trixie_reads's review
3.0
This book started with a bang, and we enjoyed the story, but my 11-year-old and I both found it rather confusing. We got to the end and said, "Huh?"
tcbueti's review
3.0
I liked a lot about this book, especially the idea that one decision or event can change people's lives so completely. That's actually a pretty scary thought.
The struggle the two main characters have with feeling like their lives are "wrong" missing something, and then the challenge of choosing between the life they'd had and the one that they could have, or should have, makes for some thought provoking passages. So was the contrast between their families.
Even the bad guys are interesting: Bob Robbins Jr., the ultimate salesman/politician, not very bright but smooth. And he can control 'people who don't have a very strong sense of themselves. People who are always thinking how they'll appear to other people, always comparing themselves, always afraid they aren't enough like other people? They're the ones they can take over. People like you are too strong."(p117)
The idea of the library as the protector of memory and therefore identity, the past AND therefore the future, was pretty cool.
The plotting was sometimes confusing (but it was for the characters, too), and I don't get how a book can be in a pond for hours and then be readable immediately after.
For kids who like meta-fiction: Inkheart, The Great Good Thing, etc
The struggle the two main characters have with feeling like their lives are "wrong" missing something, and then the challenge of choosing between the life they'd had and the one that they could have, or should have, makes for some thought provoking passages. So was the contrast between their families.
Even the bad guys are interesting: Bob Robbins Jr., the ultimate salesman/politician, not very bright but smooth. And he can control 'people who don't have a very strong sense of themselves. People who are always thinking how they'll appear to other people, always comparing themselves, always afraid they aren't enough like other people? They're the ones they can take over. People like you are too strong."(p117)
The idea of the library as the protector of memory and therefore identity, the past AND therefore the future, was pretty cool.
The plotting was sometimes confusing (but it was for the characters, too), and I don't get how a book can be in a pond for hours and then be readable immediately after.
For kids who like meta-fiction: Inkheart, The Great Good Thing, etc
elevetha's review
3.0
Very imaginative. Fun to read but, sadly, I don't remember much besides that so probably could do with a re-read.
blessinswait4u's review
1.0
I wanted to enjoy this more, but it was so incredibly fast paced that it felt rushed. Cute idea, but not what I was hoping for.
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