Repetetive, not Imaginative
586346
I bought this one based on a prior review about how the books are meant to be imaginitive and the children enjo y figuring out the story, but it's just the same set of pictures page after page.  All that changes is the color of the sock.  My child isn't engaged or interested and I can't really blame her.
4965947
An aptly chosen title: for the second time in a row, I am fairly disappointed with a Susanna Gregory`s Chronicle of Matthew Bartholomew... It may be that, was I to re-read the first chronicles, I would get similarly unhappy about the enormous suspension of disbelief required by the novels.

The current story actually reminds me very much of an earlier chronicle,&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/A-Wicked-Deed-Matthew-Bartholomew-Chronicles/dp/0751525448/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">A Wicked Deed (Matthew Bartholomew Chronicles)</a>, as the setting (a dispute about a succession in a remote village away from the University) is fairly similar. There are many many reasons why I find A Vein of Deceit highly implausible (warning, spoilers!): a plot involves an unlikely tryst between a Cambridge scholar and a back-country heiress, a Michaelhouse faculty turning into a greedy traitor, a pair of super-villains who freely terrorise the whole city of Cambridge by having won an earlier legal trial, a huge frequency of chance meetings, an equally large amount of related crimes, venture capitalism, acceptance of homosexuality (at a time homosexuality was punished by death) and of concubinage, a general freedom of women that seems incompatible with the time, geographic impossibilities like having no road to the nearby and bustling Haverhill (to the point the group from Cambridge gets lost on its way there), consecrated chapels used for raising poultry, &tc., &tc... The plot unravels in a messy way with new threads being continuously brought in. (warning, spoiler!) The (hidden) reappearance of Matthews' love in the novel is equally contrived and implausible. (As much as I was looking for it...!)

Overall, I did not get much pleasure from reading the novel and fear the inspiration of the author has dried out. (This was first written as a review in xianblog.)
4596033
Sadly (because I had high hopes for the series), I thought Imager was a dull, plodding tale. The story, narrated by young Rhennthyl, an artist-turned-Imager spy, just creeps along with little beyond descriptions of food, philosophy, social structures and basic Imager rules. The protagonist is too colorless and detached to care much about. His reactions to events good or bad are pretty much the same: unemotional, impassive, impersonal.

Rhenn does kill several people - accidentally or on purpose in self-defense (and for practice killing condemned prisoners) and it's of no more import than having to write an essay on jurisprudence or learn more Imager lore. It's all written in the same tone - whether Rhenn's just escaped an assassination or having dinner with his girlfriend.

(About the assassination attempts, there are so many - always stopped by Rhenn's mental shield - that they became humorous: Rhenn can't seem to stick his head outside Imager Isle without bullets whizzing by like pesky mosquitoes.)

Oddly enough though, the attempts on Rhenn's life aren't all that interesting even to Rhenn. He does ask around, at the Imager HQ's request, to find out who might be trying to kill him but he doesn't particularly change his daily routine. As for the Imager organization, they're apparently too busy imaging aluminum pots or whatever they do, to find out who's trying to kill Imagers every week. Or why would a very inexperienced Rhenn be conducting the investigation?

Even this lethargic tale sounds more exciting than it really is. Rhenn's days are spent mostly describing everything he's doing, eating, writing or thinking. It's really the author's way of tediously telling us this world's philosophy, magic, economics, social structure, foods, government, etc.

