janenx01's reviews
56 reviews

I got bored of Austen retellings years ago, but this one is SO GOOD. I appreciated the Pakistani voices and the glimpse of a culture I'm unfamiliar with. Even though I marked this as "lighthearted" because, hey, it's P&P, the author is using a familiar story to address her serious concerns about her culture. 

You already know how it's going to end, but the journey is worth it.  

I listened to the audiobook, which is read by the author who does an excellent job. Her afterword is worth the listen as well. 

Heroine’s father the most annoying clergyman since St John Rivers, and everyone is such a SNOB. But I soldier on because I’m imagining an angsty Richard Armitage in a cravat. Heart, be thou still. 

 Interesting premise, but ruined by "I coped with hating school by using sarcasm" hero who thinks he's way funnier than he is and takes a lot of time telling you how smart he is. We all know that guy and no one likes him. Female astronaut protagonist fine, but spent the first 20 chapters waiting to be rescued by Mr. Sarcasm. I'm not sure if she ever was bc I gave up. I might have persisted until the end just for closure but then found out it was the first in a series and I didn't like the characters enough to read more books about them. 

This was an audiobook. There were two narrators, one was great and one was awful, but I can't remember who or why. Ultimately unmemorable overall. 

I've estimated the page count because I listened to the audiobook. I got to chapter 12. 

I know I'm in the minority because these books are so popular but the writing is pedestrian and the story unoriginal. I don't have time for a 30 hour audiobook that is boring me to tears.

It didn't help that the narrator was so bad: mostly he read like he was narrating a noir detective story, then suddenly he was talking so fast I kept checking to see if I accidentally set the app to 1.5x speed. Back to the library!

 Even though there are parts that haven't aged well (entire paragraphs of how breasts float around in zero G  - UGH) this is one of my fave SF books because Rama itself is the main character. 

For a book by one of SF's "greats", Rama does have weirdly abandoned subplots. Pages about "super chimps" (aka "simps") who never come into the story, ACC just wants to talk about them for some reason? And there was another I wanted to talk about while I was listening to this but now I've forgotten it, just like Clarke did. All that aside, Rama is absolutely worth a read, and despite its unevenness there's a reason it's a classic! 

Super sexist like most SF from the time. Avert your eyes from the floating breasts and expect most of the talking to be done by men. The human characters are uninteresting and unmemorable, but Rama saves the story. The descriptions and concepts of the ship are brilliant. 

Clarke thought this should be a standalone and I agree. I feel like the later (co-written) sequels got increasingly desperate and were ultimately not as interesting. 

This was billed as a “regency Outlander” which would normally be right up my alley but the writing style was not to my tastes. It felt like the author was trying to hard to write “flowery” and I found it grating. I ended up making it about a third of the way through then reading the last chapter to see how it ended.