this one is really my first foray into nonfiction as a genre, aside from what i am required to read in school and whatnot. reading articles on my own free time doesn't count. unfortunately, if it was to be something i was hoping to enjoy, i probably should've started with something that was known to garner unanimous positive reviews, because this one just put me straight to sleep most of the time.
the author introduces his philosophy of what constitutes the tipping point, something about the law of the few, and blah blah blah. i know he repeats it a LOT throughout the book, but it just got dull and pretentious to me, so i didn't bother. some of the points he brings up are valid, some are ridiculously obvious (yet he still presents them as "new," it gives what merit he gained from me no value, since it seemed mostly gratuitous at that point).. other "insights" are based on very weak evidence, and yet he still presents them with a voila. half the time he contradicts himself on what evidence he presents, and from time to time even injects a bit of personal bias in there. i didn't find the read worthwhile or particularly enlightening at all. maybe for someone who has a fascination with random drawings of statistical evidence, this might be an eye-opener, but evidence based on statistics can be fallacious more often than not--and yet, there is nothing else to back this up aside from statistical evidence based on a very small group of people he "hand-picked." if you run the test repeatedly with different groups and control groups, maybe. running it once and calling it a day doesn't quite count.
another inevitable part of survey data is that people lie. there are those who don't want to fill out surveys for the very reason that they don't want their represented population to show up on whatever result the surveyor is likely to get; therefore, your results are from 1) people who wanted to fill out the survey, i.e. someone who had nothing to lose, and 2) even then they aren't necessarily being honest. ALL his presented evidence is statistical. not to mention, in the case when he mentioned the car accidents? the percentage rised by maybe 5-7%, and he alluded that it must be an effect of a suicide. 5-7% is the slightest of shifts; there are of course always other factors, if we are to follow that humans are indeed as susceptible to environment as he says. major contradiction. what about testing for the effects after it stabilizes? and if it fluctuates again, what might it be blamed on then?
i also don't appreciate that he concluded that the man on the train shot the four teenagers because there was graffiti. true, having graffiti there would likely have encouraged misconduct, and it may even escalate to violence, like he says. but the case he uses for example is of a very disturbed man, who is obviously just waiting for a boiling point, because his system demands that release. in someone that close to the edge, i doubt he will be moved to act simply because of graffiti--after all, he had the gun on him all along, and the graffiti didn't move him to carry it on his person. we can say that graffiti encouraged those four youths to act the way they did, but to explain the way he acted to graffiti is just past the point of ridiculous.
i'm not sure if i want to go on to read his other bestsellers. god knows there are a bunch of shitty books on bestseller lists that certainly don't deserve them. i'm not saying this was a terrible book--i just hate how he markets what's common sense as insight. he also talks down to the reader a lot, which i also definitely did not appreciate. his bias? that's another one. but certain points i did find interesting tended to be the more dramatic examples, like the chinese man on the hilltop mistaken for a japanese spy (which was never concluded--what happened then?), or the micronesian boy who killed himself because his father waved a machete at him. even the man on the train who shot people got a pause from me, because i can certainly see it happening, and the hysteria that follows.
he claims to present views that are radical and that will change the reader's perception of human nature, but the only new thing i got from this is an appreciation of a paper folded 50 times being the distance to the sun from the earth. his description of the profile of a chain-smoker describes me almost perfectly, and yet i've never touched a cigarette in my life. those people i know who are chain-smokers are the exact opposite of that profile. i can only laugh a little after reading that, since i wasted almost 4 days on reading this when i have an entire pile i could've touched instead.
who knows. maybe a marketing major will appreciate it more. certainly not me. because why don't you tell me something i don't know already?
unfortunately, as i was starting this, i barely remembered any details from the previous book, dagger-star--and so it was more of a new experience for me than if i had remembered more from the series. i remember liking the previous book, but had mixed feelings about the pacing of the plot, and so i didn't go into this expecting overmuch, just in case. i didn't want to condemn the book completely before having actually given it a shot. so i'll try to express immediate feelings i had for the style, pacing, etc.
this was one of the few books that i haven't managed to get as an ebook copy, so i just put it on order at the library. upon the first couple of chapters, i felt like the writing was choppy and kind of half-assed; maybe the author's heart wasn't in it, but her sentences tended to be short and choppy, with a noted lack of transition.