If this book were a tv series or movie, Imager would've been one episode or the first fifteen minutes. Maybe the following books become more interesting. I doubt I'll bother finding out.
3472401
Horror fiction is a tough game these days.  Pretty much every ghastly ghoul and spookedy spook has been played out so many times that finding something original is truly a rarity.  This isn't it.  This novel, while not poorly written, is a shallow rehashing of other (better) authors' ideas and plot mechanisms, empty cardboard characters who stumble around like actors in a SyFy Channel movie, and a post-credits "ooooh" scene that just feels stale.  Not recommended....unless you're 12 and wanting a basic intro to horror.
188618
I don't mind a simple concept in a simple movie, or the simple plot where the acting is okay, but it this one repeats such an over-used plot it becomes trite; not anywhere near as well as so many of the others.  I stuck it out, expecting maybe to be surprised, only to find it rather boring, trite, and repetitive with filler thrown in to give it the minimal length needed to be considered a movie and not a short. Really, the entire concept could have been done in 30  minutes instead.  I'm surprised only to find it being rated so well by other viewers.  Maybe are they all youngsters without having seen this concept a zillion times already?  Who knows.  Anyway, simple entertainment - don't expect even the slightest surprise.
13590
This book, or at least, its premise, seemed so promising, but as an avid mystery reader I did not find that it delivered on any of those promises. While not actually bad or anything that defied credulity, the plot still manages to become simplistic because the author relies more on coincidence than brain work on her detective's behalf.

On that note, Lavender and Woods have the faint whiff of cardboard about them, though perhaps they were fleshed out more fully in the first book - which I have not read. But they were very much generic detectives, or rather, generic Holmes & Watson knockoffs, and there was nothing even vaguely unique about him or what I hesitate to call his methods.

I found myself growing increasingly annoyed as it played out, not only because of the irritating nature of many side characters plucked straight from the Book Of Cliches (don't get me started on how gratingly banal her "mobs" are), but because unbeknownst to this reader, a romance was also part and parcel with the book. I found myself skipping over the scenes with Magdalena, who is herself a caricature, because I simply do not care to have my mysteries with a side order of romantic angst. It's an annoying trend in historical mysteries lately, that just when the plot picks up, out of the blue will come a chapter devoted to the detective's love interest, and the story veers off into soap opera territory from thenceforth.

Inevitably, that is what forced me to give up on this, even though I hate leaving books unfinished.
4734091
Yawn. An interesting premise is beaten into a coma by an endless stream of cliched writing, "fight" scenes pulled straight from a sub-par episode of "Xena: Warrior Princess" and a super-villian who would make Keyser Soze look like a purse snatcher. Unbelievable, two-dimensional, predictable and boring. Plus, Baldacci's voluminous, sexist descriptions (there are dozens of them strewn throughout the book) of the main heroine's body would be offensive if they weren't so outrageously overblown (and I'm a guy).
4202909
"Safety Not Guaranteed" has garnered myriad positive reviews both here and on Rotten Tomatoes. So this movie seemed a safe bet for 90 minutes of escape and distraction. Yet we found it both unengaging and offputting ultimately.

Let's start with the plot, a quirky enough premise that sends a trio of unlikely compatriots on a quest to find who is placing classified ads for a companion to time travel. Yet the more the idea unfolds, the more unlikely it seems that the main character could really pull off such a feat as we see him in action. The subplots range from annoying to inane, really mostly dead-ends that do little to support the main theme or offer the characters much to do other than be boring or annoying.

None of the characters really seem like folks we could ever connect with, and their lack of chemistry around each other just adds to the lackluster tone and energy of the movie.

By the time the climax rolls around, it is hard to care what happens to anyone, much less believe that this time-travel flick is the real deal.
3959829
Unfortunately, there are many writers who have talent, but no subject to write about. So they turn to fashionable fads and the emptiness of life to create stories so absurd and pointless that the reader (unless he or she shares that same emptiness) leaves out totally... well, empty. The only reason I'm giving this book two stars is because, as I said, Noteboom can write, and because there are several clever and even bright sentences in the book. The subject seems to be the Death of God in modern life, and it is an interesting one, only the author should have written a philosophical essay instead of a narrative.

Inni Wintrop is a lonely man totally estranged from his family. One day an aunt arrives and introduces him to an ex-lover, a man also estranged from his family and from the world. This man has a very cheap, infantile, Greenpeace-like anti-human environmental "philosophy". This man has replaced God with Nature and a neurotical daily schedule. Years later, Inni meets the man's son,  an Indonesian who pathetically follows each and every oriental New Age philosophy (until he commits suicide).

