Becca's Book Bonanza!

ugh, this book left me so irritated!

The premise of this story is that there are 7 people chosen for the pilgrimage to the Shrike, who is kind of a f'ed up god on Hyperion who loves murdering people for seemingly no reason. These 7 pilgrims will all make a request to the Shrike and he will choose one of their requests to fulfill, and then MURDER THE REST OF THEM D:

This entire book was their journey to Hyperion on their way to see the Shrike. The 7 pilgrims are all confused why they were chosen for the offering since they don't seem to have anything in common. So they go through one by one to tell their stories so that they might be able to find some common thread. In this book, we only get 6 of the stories from the pilgrims and they still haven't come to any conclusions on what ties them together and I'm just as confused as I was at the beginning as to what this all has to do with anything.

Out of the 6 stories I despised 3 of them, and enjoyed the other 3. It was very miserable to get through the stories I despised. And I was left wondering who the heck would be able to verbally tell stories with so much description. When people are telling stories, do they really describe every detail of what something looks like? I don't think so. And one of the stories was sooo much TMI, I just couldn't believe someone would tell random strangers some of the things that happened in their life.

The thing that really grinded my gears though, was that absolutely NOTHING happened in this story! They haven't even met the Shrike yet, and there were no conclusions made about how the people relate to each other. This entire book was just us getting to know the main characters. A huge book of nothing. I don't even know if I'm interested enough to find out what happens in the next book. Maybe I'll look it up online

I am in love with this book! I think this is now added to my favorites list.
I have never been so scared by a book before as I was by this one, and I'm a huge fan of horror books. Highly highly recommended.

so so good, from beginning to end.

terribleeeeeeee

ugh, this book!
I am torn what to rate this book, because I really love Todd and Viola, but I did not like this book at all! I feel like this book didn't accomplish anything. The entire book was basically Todd and Viola being separated - Todd and Viola being reunited - Oh wait the mayor/president has thwarted them again! - torture torture torture - Todd and Viola being separated - Todd and Viola being reunited - etc etc etc. Over and over.
This book was so painful and exhausting... I am seriously debating whether I want to read the 3rd book in the series or not!

2.5 stars - Pretty simple story, and the main character is so annoying! Also, love triangles can diaf. I will probably still finish the series though because I'm oddly interested to see what will happen even with all of the above :P

really enjoyed this, as displayed by my crazy yelling out loud during the last chapters. So excited to see what happens in the rest of the series :)

I can't say enough great things about this book. The problems I had with the pacing of the first book were long gone in this one. Even in the "slower" parts of this book I was still on the edge of my seat dying to find out what would happen next. Every single character grew so much and I can't think of any of the main characters that I don't love now. So much is set up for the future books I cannot WAIT for the next book, ahhh!

This was a different one in terms of rating for me. For 75% of the book I was thinking it would be a 3 star, but then finally a bunch of pieces all started falling together in the last quarter of the book and I could all of a sudden see where the entire series was going and I liked what I was seeing :)

The first 3 quarters of the book were good story telling and I was interested, but I was kind of lost since I didn't know what the point of it all was. I didn't know where we were being taken with the story and that left me without any sort of urgency to read the story. It was interesting and I was into it, but it was a definite 3 star during the first 3/4 of the book.

The last quarter made all the pieces fall into place though and I loved it. I am now super excited to read more and find out more about this universe and characters and see how this is all going to play out! It's going to be epic I'm sure

this book was very interesting but fell a little short for me. There wasn't a real direction with the story, more of just a snapshot of life with no real story movement or progression of a plot. I did enjoy seeing a girl who wasn't given everything in the story just cause she was the main character, though.

For most of the story I was so distracted by all of the symptoms of The Slowing, wondering if that is really what would have happened. I wonder how much research the author put into what would really happen.. if I would have known that she had done her research beforehand (maybe in a Author's Note or something) I think I would've been able to let go and enjoy the story for what it was more.

I found it odd that the ending ended in such a random time/place. Nothing was resolved and people were still moving through time. The book had no plot to really resolve and because of that the ending just felt like it was placed randomly.

I did enjoy it though, and I identified with Julia's voice a lot

4.5 stars -
I loved this book so much! Once the action got started I was just so excited to hear more about the story every single chance I got.

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The only thing that shaved off that half star was that the "twist" at the end was pretty obvious almost from the beginning. It started off as a "I know Mira likes to mess with her main characters, so Sal is probably a parasite". After that the whole book turned into me trying to figure out the logistics of how Sal is already a parasite. Once we met Adam and Tanzy it was pretty much solidified on how it happened. Even though I was expecting a twist from Mira, I'm feeling like it would have been pretty obvious to anyone even if they didn't expect shenanigans from Mira

Overall though, it was such a fun ride and I can't wait for the next book! Ahhh!

so many feels.. I can't even

What a super fun read :) I laughed out loud so many times, and then was on on the edge of my seat others. It was a great ride and I'm hoping he'll do another sequel some time in the future.

more of a 2.5 rating, but I'm rounding down cause I am just so irritated by this book right now :P

I was pretty disappointed by this book. I was not interested too much in either of the Now or Then stories. They both dragged on and on, without much change in pace. Also, I was very unhappy with Julien as a love interest. Yes, I liked that Lena was given time and space to mourn Alex, but then also allowed to move on.. but what a bore Julien was! I do not buy their romance at all. Ok, so I can see how he would be enamored with her since he hasn't had any experience with girls before, and she is pretty cool. But what the heck, he has no personality so I have no idea how someone would fall for him. And she said she was IN LOVE with him at the end of the book but also felt that it was too soon to talk to him about her mother. That doesn't sound like love to me. They are all professing their love for eachother at the end of the book, but it felt so juvenile and fake to me.

And THEN! The ending with Alex, yeah I was expecting that the entire book. You can never trust that a person is dead if they aren't actually shown as dead. Ever. And I knew that when they talked about the escape that he would be around sometime soon again. I was irritated that Lena never even had a hope that he was really still alive, even after the same exact situation happened with her mother but she found out that she was being held in prison for all those years. It isn't a great stretch that they would do the same to Alex!

And now I'm just dreading the next book cause I really don't want to deal with the love triangle and Alex being all angry and having to read about how Lena is torn. Really??? There is no choice here, Julien is a dud and obviously Alex is better, but I'm sure there will be much angst and I will get so irritated. So yeah :P I may take my time to start the next book

Finally! In this 3rd book, the over-arching storyline finally gets moving and I am being pulled in and wanting to find out what happens. And the romance finally evolved to a point where I started believing it. I felt like it was so unbelievable that Adrian would be into Sydney in the first couple books, but she finally started getting a personality in this book which is awesome and I'm feeling the spark between them more now. I'm really into this series now and can't wait for the next one :)