Dune is a rough start but the story definitely picks up. It's a pretty dense opening with the setup but whenever I recommend the book I always warn people to at least try to make it through the first third of the book for the story to take off. It's one of my favorite books, but even I struggled in the beginning on my first read.
I too didn’t like The Ocean at the End of the Lane, but everyone around me seemed to love it. I love how you’re so honest about what you care for and what you don’t. You’re genuinely recommending books to your subscribers that you have enjoyed, whereas a lot of the others booktubers seem to recommend books based on its popularity, and therefore, they are afraid to say anything negative about it. I like you. Subscribed!
Maybe that particular type of British humor isn’t for you. Between Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams, there seems to be a pattern. Paul and Jessica’s names aside, I flew through Dune the first time I read it. Will always be one of my fav sci-fi books along with Ender’s Game. I found all the political building at the beginning really intriguing. Dune is a vast world and I think Herbert really paved the way for a large scale sci-fi world. Even compared to contemporary works, I think he accomplished this better than most authors.
I haven't found a book by Neil Gaiman that I absolutely loved. It seems like from your reaction, Good Omens won't be a hit for me too, comedy in novel generally is very difficult to pull off.
I am struggling to finish it. I don't find it funny in the least. The writing is horrendous. The plot is all over the place. Random people keep popping up. I just want the world to end.
Thanks for your thoughts about preferences in books and pacing since reviews like yours are soooo helpful to someone like me who makes book trailers for comics where I compose original music themes and write narratives to entice readers and your comments about books help me make narratives to encourage readers. Most grateful!
I started Dune earlier this month because I saw your TBR video and thought I would give it a shot. It is a bit of info dump like at the beginning but this story has a lot of lore based on the glimpses I got from the appendixes at the end of the book. I am almost half way through and things have started to blow up and people have died so it picks up once you get passed the initial setups. The names are varied but I feel like that is more a division between the different factions at least that’s what I am getting out of it. Keep going with the book. It gets better!
I agree with The chosen one/savior vibe in Dune but by the end, I was questioning everything. I thought it was a fascinating portrayal of so many different aspects of human nature and motivation: power, religion, love, spirituality, science, economy, politics, and more.
Good Omens is one of the rare novels that made me laugh out loud (while walking on the street listening to the audiobook, getting weird looks). I hesitate to watch the show -the trailer looked awful- since I liked the novel so much. Dune turned out to be a decent novel but I don't see the big deal. I want to save something for the ending and the whole trope but worry about the spoilers. Life After Life turned out to be a fave for me. I'm not that much into science fiction (few exceptions) but the historical fiction part of it really appealed to me. I actually purchased the first of the detective series from the author right after finishing this one. The writing is just that much up to my alley. The celery thing interested me (I love celery in all forms, celeriac etc.) in the sense that it triggered a reaction. That doesn't happen to me very often in literature.
I also disliked The Ocean at the End of the Lane (haven't read Good Omens) but I loved Stardust by Gaiman. I'm currently reading American Gods by him too and liking it. Highly recommend Stardust if you give him another shot.
I've really struggled to like Gaiman,I haven't found much by him that I really like. I didn't find Good Omens very funny either! HOWEVER, I really genuinely liked Neverwhere by him. It's pretty short, so if you want to give him one more chance then I'd suggest that one!
Yeah, Good Omens wasn't for me either. The only thing I liked was friendship between Angel and Demon, and I thought that the whole book will be with them, but there were so many other viewpoints and characters I didn't liked at all it was such a disappointment😔
I'm currently about as far in Dune as you were at this point in the month and I really like it, but I never read sci-fi. So I think my bar might be really low and it's a breath of fresh air from my usual reading picks.
I spent much of Dune telling myself 'i should love this' but ultimately it felt like hard work. It started very slowly and I was tempted to DNF but then got it better for a while. I found it too dense in that i felt you needed to study a glossary to keep track of the strange names/places. Some of the ideas and the world building is great but i dont want to feel like I'm sitting for an exam whilst reading. I tried the audiobook, physical copy and both the movie and the syfy show and all felt like hard work. Despite all negatives i still want to like it, i can see so much potential and so i'm pinning my hopes on the new TV show
Yay! An Emily video! I was hoping you had some pre-filmed stuff. I really want to give Dune a shot but I'm really not sure if the long descriptions are going to be for me....I tend to mindlessly start skipping paragraphs when authors do that. I hope you're feeling okay!
Nice book recommendation. I recently read A monster calls by Patrick Ness, Appointment with Death by Agatha Christie and Mysterious Affairs at Styles by Aghata Christie. I'm currently reading two books- Anne of green gables by L.M Montgomery and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley I have review the 2nd book of Chronicles of Narnia by C.S Lewis. I wrote 3 poems in the month of May. I'm still writing a novel named Lost in the cloud castle. I'm also thinking to publish my beloved Harry Potter Poem in The Telegraph. Which editing software you use?? Love you😘
Yes! I have been feeling the same way with Dune, but it’s finally starting to pick up a bit. It’s been a struggle to get to this point though, so I feel your pain! I’m 320 pages in, so we will see if I can push through the rest before the end of the month. I’ve had a hard time getting into any Neil Gaiman book. I finally just accepted that his writing just isn’t for me.
