blairconrad's reviews
1124 reviews

A very interesting idea - I enjoyed having Taoism presented to me in a way that at the same time distracts and amuses (look! Winnie-the-Pooh!) and educates. While I can't comment on Hoff's interpretation and explanation of Taoism, I'm left with the feeling that I've had an introduction, and that I know a little more than I did before.
I thought Hoff did a really nice job of selecting passages to illustrate his points. For the most part, I thought he'd found Pooh and friends' voices - the original dialogue and actions he wrote mostly felt good. (Not the poems, though - there's still a spark that's missing there.)

So, educational and entertaining. What's not to like?

Unbelievable. Literally. Nearly nobody's actions were plausible, and most of the main characters seemed to be walking contradictions, where they were sketched in enough detail that I was able to reason about them. The writing style left me flat, and the plot was laughably thin and bizarre.

There are enough glowing reviews here to make me wonder if I'm missing something, but for the life of me I just can't see it. Or even guess what it's supposed to be.

I couldn't even take my copy to the used book store, instead opting to give it to my local library so nobody would add insult to injury by paying to read it...

Interesting. The opening bit was... different than I expected, but ultimately fit into the story. For most of the book, it was just fun being in the early Enderverse and seeing how Bean's story meshed with Ender's. And it worked very well.
I gave the book 5 stars as I was considering it as a companion piece to [b:Ender's Game|375802|Ender's Game (Ender's Saga, Book 1)|Orson Scott Card|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1214413570s/375802.jpg|2422333] - I think it would not work as well as a standalone. (Contrast with [b:March|13529|March|Geraldine Brooks|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166565686s/13529.jpg|2643796], which was fabulous all by itself.)
In any event, I had a good time, rushed through the book, and am excited about the rest of the series.

Not terribly-paced, and there were some interesting ideas in here, but the end was pretty predictable and the characterization didn't do much for me.

Grabbed me a little less than the previous novel, and less than the Ender's series. I think it's partly because now we have these Battle School children who have to interact with the wide world, and I'm not sure the action and people feel as plausible any more. Still, there's something about Card's style that hooks me...

I've no interest in writing blurbs about each of the three books in the series, so this'll have to do for the bunch.

Not bad. The art (which people tend to rave about) was pretty, although I noticed that some characters looked exactly the same, except for the colour of their costumes (Superman and Captain Marvel come to mind). Of course, maybe that's intentional, but when you're "shooting" someone from the face up, it doesn't help the reader very much.

The premise was very interesting, and formed a good base for the arc. Not being familiar with most of the DC villains, I was sometimes a little confused, so I can't really comment on the execution.

Ultimately, nothing particularly deep here, and I feel like the whole thing was written like a Simpson's episode - everything will be back to normal next week. Still, it was a good time-filler.

Better than I feared.
In fact, I was quite taken with the beginning of the book. I enjoyed how Bella was introduced, and how she actually seemed to have some amount of depth to her character. I liked the account of her first few days at school.
Eventually, though, when the "let's define our relationship" phase started, I lost a little interest - there seemed to be too little conflict for me... others have told me that they really liked the "relationship" part. Maybe I'm not enough of a 12-year-old girl.

I was on the lookout for the "degrading" and "demeaning" stuff I often hear commented on, and I just didn't find it - given the situation, I thought Bella's attitude towards Edward made perfect sense, although there was a bit of a turn torward the end that I'm not so sure about.

Other than that, what to say? The actions and attitudes of the high schoolers didn't feel quite right to me - a little juvenile. It's almost like Meyer is writing a book about high schoolers that's aimed at the juniour high set. And maybe she is.
In any event, it's an easy and fun read, and I didn't have a bad time.

Oh, and I'm enjoying talking about the book with Emily to continue on with the series. For now.