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crispycritter's Reviews (516)
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Most excellent.
lighthearted
medium-paced
Corny, schmoopy, sappy. If you’re not an emotionless husk of a human and you know how to use the translate function on your e-reader for the French parts (one of the main characters is from Quebec), you’ll love this book.
adventurous
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
This was a tough book for me to rate because I feel very conflicted about it.
What this book did well:
What this book did well:
- Awesome concepts
- Cool science
First contact with a super interesting alien race - With the exception of a big of a slog in the middle, we get some mystery and increasing intensity as we learn more about the 3 Body game and Red Coast Base
What this book did poorly:
- Characters: where were they? I don't even know how you can write such poorly developed characters unless it's on purpose. Seriously, it felt like I was playing a first-person video game as Wang and everyone else was an NPC with a small bank of available responses, no clear motivations, and no distinct personality. I've talked to chatbots with more pizzazz. Da Shi was by far the most interesting character and he was just a borrowed charicature from pulpy criminal procedurals. Ye Wenjie was almost interesting but ended up just being confusing in later parts.
- Subpoint: character dialogue: seriously, who talks like that? At points it read like comedy, making fun of how humans talk to other humans.
Was the dialogue written by a Trisolaran? Silly bugs, flapping their silly mouths at each other. - Subpoint: character motivation:
unilaterally deciding humans are terrible and need 'divine' intervention / annihilation is just . . . not a normal reaction. This was a difficult mental leap for me to make. I just did not relate to Ye sending that second transmission after she'd been warned of the Trisolaran's intentions and I definitely didn't relate to Evans "I love animals a normal amount" and gang.
- Subpoint: character dialogue: seriously, who talks like that? At points it read like comedy, making fun of how humans talk to other humans.
- Prose: the prose was god-awful, yo. And it was weird because there were brief moments where Cixin Liu wrote some really beautiful sentences and I thought ok, you can write well. For the vast majority of the book words like wooden, stilted, and painful come to mind. I have a pretty high tolerance for bad prose (seriously, I read a lot of bad indie books). But ya gotta make me at least care about the characters a little bit. I probably would have given this five stars if we'd had just a smidge more character development.
What I just didn't care for:
- The science descriptions got a big long-winded for me. Parts of this felt like reading nonfiction or a textbook. I respect hard sci fi as a subgenre, but I know it's not my cup of tea. I didn't ding Cixin Liu for the heavy science, just flagging for folks. Some of us want to learn but I'm just here to vibe.
The absolute hold the Disney Channel original movie Motocrossed has on me still - yes, I will read any steamy romance involving motocross.
If you’re a fan of a character showing up on their enemy’s doorstep, bloody and broken, and that enemy going all “Who did this to you?” you may like this book.
If you’re a fan of a character showing up on their enemy’s doorstep, bloody and broken, and that enemy going all “Who did this to you?” you may like this book.
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The number of times I’ve seen these books recommended is - a lot. I think at this point it’s been overhyped to me and I’m trying not to give it an unfairly low rating because of the hype train.
Maybe I shouldn’t have read American Psycho at such an impressionable age, but Lana’s character was just okay. All the booktok girlies kept talking about what a badass psycho she was supposed to be but she’s just another “bad guy who only kills bad guys.” Dexter did it better.
Cliches galore.
Why are these novellas?
Loooottts of references to horrific SA. Do not like. Double do not like when that is used as backstory but the recovery years are conveniently skated over.
Maybe I shouldn’t have read American Psycho at such an impressionable age, but Lana’s character was just okay. All the booktok girlies kept talking about what a badass psycho she was supposed to be but she’s just another “bad guy who only kills bad guys.” Dexter did it better.
Cliches galore.
Why are these novellas?
Loooottts of references to horrific SA. Do not like. Double do not like when that is used as backstory but the recovery years are conveniently skated over.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape
It’s a self-insert Spencer Reed fanfic, which wasn’t terrible up until the bonus epilogue where THERE ARE SO MANY GODDAMN CHILDREN. Four kids in 5 years? Why?!?!
The line from Ranger’s mom, retiring from mayor of their small Wyoming town: “I’m being promoted from mayor to mee maw” This was the closest a book has come to making me barf. STOP IT.
I’ve seen some accusations of plagiarism from Sharp’s estranged sister in law, also a romance novelist. I didn’t really find the blog post that damning. Maybe I’m just a cynical asshole but - aren’t a lot of these indie KU romances carbon copies of each other? How many unique ways can you describe and promote these books? TL;DR this book got 2 stars on its own but look into the plagiarism claims if you feel so moved.
The line from Ranger’s mom, retiring from mayor of their small Wyoming town: “I’m being promoted from mayor to mee maw” This was the closest a book has come to making me barf. STOP IT.
I’ve seen some accusations of plagiarism from Sharp’s estranged sister in law, also a romance novelist. I didn’t really find the blog post that damning. Maybe I’m just a cynical asshole but - aren’t a lot of these indie KU romances carbon copies of each other? How many unique ways can you describe and promote these books? TL;DR this book got 2 stars on its own but look into the plagiarism claims if you feel so moved.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pregnancy