This is so long, and I was ready to be done without about 15 minutes in. Character is both annoying and boring. 

Writing bad; author worse. Impressed at how bored I am listening to someone retell this story, and the man is presenting himself as bizarrely slimy. Gogo honesty, but I cannot.  

Main character was so edgy his name could have been Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way.

So badly written, and such an obvious self-insert that the author admitted to it, lol. 

I refuse to believe this wasn't written just so the author could show off their knowledge of classic sci-fi. Not sure there is a plot, don't care about a

dead sister,

just no. 

Nope. 

 

I've managed to get through more than 1/3 of this book, and I'm throwing in the towel. I'm just...done.

 

It's not strictly terrible, but I'm so bored. The main character just grates on me. Her relationship with her (married!) male best friend is awkward at best, and her children are also kind of unbelievable. She kind of wanders around in this strange floaty haze where even finding a dead body doesn't liven things up. How can that be?

 

I've checked this book out from the library four times now, and this is as far as I have gotten. Every time I check it out I read a little bit and then set it down, remembering why I set it down last time. I just can't anymore. Too many books I want to read, not enough time. 

 

I'm done with this book. I cannot explain why I always feel so bogged down trudging through Russia unexpectedly, though I am aware of the similarity of, you know, every other invasion of Russia ever.

 

This isn't war, precisely, but I just stopped caring once it stopped being as much of a mystery and started being a story about making contacts through my least favorite part of Russian history. Maybe this turns out phenomenally, but I can't bear picking up the book and reading about half a page and then not being able to continue after that. I promised myself that this year it was okay to say I was not going to finish stuff. I intend to hold myself to that promise.  

 

I think I'm just done with this. I'm dreading picking it back up. It's not terrible, but I honestly don't care about the prophecy, and if I don't care about a bloody prophecy, this is not the book for me. Prophecies are my bread-and-butter.

 

The characters are pretty thin and rather alarmingly one-dimensional. Any questions on who is the bad sister and who is the good one? Well, no, not after about page 2. There's just not enough subtlety here for me to care at all.

 

I was really looking forward to this, but in the end I just don't care.