simonlorden's Reviews (1.38k)

I received an ARC through NetGalley, and below is my honest and voluntary review.

I have some mixed feelings about this book.

The Floating Hotel is the story of a luxurious hotel in space that travels between planets in an Empire led by a tyrant Emperor. Naturally, it then also has to be the story of rebels and spies. Everyone working on the Abeona has their own story, and most of them are messy and tragic, because only a certain kind of person would leave behind everything to run off on an interplanetary spaceship.

I want to say that I really liked the concept, in which we get to know the crew one by one. Or at least I liked it at first. In practice, it sometimes went into my pet peeve, which is that whenever something interesting happened, we switched to a completely irrelevant flashback. Of course, then I had trouble caring about the flashback, because I was still thinking about the Plot Thing we just switched away from. So, while I initially liked the idea of introducing crew members one by one, meeting new people started getting old when I was 70-80% in and the main plot was finally happening.

Because yes, the Main Plot really takes some time to be pieced together from all the little details. As I said, this is a quite interesting concept, more of a puzzle than a book. While it didn't fully work for me in practice, I think it would work for someone who likes more slow-paced books maybe. I can say that when the puzzle finally clicks together at the end is definitely satisfying.

 

Azzal kezdeném, hogy mennyire gyönyörű ez a borító :) Percekig csodáltam a vörös hajat és a farkast, mielőtt elkezdtem olvasni.

Ami nagyon meglepő volt már az elején, az az, hogy a mágia, királyság és egyéb dolgok alapján egy tipikus középkorias fantasyra számítottam… erre az első oldalon megemlítenek egy mobiltelefont. Bevallom, ezt később sem annyira sikerült összeegyeztetni, és furcsán néztem, amikor megjelent egy-egy terepjáró vagy lift.

Szerettem a sztorit és a karaktereket, beleértve a testvéreket és unokatestvéreket is, és Callie nagymamáját. Mégis egy farkas alakváltós könyvben amiben egy egész országnyi alakváltó van, talán vártam volna egy kicsivel több farkasságot, hogy ne csak vészhelyzetben vagy csata közben jöjjön belőlük elő. Az viszont tetszett, ahogy fokozatosan többet tudunk meg a történelmükről, és hogy Callie és Faelan kapcsolata hogy változtatja meg a királyságaik között lévő kapcsolatot. 

When you know the end before you begin and you still hope it will end differently. It doesn't. Beautifully written though, but damnit Achilles.

This was a roller coaster. I didn't really like it at first (I found Ben annoying), then by the middle I was actually enjoying myself and rooting for them. Then the big twist happened, and just... what? It ruined the whole book for me, honestly.

 Hát nem tudom, blogposztként biztos nagyot ütött volna ez a stílus, de talán regényként nem annyira. Egyébként sok helyen érdekes volt, nevettem is rajta, de azért nagyon kemény szöveg, a bántalmazástól kezdve a szülői elvárásokig mindenféle sötét dolog van benne. Eredetileg négy csillagot akartam rá adni, de az utolsó mondat pont elcseszte az egészet, mert szerintem ebből a témából már egy kicsit sok volt. 

There were some interesting twists at the end, but the lead-up was kind of long and boring. There were too many POVs, which meant none of them really stood out. There's only a couple of scenes that I'd maybe describe as horror, but it was pretty weak.

tw: There is a Nazi sideplot with flashbacks and discussion of the Holocaust and kidnapping children.

the first time I picked this up, I couldn't read more than the first story because the way Véa and Téa were written irked me so much. I'm glad I finished it though, because other than the occasional "wow that was too much misogyny" moments, they're pretty interesting.

also, Ciri. <3

i was disappointed because the first twist was so obvious, but the book definitely had some more surprises in store

I liked the story. Creepy, dark, kind of slow and atmospheric haunted house thing with a fucked up family. Noemí and Francis were good protagonists.

Sadly the Hungarian translation isn't worth the paper it's printed on. I've read some low quality translations before but this was possibly the worst. Not even mistranslations, but there were so many typos that I would have been embarrassed to publish this for free, let alone ask money for it.

it took me almost half the book to really get into this story, but it was worth it