blairconrad's reviews
1124 reviews

Really enjoyable. Again, the art isn't all that it could be, but I thought Vaughn did a great job with the plot and dialogue - it still felt like I was watching the Scooby Gang. Also, very nice to see Faith again, and I enjoyed how she and Giles got along.
The one story that Joss wrote was okay - the actual plot was nothing, but the Willow/Buffy fantasy banter felt right, and the insights into bits of Willow's past (and current) were... enlightening.

I felt a little let down by the end of [b:Twilight|6794926|Twilight (Twilight, #1)|Stephenie Meyer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1251925570s/6794926.jpg|3212258], but thought I'd soldier on. And at first, I wasn't disappointed. An event I'd been anticipating happened (which kept me from yelling into the book, "Have you considered what will happen when...") and then the book took a turn from its initial course.
And it was pretty good. There were a couple of hundred pages of actual interesting events and interactions between people. Bella was getting on my nerves, but Bella interacting with some of the non-Edward people was actually pretty good.
Unfortunately, it was not to last. Like Twilight, the "plot" went places that just did not do a thing for me, so I would've been happier if the last couple hundred pages just weren't there. I don't know if I can take it anymore.

Very good. I was put off at first by the presence of the wizards (for some reason, the wizard books tend to leave me flatter than most of the others, say the guards or witches), but there was less wizardly focus than I'd feared. A fair number of new characters introduced here - some interesting and some slightly less so.
Still, I really enjoyed the way Pratchett dealt with the arrival of organized football ("soccer") in Ankh-Morkpork. The inter-team rivalry felt authentic, and dovetailed nicely with the Shakespearean themes in the book.
Add to all this a number of chuckle-out-loud moments (charisntma!) and continually referring to the stadium as The Hippo, and we have ourselves a book.

Well, it's not [b:The Time Traveler's Wife|14050|The Time Traveler's Wife|Audrey Niffenegger|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31DB3K45TXL._SL75_.jpg|2153746], but on the other hand, it's not at the opposite end of the scale that books like The Time Traveler's Wife are at one end of.

The beginning threw me - a little too much in everyone's heads at once. But after that, the book (and I) settled down. I really enjoyed seeing Martin, and the way the twins interacted. I found myself eager to continue reading, for the most part.

Something niggled at me just a little bit toward the end, but it wasn't enough to ruin the book for me.

I liked it! I understand why some people are calling "gratuitous!", but I liked the humour in this arc (okay, not all the Dracula stuff resonated with me, but I understood the intent). I thought Goddard had a good handle on the characters and the language, and even did a very Whedonesque thing that made me angy.

Generally an enjoyable book, with an engaging story. It could’ve been much better, though. While I developed empathy for a few of the characters, I never quite shook the feeling that the characterizations were off, somehow (although one would have to bend relationships in order to present any reasonable cross-section of society – it worked for that Titanic movie, I suppose). The two things that most bothered me, though, were: there was much less coverage of the cathedral-building than I hoped for. I was promised a book about building a cathedral, and I felt let down.
The repetition. I mentioned this before, and was disappointed that it didn’t let up. If anything, the micro-repetition just grew up, so we had larger cycles of repetition. Heck, even one of the characters complained about it.

So ultimately a good but flawed book, and I’d generally not recommend it to people due to its length – one could easily consume two better books in the time it would take to go through this one, and with a potential great increase in actual content.

An excellent book. Greene does a very good job of explaining advanced physical theories to the layman. I enjoyed his writing, and the examples used were clear, interesting, and often funny. All of the more advanced mathematics was hidden behind endnotes, many of which could be skipped, if the reader desired.
The book starts with excellent introductions of Einstein’s special and general relativity – by far the best that I’ve ever read. I did find that the content became more advanced as the book continued, and after two-thirds of the way through, I stopped reading the endnotes “for the mathematically inclined”, because I’d hit the level of my inclination. I didn’t find that this reduced my enjoyment of the book any, though.
Read it.

Cute – a nice, light, charming style, with just a little bit of darkness to keep us on our toes. I really came to enjoy Precious’s character by the end.

Mma Ramotswe continues to charm us – a fun and easy read. Already Gaborone is beginning to feel like home. The engagement thread, which I’d dreaded, is handled very nicely and fits very well with the established characters.

A great book. I have an interest in comics, so the pseudohistory of the Golden Age was fun for me, but I think there’s something here for almost everyone. I enjoyed the way most of the characters were portrayed, even though Sam (“Clay”) got on my nerves in the beginning. The pacing might have been a bit slow in one or two places, but never for long.
Chabon really knows how to work the language – the imagery and analogies were evocative, and a joy to read without even considering the plot, which was very good all by itself.