The author wrote beautifully and it never felt pretentious or like they were trying to over moralise things. If like me, you like a good end of the world, dystopian story but want something different from the general, zombies, vampires and hunger games type read, give this ago. It may surprise you, like it did me.