once the plot gets going a bit though, it runs very well, pace-wise. some of the scenes with physical interaction between evelyn and orinn weren't convincing at all, but it's to be expected; it's a romance. i feel like i got more of the perspective of orinn's attraction than evelyn's though; for her, it almost seemed like she jumped straight from being interested in him to being in love with him--barely any emotional bridging there, i felt. some of the sexual tension was written really well though, especially when she has her characters cut off specific thoughts of whatever they were thinking about. that was very effective.
however, here's another main problem; the plot dies down at about 3/4 of the way into the book, as in villain dead, call it a day. except they go on to confess their love for each other for the rest of the 1/4 of the book--and i'm sorry, i like the romance and all, but when it's carried 3/4 of the way with an actual fantasy plot and use the remaining 1/4 to tie up emotional loose ends? it screams lack of effort to me. if it was developed a little better, a huge chunk of their undying love dialogue could've been cut out, and the novel would've felt more complete. as it is, all those little side plots at the end just feel like the third lord of the rings movie, when it just wouldn't end. it's clumsy plotting, is my personal opinion.
now, a HUGE redeeming quality for this, is that we actually finally get to hear about the plains again, and in fact the next book's setting will likely be in the plains. does that mean there will be recurring characters from the warlands series? there was a LOT of reference to the world first introduced in the warlands series, and that was very satisfying, to feel that kind of tie between all these characters and their places on the board. what would be REALLY awesome, i'm thinking, is instead of building these plots successively with these different couples.. what if it was all one plot, but told through several books of the pov of these couples? if it's done well, and everything ties together by the last book and whatnot with constant cameos.. it would be beautiful. that is not to say that i'm unhappy with the series as it is currently structured, but the idea came to me that being able to read a series like that would be cool.
anyway, i can basically conclude by saying that it's overall decent to pretty good, but could've been better nonetheless. the clumsy dialogue and plotting at the end certainly knocked off a star, but it sort of makes up for it in smaller ways. it was certainly easy to read. i think, however, i would've enjoyed imagining the character of evelyn myself without that really weird-looking lady on the cover art; her hair was badly photoshopped (it looks gunmetal gray, with her eyebrows almost forgotten), and her skin is somehow an odd shade of red. not to mention her "light blue" eyes somehow came out vivid turquoise on the cover, making her look somewhat like a pretty tomato/alien. i'm just gonna assume it was because this book may have been low budget, and if that is the case then i should probably give it a little more credit.
moving on then; next up: nonfiction.
EDIT: one oddball thought i just remembered: when orinn finds out her breasts weren't scarred, he was relieved, and that annoyed the crap out of me. i guess love for our character orinn boils down to whether or not her breasts were scarred. (rolls eyes)
okay, so the reason i read this was mainly because i wanted to see what all the hype was about. plus, with reading a book a day and them all being fantasy and all being set in different worlds.. even i got tired of it. so i figured it was time for a change, and it was either nonfiction or this. plus the book already looked so dog-eared.. and i have a weakness for well-read books.
first of all, i probably wouldn't have given this book a second thought if i hadn't seen ana, my previous supervisor, lugging a book in the series with her. she mentioned something about hot guys, and i figure what the hell. she and i seemed to have very different taste, but if the series sold so well there should be something there to satisfy me too. so during my library trip right after the semester ended, i snagged this well-worn copy, and proceeded to abuse it some more.
on the intro.. initially, i wasn't very impressed by stephanie plum. she didn't seem like the brightest gal in the world; it wasn't so much about her impulsive actions, really, but more so about having clues shoved in her face and never once questioning them. she's the heroine in those horror movies who never bother to lock the door, or think twice about who (or what) might be behind the next door. impulsiveness can only explain that away partially, because, if you've already done it five times throughout the course of the book and you still keep doing it, there's only so much that you can blame on the impulse. maybe she's just born with a hemisphere up there missing.
despite our heroine's shortcomings, however, it's rare to find a book that's managed to make me laugh out loud that many times. and the 'hero,' who doesn't even really count as a hero since he only shows up every other chapter at most, is satisfying at least as a lead; he plays the role well. the character ranger disappears for the rest of the book after helping steph out a bit, and i was left somewhat disappointed, but no doubt he'll be back in subsequent installments. if there's anything to be said about this first book in the series, it's that it really does entertain, and it's rare to find that in text nowadays. the downside to this 'mystery,' however, is that we know who the villains are all along. the ending wasn't much of a twist, since there were so many scattered clues throughout as to who might have been behind everything, at least for me. however, this being a first book, i'm assuming it's not so much about the mystery as about setting everything in its place; i'm expecting the mystery portion of this to come into play better in later novels.
