It only recounts a story.
939004
Just tells about an event but there's nothing else. It would have been better to read the newspaper. Not worth writing a book like this.
2004818
This work of historical fiction disguised as fiction feels like an overly long, overly detailed, overly monotonous autobiography. But maybe that's the point. Valentino Achak Deng, a Sudanese child, is forced to flee his home, and ends up traveling with a varying-sized group of boy refugees for months before arriving safely in Ethiopia at a refugee camp (he spends a total of thirteen years at three different camps). But the "thoughts" that make up the story, told in flashback during: a robbery, an excessively long wait at a hospital for treatment of a robbery-related injury, and at his place of work (an Atlanta health club) are as tedious, it sounds, as the life he lived in the camps. Although similar in some ways to Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone, the latter is much more condensed, descriptive and engaging. Beah, from Sierra Leone, became a boy soldier. Deng did not. The basic facts about Deng can be found in the preface and the story behind the book's title can be found on pages 62-63. Its one redeeming quality over A Long Way Gone is found on its very last page and at [...]. All of the proceeds from What Is the What will go to aiding the Sudanese in America and Sudan. Eggers' version of Deng's life is overly understated and does not do it justice.
2587581
There is no real story. The book wanders along trying to make a comment on society in a post Soviet newly independent republic. The meandering is mildly interesting and when I got half way thru I decided to persevere and see where it went. Which was, mostly, nowhere.
3456012
THE STORY WAS NOT COMPLETE. IT STOP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STORY.
1824656
I have not finished it, but it appears to be more a series of anecdotes than stories. There is no arc to the stories and little character development. At the same time, it provides a lot of interesting tales from the area unknown to most people.
3522774
It is only like 75 pages, so there is not a lot of story but it does show what Partials are able to do. I got it free, but I don't know that I'd have been willing to pay for it.
4702952
I thought this would tell the story of Medjugorje, but it only touched on that and spent the remainder of the movie telling how their confessor, Fr. Jozo, was persecuted by state authorities for his belief in the apparitions and the children who experienced them.  An interesting part of the story that one usually doesn't hear about this experience with the divine.
3990832
This book muddles and meanders its way through an attempt to tell a story.

Since Cook is borrowing entirely from history and changing the names, and putting a fantasy spin on it, he's fallen into a trap. History is big. As a result, we're dragged into way too many characters, if you can even call them that. They're not even cardboard cutouts. In most senses they are just names.

Most of the time we do not get to view the action. We just get a recitation of facts.

The pattern goes something like this:

John was at the store. At the store he bought some groceries. The groceries were bad. John was leaving the store and someone shot him. The guy who shot him got arrested. The store owner was Ed. Ed viewed it. Ed called the police. The police came and interviewed Ed. Afterwards the crooks came back and shot Ed.

This is a sketch of a story, it's not a story, it's just a recitation of facts in point form.

Cook needs to can about 3/4 of the names and people and places he is involving in these books and concentrate on a compelling narrative.

One other thing I don't get about this series of books are the supernatural creatures grouped into "The Night." We are constantly told how fearsome they are and how terrible and powerful they are. Yet every encounter with people they are quickly and easily disposed of.

There is no antagonist here any more than a fly is an antagonist to a flyswatter.

There is no tension.

There is just this unending stream of facts, an unstoppable hero who can do no wrong, and way too many bit characters that have no bearing at all on what should be a plot.

Overall it's a failure.

There are good concepts in here but it just does not come to fruition because there is no art of storytelling being demonstrated whatsoever.
2942459
This book consists of a reporter visiting witnesses and getting their first hand experiences. This would be ok if only after you got interested in what they were saying it didn't abruptly end and move to the next person's experience. There are no chapters and it never really came to a conclusion.
2330713
It only has part of each story so if you want to know what happens you'll have to buy the actual book.
675022
I have read a good number of books on the Viet Man War, some actual true stories told by those that lived it and some fiction. This is  a very basic account of one soldiers time served there. No real story, a basic rewrite of his time spent.
616849
This book is basically a photo album with captions. There is not much of a narrative to the history.
1737154
This fictional account is long on rhetoric, short on historical accuracy.  It's bias is incredibly obvious, with only little value.
4654207
While highly entertaining, this doesn't actually focus much on the truth. In fact, this book would be more appropriately billed as 'fiction' as much of it simply is that. It's difficult to explain: it's a good story but nothing if you want the real story.
566313
The good thing about this book is that it has brought a topic that most Americans don't learn about in school to a larger audience.
The problem is that it is a retold story without any scholarship. The 2 authors simply read other books and put the events into a new narrative.
Kilmeade also chooses to read the book for audio, which is a bad idea as he displays his lack of nautical knowledge by mispronouncing words like "gunwale"
.
3032725
I chose this book because I had heard that it was something to be excited about once it was released, despite the fact that its very description didn't capture me from the get-go.

I admit the author writes beautifully and paints a vivid story, but my disappointment lies in the fact that a "point" was never conveyed in the story.  There was nothing I found riveting enough to make me want to continue reading this book other than the fact that I wanted to finish what I started.

The book tells a story of three Chinese women: 2 sisters and their mother.  Each chapter follows each woman separately until at some point they come together.  The problem is that each chapter seems like a short story in and of itself.  While the chapters all come together, you are still left with an empty feeling that the story of each chapter just abruptly ended and you're left wondering why the story was even begun as there is never an ending.  Perhaps that is the book's symbolic meaning about life, and if that is what the author intended, I commend her, but I felt cheated.

I will leave you with a single example: one daughter is driving her mother and a friend somewhere when it begins to snow.  You find out that a blizzard may be coming, but that the snow may then quickly clear up as they are headed to their destination.  Then the chapter ends, you don't know anything about their travels or if they incurred any troubles.  What is the point???  The book ends equally abruptly.  When I turned the last page I was truly shocked to learn that I wasn't about to start a new chapter and that it was over.  I never understood where the book was going.

I am sad to have to write such a negative review for a book written by an author who is clearly talented in her story-telling.  Maybe her future novels will be better developed.
866254
It is a specific story for a  specific audience. And it is also a one side look at someones life.