Reviews by Villiana

Will certainly be spoilers :)

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.”

I'm going back to the classics. My first contact with this book took place about 15 years ago, when this item included in the list of additional readings during my education in high school. I remember that it was for me a period of treatment with the assumptions each book as a necessary evil that someone tells me to read, interpret and even ask more, what color pants had character appears once... I remember "1984" as one of the few books made for me then a huge impression and I would have never thought that I would be a fan of dystopian future issues. So I decided to go back to this story and read it again.

A terrifying vision of a world in which everything is subordinated to the totalitarian rule of the Party, which is headed by Big Brother. Each member of the Party is under surveillance and in general his life and even his thoughts belong to the party and you cann’t oppose it, because the Thought Police waiting… There is also a beautiful concept of ' vaporised ' for those, who still think they are able to outsmart the Party, this word to this day triggers in me strangely unsettling feeling. About this, what is the Party perfectly realizes the main character, which in this sick world, however, has the courage to try to be human.

“Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”

Very shocking book. The Party has a way for everything to it government was constant, there are aspects of the falsification of the past, to secure infallibility - quite scary and action (torture in every possible meaning of this word) to destroy humanity and confidence in the infallibility of the Party - cruel and inhumane. No natural impulse, love, or free thought has no sense in the world created by George Orwell. Party straightens every case of insubordination, it will make a man feel like shit, betray everything and everyone, and the Party, before will score you a bullet in the head, make that you leave this world loving Big Brother...
Massacre!

“Under the spreading chestnut tree
I sold you and you sold me...”

Beware, it’s talking about ending!

Reading the description of this book, I thought that the whole can be really fascinating and I bought the entire trilogy to my collection, and after reading the first volume, I must admit that I was disappointed. I rate to weak seven stars, only because of the interesting idea for creation of the world.

And vision of the future in this book is really thrilling. A world where people think that love and feelings are terrible disease, that destroys humans and is the cause of all evil, a world where people voluntarily do procedure 'cure' of feelings and become blunt machines which go through life planned way, with partner chosen by the government and are "happy". All cases of non-compliance with the prevailing rules are eliminated, treated against their will, or closed in the crypts. But there is also a group of rebels who live outside the fence of safe cities, and in the city, pretending to be a member of ‘without feelings’ society.

And here, I think, ends up that I liked this book, because the whole story set in this exciting world was quite childish and I cann’t help feeling that everything was so... obvious. Any event that could shake me or surprise me, it was suggested earlier by the author, which was really annoying. It was obvious that the main character falls in love before surgery, it was obvious that Alex comes from the Wild, it was obvious they want to escape together, with more or less complications, it was obvious that Lena’s mother lives... a whole string of smaller and larger obviousness turned into rather barren history. Even same ending that Alex sacrificed for Lena, the author suggested, and when it’s said that the fence is electrified and Alex insisted that Lena didn’t look back... it was already known that will not a happy ending in this part. I'm glad after all of this turn of events, I have something to think about before reading the next part, at least for now, because through whole 'Delirium' wasn’t really something to think about, because everything was served on a tray.

On the plus side this book I can mention a lot of pertinent observations about love, loved the fragments of various books at the beginning of each chapter, everything was mature and thoughtful, and... absolutely don’t fit into the main character, as if she had some split personality, on the one hand immature child, on the other - woman with experience.

The big downside for me was the character of Lena, both for the reasons mentioned above, as well as the creation of the main character: a young, innocent, polite, a small brunette, not beautiful, but not ugly, just an ordinary, average, with artificially low self-esteem... yeah I puking probably figures like this in the literature. I know that many teenager personifies precisely with main characters of this type, they get their own self, but while reading it’s so damn boring!

I reach for the next parts, I have them on my shelf, but so far there's no sign of the fact that this will be one of my favorite dystopia story and that I will recommend it to my friends.

“I know that life isn't life if you just float through it. I know that the whole point- the only point- is to find the things that matter and hold onto them and fight for them and refuse to let them go.”

The last part of the ‘Tomorrow’ series is beyond me. I have to admit that I’m very sad that I had to say goodbye to the people with whom I spent a really long time and had time be make friends with them. I certainly reach one day for "The Ellie Chronicles" but that's probably not be the same.

There are views of the end of the war, a group of friends is full of hope and go into attack. In this part, it was really a lot of action and a whole had a good impression on me, but largely focused on the main character, the rest of the friends was here pushed into the background. There were many interesting and surprising events, was quite sad, sometimes frightening, but I couldn’t help feeling that a large part of the book the author cheating us and that the story ends well... and I wasn’t wrong. Maybe you cann’t call it a 100% happy ending, the ending was quite bittersweet, but I'm still expecting some larger tragedy, but it wasn’t.