i will say though, that i am satisfied, and also delighted to find something that isn't a complete bore. steph, although mostly useless throughout the proceedings, does manage to find some strength and ability; there's also a lot of good sexual tension and adorable banter going on, and not the kind that makes me want to gag. it's a fluff of a book, but in a good way. in fact, i almost can't wait to see how it will be followed up in the second book, which i will proceed to put on hold now.
signing off.
the reason why i chose to read this next was about the same reason why i read 'tamsin'--i merely wanted to explore what else that might be related and/or similar to 'sunshine,' also by robin mckinley. as it turns out, this book was as different from 'sunshine' as one could have expected.
it starts kind of oddly, within a girl's musing about orange juice--i was actually in fact drinking OJ at the time, and so it was like hey! this book and i were meant to be. but then further in, i found that it was much like reading 'gone with the wind' in the beginning. there was something kind of dull and disjointed about the setting she was describing, and she was describing it practically every line, either through dialogue or the character's observations. this is to set the background for our character herself though, so it's understandable.
the pacing is kind of slow, even though much goes by in terms of events; sometimes, even the more major events feel kind of downsized because of the style she writes them in. i found myself going back and rereading, because i completely missed what just happened for the lot of setting description she was doing. so i guess i'm going to have to say that she went a bit overboard with describing the terrain, because she could just as easily have described in terms that were easier to understand, and moved right on with it. other times, i found myself reading the answer to a particular question a character asked a whole page later, and flipping back because i've already forgotten the question--a particular disruption of flow, again due to the description she stuffs in between these dialogues. there were also times when she uses pronouns so heavily i had no idea which 'he' or 'she' was being referred to, thanks to all the name-throwing that was going on maybe just a paragraph back. it was an exhausting read, to say the least.
but there are good things too, which i also distinctly remember: the horses all had beautiful and distinctive names. i also remember wondering why female authors have a tendency to write about horses and males either about ships or dragons, but i didn't let it distract me too much off course. certain turns of phrase worked out very well, though they do work out quite awkwardly at times, so i suppose i'll call that an even draw. despite my dislike of the heavy description of setting, sometimes it did work beautifully, and the imagery she conjured would leave me somewhat awestruck. this is robin mckinley, and this was written in the '80s, and so i won't begrudge her the not-as-effective-as-in-her-later-books writing that was so present in this one; this was probably one of her earlier works. as with 'chalice,' which is her most recent, though, she seems to still be using a LOT of run-on sentences. in specific sentences she'll interrupt that thought the narrator was on--insert two or three more thoughts--and double around to her initial thought, which i'll have forgotten about by the time she even gets there. again, just simple interruption of flow.
despite its flaws, there was a lot to like though. the romance could've been too light for my taste, but it was epic enough. some parts, like i said, were supposed to be epic in nature but were drowned out in description, but there were certain parts that did not have this shortcoming, and so while reading it i did have to start and stop occasionally to find my pace again, but ultimately it was pleasant and quite worth it. when i get over the impatience of having taken two days to read this book, i might even start on the sequel/sister book. someday, i guess.
and in the meantime, i have another 13 books to finish by early june. or at least maybe i can renew them sometime in between then, since it's quite unlikely i'll be able to finish. good luck to me, i guess, but this is the most fun i'll be having this summer, and i actually even mean that.
what really spurred me toward reading this book was initially just a wiki page; i was so in love with robin mckinley's 'sunshine' that i wiki-ed it, and then that page had a link leading to the mythopoeic awards.. and i guess i just decided that i needed to read what was on that list. i have already read the more recent ones to win the award, after all (catherynne valente, robin mckinley). the copy i read was actually the first edition copy, but on loan from the library. i don't know if later releases will have some different edits and whatnot.
anyway, this book starts rather slow, so i found myself kind of antsy for anything to really happen. the book's namesake, tamsin, doesn't come in until maybe 10 chapters in or so; there wasn't much mystery to it up until then, i think. all we know is that the house is haunted, and that does leave some questions to be answered, but nothing much eventful happens until then. he does spend a great deal setting things up, i think, which leaves inattentive readers like me impatient from time to time. once things get rolling though, the speed picks up so much i did actually find myself reading on even when i didn't want to, i.e. my eyes were stinging from having had no relief.
