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Crikey, this book needs a ruthless editor. Exposition, exposition, flashback, exposition. At this point, we've long left behind worldbuilding and arrived at tedium. I'm reading a letter by a character recounting her own backstory to her parents, and within that letter, she recounts being told her friend's backstory (in all detail). Everyone seems to have identical, wry voices. Come on, bring me some plot, please!

Some things in this book seem believable and realistic. Some others do not. By far the most unrealistic of all is the ludicrously generous characterisation of the Swiss, whose national character is generally unpleasant and malevolent (though frequently coated in a polite formality) in the real world...

"she shared the incantation with the ladies in her book club. They had turned from casual literary criticism to piracy with remarkable ease,"


Yeah. I've been in book clubs like that. Miss them.

It's been a while since I read anything of such imagination and scope, when it comes to worldbuilding. It's been a while since a book gripped me like this.

Beginning a fantasy novel prologue with "three kinds of quiet" is a mistake. It unintentionally echoes the Rothfussian "three silences" prologues...

This book has not aged brilliantly. It feels quite sexist - or written from the perspective of an older man in old-fashioned times. So the young, pretty, sexy, silly female character / damsel does not feel like an authentic, whole person at all, and the narrator comes across as a bit of a soulless creep at times.

WTF, Dan Brown and the editors who published this? "Access Road"? It's called a friggin "taxiway" you utter muppets! Airplanes don't use "access roads" to get to the runway. They taxi along taxiways. Jimminy cricket, but this is shoddy quality control. #editorfail

This was the first "big book" I read as a child, and I love Michael Ende's writing and imagination very much, but with 21st century eyes, some bits seem a bit (inadvertently) racist. Perhaps the book could benefit from a tiny bit of editorial polishing for modern kids...

I thought the grey men would be less scary as an adult reader. I was wrong. They are even scarier now...

Up there with Otfried Preussler's Krabat and Alan Garner's novels in terms of unsettling and beautiful children's literature. Has the hallmarks of a real classic, so far

Not enjoying this at all. As seedy as a Glen Duncan novel, but without wit or humour. A setting & future that could be from an Ian McDonald novel, but without the breathless energy. As literary as a Salman Rushdie novel, but without the musical prose. Lots of good or interesting ingredients went into this book, but the whole just lacks joy, pleasure, and vim.

"So if you love a lassie, does that make you her sweetheart? D'you not have to - you know - have prospects?"
"Nah, man. Once you have her inside your head, that's like you've put a wall round a cow, so the cow canna wander off. She's your cow 'cos you built a wall round her."



Ah, so *that's* how that works. The things I never knew... ;-)

A usefulbook, but the writing voice is annoying. Grandiose (but accessible), frequently smug. I know it's meant to bring this stuff to life, but oh, it grates...

Tempted to give up. Bland, not very likeable characters in a grimdark adventure quest, with prose that is about on a par with Hunger Games for style (i.e. bereft thereof). Joyless.

"I feel hollow. And skinless."
"That's the feeling of childhood falling away."

Lots of characters to cheer for, but I'm most enamoured of Loud Thunder and Shyri, both of whom were secret favourites in book one...

Somehow, I think Hannah in The Dryad's Shoe might just be a disguised wombat...

I still find myself loathing Hestillion. Oddly, I quite liked her when she killed a little boy in the first book, but she's been on a downward slope of likeability ever since...

A YA novel about a magical orphaned girl growing up in a circus... no. A YA novel about the refugee crisis and people trafficking and child prostitution rings and everything that's broken and corrupt about our times.... narrated by a magical orphaned girl growing up in a travelling circus. This is not the light entertainment book the cover image hints at; this book is tough and filled with claws and tears.

I'm really loving this. I'll miss the book after I sell it on. 🙁

Wasn't sure about the style at first, but so far this (science) book is awesome.

"Rude is when you’re nastier than they are. I try to keep things equal. Agatha would say we should try to be nicer than others are to us, not just equal. Since we were stuck together so long on Malem, I thought that was a great philosophy — for her, toward me."

I rather love the narrative voice of these novels.

This book is better than I'd hoped. First rate; among the best YA I've ever read.

A book for primary school aged children, about depression and suicidal thoughts in a parent. This is.... tough.

The writing is much more lyrical in style than I remember... far superior to 1984 and Brave New World...

I've seen quite a bit of praise for this book, so I disregarded the naff cover to try it. So far, it's unsubtle, preachy, badly written, and in need of some editorial tough love. Hope it improves soon.

"...the slopes of Mt Ararat, just a few days' walk from Göbekli Tepe."

The distance is about 500km as the crow flies. Does that mean Edinburgh is "just a few days' walk" from London?

For a kids' book, this has a very slow start. 76 pages in, and so far it's just worldbuilding, exposition, flashbacks. Writing a feminist utopia for kids is nice and all, but where's the flippin' story?