Scan barcode
isabellarobinson7's reviews
730 reviews
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
Did not finish book. Stopped at 17%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 17%.
DNF at page 117 (17.01%)
Rating: NA
I'm bored. I am not enjoying this book. I can't be bothered finishing it. Maybe it is simply not for me. There was nothing egregiously wrong with it, I just lost interest.
Rating: NA
I'm bored. I am not enjoying this book. I can't be bothered finishing it. Maybe it is simply not for me. There was nothing egregiously wrong with it, I just lost interest.
Dune by Frank Herbert
4.0
Rating: a tentative 4 stars
So... Dune by Frank Herbert. At long last I read it. Did I hate it? No. Did I love it? ...also no. I don't really feel just meh about it, but I wasn't amazed by it. Maybe I need to re-read and I'm just not picking it up on my first read through. Maybe it's because I read Dune's spawn (if you will), like Star Wars, first before reading where they came from. Some people have this issue with The Lord of the Rings and other Tolkien works, where they read them now and aren't super impressed by them after already having seen so many iterations of the story. I don't have this problem with Tolkien and fantasy, because the first book I read from the genre was The Hobbit. Perhaps because I read everything back to front with Dune, I don't love it as much as I should.
I wasn't overly in love with Dune's writing, but then again I wasn't overly opposed to it either. It had an omniscient narrator thing going on, so it would switch between characters rather fluidly. It was less structured in terms of narration style than I am used to in books I typically read. And there's also the weird thing of there being no chapters. There were little paragraphs of a quotation at the beginning of each (I guess you could call them) "chapters", but there were no numbers. It made it rather difficult for me, who was switching between the audiobook and the physical, to find my place each time I wanted to change mediums. It's also structured strangely. There is no real beginning, middle and climax for the end, or at least it didn't feel like that to me.
So you have all these amazing sci-fi names like Chani and Irulan and Ghanima and Shaddam and then you got your two main character's called Paul and Jessica. And Jessica is a middle-aged woman, not an 18-year-old high school cheerleader dating Justin the football captain. ...It's a choice. It's and interesting choice.
The characters were, ah, odd. I didn't really know what their motivations were. I didn't really grasp why Paul wanted to do what he was doing, he was just kind of doing it because, well, plot. I may have missed it, but it didn't seem like he had any real personal incentive to me. It may have been survival, it may have been revenge, but nothing like that really stood out to me as a definitive "why".
The sanctity surrounding water is really interesting and, from my small level of experience, was done well. I lived in Australia for a few years when I was young, starting school there, so I can relate to the conservation of water. I was in Queensland, so not the hottest of states, but we still had a giant water tank in the backyard, and we had to put buckets under the shower to collect the extra water for reuse as we waited for the water to warm up. Obviously I was nowhere close to desperate enough to save the water in tears, or extract it from literal corpses, but I have family who've lived in Alice Springs so I know a thing or two, all right? (I'm just joking in the last part! Please no one take me seriously!) But anyway, I to some extent understand the preservation of water and how sometimes cold water feels like such a luxury. Now, living in New Zealand, I still don't take iced water for granted.
So the beginning of Dune was veeeeery confusing, and it stayed that way for quite a bit, but when I finally got the hang of things, I'd like to think I enjoyed it. The Fremen culture was superbly crafted, and their clashes with the aristocracy was very well done too. (This paragraph was kind of like "see? I do like it!" because I always feel I focus too much on my critiques rather than my praise)
The giant time skip between parts 2 and 3 was kind of jarring. Now I'm used to flashbacks. I'm used to months and month being cut out from books. I've read that before, and I'm fine with it. But in Dune it felt like we skipped what seemed to be a really integral part of the story. Paul was rising to power at the end of part 2, and you're thinking will he do it, how will we do it... and then boom - part 3. You just see the result (spoiler free) and it was kind of weird.
