Too Long, But Not A Bad Read
341914
Many novels get off to a great start and end with a bang leaving a huge sag in the middle. The List doesn't suffer from that malady, however, it suffers from one equally bad.

It takes a little time setting up the story, but once you've met the characters and understand their environment, then it gets moving along quite nicely. The biggest problem, though, is the ending. It is much too long.

I was with the author right up until it took forever to bring it to a close. The fight sequences never seem to come to an end. You think the story is drawing to a close, then another clone (the 21st century version of the zombie) pops up. It just goes on and on forever. The author could have cut it short about 40-50 pages and it would have been a better story.

That said, The List is based on a great concept. The characters are funny and the humor adds a great touch to the seriousness of the plot. There are details that I would find questionable about some of the facts within the story and the very limited (thank God) romantic hints between two of the characters I found completely unbelievable.

I wouldn't buy this book in print, but for $3.99 in digital format, it's worth a read. Just don't expect to buy the story lock, stock, and barrel.
3132769
Nathan Hill has written a very episodic novel that's about two hundred pages too long. At times he gets mired in his plot design, and this story of old hippy who was forever scarred by her experiences at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago and her estranged college teacher son wanders in various directions- some well written and quite humorous and others sort of ho-hum that sound as if they could have been taken from another novel but inserted here to fill up space.  Too much space.
3000973
Good plot but the read was a little too long. Good description of characters and scenes.
3643392
There's a lot I liked about this book, and a lot I found tedious.  There's plenty of action and twists & turns that kept my interest.  Some of the plot is plausible (such as intense rivalry between company presidents) but many plot details are not (there are so many "incidents" it's a wonder the characters could function at all!).  The book is long, and although there were exciting parts, the book could have wrapped up sooner.  On the Kindle forum, there was some "controversy" about a particular sex scene and whether the book should have been tagged pornography.  I didn't find this scene to be either erotic or repulsive; in fact, one of the characters called it "laughable" and I found that to be an accurate description.  There were also some editing errors and I can usually overlook them.  I do, however, get irritated when a wrong character's name is used, and I did find that one time in this book.

But, for all its shortcomings, I still give this book a four star rating because the pace was exciting, it kept my interest, and I simply enjoyed it.
2101408
It was not a bad read. Some chapters are a little longer than needed. Overall it was an OK book.
1102367
A bit overlong in the beginning. An excessively detailed story of survival for most of 300 pages, but fascinating down the end. Worth the time and effort to read, though barely.
464091
It took me a while to get into this story, and even then at places it was tedious, but I kept reading it. Something kept me interested. I did enjoy the book and the ending was as expected. but still surprising.
4240333
I really did like this book, although it was too long.  I got tired of reading about him getting drunk, being sick, and hungover.  The story was good.
1306012
This is a good book, except it is very long. This is the first book I have read by this author.
1331707
This was a good book, but a little too long. By the end, I was just glad it was finished.
2788686
It was definitely an interesting read. Unnecessarily long, but still interesting.
4021101
This is Rice's strongest book so far, but the plot is too convoluted, which results in the book running too long by about eighty pages. Some of the characters could have been developed better(I found myself going back pages in order to better recall certain characters). And there are just a few plot contrivances too many for my taste - leave that to Charles Dickens. This is beach-reading material, not a must-read book.
4549624
Positive:  Well written, intriguing story
Negative:  too long, ending predictable
3125634
It was a good read but the length of it was a bit too long.  I don't think you have to describe every little detail and the characters are a little hard to separate.
3360374
I began reading this book and really liking it. At the end, I still liked it; however, as a lot of other readers, I found the novel too long. It wasn't a matter of not liking long books; however, I saw several sections that Tartt could have left out or abbreviated. They were unnecessarily detailed. Because of this, I don't see how the novel won a Pulitzer Prize.
3300057
This book felt unnecessarily long. I understand that this could be the author attempting to mirror the long and arduous journey Evelyn and her sisters are going through, but I don't think it was done particularly well.

First of all, for having lived thousands of years Evelyn is quite immature. She constantly is on the verge of slipping vital information (and often times does). I get that she's not used to trusting people besides her sisters, but she is full of herself; if you've been kidnapped and tortured and lost your purse during said kidnapping, do you really think it's a great idea to run off by yourself and try to withdraw money from a bank? No.

Second, there is a decent love story woven throughout with a potential for another. Evelyn and Rhett clearly are attracted to each other, which they both mention multiple times, and is pointed out to them by other characters in the book. There's only one sex scene, so it depends on if you're into that or not, but it felt like the timing was good and flowed just fine.

I did like the relationship between the sisters and Rhett's family. There's really only one plot twist in this, but the entire book is essentially Evelyn and her sisters running away from the Knights Templar, just like they have since the beginning of time.

Glad I got this for free. Not very interested in reading a sequel, but if you're into reading about Knights Templar, this might be fore you.
2403687
I really enjoyed the plot, but I wasn't crazy about how it was written. There were far too many chapters for such a short book. One minute your in the present, the next the past, then back to the present, then on to another character. I just think the story could have unfolded differently. There were also characters that were under developed, such as the neighbor, Cindy. The storyline is somewhat difficult to follow early on, but once Paula is introduced things start to pick up, and the story becomes more interesting. All in all, not a terrible read.