abgushte's reviews
122 reviews

As much as I would like to snark on this book and Philip Pullman, I have to go with my feelings after finishing the last page of the series. I give 4 stars to the series in general and probably 3.5 for the book. So much happens in this book that it's hard to keep track of and get into, but I think by the end Pullman FINALLY draws us in...in a very sentimental, it's-kind-of-embarrassing-to-read kind of way.

At the end of it all I can't say that his project was a failure--I completely appreciate his endeavor, but I am a bit disappointed, and I can't decide if it's the kind of disappointment that comes with finishing any book or project that you have an emotional investment in, or if it's a real trufax-this-should-have-been-better kind of disappointment. I'm going to go with the former, because while it's easy as a reader to criticize the pacing or the narration or what-have-you, the fact is that Philip Pullman took on this enormous project that I completely appreciate and I believe that the world is a better place because he made this trilogy, and it's hard to demand that he have made this series with impeccable narration, deeper characters, better pacing, etc., etc., AND all in the span of three books. Maybe he could have expanded it across an extra two or three books, maybe such an undertaking would have been too much for him.

That said, I'm going to go ahead and snark on his comparing Lyra's "awakening" to a house. I mean, the last two books almost exclusively followed around this boy with this magical phallic weapon (which, I admit, I am sorely disappointed in after being introduced to the wonderful female protagonist Lyra), and while I can try to suspend my feminist lens, the house-thing was just too much. I definitely LOL'd.

Definitely something job-seeking paralegals will come back to reference over and over again.

It really bothers me that there is a white chick on the cover when the protagonist is obviously a woman of color. But I suppose this cover is from the '80s. Anyhow, it's just incredibly awesome to read a great sci-fi book that does not focus on a white dude. I kind of feel like the pace was a bit rushed, especially in the end, but at the same time I was dying to find out what would happen next. This was definitely a book that was hard to put down.

I really wanted to like this book; I truly did. But what I also really wanted was a book I could give to my mom and explain to her that this is what I truly believe and that her notions of morality that she was raised with hurt women--and that IS something she is morally against. So that means I started reading it from the perspective of what my mother might get from it, and Valenti always fell short of really driving the message home. The point was always implied but never really stated and outlined in plain language right from the beginning, and instead there were a bunch of inside jokes shared with those who were in-the-know which just made it seem really exclusive and alienating. Furthermore, I agree with other reviews that her analysis of studies and articles were really lacking. It was always implied that x or y was ridiculous but she never came out and explained WHY. As repetitive as that may seem to do that every other page or whatever I feel it's really necessary to engage readers who are unfamiliar with the topic because they're going to keep going back to their core values when they disagree and as an author you have to be ready to counter that every time.

So like I said...not what I was looking for. I fully support Valenti's views and I will use this book as a source to express my own beliefs, but I was hoping for something that's more 101.

I think this is a great young adult book, and is geared toward classroom use as it has discussion questions in the back. The book isn't exactly completely original/unique for Alexie, but it's kinda Alexie-Lite——a good introduction to Alexie's style for the younger reader. I would be very happy with this book being used in middle and high school English classes. Alexie certainly doesn't dance around issues of race and poverty, and the story does a pretty good job debunking certain white fantasies about life as an Indian——moreso than some of his other stories.

I get the feeling that Alexie really likes basketball or something, hahahaha. But it's good because I think a lot of students will be able to relate to that and it's a good way to reach them.

I was initially afraid that this story was going to be too focused on bootstraps and that white readers might get the message that poor people and Indians just gotta try harder and think positive and everything will be OK!, but I think that in the end the audience will probably get the idea that Indians are up against so much compared to white folks.

Couldn't finish this for a couple reasons. First, I'm not looking to be a writer or anything, I just like to do it. And then life sort of happened and it sat on the back burner for a while because, yeah, I'm not looking to be a writer. Lamott definitely provides some good inspiration and creative exercises to get you going, but also really succeeds with nuts-and-bolts important stuff like how to go about plot. If I ever felt the need to write story, I will definitely check this out again. How far away is NaNoWriMo?