naruvoll

An enthralling but difficult read that requires a lot of thought about law & order

Revisado: 02-18-25

I don’t think this is a thriller you can just soak in. It’s definitely a difficult read. It certainly isn’t meant to be a comfortable or quick book. It’s an immersion in pain and injustice that CANNOT be put right. How do you get justice when justice CANNOT be a literal thing? It’s not a question most stories deal with. Even other stories about crime and punishment usually try to give pat answers. This one seems much more about hard questions. It makes for a disturbing picture but a truthful one.

It’s hard to miss just how powerful a voice Octavia Butler had in this. It’s a fascinating read even as it is so uncomfortable. Several details simply didn’t start to make sense to me until nearly the end. But the desire to know what happened, how the impossible situation was dealt with, kept me going until it did start to make sense as a blistering commentary on the real world.

It’s not merely an uncomfortable book within the text, it’s uncomfortable in its commentary on the reader and the inherent unfairness that we bring to the text. And I think that’s the deeper point. That the early ick factor is a comment about how we as the reader would place our own limits on the justice of the world before understanding a sufficient amount of information. And how we are ready to be disgusted one moment and full of praise another by the fulfillment of the same underlying need. It seems worth the question of both how we would give justice and why we would do it the way we would. The text seems to demand that question of the reader.

I feel like this book is a glove thrown down in challenge to some of the basic assumptions of American society. It’s soft only in that it is an easily digested symbol to represent a hard and bitter thing. And I don’t know that we shouldn’t feel ourselves judged harshly by the end of the trial.

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Great characters but plot sags a bit in Sacrifice to that

Revisado: 01-21-25

I feel like how much you’ll enjoy this book is going to depend strongly on your preference between character and plot.

If you prefer rich characters and delving into complicated relationships and are willing to sacrifice a bit of plot sag for it, you’ll probably love this book. The characters and their relationships are extremely well developed. They’re interesting people full of contradictions and gripping pathos.

But the plot definitely does sag in favor of delving deeper into the character’s reactions to the same conflicts repeated without much variation and the solving of the mystery relies a bit more on coincidence than feels ideal for sleuthing. So if you prefer tight plotting over character development, this book falls a bit short.

I feel like I would enjoy a sequel to this book more than I enjoyed this one. The main character, her social circle, and setting definitely feels rich enough to carry a series but I would love to see her work a bit more to push the mystery along rather than have her suffering through the emotional wringer as much as it felt like the focus here.

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So creative and unexpectedly deep

Revisado: 11-24-24

A wonderfully inventive thriller with a lot of deep delving into the souls of the characters. In the end I think this is a tale that will haunt you long after the ending with the deeper meanings behind what is going on.

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Wow, what a great story

Revisado: 09-25-24

What you think you’re going to get is the right idea, just not as good as the actual excitement of such a well told story. Most bestsellers wish they were this good. If you like this type of story, you will love this book. 5 out of 5 doesn’t really cut it. This is the kind of book you buy as a gift for all your friends because even more people need to read it.

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At least you know what you’re getting

Revisado: 09-15-24

This book delivers precisely on its promise. The story it says you are going to get on the back cover is exactly what you get.

Each part of the book is told from a different point of view. Each supposed to show off a different facet of character. But Maurice seems fairly one-dimensional. His charm, one of the book’s selling points, is assumed to exist more than shown off. I’m left feeling sorry for the misery and wreckage he leaves in his wake but it’s no more fascinating than rubber necking at a car crash. Maurice is pretty much a glorified telephone pole for everyone else to wrap around.

And, like a telephone pole, I never feel like anything really affects Maurice emotionally where it matters. It’s all up to the world to change around him in reaction to his sleaze showing. The character and story arc felt essentially flat to me, in spite of Maurice’s change in circumstances.

I don’t find that terribly satisfying. Or cathartic. If I hadn’t been reading it for my book club, I wouldn’t have finished it. I almost didn’t anyway. I wish I had quit back when I figured out how it was going to end with Ackerman, the narrator of the first part.

