Ricarda Laasch

Get me a ticket to the moon

Reviewed: 01-17-18

Artemis is an amazing story, which blurres the lines between good and evil. The main character is a smart, sassy women with great plans and bigger flaws. She is a much likable as realistic.
The setting is beautifully built and the lunar city comes to live with a graceful ease. It is grounded in reality but projects a fantastic vision for a future full of tausends of shades of grey and layers of society.
The story is gripping until the end.
Everything that needs to be told is told - everything that can remain a mystery remains one.
I definitely crave for more stories of Artemis and its inhabitants.

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Entertaining tale for young readers

Reviewed: 11-29-17

First: yes, this is the book series the movies are based but the story/ stories and characters are fairly different from the movie. So if you start listening to these books be aware of this and open to differences.

Now: I highly enjoy listening to David Tennant reading these novels. His performance is amazing, engaging and highly amusing.
The story of the book is easy to follow without being boring or too predictable. I personally enjoy them as relaxing and funny short books to listen to. Of course they are designed for young readers and fit these criteria perfectly. So don't expect complex turnoff events or anything like this.
I am amazed by the detailed descriptions and thoughts the author put into all the different kinds of dragons. Discovering more of them and about them is really fun.

Overall I enjoyed listening to this book and I look forward to finding out how the characters further develop through more stories.
I would encourage listening to the books in order but I don't believe it is necessary.

Cara

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1 person found this helpful

Beautiful love story set in a stunning world

Reviewed: 11-13-17

Overall:
Daughter of Smoke and Bone is a beautiful novel that not only teenage girls can enjoy. The novel is engaging with brilliant highlights and darkest moments that offers everything from love stories to battle excitement. (I have read the whole trilogy – so my review is partially influenced by knowing the whole series – but I will not spoiler any details. So the review will be general and won’t name characters, places or events in the series.)

I will split my review into the following parts: characters, story arc, world-building, writing style and reader performance.

Characters:
I highly enjoyed the character development for all characters in the tale. The primary characters (I will not name them) are interesting and most importantly (for me) human – with good and bad sides. Also the minor characters have merits and flaws as well as their time to shine. I really enjoyed this balance between main cast and minor characters. Everybody in this book feels alive.

Story Arc:
The story arc starts slowly. The first chapters give you an idea of the world and the characters before everything changes. It is an inviting start to a wild ride that helps you prepare for the world you will enter. In the first chapters you wonder: where is she (Laini) taking me? And slowly it unfolds and before you know it you are in the middle of a wild ride. To keep my promise I can’t say what kind of wild ride but I can tell you I highly enjoyed the complexity of the story and the connections.

World-building:
Stunning – in one word.
Laini Taylor created a stunning urban fantasy world full of fantastic creatures, dark conflict, twisted mythology and strange cultures. I especially enjoyed her world-building. It is a beautiful mixture between human mythology and new ideas. She creates a world that feels vibrant and strange without being too far removed from our world.
I don't want to go into too much details but for me this mixture is also a great fusion of genres. I am not going to say more about it here.
If you enjoy interesting worlds – Daughter of Smoke and Bone is the right place to go.

Writing Style
I enjoyed Laini flowery writing style. It is full of meaningful metaphors and colorful description. If you like your novella in a more cleaner/ clearer writing style, you might not enjoy the novel as much as I did. I personally think her writing style is very vibrant and is extremely fitting to tale itself.

Reader Performance:
Khristine Hvam does a wonderful job narrating the story. I am very new to audio books and needed to get used to the idea listening to a book. I love to hold the book in my hand, and it was a big step for me to change the format. So I was most critical about this part. I actually own a physical copy of the book - just in case I would not enjoy the audio version.
If you are like me, you will be very pleased to hear that the performance is wonderful and I really enjoyed to listen to the book.
It was a good start for me to get into audiobooks. Hopefully other narrators can keep up the great quality.

I guess this all I can say about the book without talking too much about the details and story development.
Thanks for reading.
Cara

This review is an “AUDIBLE 20 REVIEW SWEEPSTAKES ENTRY”

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