I actually previously “watched” the movie adaptation of this book but the use of the quotation marks here is very deliberate since I watched it on a tiny screen on a plane and I fell asleep during it. I thought I didn’t remember anything from it but that wasn’t quite true. More on that later.

Overall I was not very impressed with this. It was just okay and I certainly had way higher expectations. I thought the book started out quite intriguing with the first few chapters but once the actual main part of the story got going, I felt myself losing interest more and more. 

I think a big part of that is because of the main character. He feels very much like a Mary Sue. During this basically very long training montage he just succeeds at everything. You also have to get over the suspension of disbelief that he is just the most talented 6 year old to have ever lived. Also I was more interested in his relationship with his siblings than anything else that happened during his training.

I was not bored with the book and it is moving quite fast. I also liked the various dialogue sequences in the beginning of the chapter where they talk about Ender and how he is this prodigy and last hope for humanity and how they plan to move him into the right direction.

What I liked most about the book was the ending. I think it is a very clever plot twist, however when we started to get there it dawned on me that I actually do remember something from the movie: It’s the plot twist! So yeah that totally lessened the impact of it. Obviously still a very cool idea but if you get caught by surprise, I can see this being totally mind blowing.

I’ll probably rewatch the movie just to see how it actually fares as an adaptation and since I already own book 2, I will read that one as well. After that I will make a decision if I continue on with the series.