Are you going to follow up with A God In Ruins? It follows Teddy, Ursula’s brother. I enjoyed that book, think I read it about 4 years ago when it first came out. KA is one of my fave authors. Have to follow up with her Jackson Brodie books. Currently reading my April BOTM Lost and Wanted.
Neil Gaimen can be a bit like Marmite. I loved Coraline, which is middle grade, but struggle with some of his adult stuff. Can be weird and graphic. I'll still read more by him. I enjoyed Good Omens.
I love Neil Gaiman and adore Terry Pratchett, so what I'll write next is probably heresy, but I hate Good Omens. I couldn't even finish it. So, yeah if you want to give Pratchett another shot maybe try his Discworld series, start with the city watch I think Sam Vimes might work for you.
'good omens' was the first book i read this year, i was excited to get into it bc at that point i heard so much praise about it, the summary sounded really fun and intriguing satire, plus at that point we already had the announcement of getting a tv show. but somehow i ended up being kind of like you? i gave the book 3 stars at the end because i truly found the set-up idea fun and i loved the angel-demon duo a whole lot, but besides that the story was just draggy with some povs i wasn't interested in and the humor was... a bit too theatrical? for my taste. i dunno how to explain it but while reading i kept thinking that i'd enjoy everything a lot more if it'd be a play or a tv show setting. like when a different medium suits a story better? and when the tv show came out and i watched it my theory was definitely proven for myself, i LOVED the tv show to bits, but the book/text medium i found a lot less enjoyable. so yeah i def get everyone who feels lukewarm about this book, not too bad but isn't that good of a time either. also i just gotta tell you that bc of your influence i put 'nevernight' back onto my tbr list. i had it on my tbr last year but before i could get down to it i had a friend who basically put me off of it with how much she didn't like it. but i really like your book opinions so now i wanna see what goes on with 'nevernight' and which opinion i'll end up vibing with.
I finished The Secret History on May 1st (haha so late to the game, but I did read Life After Life in April and that was good) and really enjoyed it, then read The Tattooist of Auschwitz which was sad but excellent, ruined things by pummeling through 9 Perfect Strangers (1 star) WHY, then switched to YA to recover with the Devouring Gray (4 stars). I'm now reading The Song of Achilles bc I loved Circe when I read it. May is a little all over the place.
I didn’t like Lifel1k3 as much as Illuminae/Gemina/Obsidio, but I’m still looking forward to reading what happens next in the series. I haven’t picked up Nevernight yet, planning to read it in August. But Illuminae and series were in my top five of the year I read them.
I feel the same about Dune. I stopped at the end of summer because school stared. I got about half way through. I’m gonna try to get back to it. I think it’s the writing that's awkward for me. There will be so much boring stuff and then some action will happen without any sort of lead in. It’s very jarring. And then the action will be over in a minute and I feel like I don’t know what happened.
Weird listening to someone roasting 2 of my favourite books: Good Omens and Dune! 😅 Now to be fair, knowing that you didn't like H2G2 I'm not surprised that you didn't connect with Good Omens. It's soooooo British and perfect in that regard (UK represent!). Also a tip for appreciating Good Omens: you need to have a reasonable knowledge of the Bible and of the book of Revelations (the apocalypse). Then it's truly hilarious because of how much it's messes up with the myths. 😛 Concerning Dune, I first read the original series when I was 15 and re-read it so many times since then it's become a part of me. It's not regular scifi, it's not action packed, it's not always coherent. It's highly political and spiritual/dreamlike very 70s-80s. If this is not your cup of tea generally, I don't think you'll like it either. I'm a sucker for anything that mixes genres in an unexpected manner, and as someone born in the early 80s whose first reads were old scifi books from the 50s-70s, Dune is all I ask from a book series. But it's definitely special and quite dated. 😊
I didn't dislike Lifelike that much (also read it because I loved Nevernight) but I didn't like it very much either. The romance was totally cringy (shocked that you didn't mention that, but maybe it's because you didn't care about that too :D ). I've just finished reading 'Aurora Rising' by Jay Kristoff (and Amie Kaufman) and it is for me like a mix of 'Skyward' (fun fact: in 'Aurora' there is once mentioned someone named Sanderson; I guess and hope it was an intentional easter egg :D ) and 'The Long way to a small, angry planet'. Liked the beginning, disappointed by the ending and in general confused about it. I'm really curious about your opinion, if you will read it.
Totally agree with you about LifeLike. But I did like the twist at the end and I plan to give book 2 a go. Overall it was like 2.75-3 stars for me. I recommend giving his other adult series Stormdancer a go. It’s definitely not as good as Nevernight but I really enjoyed it. I’m also really excited for his vampire series that comes out next year. I believe that is also going to be adult.
I read Dune years ago. Can’t remember The book being that big, it was a series so maybe you have the WHOLE collection. It does take awhile for the story to build, most of the beginning is the back story and history. But the book is mostly political base. So know your planets and people because they go back a forth A LOT that it can get confusing.
Dune's claim to fame is it's world building, so you're going to get a lot of long descriptions and background info. Make sure to use the appendix in the back to help keep track of what different words mean.
I usually like British Humor but Good Omens just... wasn’t for me. I felt the story tried too hard to be funny but it actually wasn’t. It’s a pity because books with funny footnotes are usually one of my favorite things in the world.
