Booknan the Bookuser

Be sure to have tissues at the ready when reading this book. If Deadhouse Gates didn't make you moist in your eye holes, then this volume certainly will.

Unless you are dead on the inside.

It's kinda like Ocean's Eleven, only in space! Rajaniemi holds nothing back and pushes the reader into a fully fleshed world and story, and the reader just has to buckle up and enjoy the ride.

And boy, what a ride! I loved every confusing twist and turn of it!

Out of 25 stories and poems, I think only 5 of them really worked for me (The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountain, An Invocation of Incuriosity, And Weep Like Alexander, Nothing O'Clock, The Return of the Thin White Duke). The rest was relatively "meh", leading me to wonder if this collection has gotten such high praise simply because Neil Gaiman wrote it, and not because it is particularly good. I love American Gods, but the short story about Shadow, written particularly for this collection, didn't invoke even a tenth of the mystery, charm and suspense found in AG.

It's not enough for a shorty story to be short, or just have an abrupt ending, it also has to have meaning. Each word has to be carefully chosen and put together, so that they tell more than one story. The majority of Gaiman's stories seemed to lack "something". There were lots of wonderful ideas, but the execution was for the most part only so-so.

I love Gaiman's novels, but find myself left disappointed by his short stories.

World War Z with robots, only written better. A grisly, gritty,chilling version of the cellphones and xboxes coming to life in Transformers because of the Allspark.

The thinking person's Rothfuss. Extremely esoteric, wonderfully poetic.

Very promising and fresh concept, interesting characters, although world-and character-building/relations seem a bit lacking in depth. Have already bought the second book

What a debut! I was hooked form the very first paragraph, such lovely writing and exciting premise. If you're crashing hard from a Malazan high, like I am, and struggling to find something new to read that is actually good, look no further!

A lot of build-up for very little payoff...I'm guessing there's something about this book I just don't get. I liked the setting, I liked how "authentic" and real it felt. The generipping, calorie companies and biopunk part of the book was pretty damn awesome...the rest just felt very herky-jerky.

So you mean to tell me that an 18-year old boy doesn't think about sex at least once in the course of several weeks? I CALL SHENANIGANS!

As a rule of thumb; don't write several POVs if they all sound exactly the same. Am I in Tris' head or Four's? Had it not been for the chapter headings I would never have known whose POV I was reading...

Also, if you have to introduce a second POV to make your ending work, it doesn't really work, now does it?

I'm not even sure Roth wrote most of this book. Oh, the dialogue and world-building was still as bland as the previous books, but the prose was a lot better, light-years better. Did Roth just wake up one day, suddenly and magically a better writer? Maybe she took some classes or something. Anyway, that's one of the stars right there.

The second is for miscellaneous.

Anyway, I'm done with this Big Mac now. I feel way too full, and sort of, but not quite, regret my decision.

I finished this book in 11 hours... 11 hours!! Which means there were no major obstacles, or anything to give me pause. A good sign? I'll be fucked if I know.

Boy, there's a lot of crying in this book. And a lot of kissing. Tris is either crying or thinking about crying, or kissing Four or thinking about kissing Four. And in between she thinks about her parents and Will, and gets all illogical and suicidal. And then she lies a whole bunch and does stupid things. Basically Tris is Harry Potter, going off and doing stuff everyone has agreed are stupid and dangerous, because Tris needs to find out "the truth" AT ANY COST, and only Tris can do it because she is special. Never mind all the people who care about her and whose lives she puts in jeopardy...nooo. Don't get me wrong, curiosity is a great thing and an excellent driving force, but it doesn't give you the right to be a selfish a-hole.

I'm not gonna post any spoilers, all I'm gonna say is all my predictions from the Divergent review came true. I am obviously some sort of Oracle of YA-literature, Dystopian obviously.

As I speed-read through this book it became obvious to me that Roth's favourite word is "obviously", obviously. Try reading through it without noticing it...Obviously, you can't.

This wouldn't have been so bad if it had been part of one character's linguistic repertoire, or if it had been a sociolinguistic trait of one of the factions, but obviously everyone uses it...all the time!

This book is junk food for the brain. It has zero useful nutrients, but damn does it taste good.
I hate myself even more now...Allegiant here I come. Let's finish this Big Mac, once and for all.

Ok, so here's what the blurbs on the cover promise: "A major new fantasy epic begins", "a writer set to rule the genre", " - packed with political intrigue, explosive action and compelling drama".

