Jason

For a guy that says he’s an atheist ...

Revisado: 05-07-20

I’m complicated when it comes to religion to say the least. And this book strong reminds me that I’m not into faith. I enjoyed the beginning a lot and was looking forward for the book each time I listened to it until about the 1/3 spot and it introduced a very strict good and evil system. At first seemed like commentary quickly turned to belief and faith. By the end I powered through and wishes I didn’t have to tell my friend that loves these books not for me at all. Sigh.

The bad:
*Sexist
*Woman can only be virtuous is they are virgins, or young.
*sins to go to hell include littering
* homophobic
* racist
* extreme black and white morality often having to do with pure women being tarnished and men being evil.
* female character only exist for the males even their sin is for their fathers. Seriously. Can’t give them their own sin.
* The devil was simply evil, I wanted to be suduces and then tricked by him.

The good
*well written
* if you have a black and white morality code it probably fits you
* if you think woman motives are based on the male characters is how the world works then you won’t be annoyed by large portions of the book.
* the reader is great.
* if you believe black people are backward country folk
* if you think the use of homophobic terms is character building.

Then yeah this books for you I guess.

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Ronchy hallmark movie

Revisado: 02-02-20

So, my girlfriend and I thought it’d be fun to read a romance novel together for Valentine’s Day and since I’m a baker we thought this would be a fun title to read together. She actually read the book book while I read the audible. I think I had the easy time with it since I could passively muscle though the worst parts while she actively had to suffer through them.

So I’ll start with the good. I finished ... there’s not much true good with it. Thought the goat was humous and the blind mother made me chuckle as how dumb it was.

Now onto the blah and bad.

The performance isn’t bad per-say it’s just not good. So it has two readers one for the male master baker and one for the hopeless girl characters. Honestly my biggest issue with the gravelly male voice is that he sounds like he’s on vacation in Frank Miller’s Sin City and putting on the deepest voice he can to not get beat up when he goes outside to zape, but in reality has a normal soft man voice. The woman reader sounds fine and does a good emotional job for such a cliche book. Ironically and probably the only saving grace for the master baker reader is that he sounds ok during the sex scenes and the talking dirty to baked goods part.

The problem with the book is I don’t understand anyone motivations or why they are in conflict. I grew up in a town that hated the town I went to school in but no one ever said any thing nasty to anyone dating some on in that town. Not at all. Worst they comment on how much I had to drive. Secondly the main girl can’t bake so how the hell is she winning contest. Cause it’s annoying as f***.

Also the sex scene which are some of the best parts of the book stop completely after they start dating like the author doesn’t actually know what sex is like with a regular partner. Cause it’s the one good part and after half the book just expect to groan at how bad it is.

Now the best part of the book is actually the worst part about the book. Every time the blind mother got brought up I laughed at how dumb it was and that’s a sign of a bad book. I should have feels swoon for these characters to get together and not be annoyed at them for not getting past their non issues and dating.

Now as a baker I started googling the different donuts they make to see what food blog was used and mostly none or so not what the author described. All I can say is they know nothing about baking nor have they ever stepped foot into an actual baker. She called the master bakers lower region a cannoli... which often is a deep fried tube filled with cream which makes sense. But they are also very small, fragile, and thin. Not a sexy thing to compare my genitals to. She should have used classic long john and even an eclair would have been better. Also she uses a ripe kiwi for describe one of the females genitals. So the author might not know what either looks or feels like. Emotionally or physically.

Finally, we had fun making fun of this book and I think if we could have stopped reading it without the other being annoyed my girlfriend would have dropped out after the first few chapters. But we finished made fun of it endlessly and regretted reading. So in someways that’s a win I guess.

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Not for me, but that's OK.

Revisado: 01-21-20

So, I'll be honest my review is inflated cause I'm happy this book exist and there is an audience for it... that said I'm not that person. This book is a YA Romance Novel masquerading as a YA Fantasy Novel, and by the end I pretty much couldn't stand any of the characters. At first I was enjoying to story for the most part, and to be honest I was playing count the trope game. But by the end, I was just annoyed when the next trope came right after another to the point it felt like a book made of tropes rather then an actual original story. So before I rant,

The Good:
* A YA book that only has minority characters battling out a trope filled fantasy story. This is something needed and wanted by many people tired of reading YA books about people that don't look or have their culture (Culture is loose here since it's still fantasy novel).

*Two lead female characters that are fleshed out.

*Reader does 2 great voices for the females... and terrible indistinguishable voice for the male.

*Main girl is a necromancer, which is fun

*Light sexy times for all

The Bad: (Trope List!)
1. Multiple Fridges at least they weren't lovers, but still 2 female characters and one 1 male being killed for motivation.
2. Romeo & Juliet Romance times 2.
3. Arena battle to prove their metal and to make them friends.
4. A timeline count down for the conclusion of the book with a setting sun and everything
5. Dumb character that don't understand the timelines.
6. Evil Bad Guy that has no redeemable qualities, but more motivation for being evil.
7. Main girl isn't just a messiah, but full on Jesus character with rebirth.
8. Messiah character comes from being poor to save her put down people.
9. Romance triangle
10. All male propagandist characteristics are only to be the sexy protectors for their female counter parts.
11. They are way too forgiving to people that are 'one of them" after they cruelly torture them for hours to the point of almost bleeding out, but the 'evil' prince is not forgiven after he proves himself multiple times.
12. Age/experience/logic doesn't prevent a 13 year old girl from becoming the leader of the rebels.
13. Over protective brother times 2.
14. So many mommy/daddy issues for all. Like can they at least have a present time issue effect them... nope only past ones seems to matter.
15. Soldiers are nothing more then evil, rapist, more evil, and disposable. Extra evil red shirts.
16. Sequel bait.