It's interesting, because only the first book in this whole saga thing won the Hugo and Nebula awards, and none of the others did. Does that mean the others are worse? Or they're underrated? Maybe Frank Herbert just repeated himself in every book and they couldn't be bothered to give all his clones the awards each time. I guess I'll have to find out when I pick up the many sequels. We'll see how far down the track I get.
Ok, so I have been writing/editing this thing for over an hour trying to make it cohesive, but it's bloody long enough (congratulations if you made it this far, you must really like this book or are really super bored) and just as disjointed so I'm going to end it abruptly here (kind of like the book. Haha).
______________
Updates:
10/09/20
Damn, that trailer was awesome. Kudos to Denis Villeneuve for the cinematography and Pink Floyd in the background. I had better get around to this book soon because I haVE BEEN PUTTING IT OFF FOR NO REASON!!
So... Dune by Frank Herbert. At long last I read it. Did I hate it? No. Did I love it? ...also no. I don't really feel just meh about it, but I wasn't amazed by it. Maybe I need to re-read and I'm just not picking it up on my first read through. Maybe it's because I read Dune's spawn (if you will), like Star Wars, first before reading where they came from. Some people have this issue with The Lord of the Rings and other Tolkien works, where they read them now and aren't super impressed by them after already having seen so many iterations of the story. I don't have this problem with Tolkien and fantasy, because the first book I read from the genre was The Hobbit. Perhaps because I read everything back to front with Dune, I don't love it as much as I should.
I wasn't overly in love with Dune's writing, but then again I wasn't overly opposed to it either. It had an omniscient narrator thing going on, so it would switch between characters rather fluidly. It was less structured in terms of narration style than I am used to in books I typically read. And there's also the weird thing of there being no chapters. There were little paragraphs of a quotation at the beginning of each (I guess you could call them) "chapters", but there were no numbers. It made it rather difficult for me, who was switching between the audiobook and the physical, to find my place each time I wanted to change mediums. It's also structured strangely. There is no real beginning, middle and climax for the end, or at least it didn't feel like that to me.
So you have all these amazing sci-fi names like Chani and Irulan and Ghanima and Shaddam and then you got your two main character's called Paul and Jessica. And Jessica is a middle-aged woman, not an 18-year-old high school cheerleader dating Justin the football captain. ...It's a choice. It's and interesting choice.
The characters were, ah, odd. I didn't really know what their motivations were. I didn't really grasp why Paul wanted to do what he was doing, he was just kind of doing it because, well, plot. I may have missed it, but it didn't seem like he had any real personal incentive to me. It may have been survival, it may have been revenge, but nothing like that really stood out to me as a definitive "why".
The sanctity surrounding water is really interesting and, from my small level of experience, was done well. I lived in Australia for a few years when I was young, starting school there, so I can relate to the conservation of water. I was in Queensland, so not the hottest of states, but we still had a giant water tank in the backyard, and we had to put buckets under the shower to collect the extra water for reuse as we waited for the water to warm up. Obviously I was nowhere close to desperate enough to save the water in tears, or extract it from literal corpses, but I have family who've lived in Alice Springs so I know a thing or two, all right? (I'm just joking in the last part! Please no one take me seriously!) But anyway, I to some extent understand the preservation of water and how sometimes cold water feels like such a luxury. Now, living in New Zealand, I still don't take iced water for granted.
So the beginning of Dune was veeeeery confusing, and it stayed that way for quite a bit, but when I finally got the hang of things, I'd like to think I enjoyed it. The Fremen culture was superbly crafted, and their clashes with the aristocracy was very well done too. (This paragraph was kind of like "see? I do like it!" because I always feel I focus too much on my critiques rather than my praise)
The giant time skip between parts 2 and 3 was kind of jarring. Now I'm used to flashbacks. I'm used to months and month being cut out from books. I've read that before, and I'm fine with it. But in Dune it felt like we skipped what seemed to be a really integral part of the story. Paul was rising to power at the end of part 2, and you're thinking will he do it, how will we do it... and then boom - part 3. You just see the result (spoiler free) and it was kind of weird.
