nannahnannah's reviews
744 reviews

This was an enjoyable book! I wish I knew more about the Overlords and how they got there and everything about that, but it was still a good book to read.



Also, I got bothered that Gold-Eye's character seemed to fade as the story went on. He seemed less of a "character" and more of a vessel for plot. Shade, on the contrary, grew stronger as a character as the book progressed, which was really nice to read.



The concepts and everything were very fascinating, and I loved the little bits where the Overlords revealed a little bit of the opinions they had towards the children. I just wish I knew a little more about what happened--WHY everyone over 14 vanished.



But all in all, I really enjoyed this book. The atmosphere was well-crafted (and well maintained, besides. No ill-timed jokes or anything) and it was very compelling. I recommend it. :)

I wasn't as impressed with this book as I wanted to be. The language seemed a little bit stilted and the story quite contrived.

For example, the dialogue would shift to using absolutely NO contractions even where the dialogue would flow better to using many contractions. Through the same characters. And there was even a time where a character said (fairly late in the book), "I ain't never seen Mum scared," which totally contradicts the language that's been used in the book thus far, even by this same character. And then flip through a couple pages, and everyone's using phrases like "Whatever for?" and "I know not." I'm sure Eames was trying to evoke the atmosphere of the time era through the dialogue but it was very inconsistent and didn't lend itself to the story the way I'm sure he wanted it to.

Besides this, most of the story that I wanted to know about most was compressed into "retellings" through the dialogue. Like the hint that Van was actually a traitor (which I wish was planted as a secret to the audience as well; it was annoying to read everyone's reactions to this knowledge when the readers knew he was the rat right off the start) was just told to the audience and to Kitto through William. Everything of action was just TOLD to us.

And then (SPOILERS!!)

Kitto's clubfoot. Why did that foot have to be eaten by the sharks? It seems like a way to just escape it without coming to terms with it. "Oh, now no one will think I'm lame anymore!" I was hoping that by the end of this book Kitto would come to accept himself and accept that not everyone treats him the way they do because of his foot. Getting it snapped off by a shark just makes it seem like cheating the issue.

But anyway, it's not terrible, but it's just not my cup of tea, I guess.

SPOILER ALERT!



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Mortal Engines was a very enjoyable book. It took me a bit to get into the story, but it held my interest till the end.

I did have a slight problem with the matter of tense, though. It jumped back and forth from present to past tense, and although it was nicely separated by breaks, the whole concept of them seemed without a purpose. An exception is placing Grike's POV in present tense, as opposed to the past tense that most of the book is placed in, and this is because Grike is such a singular character, human and yet not human. It worked for me. But later on, other characters' POVs suddenly switched to present tense as well, without reason (at least it seemed to me to be without reason; I may just be oblivious). Rather than creating a special effect, the switching tense distracted me from the action and the immediacy of the story.

Also distracting was the use of "you." As in, "You wouldn't guess it, but . . . ." It really took me out. As with the repetition of words. I believe there was one passage that went something like "As the burning ship fell, people burning inside . . ."

It also seemed as though some of the drama and intense parts were very unnecessary . . . mainly just there to create drama and intensity. My main problem with this is the death of Bevis, who was a wonderful character (whom I wish was fleshed out more; more often than not, Reeve plants his characterization in people's perception of the character, instead of the audience getting to experience his quirks/flaws/personality themselves. But anyways, this review is getting lengthy as is, I'll drop this point for now). Why did Bevis have to die? I'm not sure I understand the purpose, other than to create needless drama that didn't change anything in the plot or any characters' decisions. It could be an easy out to kill him rather than find an ending for him after Katherine's death (which was VERY important and pivotal, and one I enjoyed . . . in a very non-sadistic way, of course).

Okay, I'm returning to characterization just briefly. Reeve's infatuation with writing about someone's beauty rubbed me the wrong way. I thought it was just Tom's flaw at first, him wondering if the assassin was beautiful as he was chasing her, his huge reaction towards Katherine's beauty, his equally large reaction to Hester's ugliness, and so forth. But this continued with other characters, and it bothered me after a while.

I realize I'm being very critical, because overall this book was very enjoyable to read and I'm going to run to the library tomorrow to check out the second. Reeve writing is overall nothing spectacular, but he does have some very glittering passages that tore into my heart. Especially the last bit. It helped me overall understand the story and it made it complete. It might actually be my favorite ending line I've ever read of any book:
"You aren't a hero, and I'm not beautiful, and we probably won't live happily ever after," she said. "But we're alive, and together, and we're going to be all right."

Beauty and perfection right there, at least to me. He had GLORIOUS passages like this that just made me shiver.

What a charming little book!

I really enjoyed the character of Grayson, who was perfectly placed throughout the earlier parts of the book to make his actual "appearance" as meaningful as it was. The writing was fluid and functional, not to mention laugh-out-loud witty in some parts.

I think I got the copy with the missed scene, but all in all a very cute book with definite characters. :)

I just want to apologize firstly because this review is not very kind, and I don't like posting this kind of review but I'm . . . doing it anyway.

Sovay has an excellent premise: a girl dressing as a highwayman to test the strength of her lover's devotion while her family is caught up in the French revolution.

