Wanderer4of8

The Premise had Promise

Revisado: 09-26-22

but it just didn't fulfill it. I really wanted to love this book, but instead I found myself struggling to finish. It had two main problems. First, the dialog was too unnatural. The repeated usages of the same terms like "bully" or "girlie" from the same characters was obviously intended to give an specific impression of the characters, but instead of being consistent, it comes across as repetitive in a way that no one would ever speak. Second, the plot feels like it rambles too much. I think this is because of many things being far more detailed than they needed to be for how much they actually matter to the plot.

As for the narrator, she was fine, but I couldn't give the performance more than three stars because of all the problems with the audio editing.

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More Interesting than Entertaining

Revisado: 09-22-22

I was honestly a bit disappointed by this book. I have very much enjoyed the Author's Mage Errant series, and bought this book mostly on the strength of that series. While the writing is just as good, I was expecting a fantasy story set in the context of a major pandemic. Instead, I got an almost slice-of-life exploration of how a major pandemic would affect a fantasy world. If that sounds appealing to you, then I recommend this book, because I think my disappointment was mostly just unmet expectations.

As for the narrator, she was fine, but not amazing. She did quite a variety of voices, but more than a few times I found a voice distracting, pulling me out of the story rather than into it.

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Wasted Premise

Revisado: 07-20-22

I took a chance on this one, and it was okay enough that I actually finished it. My problem with it is that I was expecting a fun variation on a typical dungeon core book because of the premise, but I only got a few bits of that at the very beginning, and after that all the parts that could have made this book unique were glossed over by the author and even treated as unimportant by the protagonist.

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Failed to Grip Me

Revisado: 07-15-22

I could have finished this, especially if I was just listening while doing something mindless like chores. But I realized that I have both other books that I am more excited about, and old favorites that I would rather re-listen to than this.

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Just watch the show

Revisado: 01-25-22

This was fine, but unlike most books, the show was at least as good, if not better.

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Too Childish for Me

Revisado: 04-03-19

I only got this because it was one of the free Audible Originals, and I knew it was a children's book, but many children's books are still quite good when you are an adult. I had hoped that would be true for this one, but sadly not. The book wasn't particularly bad, it just failed to really capture, much less hold my interest, and I only got about a third of the way through before giving up. The story takes longer than it needs to develop, and while some of the characters, especially the protagonist, had potential they all turned out unintersting and uninspiring to me.

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Good Idea, But the Book is Too Long

Revisado: 02-06-19

This book presents the idea of setting ambitious yet possibly achievable goals and tracking progress towards them, which is a great idea, but doesn't need a whole book, a TED talk would be a better format for it. This book does spend a fair bit of time on how this idea can work well when scaled to large organizations, but really it just spends most of its time telling success stories to try to convince you that you should use this method of goal setting too (though honestly, I tend to think that many of the success stories would still have been successful either way).

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A Good (if Slight) Variation on a LitRPG

Revisado: 08-15-18

This was a pretty decent LitRPG. Not the absolute best of the genre, but far from the worst. I still give it 5 stars because I definitely enjoyed it, though I am willing to admit that I just really like the whole LitRPG genre. This book was light on the precise quantification of everything like stats, focusing more on the story, including the relationships and interactions that form that story. There is still growth and discovery, though instead of just focusing on the protagonist's growth, the author focuses on the growth of the protagonist's companions as he helps them explore their potential. The last major selling point in my opinion is that from the very beginning, the protagonist has a discrete goal that he is working toward, and even the reader knows that this series is a trilogy, so there is hope for an actual conclusion instead of just an unsatisfying open ending (caveat: I have just purchased the next 2 books, but have not listened to them yet, so I can't make any promises). The narration was acceptable given the enjoyable story, but it lacked significant emotion or expression. More importantly the audio editing left a huge range of volume, making it difficult to listen to while doing anything with any background noise; I often either couldn't hear parts properly or was discomforted by the loudness of other parts.

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Great Start to a Great Series

Revisado: 08-07-18

I absolutely love this series, so much that I couldn't resist re-listening to it all the way through again even with tantalizing new purchases sitting in my library. This book was the first dungeon LitRPG I read and it is still the best I have yet found. It doesn't feel even slightly forced like some LitRPGs; it still quantifies the main characters' growth, but doesn't get bogged down in the minutia of stat points or notifications. Despite the protagonist being a dungeon and so unable to travel, the author does an outstanding job showcasing the joy of discovery as the dungeon grows from essentially an infant to being a highly intelligent, if inexperienced, entity. In addition to just enjoying the learning, growth, and cleverness of the characters, I also love how the two main characters are set up as opposing parallels, repeatedly being compared and contrasted, especially in the later books, but some in this book too. And if that weren't enough, the whole series is humorous, without being crass, and with plenty of bad puns. While even I can't claim this book is high literature, it is definitely one of my favorite (if not my absolute favorite) "candy books".

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Good Story, Weak Protagonist

Revisado: 06-19-18

The story progresses naturally and quickly (from the characters' perspective) and makes good use of Japanese culture and mythology, especially to provide interesting yet believable characters. It is enjoyable throughout, and ends satisfactorily both in terms of events and in terms of character growth, though there is still plenty of material left for the rest of the series on both of those fronts. The protagonist does try to discover the world around her and improve herself at least a little, which I appreciate, though I still found her too passive or helpless at many points during the book. The protagonist spends a significant amount of time throughout the book thinking to herself (more than I personally would prefer), but not enough to dominate the book. Sometimes this self-reflection added to the story and showed character growth, but too often it was just repetitive or didn't matter at all, occasionally even evoking disdain for her as she made obvious mistakes. In summary, this was a pretty good story, but told in a way that I personally did not enjoy as much.

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