as far as characters go, i found myself really annoyed by jenny in the beginning.. but that was how it was meant to be, i guess, since even the commentary provides that she was immature and annoying. it serves as more of a contrast of her character's changing as a result of having met tamsin, so i guess it does serve its purpose, though again, hard to wade through at first. there was also a lot of commentary to bull through; as much as this serves to set the table and build the character up, both of which is does very well, it did leave me feeling irritated and impatient, again. and so i'm just saying that despite the fact that it's good writing, that's just how i felt. it was impeccable writing, to be honest, with a healthy amount of detail and workup, but i'm not a patient person.
one last thing i'd like to note is that because he gradually phases fantastical elements in the way he did, it somehow gave these fantastical creatures a dose of realism that i didn't expect. it was just really, really effective, and i'm still kind of stunned by that; the finale left me breathless, and i love how the ending closes with a somewhat flighty touch; i can't explain it very well, and i know i'm doing a piss poor job. it's very good at opening readers' imaginations, that's probably the best way i can put it.
in short, i loved it.
i was such a big fan of the anime that i figured that reading this was probably a requirement, once i discovered that a translated version was coming out. the unfortunate thing with this book is that, having experienced the anime firsthand, i can't help but compare; since i experienced the anime as a medium first, odds are i would likely find the book lacking in comparison. with this, that somewhat tended to be the case.. except even knowing well that it would probably fall short, it doesn't too much. i'm probably not making much sense, but most of the jarring instances are when the anime and the book does specific plotlines differently; shuga's master wasn't a good guy, was he?
the first prince and second price supposedly loved each other so much, that when chagum was ordered to be put to death, sagum fell ill as a result of grief. in the book, they could care less about each other. toya and saya also seem to play almost no role in the plotline once things start running; this isn't the case in the anime. there is more character buildup in the anime, which is to be expected, since this is a short novel (if it can even be called that) and the anime spans 26 half hour episodes. there were a lot of very medieval japanese elements in here, which are, while interesting, also just a slight bit disappointing; to follow the method of japanese storytelling, sometimes villains or heroes are more single-faceted than they could have been. i liked the reflections of balsa about her own childhood; the similarity between balsa and chagum wasn't that much alluded to in the anime, i don't think.
while reading this, especially during the memorable fight scenes and while she was walking through the kingdom of new yogo in the beginning.. i kept hearing the soundtrack underlaid while the scenes from the book play out in my mind. it was kind of disorienting, but kind of cool--it's a first for me that a book will have its own precomposed soundtrack prior to my reading it. the biggest thing i have to complain about is that because it was originally in a different language, i have to read it translated; no matter how smooth the translation, sentence structures are bound to be weird and coarse. i suppose there's no helping it there, but i'm not about to go and read the volume in its original language either, so i guess when rating i'll mainly have to keep this point in mind.
oh, and regardless of translation, the ending was most definitely rushed. not to mention the way they defeat the earth spirit rarunga is kind of out of the blue; torogai didn't manage to tell them how. that last bit with the bird, tanda pretty much just guessed. and the earth spirit itself? there's something i'm curious about: if all spirits of the elements serve their purpose, then how is killing the earth spirit in any way good for the land? nyounga ro im's death will cause draught, so you'd think that the death of rarunga would cause something else. but no, i guess this wasn't thought out that thoroughly--which was kind of disappointing, considering. i like it when the worlds and the magic has its own ironclad rules, and having the author thought the system through to make these rules actually logical. otherwise.. parts of it, like in this case, feels a bit incomplete. or maybe it's just me.
either way. guardian of the darkness, the second volume about balsa, should be out soon, and i guess i'll figure out how i feel about the writing/translation from there on.
okay, i basically went with a different system this time for jotting down thoughts--which is to say that i didn't, because i didn't read the ebook. on the other hand though, i was reading a paper copy, and so i settled for dog-earing the pages that had some minor error and whatnot on it instead, and will not proceed to try to flip to said dog-eared pages and remember exactly what i thought was wrong with either the writing or the storyline; this will probably take me a while. here goes:
p. 24 - this is the second time she's mentioned that what tam and she did scared her more, and it gets redundant. and annoying.