Finally. I was assuming i Was the only one who had mixed feelings over LIFEL1K3 .. I FINISHED IT LIKE IN A MONTH OR SO ... It was 'the book to resd back then' and i struggled to finish it off.. I am so glad to find someone else as iconic as you to have the same feel over the book. Please do try out "the puppet show" by Craven.
Also: I don't know if you've read any Vonnegut, but since you love sci-fi I recommend The Sirens of Titan (though I'm not sure if the humour will be to your taste, I LOVED it)
I'm only about a hundred pages into Dune right now but I've read it before like 5 years ago ; I'm quite enjoying it so far though I find it extremely dense and I struggle a bit with specific words in this world and with keeping all of the characters straight as there are quite a few :)
I listened to Lifelike a while back, and I had already read Nevernight. I found the narration a bit annoying but mostly, it seemed like Kristoff just took Nevernight and changed the world around. Otherwise, pretty similar story overall. Girl whose family was murdered? Check. Supernatural/robotic pet? Check. Betrayals abound? Check. Big “reveal” at the end? Check. I couldn’t be surprised by anything because it felt like he has a general outline that he just fills in with new character names and adjusts to fit the new genre 🤷♀️
I listened to Dune on audiobook. I actually enjoyed the audiobook because of the multiple narrators for different characters and the sometimes ambient noise, but I really didn’t care for the story. It just didn’t click. Some audiobooks I remember everything and some I can’t remember 5 minutes later and this was definitely one of the latter.
I don’t like Kristoff’s YA. I got thru Lifelike but I DNFed book 2 at about 30%. They aren’t bad; there’s just too much going on and I don’t care about any of it. I did read Aurora Rising and I liked it. BTW, I thought Godsgrave was better than Nevernight-hope you like it.
I knew you wouldn't like Lifelike. I crapped out after about 20 pages, it was awful. His Stormdancer trilogy is a pass too. I finished it but its not good. I''d stick to the adult stuff because it's WAY better.
I'm with you on the disappointment over Lifelike - I struggled with it big time which surprised me because I love Nevernight. Good Omens is OK, but I just didn't love it anywhere near as much as I love Terry Pratchett's discworld series.
I dnf’d Lifelike (it was boring, predictable, and some of the terminology of that new world really bothered me) 🙈 so I definitely get why you didn’t like it. But at the same time, it makes me hopeful that I might still enjoy Nevernight.
Dune feels so dry to me and it bores me to death sometimes. And then there's like a pretty good moment and I think "oh ok let me continue". I am currently stuck at book 4 in the series and I'm not sure I wanna finish.
I finished Dune last month and it took me almost 5 weeks to finish it. I've been struggling quite a bit with it, but I'm glad I can say that I've read it. I understand why it's such a cult classic, because a lot of popular sci-fi films/books borrowed ideas from that book. Still, I felt like there was no linear plot progression, but rather jumps from one situation to another with no transition. The writing felt very blunt as if someone was chopping the story into blocks. Anyway, I'm glad I have it behind. It was a long journey, but I'm definitely not continuing. There is a movie coming out soon.
I love Neil Gaiman, but I can't seem to remember anything about The Ocean At The End of The Lane, it was so forgettable to me. So I get that it didn't leave a good impression on you. You'd probably like The Graveyard Book and Neverwhere a lot more, they have more of his wonderfully dark spin.
You chose the worst Kristoff book to read. I have loved all his stuff except that one lol. I recommend Stormdancer. It'll be a bit slow at the start and the romance is bleh, BUT, they are amazing books.
Aw, sorry to hear you didn't like Good Omens. It is a very dry, sarcastic humor. It's more "the situations are funny because they're ridiculous" than "here is a joke." It is also likened to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, so I'm not surprised you didn't like it.
I read Dune in 1976/77 and was bored by it I only finished it because loads of people were telling me how great it was I havent read any other book by Frank Herbert . I got Good Omens from the library about 2 weeks ago and have started it twice I think I'm on Page 6 or so
I'm about 350 pages into Dune (I'm currently back on the waiting list at the library), and the action really picks up towards the end of the first section. It's a shame that the beginning is so slow and boring though, I feel like the book could have skipped a couple hundred pages and just started with Paul and his family arriving on Arrakis. I also don't like the the opening chapter excerpts from 'Princess Irulan' - I think they ruin the narrative tension. The first section would have been more interesting if I didn't already know who the traitor is. I'm actually thinking of skipping the excerpts going forward, but I haven't decided yet.
I’m thinking of rereading lifel1k3 because i’m pretty sure i won’t be liking it as much as before. Having said that, yeah don’t bother reading Aurora Rising which is his latest YA. It was also disappointing and a lot of readers (including moi), I believe, were more disappointed in Aurora Rising than LifeL1K3.
i feel the same way about good omens, i went into it with rly high expectation since its so popular and so many ppl seem to love it but yea i think the humour can be pretty hit or miss
I'm nervous to read LifeLike, which is probably why I've put it off for so long, and your review is not helping me to pick it up anytime soon. I started both The Expanse series (read Leviathan Wakes and Caliban's War, just picked up the third book from my library) and The Broken Earth Trilogy (I'm halfway through the Fifth Season right now), and I'm really liking both, and I'm actually already 3/4ths of the way through my reading goal for the year. The only thing I haven't been able to achieve is paring down my TBR, and that's because I've been reading books that aren't actually on it. Oh well; that just leaves me more to read next year.