After finishing the book I have come to the conclusion that only the following things are true: "A major new...begins", "A writer", "packed with political intrigue"...

This is quite possibly the most massive fantasy book I've read, with the least impressive world-building, and the least amount of actual fantasy elements. There's only one witch in the entire 700-page tome (if you discount Salimbene who is sort of just lurking around in the shadows and talking through dead babies' heads), who basically just makes ink and has sex with people. That's it!

And the world-building? What world-building? There's not a single original thought put into this world, and its duchies of Hemen and Clarcia, Harcia and Clemen? Bah, let's just call them England and Scotland, and lets make the Green Isles Ireland, and Cassinia can be France or something(the names Humbert, Roric, Harald and Vidar and Berardine do have a familiar taste to them). It doesn't really matter. What matters is that there isn't a single creature, plant or bird that we haven't seen before, the names might be new (and sometimes not even that), but there isn't really anything that shows the reader that this is, in fact, a fantasy novel, and not just historical fiction.
Even the laws governing the duchies are old news.
Oh, so only men can rule? Haven't heard that one before.
Women are second rate citizens, you say? That's original.
Peasants aren't allowed to wield swords and have armour, and are oppressed and mistreated by the nobility...yeah, ok.
The old gods and beliefs are outlawed in favour of The New One True God? And all witchcraft is considered blasphemy? That's some impressive stuff, right there.
You call people who are trained in sword fighting men-at-arms instead of guards and soldiers? Well, that doesn't get annoying after the 20th time, not at all.
Northern raiders attacking the Green Isles? Really?

Almost all the characters are terrible people, and wholly unlikeable. Not in a cool anti-hero way, just in a I hate these people-way.

Balfre is an asshole that just wants to shit all over everything. He's a cockshite who enjoys havey-cavey and rough-tumbling and jousting. A bully and brute, who doesn't understand what he needs to do to gain his father's grace, even though said father tells him explicitly and repeatedly. And yet he is supposed to be the mastermind behind some machavellian plan to overtake Clemen and turn Harcia into a kingdom? Yeah, nah.

Roric is a bastard, and everything he touches turns to shit, because he doesn't have enough noble blood in him. He is a pizzle, a dolt and a cuckolded diddle-daddle, who can't produce an heir to save his life. And this makes him a bad duke. Bad duke, Roric! This is also the guy who kills kids, but is reluctant to go to war against Balfre, although Balfre is bad news, and has been openly preparing for war for years!Oh, and he falls in love with a 14-year-old after meeting her once and pines for her for years afterwards.

Humbert is a dick who orders everyone to clap tongue, and does whatever he wants even though he hurts people and ruin their lives. But it's okay, because he is doing it for the greater good or something. Also, he has a beard and has been Roric's foster-lord and that gives him extra-special rights to be extra dickish, and clap tongue all ye curs't cockshites and pizzle-waggers, or I'll knock you on your fiddly arses, like a babe unhorsed in a mimbly-bimbly tilt yard!

Lindara is an asshole that loves Vidar, is angry with her father(Humbert) and takes it out on Roric, because he was pressured into marrying her, and she said it was ok, and now he's a horrible, terrible bastard, although they have been friends for years.

Vidar is a cripple, loves Lindara, is angry with Humbert, takes it out on Roric.

Liam is the super-special kid that must survive at all cost because of special reasons and because he is heir to The Falcon Throne, and he really wants to kill Humbert and Roric, but doesn't because of super-special reasons that has to do with plot and stuff. Or because he is an annoying teenager who can't make up his mind.I don't know. He is noble-born, which makes him specialler and better than everyone else.

Grefin is okay. But wide-eyed stupid when it comes to Balfre.

The prose is a chore to get through; a lot of unnecessary hyphenated words, weird archaic turns of phrase and swear words, vernacular language used in dialogue between commoners (peasants be dumb so deys talks dumb), and stilted, old-fashioned language used in dialogue between nobles( Forsooth, would you make of me a fool for pledging myself to you, my Graciest of Dukes?).

The action scenes are about as exciting as watching two chihuahuas barking at each other through a fence. There's a lot of barking, not a whole lot of biting. And when there's biting it's really tame, like the aforementioned dogs had all their teeth pulled out and now just snap at each other with their pinkish gums. Everything about the skirmishes and "battles" is just so terribly underwhelming... And that's the problem with the book as a whole; everything is underwhelming, but made out later to be a lot more impressive and dramatic than it really was (like Catrain's role in the saving of the horses from the burning stables). And some of the events seem to be tacked on as an afterthought, like the raiders from the north and the entire plotline involving them. We go 3-400 pages without a single mention of raiders (even though the Green Isles have had trouble with them before), and then ALL OF A SUDDEN they are EVERWHERE. Ehm, what?

