Ryan GraudinRecensioni

3,5⭐

sarebbe stato meglio del precedente se il 50% non fosse brodo allungato

TRAMA E SPOILER
muoiono tutti o quasi
(sgominato il regime)

3,5⭐

avevo già letto altro dell'autrice e lo stile mi era piaciuto
questo libro conferma la prima impressione

La Seconda Guerra Mondiale non è certo il mio argomento preferito e per quanto adesso sembri lontana mio nonno l'ha combattuta (e penso che l'ultima delle infinite volte che ho sentito nonna maledire Mussolini, e sempre per le ragioni più strane, sia stato pochi anni fa)

Questo comunque è un fantasy/finzione storica (per fortuna!!!!!)
e un YA (un buon esempio di YA) e rimane scorrevole

“A boy without a birthday?” The sparkler was nearing the end of its run, but the newcomer's expression lit and fizzled, “What a strange wonder.”
It was a testament to how much Eliot disgruntled Farway that these words didn't serve as instant ego fuel: Why, yes, I am a strange wonder. The most special of snowflakes! Born out of time, forever running to catch up to it! He resorted to mumbling instead “All it's ever done is fritz out the med-droids. The bragging rights wear off real quick.”

I met Ryan Graudin when she came to Greenville, SC, on her tour for Blood for Blood (an alt-history YA WWII novel I enjoyed) and I am reading her back catalog slowly but surely.
This is a time-travel tale that gave me a Jumper mixed with The Never-Ending Story kind of vibe. It also is one of those hip YA tales that succeed in making me feel old. But I did manage to enjoy the world building and the creativity of it.½

The only word for this book is brutal. It is about important subjects; abuse sex trafficking, poverty, homelessness. It was so unrelenting that I read up to about page 200 and then sat down and skimmed the rest slowing down only for the last few chapters. I am glad I read it, was very glad for the information the author provided in the back, and do not think I will ever re-read this one. I do plan to try more by this author. The writing was very good and I would like to try Wolf by Wolf.

This was a really fun sequel. I loved that this book had such diffrent enegry then book 1 and stil really helped expand the world and was more of a quest but also a saving the world story and that really struck me. I also loved how the team expanded in this book and loved seeing the book tackle some different mysteries!! Def a great book as resorce for middle school teachers!!

I really enjoyed this book. I think the characters and their dynamics were some of the highlights of this story for me. It reminded me alot of firefly and legends of tomorrow. I loved how it was a self contained story but I still want to see these characters again cause they were so much fun to read but I loved a self contained story. I would have loved to see more heist elements in the story but I thought it was a very fun read and again handled time traveling in a easy to understand way. I hope to read more by this author soon!

This was a really fun sequel. I loved that this book had such diffrent enegry then book 1 and stil really helped expand the world and was more of a quest but also a saving the world story and that really struck me. I also loved how the team expanded in this book and loved seeing the book tackle some different mysteries!! Def a great book as resorce for middle school teachers!!

If a book's author's note is situated at the end of a book I generally read it after I've finished the book. For some reason, I chose to read this author's note first. In the note Graudin told her readers that she based the book on a real life walled city in Hong Kong called Kowloon. As a result I was expecting a serious and informative book on the horrid conditions the citizens of this slum had to endure in order to survive. Well, turns out I was sorely disappointed. Instead, this book read like and action adventure film that Hollywood would produce; complete with the overly trite and overly predictable happy ending. This book could have and should have been so much more. Instead we got a silly piece of pulp fiction. And one more beef; way too, way too, many bad metaphors.

3.5
Would have been a 4 star read but the middle of the book dragged on forever.

I remain captivated by this story, and the sequel filled all I hoped and wanted.

I avoided this book for the longest time, which I now regret because it was SO amazing.

I thought that this was really good! I liked the idea of a future where time travel exists. Far has always been different because he was born outside of time. He always wanted to travel through time like his mother did but his dreams are crushed when he fails his final exam. When he is offered a chance to lead his own ship through time, he jumps at the chance. Along with his crew, they travel through time stealing relics for collectors. Everything is in question when he runs into Eliot on one of his missions. They will end up risking it all to save everything they know. This was a really exciting story with fantastic characters. I listened to the audiobook and thought that the narrator did an amazing job with the story.

I received a digital review copy of this book from the Little, Brown Books for Young Readers and borrowed a copy of the audiobook from my local library.

Books like this are the reason I signed up for book subscription boxes. I get books that had never even crossed my radar and sometimes, those books are awesome and amazing. Thank you, Uppercase Box, for one of those awesome and amazing books.

First: Genre-bending. How to describe this? It's alternate history, with a smidge of science fiction thrown in. And it's an action/adventure with racing. I'm honestly surprised a traditional publisher picked this one up. It's so far outside of traditional genre lines that I would have thought Hachette would have given it a pass only because it would have been difficult to market.

Second: The world building. Oh, the world building. I swoon. This is a world in which the Axis Powers won World War Two because a) Germany invaded Britain and b) Japan never bombed Pearl Harbor so c) the US never shook off it's isolationism and entered the war, and d) Japan instead attacked Soviet Russia forcing the country to fight a two-front war. Graudin did her research and her what-if world is grounded in historical fact. The history nerd in me was in heaven.

Third: This is just damn good storytelling. I fell into the book and didn't emerge until the last page, when I immediately ran to the computer to see if the sequel was out yet (no, dammit) because I needed more.

My one complaint about this book is that despite the first-person point-of-view, Yael is a very closed-off character to get to know. We learn her past and the tragedies and horrors she faced, but I still don't feel like I have a good handle of her character other than a drive for vengeance. Which, to be fair, is a huge part of her character. It could also be argued that she has a hard time holding onto her individuality given that she readily takes on others' identities and faces all the time.