I'm British and nothing made me laugh in Good Omens either! But yeah the show looks promising... The cast is good so it might bring it to life. I did love reading American Gods and would recommend it, although didn't enjoy the show at all. Go figure x
I enjoyed Nevernight and am waiting for Godsgrave from my library, but I struggle with calling it adult fantasy. The only factor that I felt made it “adult” was the explicit sex scenes. Why do you consider it adult instead of YA?
I just read One Of Us Is Lying by that author and hated it. Sounds like that one is along the same lines. The characters were so flat and it was all so cliche. Think I'll take this one off my tbr now.
Have you read the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells? It's a series of 4 novellas with a really sarcastic, socially awkward main character, I think you'd really enjoy them! And they are on Scribd with the audiobooks :)
I think I’m the minority on this, but Dune was just okay for me. There’s a part where s#!+ goes down and it’s good, but then totally changes gears and turns into something else. I’m a person that’s not really into descriptions and this book had A LOT of descriptions. I appreciate the impact dune had for the sci-fi genre, but it just wasn’t for me 🤷♀️
I understand it being a little description oriented in the beginning but Dune has a lot going on. It's hard for authors that wrote over 10 years ago to use the same politically correct terms. I'm sure authors from the past would consider much of today's writing awkward as well. It's because history moves perspective and good/bad is irrelevant when comparing our standards to an age we didn't live in.
I feels like you are struggling a lot with Neil Gaiman🤔 did you ever tried Stardust? Hang in there hopefully you'll grab one that'll hook you up soon!🤞
I gave up half-way through Dune. Could not force myself to finish it. In my opinion, the story does not pick up at all. It kinda goes at the same pace. But OH MY GOD the descriptions! I cringed so much as well! I blame it on the fact that it's classic sci-fi and that's how the wrote it but still, it makes it hard to read.
Dune takes place in our universe in the far far far future. So we are living in their past, making Jessica a name from their version of antiquity or something. It would be like naming your kid Matthew or Paul. Or I dunno Athena or something. So I don't think it's out of place at all. They're humans, it's a name taken from humanity's past.
That's so funny that everyone else in Dune has a strange name and the main character has a normal name but maybe that makes it special in a weird way. Or maybe she was named after the authors wife or something :)
I loved most of Neil Gaimans stuff. I have tried 4 times to read Good Omens and I just can’t get into it. It’s not funny, it jumps around a lot. It’s so dull.
I've read Good Omens a couple of years ago and I had the exact same problem. I did not find it particular funny nor did I care much for the plot but maybe that's because I'm missing something, seeing as I'm not British either..? Although usually the British humour is right up my alley so I'm not sure whether that's truly the reason why. But then, I haven't been impressed by Neil Gaiman's other stories so far (haven't touched TP again since GO so I can't say anything about him) so maybe that author/author duo simply doesn't work for me. Alas, there are enough books on the market which will keep me satisfied for the rest of my life so whatever :)
Also was 700% dissappinted with Good Omens😓 i was so excited to read it!! Not funny, a bit overpowering, and just too many parallels in the same story.🙄
Dune is a rough start but the story definitely picks up. It's a pretty dense opening with the setup but whenever I recommend the book I always warn people to at least try to make it through the first third of the book for the story to take off. It's one of my favorite books, but even I struggled in the beginning on my first read.
YES, THIS!! Me and my brother ju recently discussed this; none the less, it's my favorite books of all time
I too didn’t like The Ocean at the End of the Lane, but everyone around me seemed to love it.
I love how you’re so honest about what you care for and what you don’t. You’re genuinely recommending books to your subscribers that you have enjoyed, whereas a lot of the others booktubers seem to recommend books based on its popularity, and therefore, they are afraid to say anything negative about it. I like you. Subscribed!
Read The Graveyard Book by Gaiman. I think it will be your favorite Gaiman. I love the book so much💜
I have read didi
The audiobook is great as well!
Maybe that particular type of British humor isn’t for you. Between Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams, there seems to be a pattern.
Paul and Jessica’s names aside, I flew through Dune the first time I read it. Will always be one of my fav sci-fi books along with Ender’s Game. I found all the political building at the beginning really intriguing. Dune is a vast world and I think Herbert really paved the way for a large scale sci-fi world. Even compared to contemporary works, I think he accomplished this better than most authors.
I haven't found a book by Neil Gaiman that I absolutely loved. It seems like from your reaction, Good Omens won't be a hit for me too, comedy in novel generally is very difficult to pull off.
Good Omens definitely has British humour in it... myself and everyone I know (in the UK) loves it xD
I am struggling to finish it. I don't find it funny in the least. The writing is horrendous. The plot is all over the place. Random people keep popping up. I just want the world to end.
G. Chatterjee yes I agree- couldn’t get into it at all, unfortunately
Thanks for your thoughts about preferences in books and pacing since reviews like yours are soooo helpful to someone like me who makes book trailers for comics where I compose original music themes and write narratives to entice readers and your comments about books help me make narratives to encourage readers. Most grateful!
I read Dune about 5 years ago... it was a slow start but I remember really loving it.