But, in the book's defense, there is a lot of political intrigue...it's just extremely and unecessarily convoluted, time-consuming, and boring. It feels like there's A LOT of filler, for a plot that can't really carry an entire book, or a series, for that matter.

I see that this book is often compared to Game of Thrones, and the comparison is accurate if you remove the dragons, the magic, the White Walkers, the sex and the violence from Game of Thrones. What you're left with then is The Falcon Throne, and that's apparently enough for some. It wasn't enough for me. I crave fantasy with a little more flash and pizzaz, more explosions, more show-downs and a little more of everything that makes EPIC FANTASY epic fantasy. Not just epic in terms of the length of the series and the span of time covered, but as in scope and awesomeness. And when I say fantasy I don't mean it has to be the whole nine yards with dragons, elves, wizards and magic swords, but at least give me a little more than one pathetic letter-forging, rune-scribbling, red-haired witch-woman who lives by herself in a cottage!!!

And what's with the all doublets? Why doesn't anyone wear anything else?! And it's all leather and velvet...and maybe I spotted some silk on page 238, maybe. Seriously, this book made me miss Robert Jordan's excruciatingly long descriptions...of everything.

tl;dr

I was horribly disappointed by everything, except maybe Grefin. The prologue was cool, though.

I will sum this book up in two words: "Stupid" and "Generic".

Whoever thought up this faction system is an idiot. Seriously, you see no problem at all with making 16-year olds choose who they are supposed to be and how they are supposed to behave for the rest of their lives? No one knows who they are at 16, it's probably the worst time ever to make them choose anything! Also, training said youths to become killing machines that are supposed to police the rest of society...yeah, that seems like a really good idea! What could possibly go wrong?

Divergent is your average, run-of-the-mill dystopian YA novel, it's almost like Roth went through a check list when she wrote it:

16-year old girl: check
Has longer name but uses a short form of it: check
Doesn't think much of her looks, but is actually quite pretty: check
Some sort of initiation/training: CHECK!
Inexplicably good with weapons/fighting: check
Society divided into different classes: Check
One particular group of people got the short end of the stick: check
Instalove/fall in love with first guy who looks at her/Love drama: CHECK
One villain who has no redeemable features:check
One villain who isn't quite what he/she seems: Check
Government Conspiracies: Check
Conflict: check
Betrayals: OH HELL YES CHECK
Twists and turns:check

I'm gonna make two predictions about the other books:

1. The Factionless are going to F%&¤ shit up.
2. There's going to be some "everything isn't what it seems"/DEus Ex Machina-type situation later on.
Also
3. Someone is going to be revealed as someone else's close family member.

It wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't been so painfully clear that Roth doesn't really know what she is doing. I couldn't tell most of the characters apart, and hadn't the slightest idea about how the city or the different compounds looked. There is almost no world-building evident in this book. Everything is just squares and rectangles and things, cardboard placeholders with no depth or life of their own. As are the characters; they're basically just names and actions that further the plot. People died and I didn't give a flying rat's ass about it, because Roth had failed in creating any sort of emotional relationship between the main character and those who died, and between the main character and me...

The main character was also bland, boring and at times, extremely annoying. She almost literally falls in love with the first guy who touches her, and when she gets to pick a new name for herself, to go with her new life as soldier and police, she goes from Beatrice to Tris... Really? Tris? Too bad there isn't a Creativity faction you can join...I mean, seriously?! I would've gone for something like Slagathor, The Undertaker or Mung the Destroyer, but that's just me I guess.

And don't get me started on the dialogue! Everyone sounds exactly the same, and their lines are so unnatural and forced I want to set my hair on fire!

I don't think Ms Roth has ever had a tattoo done or seen a gun,least of all been in the vincinity of someone using one. OMG, those parts of the books are the least credible of all! WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW!!! Instead of writing half-assed shit about a topic you know nothing about...or you know, watch a Yotube-video or something. You literally have all the knowledge in the world at your fingertips...use it.

I hate myself for not being able to put this Sloppy Joe of a book down, but by the gods it was exciting and interesting! Reading this book was the equivalent of watching a season of Pretty Little Liars. It's not good, but I can't stop.

You know what? Don't bother reading it, just watch the movie instead. You get a visual representation of stuff that the book sorely lacks, and that guy who plays Eric is hot so..