Despite this, I think it's really interesting series, full of deep and relevant reflections, and certainly it’s one of the best positions for young people.

“Life’s about a hell of a lot more than being happy. It’s about feeling the full range of stuff: happiness, sadness, anger, grief, love, hate. If you try to shut one of those off, you shut them all off.”

"The Bone Season" was one of those books that I wanted to have on my shelf, so I bought, read and absolutely no regrets, and I even venture to say that I’m delighted and certainly positively surprised.

I'll start by saying that I rarely met in this type of literature with such an interesting main character. Paige is a tall blonde, which already was for me the big surprise, because most authors, as I could notice, prefer girls with dark hair (Katniss Everdeen, Juliet from Tahereh Mafi trilogy, Ruby from The Darkest Minds, Risa Ward from Unwind, Teresa and Brenda from Dashner’s trilogy). In addition, the character was quite strong, with an impressive character, at least for me. I followed events with pleasure and all her thoughts, far from being cloying, she seemed to be determined, confident, sometimes lost, but ready for action and sober thinking and focusing on what is important, so she seemed to me pretty damn alive and reliable . And that's a big plus. The downside were the characters of the second plan, I didn’t feel with them a closer contact. I had the impression that some of them just 'were'.

With respect to the books and action... start was terribly hard to wade. We are struck in the face large amount of information about the world in which the author wants to introduce us, that at least I felt totally overwhelmed, and sometimes even resigned, it was hard to comprehend so many aspects, I still refer to the glossary, retreated back a few pages, in my head appeared literal chaos. But the further I go into the world created by the author, the more entangled in her vision, until at some point, this story possessed me and I found myself on the fact that all day I walk around the house with the book in my hand and I use every possible chance to look into it. And the world described by the author was really interesting, and above all precise, contain a lot of detail and it was clear that it was well thought out.

Another fascinating thing was the relationship between Paige and Warden. Sometimes it seemed to me that they could sit for hours in a room and just talk, and I don’t lose my interest. I really felt all that was going on between them.

In conclusion, I’m very happy that this story will be continued, fascinated me the world presented by the author, it took a lot of time getting to know it, but thanks to it I think it will be for long in my memory.

“Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.”

Finally! I don’t remember from when I wanted to read this book and the moment finally come. Until now, I had the pleasure to read "Mist Trilogy" by the same author, the whole was not really my taste, but it definitely was a good novels and addictive.

I go to my feelings regarding same content "The Shadow Of The Wind"... I think, that the story was so interesting that even interested me, a supporter of sci-fi and fantasy books. Whole absolutely wasn’t my taste, I don’t like long stories of someone's life, the search for truth and hidden secrets and I with great skepticism sat down to read and then in one evening 100 pages was beyond me, and I wanted more. Then the action slowed and swallow me again when we get to know the story of Julian and Penelope. And their story was extremely sad and incredibly tragic. The style and language of the author, fancy, colorful, but also without exaggeration, I think Zafon skillfully combined their art, poetry with something more mundane, so the book can satisfy both the average reader, like me, and the reader who expects something much more. I must also mention that the Fermin character, his anecdotes and approach to life... I was laughing and crying at the same time. The other interesting thing: the book is a mine of great quotes.

But... as for me, disappointing ending. I expected something stronger. But perhaps this is the secret to a good end of it, that we don’t get what we expect.

I rate this book on eight stars. And certainly I read some other Zafon books and I will be happy to go in his magical world.

I like Four. I liked him in Divergent trilogy and I like him either now. But I'm not convinced about this book. With prologues is always one of the biggest problem - aren't particularly surprising, because everyone knows what happened next, and a lot of things from the past, it was already mentioned. And so it was in this case.

The whole 'Divergent' trilogy was for me very interesting and I really wanted to know what was before, so the first part of the book, when we meet Tobias, before he meets Tris was pretty cool, but there wasn't a lot of things we haven't know from Divergent. And when the action began to overlap with Divergent, it got boring. I expect that I will know more thoughts and feelings Four, but everything was there such a barren and obvious that I have a feeling unsatisfied.

I think that the book didn't bring much to Four characteristics, and to complete the entire trilogy didn't bring almost nothing.
I rate for seven only for the sake of sentiment to Four. The whole deserves in fact fetched six.

“It seems like suffering's the only time we can see what's essential.”

The sixth part of series. Five friends still hiding in main character grandmother's house. In young people are born instincts and behavior, which previously had no idea - a desire to help the youngest members of society, which are devoid of families are hiding in their area.