I would say to trust however you feel about the book after Maurice becomes Ackerman’s assistant. That’s really the book you’re getting. It’s just different iterations of that essential betrayal of humanity that Maurice keeps trying to commit in ever more uncoscionable ways.

That is who Maurice is. That essential character defines the book. All of it. No matter what territory it wanders into.

If you like that, I suspect this book will be a 5 star read for you.

If you don’t like it, as I did not, then that is still the book and you’re probably not going to love it because the more interesting characters are Maurice’s victims and it’s just sitting around being witness to their abuse.

I suppose, that if you like the horror of watching characters suffer emotional abuse, you might still enjoy the story as a hurt/comfort scenario. Otherwise I don’t feel there’s much to enjoy. Go read something less depressing.

The book has no particular faults of execution. It’s very competently written. It’s simply a well crafted exploration of nothing I particularly want explored.

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Killer fun all the way through.

Revisado: 08-18-24

Definitely the best book I’ve read this year. 6/5 stars. The story is just plain fun and on point from beginning to end. I kept thinking to myself how much I was enjoying it and the end just felt like it wrapped it all up and nailed it perfectly for me. I was really looking forward to reading this one, because what a hook! AND it exceeded my expectations. I will definitely be hunting for this author again. I may need to buy a better copy of the book. Just truly excellent!

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3 ok stories smushed into 1 poor plot

Revisado: 07-14-24

I suspect if this idea had been written as three separate books, they would have been good.

As it is, it’s too much for one book and ends up as pretty dull and predictable melodrama. There’s so little shown of emotional connection that very little feels earned. It just kinda happens. And we’re on to the next conflict that is just kind of happening because it’s time to do that now.

There’s so much plot vs so little character that I can’t say I ever managed to care much about anyone. Including ol’ empty eyes herself because she doesn’t come across as A character, she’s TWO that just happen to be the same person. And it profoundly doesn’t work for me.

If I hadn’t been reading this for a book club meeting, I would have quit fairly early on. As it is I think you’ll be able to tell if it works for you at the big plot jump. Trust me, you’ll know when it happens. If you’re ok with the switch, the book won’t bother you as much as it did me. If it bugs you, that’s the way the whole book is handled, and it’s all going to bug you.

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If you liked the last one you’ll like this one

Revisado: 07-13-24

I don’t think I liked this book quite as much for every single scene as I liked the previous book but I think it had more stand out moments and as a whole it was simply stellar. Deeply enjoyable and beautiful. And Rose is just a pleasure to spend time with. Even when she’s at low points. Pretty much it boils down to there are no flaws bad enough to actually lower my star rating and any indication I won’t pick up the next book as soon as possible is a total lie. This series is doing a great job of keeping its promise.

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A little action to spice a character drama

Revisado: 06-18-24

I don’t know this is appropriately categorized as a mystery or even a suspense story.

Even the narrator says first thing that it’s a whydunnit not a whodunnit. It’s almost entirely about the narrator and not the mystery of who killed who when and how which feels not terribly important to the story.

If a laser focused character study about the motivations of desire and fear is your thing, I expect you’ll enjoy this book.

If you’re looking for anything besides a character drama about getting into this narrator’s head, I am not sure it will satisfy. I found it fairly dull and pedestrian. That might simply have been my incorrect expectations but I feel like there really isn’t much in the story besides the narrator’s personality because of just how much is filtered through him. It’s so severely about him that I am not sure I can tell you much more about the other characters in the story with him now that I have reached the end than I could have done at the beginning. I am left feeling like yeah, ok, he said that. Not even, yeah that happen

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Lots of fun but felt a little rushed at the end

Revisado: 05-26-24

A fun caper with lots of ridiculousness and clever character foibles. It definitely does not require you to remember or even to have read the previous book. My only gripe was that the end wrapped up too fast which made it feel a bit disappointing. But I did enjoy right up to the end.

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