It's interesting, because only the first book in this whole saga thing won the Hugo and Nebula awards, and none of the others did. Does that mean the others are worse? Or they're underrated? Maybe Frank Herbert just repeated himself in every book and they couldn't be bothered to give all his clones the awards each time. I guess I'll have to find out when I pick up the many sequels. We'll see how far down the track I get.
Ok, so I have been writing/editing this thing for over an hour trying to make it cohesive, but it's bloody long enough (congratulations if you made it this far, you must really like this book or are really super bored) and just as disjointed so I'm going to end it abruptly here (kind of like the book. Haha).
______________
Updates:
10/09/20
Damn, that trailer was awesome. Kudos to Denis Villeneuve for the cinematography and Pink Floyd in the background. I had better get around to this book soon because I haVE BEEN PUTTING IT OFF FOR NO REASON!!
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
3.0
Rating: 3 stars
I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed The Metamorphosis. Like the vast majority of books in classic literature, The Metamorphosis is very description heavy (like, how long does it take you to get out of bed? I understand that you are this weird but thing, but seriously?!) but for the most part, the story really intrigued me. For a translated book, the sentences flowed together quite nicely, and I would never had guessed that the book was originally written in German had I not been told. There was probably some incredibly deep meaning behind the plot and characters that completely went over my head, but I liked the story nonetheless. Franz Kafka's writing style is quite long winded in some parts, but once I got over that, The Metamorphosis was a good read.
I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed The Metamorphosis. Like the vast majority of books in classic literature, The Metamorphosis is very description heavy (like, how long does it take you to get out of bed? I understand that you are this weird but thing, but seriously?!) but for the most part, the story really intrigued me. For a translated book, the sentences flowed together quite nicely, and I would never had guessed that the book was originally written in German had I not been told. There was probably some incredibly deep meaning behind the plot and characters that completely went over my head, but I liked the story nonetheless. Franz Kafka's writing style is quite long winded in some parts, but once I got over that, The Metamorphosis was a good read.
The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
Did not finish book. Stopped at 17%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 17%.
DNF at page 77 (17.9%)
Rating: NA
Wow. This is my 6th DNF of 2020. I guess I am impatiently waiting for my The Eye of the World reserve to finally pay off and can't bring myself to be distracted from Oathbringer.
So... got spoiled accidentally in a major way and the plot twist really isn't up my ally. I don't feel like reading a 400+ page book only for it to end up kind of bleh. Reviews from people I trust agree that the ending is quite mediocre, and many wish they had DNFed it part of the way through, so I will learn from their mistakes and put this book down.
Rating: NA
Wow. This is my 6th DNF of 2020. I guess I am impatiently waiting for my The Eye of the World reserve to finally pay off and can't bring myself to be distracted from Oathbringer.
So... got spoiled accidentally in a major way and the plot twist really isn't up my ally. I don't feel like reading a 400+ page book only for it to end up kind of bleh. Reviews from people I trust agree that the ending is quite mediocre, and many wish they had DNFed it part of the way through, so I will learn from their mistakes and put this book down.
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
3.0
Rating: 3 stars
I really did enjoy Between Shades of Gray, but the plot and/or storyline felt like one straight line. There was literally nothing substantial happening. It felt like the characters were doing one thing, then they moved to another place, then did a similar thing in that place, then moved again to a similar place and did the same things there... There was no major plot developments occurring in any of the locations, and it felt like the book was just moving to the different places because that was what happened historically, or to show the reader that this place over here is also pretty bad and so is that place over there.
