Book of the Month - Merged

khalid

khalid

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Spoilers, don't read if you haven't finished the book.
The book felt somewhat mediocre to me.

I was really expecting more of a "science" angle to this. 2 of the 4 "main characters" are scientists. Yet they don't do pretty much anything with the knowledge. The only time their degrees and position really even plays into anything outside of being involved in the initial infection, is being able to use the emergency blood sticker to park anywhere! The pathogen and how it works isn't examined by the doctors themselves pretty much at all, though eventually they get some second-hand talk about it.

On the character front, the whole "divorced parent worried he was going to lose his kid" and the crisis leading to his losing custody just felt very cheap and artificial. Ephraim himself though, as well as the Prof and Vasility are at least given decent backgrounds and have distinct voices. However, the 4th main character, the second in command of canary and the love interest, is pretty much given no voice and no important role. Is even saddled with the kid before the final fight.

Lastly, on the plot, it seemed silly that they were going around killing the 4 that were awake. Unless I missed something, that seemed like such a waste of time. You have hundreds of others out there, and you are going around killing a few at a time? It was absurd. Go and hunt the Master, or go and try to warn the public. Going around and killing those 4 was such a silly waste of time that had no significant effect at all on the spread. It would be like going and treating 4 flu victims in the middle of a flu outbreak and ignoring all other cases. Anyway, even if the Master had been killed, it still seemed like NY was completely fucked and therefore the entire US to follow. It was hard for me to care about whether or not the Master dies, knowing that it still wouldn't do much at all to stop the infected. Killing patient 0 of a flu epidemic does fuckall to stop it. Maybe I missed the Prof saying something about all of them dying if the Master did? Even if I did miss that, then that would be even more evidence that they should have been going after the Master initially, not going around to random homes.

Anyway, sound pretty negative but really I did enjoy it decently. Was just expecting more.
 
K

Ko Dokomo_sl

shitlord
478
1
I really liked it, it is a fun and fast read. But IMO, you could read The Passage by Justin Cronin, a bigger trilogy, and get a better story.
 
chaos

chaos

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I finally finished it. I liked it. Not sure if I am invested enough to finish the trilogy, at least not right now. But overall it was good.

I agree with a lot of what khalid said, except for killed the 4 that were awake, they were doing that hoping they could find some kind of lead on the Master. At least that was the impression that I got.
 
A

a_skeleton_03

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The problem I have with the book was that it read too much like a screenplay at a time.

Some of the settings were written like it was for them to build a set based on.

The content was ok but the writing style wasn't quite the cleanest.
 
chaos

chaos

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Yeah he did go into a lot of detail on some of the locations that really didn't need it, and it seemed that level of detail didn't fit the story. Just out of nowhere, a Better Homes and Garden's article embedded into the book about this location, and then back to the action. Better to go light on that stuff, but having never read a screenplay I never would have made that connection.
 
Lusiphur

Lusiphur

Peasant
595
47
I am afraid I have given up. It was just a bit too generic creeping monster plague to me and I didn't like the characters that much. Got about 65pc in and then got distracted by the new Scott Lynch.
 
Zodiac

Zodiac

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We doing a November book? I like these BotM because otherwise I pretty much always read the same type of stuff.
 
Agraza

Agraza

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khalid covered my opinion of the book.

I felt like the first 1/3 of the book could have just been cut. Have it start with the fat man running through the city. There was a lot of miniscule detail that I didn't care about, the characters fit into cliche archetypes, etc. As film, several pages of descriptions would have flown by in seconds, but as a book, it was a frequent drag.

It definitely wasn't the worst thing I've read, but if it weren't for this thread I probably wouldn't have finished. I don't mind being exposed to it though. I like fantasy crossed with contemporary technology/culture, but this wasn't my cup of tea.
 
chaos

chaos

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Zodiac_sl said:
We doing a November book? I like these BotM because otherwise I pretty much always read the same type of stuff.
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Yeah we'll do something. Since a_skeleton_03 has let baby jesus cry once again, I'll come up with something over the weekend and post it for voting by Sunday night. If anyone has suggestions please send them to me. I'm not really big on current releases so I was thinking I will roll over the runner up from last month, I will pick one classic book, and a few recent releases from differing genres. If anyone has any further ideas please let me know. I may try to do a theme like a_skeleton_03 did last month, that was a good idea I think, but I'm not sure I can come up with something good.
 
Void

Void

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I got distracted with stuff like the Lynch book so am only a little over halfway through this one right now. I haven't clicked any of the spoilers, but from the general comments above, it isn't really grabbing me either. It isn't horrible, and I'll finish it, but I'm not dying to read it either. Like Agraza, I certainly don't mind being exposed to it, and being only halfway done I can't say for certain, but I doubt I will continue the series unless something really awesome happens. And the lengthy descriptions (including what food they are eating) has always turned me off. I skim past all of that in every book I read because I don't give even half of a fuck. This book isn't as bad as a lot in that respect, but I could still do without a lot of it.
 
A

a_skeleton_03

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TV-Show HBO -The Leftoversby Tom Perrotta



the_leftovers.jpg



What if?whoosh, right now, with no explanation?a number of us simply vanished? Would some of us collapse? Would others of us go on, one foot in front of the other, as we did before the world turned upside down?
That?s what the bewildered citizens of Mapleton, who lost many of their neighbors, friends and lovers in the event known as the Sudden Departure, have to figure out. Because nothing has been the same since it happened?not marriages, not friendships, not even the relationships between parents and children.

