I rated this book 4 stars!
This book has been waiting for me to read it for quite some time. I finally picked it up last night and finished it today.
I really liked the book and the book ended great, even though I had mixed feelings about what I wanted the ending to be. But I'm glad the author ended it well. Great story and I'd recommend it to my friends.
Oh my gosh these were some great novels. There's supposed to be 4 novels in this series, 3 are currently published. I started reading the first one for a book club thing and it was hard to put down.
It's about this girl Yelena, who has killed this one leader's son, is waiting for execution. Because of the code, she is offered the position as food taster to the Commander (the big leader of all the different districts.) As food taster, she must taste the commander's food before each meal to make sure there are no poisons in it. She herself has been poisoned by the commander's advisor and must receive a daily antidote so she does not die. This prevents her from fleeing and becoming a free person. She also discovers her magic abilities, abilities which are unacceptable in their country--an ability which if discovered usually leads to the magician's death.
This is quite an original story and I am so hooked. (I don't know how I will last waiting for the third book to become available to me from the library.) It does contain some torture though, murder, and some swear words, for those who don't handle either well. But it's easy to skip over. I skipped over some parts in the book due to my sensitivity.
I was quite upset in the second book she added one line that I definitely could have done without, but overall the book was excellent...I could hardly put it down. In both books I skipped over parts I knew I wouldn't like. But the book really is so addicting. It's like no other book!
Despite the fact that some subjects aren't especially to my liking, I want to say that this series is my new favorite at the moment. I've become obsessed with it and I've decided that for Halloween this year I'm going to be Yelena. She is so awesome.
Wow, that was a DUMB movie. It's hard to get over how dumb dumb dumb that movie was. What a waste of my time. I mean seriously, have you seen it. DUMB DUMB DUMB. The movie was so stupid!
I rated it 3 stars.
Hmm, another series that I wanted to like, but I'm not quite sure. I have mixed feelings about this book. I would almost rate it a 2.5.
After reading it, I'm not quite sure I really like the protagonist either. Maybe he's just not that believable. Or maybe I just wanted him to act differently sometimes.
I'm also unsure whether I like the book or not because it seems to somewhat try to mirror the creation in a sense and it says straightforwardly that there is no life after death (which I don't believe). Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but either he's taking his knowledge of God and other worlds and putting his own spin on it, or perhaps he's somewhat mocking religion. Or maybe neither and I'm, like I said, reading too much into it.
But I must say the ending ended up being good. Just before the ending parts, though, I really didn't know if I wanted to continue the series. It just wasn't that special. But the author did do a good job of making you want to read the next book. We'll see if I do.
Not as "good" of an author as I thought she would be. I think Howl's Moving Castle is probably the best writing she did. I have read some of her other books (the sequels to Howl's Moving Castle) and they were a big disappointment. The writing, I felt, in her other books was mediocure and the story line flat.
I rated it 4 stars...only because....(keep reading).
This book is a bit different from the movie. I thought the movie was great. And I thought this book was excellent as well! The movie is quite a condensed and changed version of the book. I understood much more about the story from reading this book. The only reason why I might have given it only 4 stars is that I just wanted more from Howl and Sophie at the end. More dialogue between them in the last couple pages. I also did enjoy some of Howl's funny comments to Sophie....Mrs. Nose.
*-----Possible spoiler if you haven't watched the movie-----*
The ending was fantastic. But, I want to learn more about Howl's love for Sophie and how it grew or came about....how it developed and when exactly. Hmph. Maybe I'd have to read it over again to catch onto some clues, but I wish the book would have elaborated on it in the end.
I rate it 2 stars.
***This review contains spoilers!***
I didn't like this book as much as the first (which I thought was 4 stars!). I didn't even completely read this one. I skimmed through the last few chapters just to find out what happened. It was kind of a weird book. Some parts I had to skip over just because I thought some of it was inappropriate and wasn't quite for me... Okay, so this girl who's 15 has sex with this 18 year old which came to happen because she wanted to kiss this boy and she'd never kissed anyone before and was somewhat afraid she was going to die and never kiss someone (I think that was what happened.). So how is that teaching kids the right thing to do? I believe sex before marriage is inappropriate...even if you are dying! (I'm sure it probably wasn't a graphic detail (I skipped over this part so I can't be sure)).
Perhaps the third book of the series will close the book nicely and add some morals to it.
Also, it seemed to take forever to get to the whole point of the book. It was like I'm waiting and waiting for the big reveal...and then it's just weird at the end (although again, I didn't completely read it all...lots of skimming, so that could be why...well, no, it was weird.). I'll probably read the third book because I'm curious though. I mean, probably the only reason I didn't like this book was some improper scenes. I like the characters though. And I think Justine's take on magic is an unusual one and that makes it more interesting.
I really wanted to like this series, but this second book was not up to par. And it perhaps made me not want to recommend this book...or rather series, to anyone. Sad.
Oh, but it did kind of scare me. I was kind of scared reading the book. Haha. What a wuss.
I rated it 4 stars.
At first I didn't know if I would like this book that much. I was interested in it because the author is Scott Westerfeld's wife...I think Scott is great, but I just wasn't too confident I would like his wife's book..I mean they aren't as known as Scott's.
Well, I enjoyed this book. It kept me reading and I finished it pretty quickly. The book does take on different points of views, but that didn't really bother me as it might some. The main character is a mathy person. Kind of reminds me of Dess from Scott's Midnighter's series.
During the book, you may be kept guessing for a little bit whether characters are the good guys, the bad guys, or even maybe a little of both.
It's a pretty cool book.
Although, it does have a some bad words in it..just to warn you. (It's not overwhelming like some books may be though. Just here and there...not like 5 times a page! FYI.)