I also had the same issues I had with Salt to the Sea where Ruta Sepetys' writing style just didn't wow me. It almost felt like it should have wowed me, and that it was supposed to, but it just never did. I would read a sentence and be like, "That was good, I should be impressed by this," but I just... wasn't. I suppose this may be because Between Shades of Gray, like Salt to the Sea, was written in first person rather than third, which I prefer personally, but also I feel that third person narration is just more suited to the historical fiction genre as a whole. That being said, there were some gems in Between Shades of Gray:
So yeah, there were some good quotes like that, but then again, they felt forced or fake coming from a 15/16 year old's perspective. Like she wasn't meant to be able to think of things like that to say.
Ok, enough ranting. I loved this book. The basis of the story was great (even if the storyline was a bit lacking) and the characters were well rounded and developed. Between Shades of Gray was primarily a character-driven novel which, again, is against my preference, but I enjoyed it all the same. A solid three stars for a solid book.
I really did enjoy Between Shades of Gray, but the plot and/or storyline felt like one straight line. There was literally nothing substantial happening. It felt like the characters were doing one thing, then they moved to another place, then did a similar thing in that place, then moved again to a similar place and did the same things there... There was no major plot developments occurring in any of the locations, and it felt like the book was just moving to the different places because that was what happened historically, or to show the reader that this place over here is also pretty bad and so is that place over there.
I also had the same issues I had with Salt to the Sea where Ruta Sepetys' writing style just didn't wow me. It almost felt like it should have wowed me, and that it was supposed to, but it just never did. I would read a sentence and be like, "That was good, I should be impressed by this," but I just... wasn't. I suppose this may be because Between Shades of Gray, like Salt to the Sea, was written in first person rather than third, which I prefer personally, but also I feel that third person narration is just more suited to the historical fiction genre as a whole. That being said, there were some gems in Between Shades of Gray:
"Have you ever wondered what a human life is worth? That morning, my brother's was worth a pocket watch."
"People I didn't know formed a circle around me, sheltering me from view. They escorted me back the our jurta, undetected. They didn't ask for anything. They were happy to help someone, to succeed at something, even if they weren't to benefit. We'd been trying to touch the sky from the bottom of the ocean. I realized that is we boosted one another, maybe we'd get a little closer."
So yeah, there were some good quotes like that, but then again, they felt forced or fake coming from a 15/16 year old's perspective. Like she wasn't meant to be able to think of things like that to say.
Ok, enough ranting. I loved this book. The basis of the story was great (even if the storyline was a bit lacking) and the characters were well rounded and developed. Between Shades of Gray was primarily a character-driven novel which, again, is against my preference, but I enjoyed it all the same. A solid three stars for a solid book.
The Story of Kullervo by J.R.R. Tolkien
3.5
Rating: 3.5 stars
A great story (depressing it may be) but far from a recommended entry point into Tolkien. Perhaps not even something to dive into immediately post Lord of the Rings. It may seem appealing, with its minuscule page count and lack of deep confusing Tolkien-style lore, but don't be fooled - this short story is as hard to read as some of Shakespeare's works. Just take a look at the first line of dialogue (which one would expect to be in a more conversational tone): "Husband, lo, an ill reek ariseth yonder: come hither to me." I made confused spluttering noises reading this the first time.
But anyway, The Story of Kullervo was another amazing Tolkien story, (even though I had to reread much to keep track of what was happening) whose ending remains largely unfinished due to its author's death.
A great story (depressing it may be) but far from a recommended entry point into Tolkien. Perhaps not even something to dive into immediately post Lord of the Rings. It may seem appealing, with its minuscule page count and lack of deep confusing Tolkien-style lore, but don't be fooled - this short story is as hard to read as some of Shakespeare's works. Just take a look at the first line of dialogue (which one would expect to be in a more conversational tone): "Husband, lo, an ill reek ariseth yonder: come hither to me." I made confused spluttering noises reading this the first time.
But anyway, The Story of Kullervo was another amazing Tolkien story, (even though I had to reread much to keep track of what was happening) whose ending remains largely unfinished due to its author's death.