p. 70 - raine at one instance says "what can i say? i'm the most popular spellslinger in town." i originally read this as spellsinger and thought there was some mistake in the editing process, but either way.. it was confusing, and maybe a different word choice would've been nice.
p. 102 - the character mentions it herself--people keep offering to let her stay wherever, and in the exact same words. is there any variety in the character pool, some distinguishing speech patterns? otherwise it gets old to read, fast.
p. 104 - when she gives a summary of her 'deeds,' it was somehow written so that the character sounded like she was bragging, as opposed to scared. could've been much smoother. and also, there it is again--she says considering everything, what her and mychael did should scare her more. redundancy.
p. 106 - okay, this is just sideline observation, but it really does seem like if raine was never attached to the saghred tam wouldn't even be THAT interested. because that's the impression i got of him in the first book. so why isn't she worried about that?
p. 128 - mychael says "raine, i would never hurt you." those same words were uttered by tam a couple of pages ago. serious redundancy, again.
p. 142 - wait--if nukpana is inside the saghred, how will he somehow magically have known all this information he's feeding them? specifically, how did he know the specific deal involved in opening the demon portal? makes no sense.
p. 148 - EXTREME redundancy in the phrase "blistered the air blue." for god's sake, use it several times to add character, but in moderation. just because the author loves the phrase doesn't mean brandishing it every other sentence won't drive me, the reader, insane.
p. 152 - wait a second--they had JUST established earlier that the demon realm is simply a different dimension, and not anything like an afterlife. and here it is, contradicting that earlier stated fact--in fact, this will keep reoccuring throughout the book, and used as unclever puns, no less. lack of consistency.
p. 155 - she described his eyes as being yellow around with red in the center, and now she describes it as white with red instead. again. consistency.
p. 203 - fireplace was smoky as an excuse for her getting teary used, i believe, three times throughout the course of the scene. redundancy. or at least find more creative ways to express it differently every time, or it's just boring.
p. 218 - "I have to use something that doesn't exist to find something I don't know what it is." <-- so many ways that that sentence reads awkwardly. shouldn't an editor have picked that up?
p. 227 - piaras says "it was just a little one" in reference to a demon, followed by talon going a "little ugly never hurt anyone." piaras was clearly one of those people who witnessed the small demon growing large in the office setting earlier. either this is inconsistency, or an extremely unintelligent character.
p. 263 - wait, HOW is raine putting herself in danger for piaras if she doesn't let him go? this is her problem to solve, so isn't it more like the other way around if she does let him go? err..
p. 265 - "the pessimist inside me/inside my head" is used beyond too many times. if i had to count the times it's been used already it might arrive at 15-20, and that in my opinion is too much.
p. 362 - extremely abrupt shift from a character's one emotion into another; in fact, the lines of logic may not even completely line up. i think at this point the author was just racing to close to book, because this was near the very end, and i suspect she must've been getting impatient too.
there were likely more that i can't remember and can't be bothered to go back and reread to check right now. or likely just don't care enough to, but anyway, i've noticed that with ms. shearin's writing, redundancy and inconsistency tends to sum up most of the main flaws--they're not overly noticeable, but since i'm always on the lookout, i can't help but notice. her world-building is kind of awkward too, and i guess i'm not overly surprised, since she's still kind of new at this, but for god's sake, she needs to switch out some of that phrasing from time to time. otherwise it just shows her lack of skill, and perhaps the lack of an editor to push her hard enough.
on the other hand though, this book does show some improvements from the last, and that's the more breakneck speed the pacing is, which i thoroughly enjoyed. the action scenes are almost what i'd call well done, and the plotting is a bit more delicate than before. i'd say she's getting better at this. however, realistically? a demon horde and guardians? what is the likeliness that all of her allies, and just her allies, survives? it begins to get a bit unrealistic from that point, but it's not an issue--yet. but i do look forward to reading more, because i have a feeling that from here on, it's only going to get better, especially if taken into consideration the improvement of her writing since the first book. i'd say, in a similarly cheesy way, that it's not bad, and not too bad at all.
for whatever odd reason i've been wanting to read this for a long time; i guess this must be another one of those instances where i judge books too much by the cover. i can't help that i feel a cover must somehow accurately portray a book, and so when i see a book that has a pleasant cover, like in the case of this book (i thought the woman on the cover looks like she's smirking--and so i subconsciously arrived at the conclusion that the book must have a clever/witty protagonist). to get on with the point then.
