A great premise with whimsical prose that descended into a contest between the author and the reader as to see how much confusing material you can sufA great premise with whimsical prose that descended into a contest between the author and the reader as to see how much confusing material you can suffer through to get to the plot (where there isn't even much depth).
I feel like the author tricked me into thinking this was a good book, front load with a great world building and then don't repay any of it. Its a big book so you would have expected in-depth character work, instead space was used trying too hard to be complex with overly long descriptions of places/items. I learned more about the cats in this book than the people.
I thought the author was speaking directly to me with lines like: 'Zack yawns. If he’s going to read the whole book he’s going to need caffeine. '
I initially liked the Zach storyline but didn't need to hear his full name every time we go back to his storyline. Even one of the characters in the book ditched his name in protest! We are then told that Zach is gay, don't tell me, show me in the writing, in his actions, thoughts or relationships. Tell me how he feels, or at least make me care about him! That was the main problem with the book, I didn't care about the characters. Making characters behave mysteriously or not answering a question fully does not make them interesting.
Trying to shoehorn as many references to popular culture, games and books became annoying. It also outright stole lines from Alice in wonderland rather than reference them.
I nearly didn't write this review as I feel like I've spent way too much valuable reading time on it already.
Quick thoughts. This year is starting well for me, another book I really enjoyed. The story was excellently told with some time jumps but understandableQuick thoughts. This year is starting well for me, another book I really enjoyed. The story was excellently told with some time jumps but understandable one. I guessed the reason for the jumps pretty early but it doesn't take away from the story at all. I especially loved the playing around with shapes of letters near the beginning of the book. ...more
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portal-fantasy
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