As the third book in a trilogy, this one was slightly disappointing, as neither the relationship nor the world was as well described as the previous two (also, the world seems to have developed inexplicable new rules in between this book and the last).

Had this been its own book, I might have enjoyed it more, not trying to understand how it fit into the previous two or comparing it to the expertly handled romances in them. A good book, but a disappointing end to an enjoyable trilogy.

So, with the grain of salt that most epic fantasy or fairy tale or sword and sorcery that I enjoy automatically gets four stars, I really enjoyed this book. For obvious reasons, it didn't read like a "Look how much research *I* did!" but like a very well-realized fantasy world. The action was well-paced, the book moved along, the plot was nice and twisted.
The characters were both the high point and low point of the book. Ahmed did a fairly dangerous thing by relying on an older character to carry the action and refusing to let his people slip into well-worn paths. But for all that the choices were innovative and the breaks and acknowledgements of Sword & Sorcery tradition were well-placed, I wasn't overwhelmingly impressed. I was mostly whelmed; they were good enough to carry the story, interesting enough to keep me reading, but they felt...thin. Not simple; they were complex characters, but I never felt as though I got to know them. I felt like I was always one step removed, that I could believe these characters were as deep and complex and fascinating as Ahmed wrote them, but that I was taking the author's word for it, rather than believing it myself. I'm not sure if I can put my finger on it any better than that. Some writers can write characters who truly come alive and seem to transcend their novels. And I really wanted Ahmed to be one of them, because of how good the story is. But, in the end, his characters still felt like words on a page.

Well, more like a 2.5, really, since I did muddle though it after all. But the sheer absurdity of the execution just left me cold. I almost felt as though the author was so enamored of his conceit of creating a narratively jerky, post-modern young adult fantasy novel and then lampshading the jerkiness and its failure that he either failed to notice or ignore the fact that pointing out the problems with the book do not fix them. The storytelling was uneven, neither of the main characters were particularly relatable and the way the story was framed just left me...on the outside. I could not get into this story and for all its (self) referentiality and in-jokes, I remained unimpressed.

On reread, I think I would give this book a five. It is one of the best books Fforde has written (and, unfortunately, the least profitable and so the sequel does not seem to be forthcoming any time soon.

Patricia C. Wrede is one of those authors who I will return to, regardless of how old I am and how clearly no-longer-young-adult I become. She knows, in a way that few authors do, how to create a world and involve the reader in it without ever resorting to obvious exposition or pointless discussions of irrelevant research. She trusts her readers to think and pick up on her clues and the result is an incredibly well described and thoughtful universe, filled with three dimensional characters and brilliant stories.
I really love this woman.

I was captivated by the description Tor had of this novella—maybe it's the specifics of my background, but I don't usually see stories about the fantastic in Judaism that lack a didactic element or that aren't focused on the figure of the Rebbe. So the female protagonist and willingness to think about women's lived experiences sold this book for me.
This story was quite a read and I enjoyed it sometimes more for what it was trying to be than what it actually succeeded it being. I loved it for its aspirations and, though it was not perfect and the multiple narrative traditions that Schanoes weaves together don't always meld seamlessly (fairy tale, Jewish mythology, feminism and the immigrant's experience are quite a feat to juggle and, if Schanoes misses a few catches, I can hardly fault her), I appreciate the story that, in the end, it succeeded in telling.

You know that thing that happens when you encounter a book that's formative within a genre and that is the (very young) grandfather of an era and then you read it and, well, it's just a book?
Well, if you do, that was my experience with Neuromancer. It's not that it was a bad book or even a badly thought-out story. It's just that I was expecting something great and I got something, well, average.
In the book's defense, I was reading it under less than ideal circumstances (i.e. - duress) and reading it with an eye for bringing literary criticism to bear on it.
Still, I wanted more out of this book than "So that's where cyberspace came from".
tl;dr - Read "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson instead.

This is Barbara Kingsolver at her absolute best and there is something profoundly compelling about the women she writes. I loved this story and all the characters in it, loved the voices and the history and just how amazingly everything came together.
It's a difficult book to capture, because the actual plot is both incredibly present, but also quite irrelevant to the people whose lives are being written about. And its Kingsolver's people who make you love her books.

Very much not my usual fare, but I really enjoyed the writing in this book. Bourdain's style is quoits distinctive, with a brashness and carefully crafted honesty that is actually a joy to read. If he's passionate about something, I'll read it.
That being said, his part memoir, part homage and part rant about the restaurant industry is interesting in its tint and well worth a read if you, like me, appreciate food.