Oh I enjoyed this! Folk crime lite is a good description. It's not going to win any prizes for gritty realism or anything but it had all the good bits of folky crime novel. The pace was good, the characters weren't exactly deep but they weren't annoying or intensely dislikeable as seems to be the thing to do at the minute. The plot wasn't groundbreaking but it was fun and had enough mystery to keep me entertained. I read it in a couple of sessions. A good light read.

Completely and utterly baffled by the 4/5 star reviews on here!

What a completely preposterous book. Only read as my friend wanted to laugh about it with someone. Very page turning but the whole plot was ridiculous. The characters were totally one dimensional. The plot was predictable and fairly obvious and where it wasn't it's only because it was so ridiculously far fetched.

The breadth and scope of this book is impressive but I don't think it quite hits the mark for me.

I found the beginning really interesting - unsurprisingly, as it's an area of history that I'm not familiar with.

And then it lost its way for me, churning out the same worn ground of human history throughout the early modern to recent modern history. It didn't offer anything groundbreaking or novel in its analysis and it's a hefty piece of literature to get through just to demonstrate where Sapiens are going next.

I get that it's a popular read - it's aimed at a wide audience and many won't have the historical knowledge that I have, but it didn't feel well researched, it was full of subjective opinion and moral assumptions throughout and missed the nuance that is inevitably lost in a work of this scale.

He wrapped it all up in a nice bow at the end, and the last section started to peak my interest - in his discussion of where we are all going and what is next for the human race. But even this didn't feel novel for me - it didn't make me aware of anything I didn't already know.

The most interesting part for me - and it tells that the author is interested in human happiness - is his section on happiness. What makes us happy. Here, it felt slightly more considered, more nuanced, less sure of itself.

Perhaps I am expecting too much. It's a decent launchpad for figuring out what you might be interested in learning about in more detail. But it lacked focus for me. It's very nicely structured but without his afterword at the end, wrapping it all up and summarising it all, I was left with the overall feeling of... 'yeah? And?'

Been reading this with the kids. One of my favourites as a child and I must have read it 100 times.

'Everything changes, and things progress' says Susan Brownmiller when she's tying up her exploration of femininity. And they do, though not nearly enough.

This was written in 1984 and things have changed, and mostly for the better but this work is not as out of date as it should be.

I have a fair few problems with 'Femininity' but it's a decent introduction to the subject and it raises questions that lend to further exploration.

I didn't really think much of anything about this. It was kind of boring. The characters were a bit cliche and the story was fairly predictable.

DNF for me. I read about 80 pages. I don't want to read about a self centred, narcissistic, mysognisitic rich white man wallowing in self pity about his own self made disaster. Which isn't really a disaster at all and happens all the time. Maybe there is some great character arc, who knows. I'm not sticking round to find out.

Wasn't expecting to enjoy this so much but it was great. Zippy plot, great characters that I cared about. Somewhat predictable but not in a bad way.

Ok so unsurprisingly I loved this. I am a fan of World War Fiction and a good sprinkling of my top 10 are novels about the first or second world war.

This one isn't getting up there; it's pretty high in melodrama and it lays it on pretty thick, which just isn't necessary with the sheer emotional tension of war time.

But it's great to read about from the female perspective for a change. I absolutely routed for everyone and mourned the losses. It wasn't a 'literary' read, it was easy and quickly digestible.

I'll check out some of her other novels as well although I'm not sure I'll manage the romantic fancy quite as well if it's not a war setting.

Oh I loved this. A novel with a small cast of characters and a slow, intentional plot. It exudes warmth and genuine humanity. A real pleasure to read.