Kevin Garvey, Mapleton?s new mayor, wants to speed up the healing process, to bring a sense of renewed hope and purpose to his traumatized community. Kevin?s own family has fallen apart in the wake of the disaster: his wife, Laurie, has left to join the Guilty Remnant, a homegrown cult whose members take a vow of silence; his son, Tom, is gone, too, dropping out of college to follow a sketchy prophet named Holy Wayne. Only Kevin?s teenaged daughter, Jill, remains, and she?s definitely not the sweet ?A? student she used to be. Kevin wants to help her, but he?s distracted by his growing relationship with Nora Durst, a woman who lost her entire family on October 14th and is still reeling from the tragedy, even as she struggles to move beyond it and make a new start.



Posting schedule:

Book thread posted 1st of the month.
Reading begins 8th of the month.
Spoilers lifted 22nd of the month and next month's poll opens.

No posts from 1st-7th about the book or plot, can only post that you're participating.
 
A

a_skeleton_03

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I apologize for the late submission and the slight laziness to it.

We had quite the voting last month and school got me a little distracted and the topic I picked just wasn't working for this month so we are going to do the runner up from last month. There were two runner ups but this is the one I would have voted for so that would have made it the lead so we will go with this one
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I hope it's a good book. December will be better.

My theme right now for December is Non-Fiction STEM (One book for each letter) and needs to be understandable by lay people so if you have a suggestion PM me them.
 
S

Seventh

Golden Squire
892
15
oldthread.jpg

I'm reading Blood Song right now and it's definitely BOTM-worthy. About halfway through and it's awesome.
 
chaos

chaos

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If anyone needs help finding a copy of the book please send me a pm or send one to a_skeleton_03.
 
khalid

khalid

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I read this during the last month's book club as I had bought it thinking it had won. Had quite a few issues with it.

I didn't really like this book at all, for quite a few reasons. Since it was a month ago that I listened to this, bear with me with the lack of names.

Starting off, I didn't empathize with pretty much any of the Leftover people. They were either far too self-pitying or ridiculously understanding. The lead father and his daughter were essentially abandoned by his wife. Yet he shows no anger at all, and neither really does the daughter. Bullshit. In fact, pretty much everyone was totally understanding of these weird ass cultists and I didn't buy it at all. Only a handful of people showed any anger at these people and those honest reactions were shown as unsympathetic or evil. Then almost the entire book was a leadup to the father possibly sleeping with his daughters friend. Then, that is resolved in her just being gone in the next conversation and no actual showing of her packing up. The friend's character arc was actually one of the most interesting, but then abandoned at the end.

The wife herself, didn't buy her actions at all and was disgusted by the end of that sequence. Both didn't care about her character since I found her unsympathetic for abandoning her family and also didn't buy that she would do what she did at the end.

The whole "hug movement" thing was pretty silly and the resolution was even more out there. A large portion of the book spent on the son crushing on the cultists wife, only for the wife to join another cult and him to take off with the kid? Abandoning the kid at his parents doorsteps and then the lady that lost everyone adopting it?


I felt like pretty much all the plot arcs ended like shit or without resolution. Which may have been the point, since we don't get a resolution on why the people left either. If that is the case, fuck the author because I want to read a novel, not read some silly artsy point he is trying to make. That probably sounds angrier than I really am. I thought his writing was pretty good, just I hated every element of the plot structure and most of the character reactions. Anyway, hopefully next month's is better.
 
K

Ko Dokomo_sl

shitlord
478
1
khalid_sl said:
I read this during the last month's book club as I had bought it thinking it had won. Had quite a few issues with it.

I didn't really like this book at all, for quite a few reasons. Since it was a month ago that I listened to this, bear with me with the lack of names.

Starting off, I didn't empathize with pretty much any of the Leftover people. They were either far too self-pitying or ridiculously understanding. The lead father and his daughter were essentially abandoned by his wife. Yet he shows no anger at all, and neither really does the daughter. Bullshit. In fact, pretty much everyone was totally understanding of these weird ass cultists and I didn't buy it at all. Only a handful of people showed any anger at these people and those honest reactions were shown as unsympathetic or evil. Then almost the entire book was a leadup to the father possibly sleeping with his daughters friend. Then, that is resolved in her just being gone in the next conversation and no actual showing of her packing up. The friend's character arc was actually one of the most interesting, but then abandoned at the end.

The wife herself, didn't buy her actions at all and was disgusted by the end of that sequence. Both didn't care about her character since I found her unsympathetic for abandoning her family and also didn't buy that she would do what she did at the end.

The whole "hug movement" thing was pretty silly and the resolution was even more out there. A large portion of the book spent on the son crushing on the cultists wife, only for the wife to join another cult and him to take off with the kid? Abandoning the kid at his parents doorsteps and then the lady that lost everyone adopting it?


I felt like pretty much all the plot arcs ended like shit or without resolution. Which may have been the point, since we don't get a resolution on why the people left either. If that is the case, fuck the author because I want to read a novel, not read some silly artsy point he is trying to make. That probably sounds angrier than I really am. I thought his writing was pretty good, just I hated every element of the plot structure and most of the character reactions. Anyway, hopefully next month's is better.
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I agree with everything Khalid said, except for that was what made it work for me. It felt like a world where all the normal rules of human interaction were off the table by this one event and everyone was slowly creaking towards a blind nihilistic ending. And all because some small fraction of people disappeared. To me, it felt like the crux of the novel was about how removing a few cards from the tower can bring the whole thing down, or twist it in strange ways.
 
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