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kassiereadsbooks's Reviews (786)
Had she really thought I would not know him? I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.
It's very clear that The Song of Achilles is written by a talented author and thoroughly well-researched historian, however the novel did not entirely hold up for me. I found my mind wandering through a narrator for whom I did not feel particularly strong. The story is very simplistic in its nature: Achilles and Patroclus meet as children, grow up together, fall in crazy adolescent love, and then The Iliad happens.
I found the first half of the novel to be intriguing, though with little plot to drive it other than the romance, I found that neither protagonist was captivating enough to be taken by. I didn't think the characters of Achilles or Patroclus were strong enough to carry a novel on their own.
Miller's prose is gorgeous, it's entirely quotable and lovely and it served the story well. I don't know if a first-person narrative is the choice I would have made, but she executed it as gracefully as possible, with a narrator like Patroclus (who never seemed compelling enough to entice or explain the depth's of Achilles' love?)
The introduction of Odysseus was nicely handled (and very needed) however, I found the war to be drawn out and tedious, with very little sense of cohesiveness. In the event that Achilles and Patroclus were to be at the center of the novel, then Miller needed to find a way to tell the story of The Iliad without worrying about representing all the subtle nuances of the Trojan War. Too often there were off-putting sentences vaguely mentioning someone who was related to someone else who died or did a thing that doesn't really matter to this story, but mattered in The Iliad. It broke apart the cohesion of the story for me. In all great fanfiction (which, to be fair, this kind of is) the author does not need to retell us the plot of the source, instead greater liberties could have been taken with individualizing the plot for Miller's purposes. I didn't need a scholarly recap, I needed a stronger love story.
Odysseus, though. I really dug him.
It's very clear that The Song of Achilles is written by a talented author and thoroughly well-researched historian, however the novel did not entirely hold up for me. I found my mind wandering through a narrator for whom I did not feel particularly strong. The story is very simplistic in its nature: Achilles and Patroclus meet as children, grow up together, fall in crazy adolescent love, and then The Iliad happens.
I found the first half of the novel to be intriguing, though with little plot to drive it other than the romance, I found that neither protagonist was captivating enough to be taken by. I didn't think the characters of Achilles or Patroclus were strong enough to carry a novel on their own.
Miller's prose is gorgeous, it's entirely quotable and lovely and it served the story well. I don't know if a first-person narrative is the choice I would have made, but she executed it as gracefully as possible, with a narrator like Patroclus (who never seemed compelling enough to entice or explain the depth's of Achilles' love?)
The introduction of Odysseus was nicely handled (and very needed) however, I found the war to be drawn out and tedious, with very little sense of cohesiveness. In the event that Achilles and Patroclus were to be at the center of the novel, then Miller needed to find a way to tell the story of The Iliad without worrying about representing all the subtle nuances of the Trojan War. Too often there were off-putting sentences vaguely mentioning someone who was related to someone else who died or did a thing that doesn't really matter to this story, but mattered in The Iliad. It broke apart the cohesion of the story for me. In all great fanfiction (which, to be fair, this kind of is) the author does not need to retell us the plot of the source, instead greater liberties could have been taken with individualizing the plot for Miller's purposes. I didn't need a scholarly recap, I needed a stronger love story.
Odysseus, though. I really dug him.
3.5 stars
I received an ARC of All Fall Down and initially I wasn't planning on picking it up anytime soon. All Fall Down is a mystery young adult novel with thriller action aspects, which is just not at all my literary scene. However, on a whim, to distract from my otherwise very heavy reading, I decided to give it a go and was quickly sucked into a world that is fast-paced and quick-witted, though not without its downsides. Grace, a 16 year old American girl, who is the granddaughter of the US Ambassador to Adria (fictional, Europe, Genovia sort of?), goes to live in the US embassy in Adria three years after her mother dies in a tragic fire. Except, according to Grace, her mother was murdered.
The diplomatic international relations were a huge selling point of this novel for me, I thought it was really fun to explore relations between nations. It upped the stakes of the story, immensely, and had the potential to add a variety of characters. Unfortunately, I think that is one aspect that Ally Carter did not fully play to - the opportunities for diversity and representation of individuals from a huge span of nationalities. In fact, I found characters to be the weakest aspect of her novel. Apart from Grace, the novel's characters seemed very one-dimensional through my eyes, though all of them had the opportunities to become something more. The dialogue was straight out of a bad after-school special and seemed silly at best, nauseously over-dramatic at worst.
-HOWEVER-
The question of mental health after a tragic event, the questioning of reality on behalf of oneself as well as others, and the stigma surrounding PTSD-like-circumstances, was an excellent aspect of this book. Being inside Grace's head during her healing process was a very unique experience.
The mystery seemed simplistic at times, yet left me reeling at the end, though perhaps that's because I seldom read mystery.
This novel was a fun journey outside of my comfort zone and for its targeted age group, age 12 and up, it is a huge success.
I received an ARC of All Fall Down and initially I wasn't planning on picking it up anytime soon. All Fall Down is a mystery young adult novel with thriller action aspects, which is just not at all my literary scene. However, on a whim, to distract from my otherwise very heavy reading, I decided to give it a go and was quickly sucked into a world that is fast-paced and quick-witted, though not without its downsides. Grace, a 16 year old American girl, who is the granddaughter of the US Ambassador to Adria (fictional, Europe, Genovia sort of?), goes to live in the US embassy in Adria three years after her mother dies in a tragic fire. Except, according to Grace, her mother was murdered.
The diplomatic international relations were a huge selling point of this novel for me, I thought it was really fun to explore relations between nations. It upped the stakes of the story, immensely, and had the potential to add a variety of characters. Unfortunately, I think that is one aspect that Ally Carter did not fully play to - the opportunities for diversity and representation of individuals from a huge span of nationalities. In fact, I found characters to be the weakest aspect of her novel. Apart from Grace, the novel's characters seemed very one-dimensional through my eyes, though all of them had the opportunities to become something more. The dialogue was straight out of a bad after-school special and seemed silly at best, nauseously over-dramatic at worst.
-HOWEVER-
The question of mental health after a tragic event, the questioning of reality on behalf of oneself as well as others, and the stigma surrounding PTSD-like-circumstances, was an excellent aspect of this book. Being inside Grace's head during her healing process was a very unique experience.
The mystery seemed simplistic at times, yet left me reeling at the end, though perhaps that's because I seldom read mystery.
This novel was a fun journey outside of my comfort zone and for its targeted age group, age 12 and up, it is a huge success.