I started Dune earlier this month because I saw your TBR video and thought I would give it a shot. It is a bit of info dump like at the beginning but this story has a lot of lore based on the glimpses I got from the appendixes at the end of the book. I am almost half way through and things have started to blow up and people have died so it picks up once you get passed the initial setups. The names are varied but I feel like that is more a division between the different factions at least that’s what I am getting out of it. Keep going with the book. It gets better!
You might like “Neverworld Wake” which follows a group of ex-friends who are reliving the same day over and over...
read Dune years ago and I loved it, one of my fave books
I agree with The chosen one/savior vibe in Dune but by the end, I was questioning everything. I thought it was a fascinating portrayal of so many different aspects of human nature and motivation: power, religion, love, spirituality, science, economy, politics, and more.
Iron Gold (Red Rising) was soooooo good! Can’t wait for the next one in the series.
I love how your coat appeared and disappeared 😂
I would love it if you could film a bookshelf tour xx
Good Omens is one of the rare novels that made me laugh out loud (while walking on the street listening to the audiobook, getting weird looks). I hesitate to watch the show -the trailer looked awful- since I liked the novel so much.
Dune turned out to be a decent novel but I don't see the big deal. I want to save something for the ending and the whole trope but worry about the spoilers.
Life After Life turned out to be a fave for me. I'm not that much into science fiction (few exceptions) but the historical fiction part of it really appealed to me. I actually purchased the first of the detective series from the author right after finishing this one. The writing is just that much up to my alley.
The celery thing interested me (I love celery in all forms, celeriac etc.) in the sense that it triggered a reaction. That doesn't happen to me very often in literature.
I also disliked The Ocean at the End of the Lane (haven't read Good Omens) but I loved Stardust by Gaiman. I'm currently reading American Gods by him too and liking it. Highly recommend Stardust if you give him another shot.
Skip the book. Watch the movie.
I read Nevernight because of how much you loved it, and I ADORED IT! I ran out the next day and bought Godsgrave and I can't wait to start it!
I've really struggled to like Gaiman,I haven't found much by him that I really like. I didn't find Good Omens very funny either! HOWEVER, I really genuinely liked Neverwhere by him. It's pretty short, so if you want to give him one more chance then I'd suggest that one!
Yeah, Good Omens wasn't for me either. The only thing I liked was friendship between Angel and Demon, and I thought that the whole book will be with them, but there were so many other viewpoints and characters I didn't liked at all it was such a disappointment😔
I'm currently about as far in Dune as you were at this point in the month and I really like it, but I never read sci-fi. So I think my bar might be really low and it's a breath of fresh air from my usual reading picks.
I spent much of Dune telling myself 'i should love this' but ultimately it felt like hard work. It started very slowly and I was tempted to DNF but then got it better for a while.
I found it too dense in that i felt you needed to study a glossary to keep track of the strange names/places. Some of the ideas and the world building is great but i dont want to feel like I'm sitting for an exam whilst reading. I tried the audiobook, physical copy and both the movie and the syfy show and all felt like hard work.
Despite all negatives i still want to like it, i can see so much potential and so i'm pinning my hopes on the new TV show
Yay! An Emily video! I was hoping you had some pre-filmed stuff. I really want to give Dune a shot but I'm really not sure if the long descriptions are going to be for me....I tend to mindlessly start skipping paragraphs when authors do that. I hope you're feeling okay!
Oh I have like 2 videos a week for the beauty channel and at least one a week for this channel pre filmed!
I made sure I wouldn't go anywhere :)
I loved Good Omens, but the humor is so british, it is not for everyone I think! I really want to read Dune, but Im scared I won't like it..
Dune is quite an undertaking... but I think it's worth it to have read a classic. I listened to it on tape which I think really helped!
McAllister Stephens yes thats what Im thinking. Thanks, maybe I’ll try the audiobook then!
Nice book recommendation.
I recently read A monster calls by Patrick Ness, Appointment with Death by Agatha Christie and Mysterious Affairs at Styles by Aghata Christie. I'm currently reading two books- Anne of green gables by L.M Montgomery and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley I have review the 2nd book of Chronicles of Narnia by C.S Lewis. I wrote 3 poems in the month of May. I'm still writing a novel named Lost in the cloud castle. I'm also thinking to publish my beloved Harry Potter Poem in The Telegraph.
Which editing software you use??
Love you😘
Yes! I have been feeling the same way with Dune, but it’s finally starting to pick up a bit. It’s been a struggle to get to this point though, so I feel your pain! I’m 320 pages in, so we will see if I can push through the rest before the end of the month.
I’ve had a hard time getting into any Neil Gaiman book. I finally just accepted that his writing just isn’t for me.
Are you going to follow up with A God In Ruins? It follows Teddy, Ursula’s brother. I enjoyed that book, think I read it about 4 years ago when it first came out. KA is one of my fave authors. Have to follow up with her Jackson Brodie books. Currently reading my April BOTM Lost and Wanted.
Neil Gaimen can be a bit like Marmite. I loved Coraline, which is middle grade, but struggle with some of his adult stuff. Can be weird and graphic. I'll still read more by him.
I enjoyed Good Omens.
I was a bit confused at first but ended up loving Life after Life. I thought it would be her spirit being reborn each time.