In the first chapter, entitled "Interlude", the author tells us the story of how Inni lost his wife, because he got to bed with other women and never paid any attention to her (strange, so, that she leaves him).

That's the book, disconnected clever musings about how God doesn't exist and how lonely we are in this cold world. No character is deep or likable in the least, there is no plot nor conflict nor anything but the repulsive contemplation of people with nothing to do but gaze at their navels and look for stupid rituals to supplant God. None of them even have real jobs.
3201174
There was no world building, the characters were two dimensional and the language/dialogue was uninspired at it's best (ridiculous at it's worst). The authour claims that there was no cheating, and yet, there was. There was the intent to deceive and no real problem solving, just hormones and a weak excuse for romance.
1604355
This is a story of superficial friendships, deceits of marriage and the monotony of not belonging. In his essay about the novel the author notes that his early efforts with The Expats were almost entirely boring. So he added espionage and character duplicities to make his book more exciting. I wish I had known that before taking on this book.

Restructuring this a chick-lit book this may have been a better choice. As an "international thriller" it fails completely. Mixing in stories of day trips to Paris and Amsterdam can't make the protagonist's boredom any more interesting. The characters are duplicitous enough, but not in any interesting manner.  Most of the suspense is in the imagination of the characters.

This is a nice, well-written book, but it's not an international thriller. Luxembourg is boring, but it's not this boring.
4185354
*Spoiler Alert*

This was a boring, unbelievable conspiracy story with mediocre writing. The plot is so far-fetched that it is ludicrous. There's no suspense and far too much predictability. The romance is tepid and the "hero" lackluster and rather juvenile. The heroine, Sybylla, entrusts crucial evidence to a trusted friend, Susu, (oops! evidence tampering).  Susu conveniently leaves the evidence for Sybylla at the gym right before Susu is murdered. Susu is not that stupid! She would have returned the evidence to Sybylla immediately and given her the results. Sybylla now realizes she is in danger. She knows that she must make the evidence public in order to be safe. She tries to do this at Trent's trial, but then Trent dies. More danger! But does she go to the police? Call a press conference? No. She keeps the evidence hidden in her purse so the bad guy can later find it and destroy it.

The writing doesn't help. Korelitz has a difficult time transitioning from a flashback to the present time, confusing the reader. One of the most important principles of fiction writing is to "keep the reader in the story." The following is an example of writing which goes back and forth between past and present and makes no sense:

The court is in session for jury selection for Trent's trial. The DA, Greer, approaches Sybylla and extends his hand. "Sybylla's throat tightened in distaste. Unbidden, the memory of Greer and his buddy....leering at her from the dim corner of the Hyperion Club dining room reconstituted itself before her eyes. In her annoyance, she forgot completely to accept Greer's hand, a nonevent later inflated by the attending press into TRENT ATTY SNUBS DA."

Reconstituted? It makes me cringe. But can you figure out what happened when? It appears that the flashback annoyed Sybylla so that she didn't shake hands and the press exploited it with a headline. But when you keep reading the paragraph:

"Sybylla had, after all, just been having a perfectly visible row with her father..."

Well, the fight with her father took place at the Club. So are we now talking about a handshake at the Club (past) or in the courtroom (present)? Sounds like the Club. But she only saw Greer briefly at the Club. There was no interaction between them. And certainly no reporters since the Hyperion Club was extremely exclusive.  So she must have refused to shake hands in the courtroom, right?

No. A few sentences later, we find:

"Greer hadn't withdrawn his hand and it stuck out....which Sybylla now dutifully shook."

So where's the snub of the DA when the Trent attorney didn't shake his hand?

