sassyowlreads's Reviews (910)

Where to start . . . the book has beautiful language and mesmerizing narration. However, I disliked Theo Decker for most of the book. I had no prior knowledge of this book when I started it and was genuinely intrigued with how it was going to end but I'm overall dissatisfied. It is just under 800 pages and would maybe be a better book if it wasn't that long. Describing this book as one about obsession is an understatement. Theo is obsessed with his painting, the death of his mother, a girl and drugs. Someone else may enjoy this but I found it needlessly long and unrelatable. Theo made terrible decision after terrible decision and it became annoying. I will also say that the last chapter dragged on and on and was the worst part.

I wanted . . . more from this book. I think it could have been great but it was taken a different direction. I imagined it would be the downstairs version of Downton Abbey and the first half of the book was just that but the second half left much to be desired.

I had an English professor in college who polled the class on who had read Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre. Only two of us could raise our hands and I had only read Jane Eyre and one other person in the class had only read Wuthering Heights. The professor asked us both if we were cat or dog people, I was cat and the other girl was dog, and said she'd been doing this poll since she was in grad school. Almost every time, cat people like Jane Eyre and dog people like Wuthering Heights.

All of this to say, I am a cat person and I HATED this book. I am usually a generous rater but I couldn't give this book more than 1 star. The only book I have detested more than this one is Robinson Crusoe. I understand the necessity of having unlikable characters in books but I didn't like anyone in this book. Jane Austen and Alexandre Dumas rank as some of my favorite authors and I adore the classics but I am almost angry about the time spent reading this.

First and foremost, this book should be considered a memoir above all else.

I read this for a reading challenge and was actually dreading the topic "a book about sports," but this ended up being one of the most interesting books I read all year. And yes, the Tarahumara or Raramuri are a real race of people and fascinating at that.

This was a great book! I love the idea of people randomly being Graced with any ability imaginable.

I was pretty surprised by how different this book was from the first. I had to double check I was reading about the right one. People in this book are not Graced but instead face Monsters.

I wasn't over the moon for the first book in this series but I'm glad I kept reading. Everything slowly comes together and I thought each book was progressively better.