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Ove’s wife’s condition is obvious from four or five pages in, so its big reveal falls flat and fails to deliver on an emotional level as the author intends. Up until that point, Ove has also been portrayed in such an exaggeratedly bad light that it was hard to feel any sympathy for him anyway.

Manipulative storytelling. Clumsy exaggeration of Ove’s personality flaws just so the author can then try to earn our sympathy by revealing his tragic backstory for no reason other than to earn our sympathy.

Tedious, repetitive and mechanical storytelling. I’m going to throw this thing in the fire if a character nods or kicks at the ground one more time. Four times per page for 28 pages is quite enough.

What the fuck.

I’m starting to question how Scalzi built his stellar reputation. This novel opens with a contrived “As you know, Bob” conversation where the characters repeat the same lines 3+ times each, peppered with “As you know,” and “We have this argument every single time.” Does not bode well. I’ve barely read four pages and my eyes are already glazing over from sheer boredom.

So far, this page is an incredibly confusing flash-forward, followed by 90 pages (and counting) of backstory whose relevance I fail to see. Also getting angry with these authors who clearly depict their characters one way, then in the next chapter tell us those characters are the complete opposite. Piss-poor characterization, and I feel like I’m crazy for being the only one who notices this in every novel.

Occasionally interesting, but just so DAMN SLOW… Not sure I can tolerate another 400 pages of this.

This book is cancer and I want it to end.

Started out strong (despite oddities like “Cancer is a side-effect of dying,” etc.), then quickly lost all momentum. Pretentious characters and dialogue.

Massively overrated.

💤 😴 💤

There’s no way I’m wading through another 300+ pages of this inane garbage.

The massive introductory info dump continues and shows no sign of abating. Ready for something not boring as hell to happen whenever you are, Player One.

It’s a cool concept, and I’d really like to finish a book after the horrors I had to DNF. But the incredibly dull, mechanical and repetitive writing is driving me crazy.

Far too many characters, every last one of them entirely forgettable, take part in this slow-moving, disjointed, uninteresting plot. It’s hard to believe we waited 10+ years for The Book of Dust, and this is what we got.

This is absolutely not the master storyteller I discovered with His Dark Materials. Back then Pullman actually had a story to tell. The Book of Dust is just a conduit for his hatred of religion.