Reviews and Comments

Newitz depicts an interesting (if dystopian) world in this novel. I also appreciated the handling of the issue of autonomy of persons which gets treated from different angles. It's pretty violent, though, and I felt like the question of wrongdoing was brushed over in the end. Two of the characters are basically the baddies and yet we seem to be expected to be okay with that. The main protagonist is also rather grey in her morals, and that isn't examined, either. It was a captivating listen but some things were a bit unbelievable to me or came off as forced.

It seems to me that the books in this series should be read more closely together than they are published. This one featured the effects of what happened in the first one as an important aspect of the story but I didn't remember the details very well. I liked how Mossa's and Pleiti's relationship has grown over the course of the books. We also get to explore another platform and its quirks more closely. The plot is also linked to the way people are living on Giant, like the first two, and I really like that about the series.

J'avais envie de lire un autre livre francais.

My book club's December book. I'm liking it so far.

Only 4 chapters from the end but the way Jo is treated and how it's presented as a good thing was just one maddening thing too much. The author is really good at painting a vivid picture of the setting and the characters but some of her views espoused in the book in an overly saccharine way are just infuriating, at least to me.

Malgré le sujet triste c'était un véritable "page turner". C'est trés attirant, la structure du livre avec des questions de la manière "si j'aurais fait quelque chose de différent". On ferait la même chose à la place d'autrice.

I liked the quirky tone of the narrator and how Sam uses her archaeology-related skills to work through the mystery (though she seems to live in a happy parallel universe where search engines still return useful results and all those special interest blogs still exist). The mystery is set up very well, in a way where at first you wouldn't be sure that it isn't just some mental breakdown by Sam's Mom. The later action scenes were a bit confusing to me and the villain(s) turned out to be very one-dimensional. Still, an enjoyable read/listen.

Ich kann das viele Lob, das dieses Buch bekommen hat, nicht so ganz nachvollziehen. Zwischendurch habe ich mich immer mal wieder gefragt, was eigentlich der Sinn dieser Geschichte sein soll. Geschichtlich ganz interessant, aber irgendwie fehlt mir was. Die Autorin versucht, dem Ganzen eine literarische Ebene mit dem Blumengemälde und dem Museumsbesuch am Ende hinzuzufügen. Das hat mir auch gefallen, aber war irgendwie zu wenig. Zumal ich Hanna und die anderen Figuren nicht besonders sympathisch fand. Vor allem die alltägliche Gewalt gegen ihre Kinder hat mir zugesetzt. Und dass keine Reflektion über die eigene Schuld stattfindet, obwohl sie und ihr Mann die ganze Zeit während des Kriegs in einem kriegswichtigen Betrieb gearbeitet haben. Überhaupt erfahren wir eigentlich wenig über Hannas inneres Leben. Meins war's nicht (obwohl ich immerhin einiges über Blumen gelernt habe und warum meine Mutter keine Erikas mag, für sie ist das eine DDR-Blume, weil es oft vor allem die gab in den Läden).

This book has a number of flaws but it does one thing well - the author is very inventive in creating a zoo of fantastic/magical animals. Those passages describing the animals, their behaviour and their enclosures are the best part of the book. She also seems to be rather knowledgable about the work behind the scenes of a zoo. If you're in any part critical of zoos, though, this book would be very frustrating. The only criticism is only presented once and is rather superficial. I appreciate the effort of the author to make the protagonist someone with anxiety but unfortunately, she comes off as rather annoying and also immature for someone her age for about half of the book. There thankfully is some character growth eventually. The pace picks up at around the halfway mark and while the mystery turns out to be somewhat predictable in the end, I enjoyed the book overall. Objectively, it only merits 3 stars but it felt more like 4, so I'll settle at 3.5.

Not sure if I'm going to stay with it. Only two chapters in, I've already been tempted to put it back several times. It's a buddy read with a friend. I hope it gets better soon, though.

I loved the setting of this book - at a fancy party in a ballroom in ever stranger worlds. The world building was very inventive with the various Echos, the more or less evil supernatural beings, the guilds and the quirky teashop. Perhaps, the author could have gone into more depth here and there. The main story is a sort of detective mystery with a dash of romance. I appreciated how the main character is a new mother and how that's handled. There are a few minor things that keep it from being 5 stars but I found it a thoroughly entertaining read.