Seppo Vaahtera Vaahtera itibaren Oxford, Yeni Zelanda
The Belgariad is the best series of books I have ever read. The books take you into a well defined world, each country very different from the next, and envelops the reader in such a riveting story-line that he would want to never put the book down. The series is full of magic (sorcery), action, and believeble characters. Well worth the read
This was a great sequel to the first book. I cannot wait to read the next one!
How does Hornby manage to write a humorous book about a motley crue of suicidal Brits? I don't know, but it works.
I first came upon this book while looking for other novels to read by Kirby Crow, since I had quite enjoyed her Scarlet and the White Wolf series. So, when I found ‘Angels of the Deep’ and read the short summary, I thought I found some sort of fantastical adventure mystery book. (If you want a better summary than the goodreads one, Elisa Ramblings’ review has a good description and insight into the novel) I had glanced at some of the reviews to give me some sneak peek at what I was getting into, and found that the novel was supposed to be quite riveting but very ‘dark.’ I love my dark novels (sometimes I feel I have an inner sadist), so I went for it and found that ‘dark’ was the least of my worries. I didn’t hate the book. As a matter of fact I loved it until I reached halfway and began to feel like my brain was frying and melting into toxic battery acid. To describe this novel I would say that it is very angsty and philosophical to the point where I began to lose the characters I had just started to like and feel for in the swirling pitfall of Beck’s tumble into the world of angels, death, and twisted logic. The beginning of the novel was what sucked me in and made me feel the need to give the book a 5 star rating on goodreads. It introduced the characters, gave me a nice healthy swag of angst, and built up a little mystery. Then I began to check the number of pages I had left until I finished reading the thing at more frequent intervals as I read on. I never grew to empathize with Mastema even though it seemed like the novel wanted me to do so. I then stopped caring about all of the characters once the novel rushed headfirst into describing the setting and moving along the plot. It was as if the author got caught up in realizing the world and story she created that the characters were put on the sidebench. We never really get to see who Sean really is as a person. We get Beck’s descriptions of him as friendly and kind, I never felt close to him as a reader. Even Beck drifted away and I never felt close to him again. Even the angst couldn’t make me feel any closer to the characters. There just never was enough plain interaction away from description and quiet moments away from the angst. In the end, maybe I read it too fast after getting a headache and suffering boredom at some particularly philosophical or angsty moments that I missed some gold. Maybe I’ve had enough of philosophy class and theology that I made some harsh judgements. Probably it’s just not my cup of tea, but nonetheless I still had an urge to write a review for it even though I’m as lazy as a bear in winter, so that must be saying something at least. Very first review I’ve ever written too. Narration (★★★) ○ Third person narrators ○ Mostly written in Beck’s point of view. A bit is written under Mastema’s (the antagonist), and there are the tiny spots of insight from various minor characters. ○ Nice prose (elegant comes to mind for some reason), though lengthy so I mostly skimmed through a lot of the descriptions. It gave me the impression of reading Evangeline or Wuthering Heights. Well-written but made me want to knock a hole through my laptop with my head Characters (★★) ○ Confused, angsty, complicated, supposedly brilliant protagonist (but we hardly get to see much of the intelligence that made him chief of police with all the beings around him knocking him around like a badminton birdie) ○ Other characters including Beck’s primary love interest seem at best two dimensional. Even with 300+ pages I did not find life in them. Setting (★★★) ○ Very complex, descriptive, and mind-blowing to say the least (though I don’t know if that was a good thing. All I got was a headache) Plot (★★) ○ A LOT of symbolism, angst, angst, and more angst. ○ The various flashbacks, nightmares, dreams, not-really-dream reality dreams, realities, half-delusional visions, and part realities (I probably repeated myself there) got a bit confusing sometimes, especially once I started speedreading through lengthy descriptions of angst and descriptions of the world ○ I felt as if ‘Angels of the Deep’ was like an extended philosophical thought experiment Overall (★★★) ○ I did enjoy it at the beginning, so I’ll give it 3 stars out of 5. If you are feeling up to a deep, dark read and have time to sit and read ‘Angels of the Deep’ with a clear mind, go for it.