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queenjulien

queenjulien

The Darkest Minds

The Darkest Minds - Alexandra Bracken The first pages of the book gave me a lot of hope, but it went away pretty soon.
What was in this book that let me down so much?
First of all, the world-building: it had been praised in some reviews, so I was surprised when I foun it to be unbelievable and full of holes. I thought that maybe things were going to be cleared along the book, but nope.
The story is about children getting superpowers as some kind of side-effect of an often mortal disease. But little is explained about the said disease and its course, so it's like all these children woke up some day with superpowers. Which is not really believable, if you ask me. Also, how are we expected to believe that so many parents would send away their children to reformation camps without even visiting the premises before to see how things are? Or without visiting the children after sending them away?
The other problem I had with the book is difficult to explain, so I'm going to use a metaphor. Reading this book was like standing in a dark room with a flashlight in hand, being able to see only bits and pieces of what is going on, enough to feel that whatever is going on is pretty good, but not enough to actually understand it.
The story was good, but there was definitely something wrong with the writing, with the rhythm, so the whole book felt like a beautiful song sang by someone who couldn't hit the right notes. The protagonist felt more like a narrator than an actual person, I never really connected with her and she was quite annoying until the ending of the book.

Overally, I expected much more from this book after reading some enthusiastic reviews.

Splintered

Splintered - A.G. Howard I really wanted to give this book 5 stars. I really did.
It was incredible from the beginning: captivating, evocative, thrilling, mysterious..it only had one flaw in my opinion, and I hoped this flaw wouldn't affect the ending, but it did.


The flaw was Jeb. I didn't like him from the start, and things didn't improve along the book; it got even worse, actually. I found him to be a very flat and clichèd character: his defining trait seemed to be his undying love for Alyssa. The author tried to trow in some troubled family history, to give him some depth I suppose, but it didn't work. Maybe it's because we don't get to see what's going inside his head, but to me he always felt like a piece of cardboard next to the complex and very much alive Alyssa. Even Morpheus, the classic mysterious "bad" guy, turned out to be more enjoyable than Jeb, and in fact I rooted for him thourough the story.
So, the ending obviously let me down. Actually, I would've preferred an open ending, with Alyssa trying to adjust to her life before rushing to get a boyfriend.
I also think Morpehus would've been a better match for her because he really knows her, and Alyssa doesn't have to constantly remind him or show him that she's an independent being capable to make her own decision.



Anyway, the book was really really good, and I recommend it; maybe you won't have the same opinion as mine on Jeb, who knows :)
SPOILER ALERT!

Pandemonium (Delirium)

Pandemonium - Lauren Oliver I finished this in half a day and I LOVED IT. Until the ending.

-------SPOILERS---------

Don't get me wrong, I love Alex and I was desperate when I read that he was dead, but STOP TO LOVE TRIANGLES, PLEASE. They're in EVERY SINGLE ya book! And while it can be interesting to read once or twice about two guys fight about one girl as she alternatively ignores them, then it becomes incredibly boring. I gave this book four stars just for the ending, it would've deserved five otherwise, and I hope that in the next book Lauren manages to stay out of this odious love triangle clichè and gives us another amazing book to read.