I really enjoyed this short little book! I didn't realize that Holly Black wrote this series, and I'm very intrigued to read the other 4 in the series! I would have eaten this story up in about 3rd or 4th grade.

This book had a lot of potential but it just didn't do it for me. I felt no attachment toward any of the characters even a little bit, which meant that I just didn't care about any of their problems. There were too many "main" characters and not enough went on with any of them in the story. It was too spread out between them. That was really the biggest problem I think. Don't have much else to say about it.

Ok, this book was really cute. I would have LOVED this in elementary/middle school. Even in high school. It's definitely one that I would have liked a lot more had a read a hard copy instead of listening to the audiobook. I loved that there were a ton of voice actors so it was really elaborately done, but I just didn't like the voice of Miri. Since she's the main character, that was kind of hard to get past.
I loved how Miri slowly discovered quarry speech on her own and then used it for so many things. I loved the progression of her relationship with Peder. I didn't love the abruptness of the ending with the prince (don't want to spoil anything) - it just kind of came out of nowhere and was rather convenient.
I think it's so cool that there's now a sequel after 7 years! Can't wait to read it.

As good as the first! Loved all of the scenes with the goblins - and the illustrations were especially fantastic! I'm interested to hear the story of Thimblewhatshisface - why did he get so upset about the seeing stone?

My favorite so far! I love the Phooka - reminds me of Rafiki in the Liong King. I don't know how all of these puzzles are going to be solved in just two more books!

I really didn't want to like this book. I had John Green's review in my mind the whole time about not buying into the story or the setting, and I wanted to feel the same way. It took me a long, long time to really start to like the book, but when I did, I was hooked. The only part of the story that still doesn't have me convinced is the age of Ender. I teach elementary school K-5 students and unless there's some important evolutionary facet that Card is leaving out of the story I just don't buy that a 6 year old has the mental capacities and language that Ender does. Maybe if Ender had been chosen at about age 10 and then had grown up in battle school, etc, I could have been more sold. Other than that fact, it was an excellently written story - original and well put together.
I listened to this one in the car and the only voice I really couldn't stand was Valentine. The lady who read her...I just couldn't stand the way she talked.
Also, as I said, until about halfway through the book - when Ender finally was about to leave battle school - I didn't 'get' the plot. I didn't know where it was going, or what the point of it all was. Once I did it was a lot easier to keep my attention.
At the end of the audiobook Card had about a whole cd to himself where he talked about what led up to writing Ender's Game and what came after. And gosh he is why I didn't want to like this book. What an unpleasant human being. He was so so so cocky, talking about how he knew he had a book that everyone was going to love. He made them delay publishing it because he knew it would win the Hugo award. Blah blah blah. I just dislike so much that he 'knew' he had a book that people would enjoy because as John Green says, books belong to their readers. How did he know that he didn't just have a book that HE enjoyed? It all worked out nicely for him, but I just can't stand people like that. (I could go further at this point into my dislike for him for his other views - homosexuality, global warming, etc, but I wanted this to be a review of the book for the most part).

What was both great and not so great about this book was the pace. You were hooked from the first page and didn't want to stop reading, but I think what we gained in excitement we lost in character development. It's hard for me to be invested in Alex's story when I don't know that much about him.
This book is INCREDIBLY graphic. And it gets you because the plot will just be coasting along and then out of nowhere BAM. Blood, gore, rape, bones sticking out of bodies, cannibalism.... just mentally prepare yourself is all I'm gonna say. I can't decide how badly I want to read book 2 knowing a little about the plot of the sequel - if you read the book I think you'll know what I mean.

This was my favorite of the series! It got really dark for a bit which surprised me since the first 4 books were so light-hearted. The illustrations were especially fantastic and I loved the bits with Arthur. I'll wait for a bit but I would definitely like to read the next series as well!

This book got much better the longer it went. It was gracefully short to listen to and it had all of the classic bits of a Stephanie Plum novel. As we were getting acquainted with the plot I just kept thinking about how Plum's complete and utter helplessness is getting really old. She's learned nothing in the time she's been a bounty hunter about being faster on her toes and not being so forgiving of her skips? She let a complete idiot get away multiple times and while I understand the humor in that it was really only funny the first time. The 3rd time Logan got away I was just rolling my eyes.
Also there seemed to be a bit of a plot hole with the older lady Stephanie was supposed to arrest. She got away and then a couple chapters later when Lula asked her who their open skips were Plum said there was only Brody Logan. Oh well. Maybe I missed something.
I did like the outcome of the two separate plots, and I liked that this novel seemed to allow Stephanie a bit more introspection on her own life. Not just, 'oh well, this is my crazy messed-up life!' She actually seemed to be thinking out her past choices and future options and acknowledged that she enjoyed the excitement of bounty hunting. And I definitely saw some foreshadowing with Morelli. I'd really like Ranger to find some other crazy woman to fall in love with so Stephanie can end up with Morelli and then we can have a future novel be about the craziness of her marrying him or something.
I'll keep reading, but it is what it is.