ellemnope's reviews
2342 reviews

I have to admit that I was warned about this one. Though the book is easy to read and really quite well written, the story line is really dark. I will still probably watch the movie based on the book because the story is intriguing, but I rated it slightly lower simply because it did make my stomach turn slightly to keep reading. Extra points for sucking me in though. It's a wreck that you just can't turn away from.

This was not my favorite of Jane Green's novels. The plot lines were overly fantastical with far too many things going on at once. Though she does manage to develop the characters well and keeps each separate plot line moving well, the story becomes far too unrealistic and it just gets overwhelmed with activity and unfortunate events and circumstances. I found this novel to be more juvenile than her other books due to plot and story development, though the writing style seems more progressive than her prior novels. It was a very fast read, which I think saved it somewhat. Had the plot line slowed at all I think this may have been a book I put down. In fact, the quick moving plot and attention to detail are the only things that saved this book for me and bumped it from two stars to three. If I didn't have a history of reading Jane Green's novels and didn't know what she is capable of, I don't know that I would read another one after this.

This one was a mixed bag for me. I had absolutely no knowledge of the history of the Congo prior to reading this book. Learning about the historical events (though somewhat altered to adhere to a fictional story) was quite intriguing for me. As far as the reading goes, it took me a little work to get into the story. Each section is written in chapters from the point of view of five different characters (a mother and her four daughters). I found it especially hard to read the chapters written by one of the daughters as she has what I will refer to as quirks in her personality that heavily effect the writing. I tended to lose my focus during these chapters and found that they were often the places where I put the book down for a while. Once I was able to get into the story (and some what ignore Adah's odd writing) the pages went fairly quickly and I was able to form an attachment to some of the characters.

While the story is good and the historical details are well written, I kept myself from giving this book four stars simply because of the length. While there was quite a bit of time to cover, there were sections that were highly superfluous and added nothing to the story. Had they been pertinent issues then I don't think the length would've been a problem. Out of the over 800 pages, I would dare say that at least 100 of them could have been eliminated without having any effect on the book as a whole. That being said, the writing is easy to read and the story did for the most part retain my attention. I would definitely read other books by this author...I'm just hoping that her other novels show more restraint in timeline detail.

This book took me forever to read. I loved the story but there were it honestly felt like I was reading two separate books. Mr. Hugo has a tendency to think that the reader needs to understand the entire history of France in order to follow the plot of his novel. This is not so. If I wished to understand the entire history of France then I would read a book on the history of France. I found his side trips to be distracting to the story and frustrating to me as the reader. Honestly, I started to skip pages in these sections because they had little to no effect on my understanding or appreciation of the novel. Had these portions not been present, I honestly would've probably given the book five stars. I love his attention to detail and his development of the character of Jean Valjean. It was still a good read.

I read this book back in high school as a requirement for my 10th grade English course. I decided that it was time to read it again now that I'm older (and hopefully wiser). The story does definitely show some parallels with live in today's political climate - in ways that have been a bother to me for some time. However, I found the writing fairly pedantic and the story didn't seem to flow as easily as it could have. I'm sure that part of it was on purpose in order to mislead and confuse the reader, but I don't think that approach served the plot as well as it could have. There were times when the vagueness caused more frustration than curiosity for me. Overall, not a bad read and I can understand why it is a staple for high school and college English courses. Just not one of my favorites.

Realistically, if there were half stars I would've given this book a 3.5. I have read Kitchen Confidential and watched No Reservations and I love Anthony Bourdain for his wit and sarcasm. The stories he tells in this book are well written and detailed as I would expect. However, I did notice a distinct change in his sardonic nature. He tended to be softer on his rivals than he had been in the first book. I blame this on his fame. In fact, he alludes to the fact that this is the issue as he states that he could not be trusted to be a critic. He wouldn't give anyone a bad review for fear of losing some of the perks that come with his status. I find this a little sad. I still enjoy him, but now the fact that his honestly could be tainted - in a man who I thoroughly enjoyed purely for his brutal honesty - has somewhat wrecked it for me. I will still continue to read his books and watch his shows, but the gild has come off of the lily so to speak.

I had high hopes for this book, but they just weren't met. I found the start of it boring and only stuck with it because a good friend had told me how much she loved it. I did like the setup of telling the story through multiple years on the same day. I found it very creative. I liked the writing and the author's tone. I just found the plot to be less that I'd hoped for. The book finally started to pick up near the middle and I found myself getting more involved with it, the reading going faster and easier. But then the bottom dropped out. An event in the plot completely ruined the entire book for me. After that I was only half-heartedly reading. I felt very disappointed in where the author chose to take the plot. I appreciate that he did make it less predictable than it otherwise could have been, but it just wasn't my cup of tea.

I really did enjoy this book. The writing was superb and she manages to balance out the sides to each story. In a book like this I find that I have to judge based on how much the plot moves me emotionally - for good or for bad. Unfortunately some of the ways the plot led made me feel rather conflicted and uncomfortable, leading me to give this one a rating lower than it could have potentially had. If there were half scores, I would give it a 3.5. I had quite powerful opinions that formed throughout the development of the story. The case of assisted suicide is presented quite well. Even though I found myself often torn about Maggie's death, I could understand the pain. Though I could never put myself in the position of either Jamie or Maggie with regard to her death, I could see how such a tragic illness could tear two people apart. I did find it slightly distracting that the book began to sway more heavily towards the relationship between Cam and Mia. I felt that the focus left the Jamie story line too much and I was absolutely disgusted by Cam. He wants to have his cake and eat it too. I found it highly upsetting. I would've changed a few things about the story to make it more palatable, but she does keep it realistic. Though I may not like the way things turned out, this is the way that they certainly could've occurred in real life. I just felt disappointed in the development of Allie's character. I found her so charismatic and loving at the beginning. I hated to see her become more and more of a doormat as things progressed.