First, I have to mention the characters, because they are the heart of the story and drive the plot (or, at least, they're supposed to). Sovay is a pure Mary-Sue. She's perfect, beautiful, intelligent, willful, etc. etc. etc. Somehow every male who's not The Bad Guy falls immediately in love with her. She has probably 8 different love interests in the story, and she chooses one introduced in the last 8th of the book, who's as characterless as her. The romance between them is rushed and without purpose. There are a hundred different characters introduced at once (and at length) that add absolutely nothing vital to the plot. One of the biggest crimes here is Gabriel. He's introduced in the beginning of the story, and I felt like he should have some importance to the story. But nope, he's forgotten. Gets captured by The Bad Guy (who's just SO Bad that I won't even acknowledge how terrible I thought he was as an antagonist) and then forgotten. Does he escape? Is he happy? Apparently he still loves Sovay (that's just mentioned, it's never actually show, but whatever) so I can assume he doesn't have that happy of an ending. And he really wanted to be part of the revolution, with his whole being, so what does Celia Rees do? Lock him up until the revolution's over and don't mention him! Yay!

Furthermore, the characters are just devices of the plot. Do they drive any action? No. Is the plot formed by their choices/fears/aspirations? No. It's all so contrived. Example: in what I thought was supposed to be a climactic scene, when everyone is looking at The Bad Guy, ready to catch him, suddenly Rees mentions a thought or two of Sovay and then suddenly: Whoa! Where did The Bad Guy go? Dangit, we lost him! Um . . . everyone was looking at him. . . just because Rees takes us into one person's thoughts doesn't mean everyone else in the scene is so diverted. Come on! And then The Bad Guy proceeds to escape via random hot air balloon. What?

Secondly, I'm going to address Rees's writing because it was the second most offending thing about this book. She writes to create the most tedious scenes that evoke no emotion other than boredom. And she repeated things constantly. It got on my nerves. I can't even explain how annoyed I was. She would write that Sovay rode all day, describing the ride and the hardships she endured during it, then once Sovay reached an inn, she would mention how "Sovay was very tired, given she had been riding all day long very hard and stuff." Okay. I got that from the FIRST PASSAGE. And she does this over. And over.

She writes emotions outside of the dialogue all the time. "She was nervous because . . . " "This made him angry . . . " "Then she became afraid, but showed her anger instead . . ." etc. She never SHOWS an emotion. Never. Not a single example comes to mind. In the end, she tells us about the characters so we could recite how everyone else in the story supposedly feels about them, but as a reader I don't even know how to describe how I feel about the character. Was Sovay willful? Well of course because it was only mentioned in every single dialogue. But did she prove this? Um . .. wait . . . gimme a sec. . .

No.

And point of view. EVERYBODY gets a point of view, even the most pointless of characters who are only shown once to the reader.
Example: "That's enough, Lydia," Mrs. Crombie said sharply. She was annoyed with the girl for making eyes at Gabriel and it was not for the likes of her to comment on visitors." Okay, the horrible adverb made even horrible after the dialogue tag aside, Mrs. Crombie is a character mentioned maybe once that I remember in the book; here actually, only remembered because it annoyed me so much. I really don't care what Mrs. Crombie thinks about Lydia. Her comment is enough. I don't need "sharply" and I don't need the explanation for why she said what she did when it was made ABSOLUTELY CLEAR. Why even bother entering the head of this Mrs. Crombie if this is the only time she's in the book basically and the only time we ever actually enter her head?

Which brings me the point to more of her tiring explanations. Every character mentioned in the book suddenly needs a half a page (or more) of backstory. Why? First off, it's confusing. And secondly, it's pointless. I really don't care about the backstory of this mentioned character and I hate knowing more than the main character suddenly. She meets this woman. Oh, she seems nice. Backstory: she's actually a villainess who's working with The Bad Guy. Then it goes back into the story. Wow. Way to kill all of the potential suspense that could have happened.

Rees also has this infuriating habit of switching from summary to scene ALL THE TIME. There's some dialogue, then she'll write "She asked him if he would like some tea" or something like that, instead of just continuing with the dialogue, "Would you like some tea?" (this is just an example outside of the text).


Thirdly, the plot itself. So twisted, so pointless. Things happen for no reason other than just to happen. I could go on more, but I've just realized how far I've already gone and think it's best if I just stop here. I don't like to be rude, but I just couldn't help myself on this one.

Fever Crumb is an interesting read.
I think, to be honest, it's more interesting than enjoyable, but it definitely wasn't bad.

I feel as though Reeve cheated us on some great emotional impact and plot twists by the way he laid them out and wrote them, but some were still surprising enough. And though the ending was fairly lackluster, it was still an okay read.

When I first began this book, I didn't know what to think. Sometimes, I thought Funke tried to hard for beautiful, poetic writing and that everything was rushed and I was going to write a whole lot about the flaws of this book.

And then I decided I didn't want to nitpick it anymore. Funke has a brilliant and beautiful imagination, and she poured all of it into this novel. The concept of the stone people was gorgeous to say the least, and her talent of bringing characters' emotions to the readers is her strongest point here.

While some parts of the story did seem a bit random (oh look, I suddenly have this thing that turns me invisible, how convenient!), overall, I really, really liked this book. The atmosphere was engaging, the characters were well-painted and sympathetic, and the plethora of images and imaginative concepts kept me captivated.

I only wish that there was a prequel to this story. Jacobs previous adventures were mentioned almost every other page, and I would have really liked to experience those as well.

But anyways, a very imaginative and evoking read.