I was regularly baffled by the quality of this book.
The storyline was superb, the characters interesting, the plot nicely thought out...and then there was the execution.
I'm going to try to give my opinion with no spoilers.
There was more than one instance where someone in the story's life was SAVED because someone else got a "feeling" they should check on the other person.
I'm still over the YA concept that just because one character hears the name of someone they love they PHYSICALLY stumble while they are standing or walking. No.
I understand that I don't need to connect with every character I read. However, I was SICK of Nora believing the first thing out of ANYONE's mouth. I'm serious. She's believes every single person who tells her anything about anything. She believes whatever they say, whomever it is about, no matter who the teller is.
As stated, I was baffled.
I will continue to read the series because it's not a bad series concept and others seem to really enjoy these books (and who doesn't love a bandwagon), but I am NOT impressed.

So consistently clever and really interesting! Riordan catches you off guard with connections to real world things and always leaves you laughing.

The only issue I took was that there were frequent mentions of how little time the heroes had to complete their tasks, but they took breaks for naps and food a lot. I think if I was under that much stress and had such a huge time commitment I wouldn't feel the need to take lunch and dinner breaks.

Really enjoyable! I'm excited for the Mark of Athena!

This book is not what I expected. It had so much more substance, thought, and truly fantastic writing than I would have imagined from just another YA distopian novel.
Cassia was a dynamic character that went through actual progressive changes. Ky was an intriguing boy who you never really got all you wanted to know from.
The only thing I wish there was more of was character interactions. The dialogue that occurred was important, but there were large swaths of the novel that was only Cassia's thoughts and narrations. Because of this I never felt like I really got to know any of the other characters through and through.
The plot was fantastic and I have no idea how Cassia's going to manage making the changes she wants to. I'm thrilled for book 2!

I enjoyed this book! I flew through it and the constant change of POV kept me from getting bored (along with the consistent flow of action). It is dark, disturbing, but really gripping. I'm not dying to continue the series, but I have to know where everyone poofed to!

I listened to this one in the car since I have to drive back and forth from the city each day now for my job. This book is not at all what I expected! It was continuously enticing although at times a little slow. The characters were good and strong and real. The ending will send you reeling and running for book 2.

This book gripped me much more from the start than did City of Bones, although it helped that I already had a grasp of the Shadow World. I was concerned with Will's character at first because I suspected he would just be a Victorian version of Jace, but Clare did a great job of writing new and unique characters to fill this earlier Shadowhunter world.
Too few questions about Will's past and reasons for his behavior were answered for my taste, but I loved Tessa. I loved that the main character was not a Shadowhunter.
SPOILERS AHEAD.

I'm dying to know how Tessa fits in to the modern Shadowhunter world with Clary and Jace because I can't think of anytime that she's been mentioned and I've read through City of Lost Souls. Can't wait for the next few books!

Originally read in 2002 (7th grade).

Reread in July 2012.

I decided to read this again after reading quite a few current YA distopian novels, and I wanted to read the 'original' perfect society book. It was just as good as I remember, albeit short! The difference for sure with all of the newer novels is the length and depth to the stories. However, The Giver portrays beautifully a society that is perfect on the surface, but without any feeling or emotion.

This is by far the best book in this series so far. Cruz writes with so much more depth to the characters and with consistent plots that are both exciting and quick to get hooked to. I loved the 3 different perspectives, and I like that de la Cruz kept you in each POV for long portions of the book.
My few qualms were with the syntax between Jack and Schuyler (Jack speaks like a tacky, cheesy romance novel lead), and with the general length of the book. I think that de la Cruz could have stretched this book out much longer - given it more details, more insight into the plot, even more depth to the individual characters... It seems like she's cranking them out at short lengths to keep selling more books (I'm not trying to stipulate; it just seems logical). I don't berate her that, but I wish the books were longer and more thoughtful. I also thought that Mimi was unfortunately the most accurate and real character in this novel in the way she spoke and behaved.
I'm excited for the next book really for the first time since I started this series!

This book. I can remember some people reading it in high school but was pretty skeptical about it. Haddon exceeded all of my expectations. I started this book at 7 in the morning and finished at 4:30 the same day.
The narration is fantastic and fresh. I just finished a summer course about teaching students with exceptionalities and I feel like this should be required reading.

This book caused me so much frustration.

I think a big part of that was the fact that I was listening to the audiobook which was slow going - I read much faster. However, I frequently thought that Dashner just wrote whatever crazy messed up stuff came to his mind and then found some ridiculous way to justify it later. Maybe that's what a lot of people like about these books, but it was not my favorite.

I'm gonna go on to book 3 because I've gotten a good recommendation about the whole series from a friend, but I have low expectations. And I'm definitely going to read it instead of listen.