I love Neil Gaiman and adore Terry Pratchett, so what I'll write next is probably heresy, but I hate Good Omens. I couldn't even finish it. So, yeah if you want to give Pratchett another shot maybe try his Discworld series, start with the city watch I think Sam Vimes might work for you.
Liked at the mention of Godsgrave 🤩
I really liked Dune. I read it this month and at first it cost me a bit but then the story caught me. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ in Goodreads
I’ve read all of Jay Kristoff’s books, and Lifelike is definitely my least favorite. I’d recommend checking out his Lotus War trilogy.
'good omens' was the first book i read this year, i was excited to get into it bc at that point i heard so much praise about it, the summary sounded really fun and intriguing satire, plus at that point we already had the announcement of getting a tv show. but somehow i ended up being kind of like you? i gave the book 3 stars at the end because i truly found the set-up idea fun and i loved the angel-demon duo a whole lot, but besides that the story was just draggy with some povs i wasn't interested in and the humor was... a bit too theatrical? for my taste. i dunno how to explain it but while reading i kept thinking that i'd enjoy everything a lot more if it'd be a play or a tv show setting. like when a different medium suits a story better? and when the tv show came out and i watched it my theory was definitely proven for myself, i LOVED the tv show to bits, but the book/text medium i found a lot less enjoyable. so yeah i def get everyone who feels lukewarm about this book, not too bad but isn't that good of a time either.
also i just gotta tell you that bc of your influence i put 'nevernight' back onto my tbr list. i had it on my tbr last year but before i could get down to it i had a friend who basically put me off of it with how much she didn't like it. but i really like your book opinions so now i wanna see what goes on with 'nevernight' and which opinion i'll end up vibing with.
I finished The Secret History on May 1st (haha so late to the game, but I did read Life After Life in April and that was good) and really enjoyed it, then read The Tattooist of Auschwitz which was sad but excellent, ruined things by pummeling through 9 Perfect Strangers (1 star) WHY, then switched to YA to recover with the Devouring Gray (4 stars). I'm now reading The Song of Achilles bc I loved Circe when I read it. May is a little all over the place.
Damn, you hair is hella on point.
Fresh off the boat lmao 😂 LOVE that show !!
Yeah, Dune gets off to a slow, meandering start. You should be getting close to the bit where the plot gets a little tighter and more coherent.
I didn’t like Lifel1k3 as much as Illuminae/Gemina/Obsidio, but I’m still looking forward to reading what happens next in the series. I haven’t picked up Nevernight yet, planning to read it in August. But Illuminae and series were in my top five of the year I read them.
I see emily, i click 😁😁
I feel the same about Dune. I stopped at the end of summer because school stared. I got about half way through. I’m gonna try to get back to it. I think it’s the writing that's awkward for me. There will be so much boring stuff and then some action will happen without any sort of lead in. It’s very jarring. And then the action will be over in a minute and I feel like I don’t know what happened.
Weird listening to someone roasting 2 of my favourite books: Good Omens and Dune! 😅 Now to be fair, knowing that you didn't like H2G2 I'm not surprised that you didn't connect with Good Omens. It's soooooo British and perfect in that regard (UK represent!). Also a tip for appreciating Good Omens: you need to have a reasonable knowledge of the Bible and of the book of Revelations (the apocalypse). Then it's truly hilarious because of how much it's messes up with the myths. 😛 Concerning Dune, I first read the original series when I was 15 and re-read it so many times since then it's become a part of me. It's not regular scifi, it's not action packed, it's not always coherent. It's highly political and spiritual/dreamlike very 70s-80s. If this is not your cup of tea generally, I don't think you'll like it either. I'm a sucker for anything that mixes genres in an unexpected manner, and as someone born in the early 80s whose first reads were old scifi books from the 50s-70s, Dune is all I ask from a book series. But it's definitely special and quite dated. 😊
I didn't dislike Lifelike that much (also read it because I loved Nevernight) but I didn't like it very much either. The romance was totally cringy (shocked that you didn't mention that, but maybe it's because you didn't care about that too :D ). I've just finished reading 'Aurora Rising' by Jay Kristoff (and Amie Kaufman) and it is for me like a mix of 'Skyward' (fun fact: in 'Aurora' there is once mentioned someone named Sanderson; I guess and hope it was an intentional easter egg :D ) and 'The Long way to a small, angry planet'. Liked the beginning, disappointed by the ending and in general confused about it. I'm really curious about your opinion, if you will read it.
Ooo life after life sounds pretty cool!
Totally agree with you about LifeLike. But I did like the twist at the end and I plan to give book 2 a go. Overall it was like 2.75-3 stars for me. I recommend giving his other adult series Stormdancer a go. It’s definitely not as good as Nevernight but I really enjoyed it. I’m also really excited for his vampire series that comes out next year. I believe that is also going to be adult.
I read Dune years ago. Can’t remember The book being that big, it was a series so maybe you have the WHOLE collection.
It does take awhile for the story to build, most of the beginning is the back story and history. But the book is mostly political base. So know your planets and people because they go back a forth A LOT that it can get confusing.
I've never thought about how all the time-travelly books I've read have male protagonists before! I want to read Life after Life more now :)
Dune's claim to fame is it's world building, so you're going to get a lot of long descriptions and background info. Make sure to use the appendix in the back to help keep track of what different words mean.