ben, short for benevolence, is immature, irresponsible, selfish, and spoiled throughout most of the book. even toward the end when she "discovers" her maturity, the effect is completely ruined by the character's lack of charm in her narrative--or would that be the author's? too many times i felt that having the character start out with so many shortcomings must mean it concludes with a huge and extremely satisfying change in her, but unfortunately that wasn't the case. the element of learning magic, even, was abruptly forgotten about, as was her skill in it. the ending was both anticlimactic and random, and i cannot express more my disappointment in this book. the age range it was written to appeal to is very apparent.. as only girls of the age 7-12 could possible enjoy this. no one having entered any stage of maturity would consider ben in any way relatable.
hopefully, i could stop my tendency to be this susceptible to marketing ploys via pretty covers. thank god i didn't buy this book, or else i'd be jogging to the bookstore to return it. i did find the one part entertaining, when ben pretends to be a dragon and what results from it; it surprisingly made me laugh out loud. for that i am willing to give it one more star than i would've otherwise. returning this to the library as soon as i can.
took me about 3-4 days to finish this, though i was kind of half on and half off reading this, mostly worrying about finals and such. not to mention that the sentence structures tended to be kind of jaggedy, and so keeping my attention was a bit of an issue too. i just don't know what much to make of this book, so i guess i'm just gonna comment briefly and move on then.
i love robin mckinley's 'sunshine' offering; and by love, i mean LOVE. so i guess i went into this with similar expectations, maybe? i mean it's not the first, the second, or even the third i've read of mrs. mckinley's work. something about this book just didn't quite get through to me, though i see by reading all the other reviews on amazon that that is not the case with most readers. the characters were somewhat interesting; i didn't overly relate with the voice of the main character, but she seemed an impressive heroine anyway. problem is, i didn't feel much connection between her and her "master," and that is what stops me short, i think; he's ridiculously passive, for someone who's supposed to sort of save a domain with her. and then the whole climax that was supposed to be building up? i can see that the situation is supposed to be really dire for our heroes, and yet.. i didn't feel the tension build up, no steep incline toward the climax at all. during the final fight, i was kind of psyched.. but not as much as i thought i'd be, in hopes of having the scene make up for the lack of build-up. and then the 'hey let's all hold hands and skip!' ending just had me wondering if she was in a rush to finish off the ending and please everyone.. because that's how it felt. her villain didn't even have parting words, just hopped on his bunk and trailed away; it left me wondering what just happened. and her resolution, or what there was of it, implied that there would be more trouble to come.. kind of left things very open-minded, in a sort of 'this is a setup for future books to come,' and not in a 'hey let's keep you guessing way,' unlike sunshine.
all in all, it was kind of a letdown, i'm sorry to say. i honestly thought i would thoroughly enjoy it, but.. guess i'll dry some of her other (older) stuff instead. soon. maybe. sometime.
the first novel of briggs is so old that amazon hasn't bothered to put a real cover up :T not to mention that it's wicked rare, and a copy nowadays sells for $200ish. i got lucky and somehow managed to find an ebook version; kudos to whoever out there decided to ruin their valuable copy so that others can enjoy it.
the characters were memorable, although i do see traces of her other characters personified in these two. i guess briggs has always had a fascination with shapeshifters and dragons. and goddesses? anyway, the book was as addictive as all her other ones, which i am certainly not surprised about--how it never got more successful, i don't know. how could it have been a flop? but no matter, she's famous now, so..
the one time i thought it was less than realistic was when they were setting up tar traps to catch those zombie-like creatures; something like that, in real life, would easily have caught wildlife and humans, perhaps their dragon friend instead. so, i don't know. maybe she could've mentioned the spell was designed for dead things instead, but of course, that in turn would make it unrealistic, since, where would our heroes get the time to go and design a spell? that's the only part that got me a bit skeptical, and otherwise, it was amazing.
now, to finally manage to get my hand on a copy.. that would be something. and when is this getting reprinted already? i found that the double meaning in the title was pretty interesting, although at times the characters kind of waxed poetic about philosophy a bit too much--she might have been trying too hard to put more depth into this, but hey, it's a first novel, and there is no blame in that. sometime soon i should be moving on to the second novel in the sianim world.
