Melanie

Gentle and pleasant, but slow. Not for last-minute vacation prep

Revisado: 04-01-24

I listened to this whole book in advance of a trip to Japan. While the book felt like it was giving me some good groundwork for understanding structure and grammar, it presented so little vocabulary that it was almost useless during my trip. Instead, I ended up using Google translate anytime I encountered a person who couldn’t understand enough English to communicate (which was rarely).

I might recommend this to someone with more time to learn, since I think it’s a good place to start. It would also be good for anyone who has stress or anxiety around language learning. Just don’t expect it to help you immediately with a vacation.

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Very mixed bag

Revisado: 09-16-19

This book offers some clever and well implemented allegories about giftedness, neurodiversity, the damage done to a child who is repeatedly told to "just try harder," and the inadequacies of "one size fits most" education. I enjoyed a lot of Opal's personal journey, discoveries about herself and her relationship to her dad, and ultimate growth.

That said, the plot is almost nonexistent, the action is largely irrelevant, the plot twists are obvious, and the major romance beats are embarrassingly formulaic.

When characters are doing their own thing, they're great. But whenever the plot formula demands a certain obligatory scene, they get jerked around like puppets and it rings totally false. I was particularly disappointed with Nik's final scene, which came out of left field and felt shockingly out of character.

I will read the next book anyway, because when Rachel's work is good, it's REALLY good. But I was super disappointed by the major flaws in this book and won't recommend it to anyone until I know whether or not she salvages this mess in the sequel.

The reader is excellent.

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Nice things happen to a nice boy

Revisado: 01-26-19

I honestly don't know why readers are so passionate about this book. It's not a story, it's just a list of nice things happening to a nice boy.

Everything goes right for this kid. He is a good boy with no major flaws. Everyone around him is basically nice. He wins all the time. A beautiful girl falls in his lap and the relationship is effortless. His career trajectory resembles the Mount Washington Cog Railway. The author keeps setting up possible tension, then immediately deflating it by letting him win again. I stopped caring as soon as I saw there were no consequences.

The world is interestingly built, and there's some stage-setting for some really good drama. The protagonist could have experienced seriously earthshaking internal conflict requiring massive personal growth and change.

But he doesn't.

Not to give too much away, but at one point a couple hours in, he learns a fact that threatens to undermine his entire self-identity and everything that's most important to him. And his response to this is... to pretend it didn't happen, and go back to business as usual.

I'm not kidding. He seriously just decides not to think about it and gets back to the boxing ring. That's realistic, sure, but it's not a good story!

I only made it about 2/3 through, then started skipping ahead, looking for any kind of tension or plot development. Eventually I found some near the end but by that point, I didn't care. I felt certain the author wouldn't let anything really bad happen to her golden boy.

It's possible that I'm not the right reader for a sports story. Maybe there's an entire bandwidth of story data being transmitted, and I don't have the receptors for it? I don't know. But I suspect even huge fans of sports stories expect to see at least a LITTLE conflict, to have at least a LITTLE doubt that everything will work out the way the main character wants.

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Amazing book, problematic female reader

Revisado: 12-11-17

The incredible Luke Daniels does a fine job with the male chapters, as always. But the new female reader was a really confusing choice. She has a strong accent with a cadence that makes it actively difficult for me to understand. Considering how dense and complex the book is, this wasn't ideal. In general, the heavy use of unusual accents, whether real or feigned, made it a lot harder for me to listen to than usual.

That said, this book is not to be missed. If you like... well, almost any subgenre of fantasy, you must read this book. It is the kind of work that only an established author like Kevin Hearne could do. It blows literally every other epic fantasy I have ever read straight out of the water. And he does it with the strength of character and belief in the basic decency of humankind that keeps me coming back to everything he writes, knowing I can trust him.

I say, if you need audiobook format, then get it in audio. But if you wouldn't mind print, then maybe try that instead. Either way, get the book.

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Delightful treat with soul

Revisado: 04-06-17

I don't normally like mashups; simply juxtaposing two concepts is not enough to hold my attention if the writing isn't good enough on its own. I was bitterly disappointed in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, for example, which I am convinced got published based on its elevator pitch alone.

So it was with trepidation that I started this book, and boy am I glad I did. The writer nails the voice (the reader does a great job, too), and has a lot of genuinely creative and original ideas in the book. He rarely settles for the obvious reference but instead layers on more subtle--and funny!--original elements until the result is really its own idea that just happens to also be a hilarious inversion of something from Sherlock's world.