Yay! A new video, been looking forward to this! As always, very interesting books
Haha. I told yaaa. LIFELIKE is his worst book but it's still pretty enjoyable, tho. A good read for when you want to read something light and easy.
I usually like British Humor but Good Omens just... wasn’t for me. I felt the story tried too hard to be funny but it actually wasn’t. It’s a pity because books with funny footnotes are usually one of my favorite things in the world.
Finally someone who didn’t find good omens funny as well 😅
Finally. I was assuming i Was the only one who had mixed feelings over LIFEL1K3 .. I FINISHED IT LIKE IN A MONTH OR SO ... It was 'the book to resd back then' and i struggled to finish it off.. I am so glad to find someone else as iconic as you to have the same feel over the book.
Please do try out "the puppet show" by Craven.
I've had LIFEL1K3 for over a year and I still haven't finished it. I just have a hard time staying interested
Also: I don't know if you've read any Vonnegut, but since you love sci-fi I recommend The Sirens of Titan (though I'm not sure if the humour will be to your taste, I LOVED it)
I'm only about a hundred pages into Dune right now but I've read it before like 5 years ago ; I'm quite enjoying it so far though I find it extremely dense and I struggle a bit with specific words in this world and with keeping all of the characters straight as there are quite a few :)
I listened to Lifelike a while back, and I had already read Nevernight. I found the narration a bit annoying but mostly, it seemed like Kristoff just took Nevernight and changed the world around. Otherwise, pretty similar story overall. Girl whose family was murdered? Check. Supernatural/robotic pet? Check. Betrayals abound? Check. Big “reveal” at the end? Check. I couldn’t be surprised by anything because it felt like he has a general outline that he just fills in with new character names and adjusts to fit the new genre 🤷♀️
I listened to Dune on audiobook. I actually enjoyed the audiobook because of the multiple narrators for different characters and the sometimes ambient noise, but I really didn’t care for the story. It just didn’t click. Some audiobooks I remember everything and some I can’t remember 5 minutes later and this was definitely one of the latter.
Barely started Dune. Library books are due soon, so it's on a back burner at the moment. Do plan on finishing it though.
I'm reading Dune too, and I agree that the first 250ish pages were boring. I'm about 350pgs in and it's FINALLY getting easier to read. Still weird.
I don’t like Kristoff’s YA. I got thru Lifelike but I DNFed book 2 at about 30%. They aren’t bad; there’s just too much going on and I don’t care about any of it. I did read Aurora Rising and I liked it. BTW, I thought Godsgrave was better than Nevernight-hope you like it.
I knew you wouldn't like Lifelike. I crapped out after about 20 pages, it was awful. His Stormdancer trilogy is a pass too. I finished it but its not good. I''d stick to the adult stuff because it's WAY better.
i thought dune was super dense and hard to get into but i was 13 at the time so maybe it will be better for older people
I looooooove Dune!
I'm with you on the disappointment over Lifelike - I struggled with it big time which surprised me because I love Nevernight.
Good Omens is OK, but I just didn't love it anywhere near as much as I love Terry Pratchett's discworld series.
I dnf’d Lifelike (it was boring, predictable, and some of the terminology of that new world really bothered me) 🙈 so I definitely get why you didn’t like it. But at the same time, it makes me hopeful that I might still enjoy Nevernight.
Dune feels so dry to me and it bores me to death sometimes. And then there's like a pretty good moment and I think "oh ok let me continue". I am currently stuck at book 4 in the series and I'm not sure I wanna finish.
I finished Dune last month and it took me almost 5 weeks to finish it. I've been struggling quite a bit with it, but I'm glad I can say that I've read it.
I understand why it's such a cult classic, because a lot of popular sci-fi films/books borrowed ideas from that book.
Still, I felt like there was no linear plot progression, but rather jumps from one situation to another with no transition. The writing felt very blunt as if someone was chopping the story into blocks.
Anyway, I'm glad I have it behind. It was a long journey, but I'm definitely not continuing.
There is a movie coming out soon.
Dune looks soooo intimidating, omg 😂
I love Neil Gaiman, but I can't seem to remember anything about The Ocean At The End of The Lane, it was so forgettable to me. So I get that it didn't leave a good impression on you. You'd probably like The Graveyard Book and Neverwhere a lot more, they have more of his wonderfully dark spin.
Nevernight is my favourite book of all time but I don't like any of Jay Kristoff's YA books that I've read (Illuminae and Lifelike).
You chose the worst Kristoff book to read. I have loved all his stuff except that one lol. I recommend Stormdancer. It'll be a bit slow at the start and the romance is bleh, BUT, they are amazing books.
You look so pretty today!!
Aw, sorry to hear you didn't like Good Omens. It is a very dry, sarcastic humor. It's more "the situations are funny because they're ridiculous" than "here is a joke." It is also likened to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, so I'm not surprised you didn't like it.
I read Dune in 1976/77 and was bored by it I only finished it because loads of people were telling me how great it was I havent read any other book by Frank Herbert . I got Good Omens from the library about 2 weeks ago and have started it twice I think I'm on Page 6 or so
you look gorgeous in this video!!
