The perfect space fairytale/allegory <3. I was lost, I was hooked, I was swept away...

This book is a mashup of Hunger Games, Zootopia and Handmaid's Tale, and I'm just wondering... who asked for this?! Triggers, triggers, triggers; there is both a trigger warning at the front and a list of assault and abuse hotlines at the back. And yet despite being such unsettling subject matter... the book also has many boring, cliche story beats. I found myself hurrying through the book because I /wasn't/ enjoying it, and just wanted the nightmare to be over. I get that there are devastating, sensitive topics which folks need fictional mirrors to help them explore... but this was both "too real" and Uncanny Valley, traits I don't go /looking/ for when I pick up a book.

This book was a beautiful spooky story, meant to be told around a campfire, or even on stage. It's a little predictable, and repetitive in its efforts to be poetic, but I found myself wrapped up in the author's style, like I was listening to a folk song. I felt like I was highlighting every other sentence, there were so many beautiful reflections on loneliness, mistrust, self-worth... Highly recommend this one <3.

This book, unfortunately, fell to the same curse as the Game of Thrones TV show: It starts incredibly strong, pulling you in with its ambience; then midway you start to wonder "Which of these characters am I meant to be rooting for? I don't know that I like any of them."; and by the end the author is patting herself on the back for the importance of storytellers, and it makes you wonder why you bothered sitting through this tale in the first place.

Absolutely stunning, both wacky and full of heart. It's like reading a comedic penny-dreadful.
This one did something stylistically which the first book didn't: footnotes. It also introduced the author as a character in his own tale. Both served to make the story seem more like historical-fiction than straight fiction, pulling you further into this lovable, creative, silly world.
I cannot wait to read the next book ^_^!

Fantastic! It feels like a fourth installment in the "Back to the Future" franchise. The science is smart, the history is smart, the characters are each unique and relatable, and the plot is non-stop intrigue and adrenaline. Not to mention, this book has a lot to say about /people/: what we've become as a society, what we ought to honor from those who came before us, the callous way we treat veterans or academics... Blew me away how well this book balanced being intellectual and being entertaining <3 <3 <3.

I was in love with the backdrop of culture and folklore; I felt this book unfurling like a film feel in my mind's eye.... But the extended metaphor got /too/ extended, the mysticism /too/ convenient and magical, and both the mystery and the romance resolved in too many cliches :'(. I am sad that a book I feel in love with so quickly disappointed me in the end.

This book was a slog, and it only started to redeem itself in the last hundred pages. Imagine if "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" spent the majority of the book in The Professor's house, the boys learning grammar, musketry and gardening, while the girls learned how to bake and sew. And then the last two chapters of the book were finding the wardrobe, going to war, and then Lucy and Aslan ride off into the sunset. Even though the end of the story is exhilarating... does it make up for the sheer boredom that is the rest of the book?

I'm not sure how to rate this one... Obviously, Sanderson can be trusted to deliver adrenaline-pumping fight scenes and Shyamalan-level twist endings... And the story did develop characters with heart and inner conflict, and told a good lesson about prejudice... But it was /too/ long, in a way. Too many battles, too many descriptions of class, maintenance, and rat jerky... The dragging pace effected my enjoyment.

This book had a strong opening... but became incredibly disappointing the minute Darrow entered the above-ground city. Every major plot beat or character moment was lifted straight from Hunger Games. Every bit of action or flavor was The Lightning Thief meets Battle Royale, or Lord of the Flies even. Those mashups might sound exciting, but they came across as crass, even as plagiarism. Everything original - all the space-age technology and culture - was left in the dust in favor of land battles and defecation, which fantasy novels have detailed before, ad nauseum. I regret that the fact that this book takes place IN SPACE, IN THE FUTURE, meant nothing.

If you want a better space-age civil war, watch The Expanse.