Now are tropes by themselves bad? Not always and can be used for commentary. But, can tropes acting like a connect the dot story list be any good. No. Is it fun to listen to... not for me. Considering I know this book is blowing up, others have found a good book here, one for them. I'm again happy this exist and is doing as well as it is.... I just haven't wanted a book to end so badly in a while. Sadly, I was looking forward to this book a lot, and got an okish book instead. Not for me, but that's ok.

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Well written terrible person study.

Revisado: 01-08-20

If I just happened to read this book without noticing it was written by a Japanese fellow I’d have assumed it was written by or at least about a trump supporting boomer. Kind of terrifying. He’s a terrible person, the kind of person that’s a failure in everything not that he didn’t have privilege or opportunity. But liked to blame everyone one else for his problems as he sank deeper and deeper into depression and alcoholism. I didn’t dislike the book, it’s very well written and enjoyable to a point, but I hate the character on a ‘I know that guy’ level.

Worth a read especially if your like me and realize this books been adopted into almost every form of Japanese artist medium including one of my favorite manga horror artist Junji Ito’s ‘No Longer Human’.

Just know if you find this character identifiable you might need a hug and a therapist.

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esto le resultó útil a 17 personas

A spy book about no spys

Revisado: 12-12-19

A spy book about no spies... Let start with the positive

Pro:
I really liked the reader. Her ability to give each character a distinct voice was a blessing with so many names sounding the same to me.

It's fun for the most part, and a good popcorn read.

It has an ending for the most part, honestly thought it would end on a cliffhanger. (which means I can ignore the sequels)

Sound effect and music were a nice addition without distracting from the book.

Con:
It's a trilogy that never really gets going.

The main reason all the characters are together are to join the intelligence department... though all of them are pilots and hate intelligence work. Start really annoying me every time it was brought up, Seems like it was pitched as a Star Wars bond book, but the author hated mysteries. Like book one is about the chauffeurs that drive around empty limos.

All the characters use non gender names, and K or hard C names. I basically took a good minute each chapter to figure out who they were talking about when it would switch perspective. Like choose one, non-gender names or same letter sounds don't do both!

It follows 4 main charters rotating between each which is fine, but would also throw in a chapter here or there for characters that had nothing to do with the main story, simply confusing the over all story.

Felt like a screen play that Disney said 'no' to.

I was more excited that the book ended then the ending was exciting.

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esto le resultó útil a 9 personas

Not boring in the way I expected.

Revisado: 11-25-19

So everyone complains about the detailed world building of these books. Honestly they’re fine. Long but to a point. It’s the dialog that has to give back story every time a person speaks that makes something that should be a 10-30 minutes exchange some how turns into a 3 hours processing happy I read it as it’s a book I been meaning to read, but not going to star the two towers any time soon. Might just hope over to the movies for a spell instead.

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Cliche if it wasn’t from the 60s

Revisado: 09-30-19

So it’s cliche, and predictable as can be. The biggest twist was how things happened not that they happened. There’s basically two stories going on, one that’s about a dumb boy falling love with a girl after many many opportunities to say hey like love her before she’s engaged with the prince but does not and so it’s a lot of pinning and destroying his family, her family, and their lives.

Story two is a bunch of philosophy. Ranges from post war politics, Buddhist philosophy, and perception on time. This was the bit I really enjoyed but sadly as the story gets rolling this part takes a big back seat leaving me with a quite boring main story that all I wanted was it to end.

So if you like predictable court dramas set in the Meiji era, check it out. If you like philosophy maybe plan to space out during large chunks of book.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Description that makes a the book.

Revisado: 08-20-19

The reader was great and really nailed the temperament of the main character and surrounding cast. The book itself is amazingly well written and that’s most of the fun of reading it. The story is fun and has moments of being hilarious. But over all it’s not original in the strictest sense. But it is so well written with language based jokes thrown in all the dang time that is a ton of fun. Felt very much like a mirakami book in the sense that it’s a mundane adventure that just keeps getting stranger without doing anything different yet it all different.

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Horrible reader

Revisado: 07-16-19

He sounds drunk and often heads the microphone or stammers. It’s pretty amazing how much I hated listening to him speak. Sad cause it’s a solid book but not the version to listen to.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Better then the movie

Revisado: 06-14-19

So it takes the original script of the film and they made a book with out all the editing. And for the most part it made what they cut out of the movie make sense... that said it’s still not the best story and the logic if you think at all about it makes cool movie moments but even the writer seems to struggle to justify some of the scenes or character logic. And honestly my favorite parts were when a character did something completely dumb and then the author had the justify it.

That said the performance it good, he sounds like a very serious 15 year old reading a book to his condescending parent. But his voices are solid and honestly the books kind of written way to serious so his reading after I got used to it made sense.

I’d recommend this to a Godzilla fan looking for more of that world. Not to any one else. But since I been looking for giant monster books this was the ticket. Glad I “read” it and powered through the ending.

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