There was more mystery in figuring out the writing than there was in the plot.
1884364
Starts off with an exciting opening chapter but slides into the dumpster by the middle of the book and I stopped at page 325. Characters enter uninteresting environments like hotels and offices, none which contain zombies. All of the dialog in this book is childish and there is rarely meaningful conversation. The first person inner-monologue is descriptive of the world they live but not particularly engaged to the mystery. I never felt like the reporters were discussing or trying to solve much. Extra characters don't seem to have much personality. The author does repeat certain ideas frequently, like Georgia's eye condition, and the repetitive blood tests. I liked some of the ideas of this book, especially the zombie reporting team. The worst parts of this book were detailed descriptions of dead children and pets, none which helped the plot. Kinda sick and not entertaining. Maybe this series is just too slow. Usually I come on amazon only to give good reviews. Not this time. I had to stop reading this book because it was too boring.
2204222
The plot of this book is set in a mental hospital which apparently has no oversight whatsoever, which is at its core hard to believe.  It attempts to be about a central character introduced in the beginning of the book who gets totally lost in chapter after chapter of the activities of those employed within the "Asylum".  It is repetitive-explaining each characters view of events until you begin to wonder if you lost your place or your bookmark was moved back.  It was boring and the story never really came together.  It was more like reading several stories of individual people.  There were a couple 'shadowy' figures inserted apparently to try to keep some level of mystery going but basically they failed.  I would not recommend this to any of my friends who value their time and hate wasting it when they could be reading something intelligent.
4210490
Don't want to be unkind, but neither author's grasp of characterization and dialogue's particularly strong. The most competent parts of the novel's the action and violence, especially near the end--rest of it is forgettable at best. And the romance's worse than shoehorned--it's downright extraneous, and offers nothing to the overall story, except to artificially inflate the impact of the mass slaughter.
506499
A pedestrian hodgepodge of hackneyed cliches and prose that somehow manages to be both needlessly convoluted yet beyond simple-minded.

The plot, of which is expounded upon in painful detail (multiple times), does not feel restrained to the confines of time and space, as the tense seems to change for no real reason. Even if you have read the Hunger Games, however, there are still surprises to be had, in the same sense that opening a treasure chest and being eaten as a mimic can be "surprising." The "surprises" came in the form of strange plot twists that are so detached from basic logic that you couldn't possibly see them coming.

The eponymous "doge" barely qualifies as a side-character. The "lobster" and "cat" described on the back are mentioned in approximately one sentence and promptly forgotten. Dialogue is literally copy-pasted, just in case you've managed for forget the plot points detailed just paragraphs ago. Punctuation is sparsely used and in some places entirely absent. Characters drop in and out like a game of Goldeneye where you have five friends and four controllers. The conflicts are handled similarly, such as in the case of a vicious snake (An excerpt: "Really!" Oh no it's a snake!"Says Craig "I hate snakes" I said.) that is forgotten in the very next sentence.

It is the 49th Annual Reaping Games, which take place in the year 102214, 95 years after the 33rd Annual Reaping Games. You wouldn't know that this series takes place 100,000 years in the future, as the characters are watching the Simpsons on television. It's plausible, however, that it hasn't really been 100,000 years, as Mr. Brown plays fast and loose with the concept of chronology.

In short, I believe I put more thought into writing this review than the author put into this book. And it shows. What's worse, it ends on a cliffhanger (sort of), with a dire warning to beware a dangerous new enemy that lurk in the shadows. Perhaps some of the many, many questions that were raised will be answered in the next installment of this series. Definitely looking forward to the sequel!
2631907
Despite several well crafted passages, Andahazi has spilled an overblown, puffed up imitation of contemporary European fiction in his first novel. Like so much in his native Argentina's culture, the author, failing to find  his own voice, has aped the Continental greats. This is simply a foolish  imitation of The Name Of The Rose, lacking both subtlety and  sophistication. Far from being a novel of ideas, or even erotic fiction,  this would be parable is so stuffed with postmodern platitudes and poor  characerization that it collapses from the dead weight inane contradiction.  Here is a hint, if a dust jacket reads, "In the tradtion  of.....," skip the imitation and read the original.