Whole of course is full of action, which is quite abstract, as in the previous parts and I don’t know if it doesn’t begin to irritate me. The release of the children at the hands of soldiers, daring action deliverance Homer using motorcycle, fighting with eight soldiers in the mountains... I was wondering if the characters of this book are not accidentally bulletproof. They have lucky, it’s fact, but the bullets flying around, there is a lot of dead bodies (in the ranks of the enemy of course), and they always come out alive. I'm not saying that in every part has one of them die, but I miss some time drama of this whole war situation. But I’m able to blind eye on what annoys me, because the whole is a really interesting and above all, a wise position for youth, contains so many thoughts and relevant conclusions, which really missing in contemporary youth literature.

Also Australian strangeness of nature adds a lot of atmosphere, which I haven’t mentioned even once wrote reviews from previous parts.

Now left for me with sadness reach for the last part of this incredible journey into the world of youth and courage, and I hope that I say goodbye to this book with a huge regret and tears.

“When it's all said and done, the only thing that matter in life are so damn simple. Family, friends. being safe and well. I think before the war a lot of people got sucked in by the crap on TV. They thought having the right shoes or the right jeans or the right car really mattered. Boy were we ever dumb.”

After a little break, which I filled out a bit more concrete literature, I came back to this saga, to see what happens next. I prepared myself mentally for it, or so I thought.

After reading the chapter number one, I realized it would be a difficult passage, because already in the first twenty pages appeared everything that annoyed me in the previous part, namely, after five days of torment returned from sleep inner goddess, lots of expressive shouting of the main character and Christian still over and over with this food... Additionally... five days? After such a spectacular break-up? ... and no more thoughts about their relationship, a box of flowers, helicopter flight and they indulge in desire again, again he is imperious, jealous, and she, of course, undergoes to him... I expected that, although give him in the snout, or at least her legs not softened right away, and nothing of these things... I guess she liked subconsciously spanked in the previous part :D And all this took place only 20 pages! Well... apparently life flows rapidly, you cann’t waste time, and I said A, so I had to say B and I waded into this further.

And then... the same thing over and over (he lifts her head, the goddess is doing weird things, overturning eyes, he is handsome and smells good, she is so pure and innocent, etc.), arguing about some bullshit, they have classic sex, sex with ice cream, and then she on top, and again... he puts her balls, all the time thinking about fucking, spanking and then he takes her from behind, then again classic, and again she on top, then at the bottom... do various other little interesting things.... No, boredom at its worst! Lots of hopeless dialogues about nothing, some seeds of side quests, even criminal, that disappear quickly as a fart in the wind...

I finish with this. Now I'm 100% sure that I don’t read the next part. Don’t even want to know how it will end, or they will live happily ever after, or long and unhappy or maybe he will die, or maybe both of them die, or his finger or other object stuck in her ass... I don’t care.

But I’m still of the opinion that the whole story had potential and could be something really brilliant, if not this awful language that effectively rejected me.

Spoiler, shows the ending!

The fifth part of the story about young people struggling with the new reality for them, during the invasion foreign forces in Australia.

Since the beginning of the war has passed a year, from eight friends left five, still trying to survive, but also do something to don’t be idle observers of this war, especially after the New Zealand refused to grant them asylum. Still rely on themselves, their courage, they decide to do something really big and dangerous. They struggle with the fear, are playing with death.

The first part of the book is bursting with action, which is also described interestingly enough, that sometimes I feel like I'm the participant in the events. Despite the slight absurdity of the whole situation at the airport, precisely this part after all made the time spent with this book was interesting, action kept in suspense until the end. Later, it became a little less interesting, but same ending the book was really surprising, it shows that you can never be sure of the behavior of others.

In addition, I am glad that these young people in some way reconciled with the fact that the reality in which they stuck since year is now their reality, they give up the luxury of safety and willingly decided to stay in their home country, to make for it even more.

“We’re home already.”

I’m very curious what will happen next.

The next part of this fascinating and incredibly instructive adventure behind me. Although I don't know if you can call it an adventure... rather a struggle for survival in the cruel world with not losing yourself in this whole situation.

The characters are experiencing more and more dilemmas regarding the war and regarding his behavior. They are tired, physically and mentally exhausted, they want the war ended, while desperately want to not be in all this idle observers. Trying to survive and not lose the spirit, even when things don't go their way, and the rest of the world doesn't have them too much to offer.

This part of the book, despite my fears, didn't share the schemes of the previous parts, bringing in a lot of new and I'm really curious what will happen next.

“It's good to keep changing your mind. It shows you're thinking. I'll only stop changing my mind when I'm dead. And maybe not even then.”