emvdw's Reviews (341)

As can happen with essay collections, I found this book a bit uneven. The first half, I thought was absolutely stellar, but the second half left me a bit devided. Some essays were boring, some frustrating, some good (but the greatness of the first half didn't return for me). So a 5* rating for the first half, and between 2-4 stars for the second half get's me to a 3,75 star rating. I can recommend the audiobook though! It's narrated by the author and her voice is lovely and her cadence great! 

The first half was very lovely. I don't quite know how I feel about the second half. 

It's very hard not to compare this book to Song of Achilles.

It was a great read. I really liked how she followed the thread of causality of the Trojan War. Still, there were a few things that didn't work for me (Penelope's chapters, the modern voice in the Calliope chapters which was a bit too different from the rest of the chapters) which made it miss out on the five star rating. Also, and apologies to Haynes since this is absolutely not her fault, it's not Song of Achilles, which has my heart forever.

The book is structured in an interesting way.
I did not connect with the main characters and the ending didn't really give aany closure. 

First off, I happily admit that my rating may be a bit too harsh, because I had very high expectations for this one.

Unfortunately, it was a big dissapointment. The premise was so fun, but somehow the end result is boring, predictable yet left me with a gazillion unanswered questions about plot, world-building and character motivation. There were also A Lot of plot points, sometimes major, that strained credibility, at least to me.

A sampling:

Why are there not more places like Agloe? How about fantasy maps? Why are maps not always a perfect representation of the world, since they change the world to look like them? Why is a single copy of a map enough to make a room appear in the museum, but is Tam going on about changing Agloe being possible only because she has the only copy of a map of Agloe. Why did Wally kill Irene? What exactly was Wally trying to accomplish with keeeping Agloe a secret? What made him so obsessive? 
Some of the bigger ones points of incredulity:
- Nell got fired and 'banished' from academia over a different initial assesment about whether a few maps were genuine or fraudulent. I know this was for Plot Reasons, but surely there could have been a more convincing conflict. 
Irene organises a full on gala in three days.
- The NYPL has no budget (his is a minor plot point), but Nell can have a job, any job she likes says Irene
- The Dreamers Atlas 1.0 is essentially an art project. Which is great and all that, but how are 7 (!!!!!) postdocs getting funded for an art project from a cartography department? And how is that project going to 'revolutionize cartography'? 
- The whole 'hide Tam in Agloe until it's "safe"' thing was completely unconvincing to me. I did not feel the danger

I would have DNF'd but I kind of stared hate-reading it...

Silly but fun read. Arabella drove me a bit crazy, even if that was perhaps the intention...

I think I like the Monk & Robot series the least of Becky Chambers' work. It's still a quick & cosy read, but I find myself a lot less invested in the characters here.
There were some lovely moments here and there though!

I just lost interest entirely