Watson is also excellently portrayed. This Watson is ACTUALLY A DOCTOR and ACTUALLY A VETERAN and reacts to events in ways consistent with this life experience. Watson is one of my favorite characters in literature and I was really pleased to see such a consistent, appealing, and believable version of him.

A lot of it is truly silly. Don't let that fool you into thinking this is all fluff. Surprisingly insightful and well-observed moments show up when you least expect them and remind you this is not just a series of jokes but a real book.

I strongly recommend to fans of Sherlock and anyone who'd enjoy a goofy Victorian urban fantasy. It kept me up late two nights in a row.

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Great book, difficult narrator

Revisado: 06-09-16

The narrator has a strong accent that meant I had to pay a lot more attention than usual to follow the story. However, as long as I was not distracted, I had no trouble understanding, and it was cool that she could natively understand and pronounce the names of people and places, which I think are based on Polish. The story is excellent and I highly recommend it. Amazingly rich world and characters that live and breathe.

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Great story but narrator had a bad day or something

Revisado: 04-15-16

Jacka delivers a great installment in this series with a ton of huge changes and disasters for poor Alex. But the narrator, who's usually pretty good, delivered most scenes with a detached, slightly exasperated "oh for Petes sake, what now" inflection that undermined the tension and damaged the humor and energy. Maybe this episode is one I should have read in print.

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Builds looming dread until it becomes unbearable

Revisado: 03-31-16

Note: I did not finish this book, but gave up around 3/4 through.

This is well-written, though in period-flavored prose, which I note some reviewers object to. I suggest listening to the sample to get a sense of whether you'll like that.

The plot progresses slowly and non-linearly, focusing on a variety of odd happenings, never hitting you over the head but always allowing you to draw your own horrifying conclusions.

Many of the characters are sympathetic, even bit players, which serves to amplify the sense of dread. I didn't want bad things to happen to these characters.

And therein lies my problem. The sense of dread built up to the point that I honestly couldn't stand to keep listening. I felt physically sick with dread. Like the sensation before going to the dentist (or facing whatever your phobia is), knowing something horrible is going to happen and being helpless to do anything about it.

If that description makes you sit up and think "Wow, what an effective horror story!" then you will love this book. That's why I gave it a high review. It's very good at its job.

But if you don't enjoy that kind of experience, then I suggest you stay away.

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Great world, competent prose, messy story

Revisado: 03-31-16

The core concepts of this fantasy western are great, as others have noted. Some of the characters are interesting, too, especially the narrator (though many are flat and hard to keep track of). The writing is competent and effective.

However, the story is structurally all over the place. Many characters are introduced only to be killed, often before we've had a chance to care at all. Many subplots don't relate to much of anything and/or don't resolve by the end of the book. The main plot question itself doesn't resolve in anything like a satisfying way. In that respect, it's more like a literary fiction than a genre fiction--and that's not a compliment, coming from me.

The book also takes hours before the plot actually begins. Up till then, it's just narrative. This thing happens, this next thing happens, then this thing happens, and we're only reading because we're interested in the world and the narrator. Relationships develop and intensify off-camera. Sometimes the narrator imagines what might be happening, which felt uncomfortable to me.

Finally, most of the character arcs either don't resolve at all or end up with the character weaker than they were to begin with. I'm not going to explain because of spoilers, but take my word for it that I was indignant. I felt like exciting concepts had been introduced, made vital to the character, and then simply trashed, both disappointing me and weakening the character.

Personally, I do not recommend this book. However, I know that many readers place higher importance on worldbuilding and prose than the plot and conclusions--in other words, they care more about journey than destination--and those readers would probably find a lot to enjoy here.

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Exciting, creative, extremely well-written

Revisado: 10-20-15

This series isn't always the most original in its basic tropes, but let's face it: every story has already been told. It's not the story, it's how you tell it, and Jacka tells it really, really well.

The characters are all compelling and well-differentiated. I cared about what happened to them and followed along eagerly the entire time. I sometimes guessed the plot twists in advance, which was annoying, but not enough to get in the way of enjoying the story. The action sequences are genuinely exciting.

This series often gets compared to the Dresden Files, but I think that's a lazy comparison. The tone and setting are totally different, as are the natures of both magic and magical creatures. This has as much in common with Peter Grant as Harry Dresden. In other words:. It's a fun, well-written, action-packed urban fantasy that features wizards.

I'm buying the next in the series now and I can't wait to start.

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