I'm about 350 pages into Dune (I'm currently back on the waiting list at the library), and the action really picks up towards the end of the first section. It's a shame that the beginning is so slow and boring though, I feel like the book could have skipped a couple hundred pages and just started with Paul and his family arriving on Arrakis. I also don't like the the opening chapter excerpts from 'Princess Irulan' - I think they ruin the narrative tension. The first section would have been more interesting if I didn't already know who the traitor is. I'm actually thinking of skipping the excerpts going forward, but I haven't decided yet.
I’m thinking of rereading lifel1k3 because i’m pretty sure i won’t be liking it as much as before. Having said that, yeah don’t bother reading Aurora Rising which is his latest YA. It was also disappointing and a lot of readers (including moi), I believe, were more disappointed in Aurora Rising than LifeL1K3.
Can't wait for you to finish A little life, dying to hear your opinion 😁 also interested to see if it will make you cry or just cringe
You can see my review now on Goodreads!
www.goodreads.com/review/show/1862549211?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1
i feel the same way about good omens, i went into it with rly high expectation since its so popular and so many ppl seem to love it but yea i think the humour can be pretty hit or miss
I loved Godsgrave even more than Nevernight, though I didn't expect it was possible. :D I wish I could also read it for the first time now :D
I really enjoy Karen M. McManus books, they aren't anything spectacular but really enjoyable
I'm nervous to read LifeLike, which is probably why I've put it off for so long, and your review is not helping me to pick it up anytime soon.
I started both The Expanse series (read Leviathan Wakes and Caliban's War, just picked up the third book from my library) and The Broken Earth Trilogy (I'm halfway through the Fifth Season right now), and I'm really liking both, and I'm actually already 3/4ths of the way through my reading goal for the year. The only thing I haven't been able to achieve is paring down my TBR, and that's because I've been reading books that aren't actually on it. Oh well; that just leaves me more to read next year.
I'm British and nothing made me laugh in Good Omens either! But yeah the show looks promising... The cast is good so it might bring it to life.
I did love reading American Gods and would recommend it, although didn't enjoy the show at all. Go figure x
Neverwhere is my favourite Neil Gaiman story.All hale the Marquise de Carabas!
I enjoyed Nevernight and am waiting for Godsgrave from my library, but I struggle with calling it adult fantasy. The only factor that I felt made it “adult” was the explicit sex scenes. Why do you consider it adult instead of YA?
I appreciate you telling us when books suck. I was thinking of buying "Life Lik3." So you saved me $1.99 on Kindle. 💸
I just read One Of Us Is Lying by that author and hated it. Sounds like that one is along the same lines. The characters were so flat and it was all so cliche. Think I'll take this one off my tbr now.
Have you read the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells? It's a series of 4 novellas with a really sarcastic, socially awkward main character, I think you'd really enjoy them! And they are on Scribd with the audiobooks :)
She has, she mentioned the series multiple times in previous videos ☺
I think I’m the minority on this, but Dune was just okay for me. There’s a part where s#!+ goes down and it’s good, but then totally changes gears and turns into something else. I’m a person that’s not really into descriptions and this book had A LOT of descriptions. I appreciate the impact dune had for the sci-fi genre, but it just wasn’t for me 🤷♀️
I understand it being a little description oriented in the beginning but Dune has a lot going on. It's hard for authors that wrote over 10 years ago to use the same politically correct terms. I'm sure authors from the past would consider much of today's writing awkward as well. It's because history moves perspective and good/bad is irrelevant when comparing our standards to an age we didn't live in.
I feels like you are struggling a lot with Neil Gaiman🤔 did you ever tried Stardust? Hang in there hopefully you'll grab one that'll hook you up soon!🤞
I gave up half-way through Dune. Could not force myself to finish it. In my opinion, the story does not pick up at all. It kinda goes at the same pace. But OH MY GOD the descriptions! I cringed so much as well! I blame it on the fact that it's classic sci-fi and that's how the wrote it but still, it makes it hard to read.
is that a lipstick or your natural colour? because i’ve been looking for a lipstick this colour for years i swear
Dune takes place in our universe in the far far far future. So we are living in their past, making Jessica a name from their version of antiquity or something. It would be like naming your kid Matthew or Paul. Or I dunno Athena or something. So I don't think it's out of place at all. They're humans, it's a name taken from humanity's past.
That's so funny that everyone else in Dune has a strange name and the main character has a normal name but maybe that makes it special in a weird way. Or maybe she was named after the authors wife or something :)
hello 👋 I am still reading Dune and so far I like it 💕
my name is Jessica, so when I first watched the Dune movie adaptation it was kind of weird, too^^
I loved most of Neil Gaimans stuff. I have tried 4 times to read Good Omens and I just can’t get into it. It’s not funny, it jumps around a lot. It’s so dull.
I've read Good Omens a couple of years ago and I had the exact same problem. I did not find it particular funny nor did I care much for the plot but maybe that's because I'm missing something, seeing as I'm not British either..? Although usually the British humour is right up my alley so I'm not sure whether that's truly the reason why. But then, I haven't been impressed by Neil Gaiman's other stories so far (haven't touched TP again since GO so I can't say anything about him) so maybe that author/author duo simply doesn't work for me. Alas, there are enough books on the market which will keep me satisfied for the rest of my life so whatever :)
Yeah I didn't like The Good Omens too.
Also was 700% dissappinted with Good Omens😓 i was so excited to read it!! Not funny, a bit overpowering, and just too many parallels in the same story.🙄