After loving the author's Wolf by Wolf, I decided to explore her backlist. This book, while very different from the action-packed alternate history Wolf by Wolf, looked interesting. I like stories involving the fae and like urban fantasies involving the fae.

Unfortunately, I found this book extremely shallow, both in characterization and plot. The focus was on the relationship between Emrys and Richard -- a relationship that, in truth, I found rather boring -- to the detriment of the much more compelling plot of a older fairy trying to destroy all humanity.

The world building was interesting, but the story was lackluster.

Super fun romp through time and space. Far and his team each have their own specialties and quirks. They seem so fun to hang with. The heists are great examples of "what ifs?" If you could lift an object from history without it being missed what would you take?

Gah, ok, so this is a book that is incredibly hard to put down -- fast paced (like a bullet train is fast paced), alt-history motorcycle race and a plot to assassinate Hitler. Great main character, too, in the shifting Yael, with her spy's lack of self.

I personally found the very concept of a world where Hitler won to be so horrifying that I couldn't put that aside and enjoy the book. The underlying darkness and despair is pretty much impossible to shake, and I recognize that as fantastic writing, even as I walk away from this series. Too much for me, but don't let that stop you.

A book full of nonstop action, set in the seamy, dangerous walled city -- a haven for drugs and prostitution and abandoned feral children who live outside the law. Jin seeks her sister, Dai is desperate for a way out and Mei Yee endures. There are a few sparks of romance in this one, but it's secondary to the mile-a-minute plot.

Honestly, I'd give it a 2 and a half stars. I thought the book was good at first, but for some reason was impossibly hard to read. I never felt like I couldn't put the book down, as I do with so many of the great books I read. It has a lot of unneeded dialogue and some of the lingo is annoying to read, but I'm sure a lot of people would enjoy the book and have their own opinions on it.

Solid read. A bit tropey here and there but unique enough in other places to make up for it

Gripping. Spectacular. I couldn't stop reading, even though it's way passed my bedtime. Ha! It all felt so real and tangible.

The future and the past collide in this young adult novel. Farway McCarthy, the child of a time traveler from 2354 and a Roman gladiator, was born on a time machine and so has no official birthdate. He wants to be a time traveler himself, but when this path is cut off, Farway and his friends find work on the black market: using a time machine to steal valuable objects from the past. Until, that is, Farway encounters Eliot, a mysterious fellow-traveler determined to join his crew. The constant jumping between eras and frequent plot twists make this book a quick, fun read. I enjoyed the antics of Farway and his friends and was satisfied, if not completely happy, with the ending.

i was both very interested and skeptical at the premise of this book. telling a story in which hitler and the nazis win ww2 is... dicey at best. especially when you add in a fantasy element. but, (i say this with the caveat that i am not jewish, and jews might have different feelings about this book) i thought it was handled well. the overall theme of the story isn't so much, "what if hitler won?" and more, "how does identity define us?" the fantasy/skin-changing elements really strengthened that. yael is a brilliant heroine and protagonist. and her journey is a compelling one. much more so than the "world that could have been".

the afterword is really what ended up leaving me satisfied, wanting more, and trusting the story in the author's hands.

I love alternate history so this book was write up my alley. I don't love the whole "axis forces won wwII" story in alternate history but I thought this book was great. I thought this idea was very intriguing and I liked the mystical, fantasy elements of shape shifting mixed into this very realistic story. I liked all the main characters and I also really enjoyed learning about all the people in the resistance movement as well as all of the other racers. The reason I couldn't give the book the last star was because this book never made feel the way I thought I should. For instance I was never very nervous at the times where I thought I should or excited or anything. Don't get me wrong, I did feel strong emotions while reading this book. For instance in the last parts I really just wanted to flip to the back and read the last chapter to see what happened because I was so anxious about the ending but there were certainly lots of times I wish the book had made me feel more. I also figured out the plot twist at the end pretty early on. I'm not someone who thinks that it's the worst thing in the world when you can figure out the twist ending but it did take away from the suspense quite a bit in this case. I am excited to read the next book ( I am in the middle of so many series right now I'm never going to finish them) and I am intrigued by how this story ended and what will happen next so I hope to pick up the next book soon.

This book's premise was so silly that I just couldn't get over it.

I think this might be suited to younger teens and more reluctant readers with a low attention span. It's like a very superficial [b:The Man in the High Castle|216363|The Man in the High Castle|Philip K. Dick|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1448756803l/216363._SY75_.jpg|2398287] with a Mary Sue protagonist that smacks of trying too hard without really trying, spinning its wheels at 100mph (no pun intended) without really going any where.

It does have some merit in the vivid imagery and creative prose. But with weird metaphor on top of weird metaphor, the writing style gets tiresome after a hundred pages or so, and the constant desperate internal monologue is, to put it bluntly, boring.

I'm amazed that there is a sequel. I assume that's where the poorly-executed romance subplot will be resolved. I was so sure that Luka (the love interest) would turn out to be a resistance member. Because a love story between a Concentration camp survivor and a Hitler youth poster boy is frankly insulting. Needless to say I won't be checking it out.

I really don't know how to rate this. I thought it was a standalone, which, even with the open-ended ending, I liked because you could kind of fill in the blanks, but then found out there was a sequel (whenever there's an unnecessary sequel I usually dock a star). And even though the subject matter is right down my alley (political intrigue! assassination plots! a life-or-death cross-country race!), for some reason it just didn't grab me. I kept putting it down and forgetting to pick it back up.

While it wasn't necessarily predictable, it still felt predictable. Of course Yael is a survivor who is now filled with intense hatred propelled by the memories of those she lost; of course there are two boys who love who she's pretending to be (though I did like that there was no love triangle); of course Yael has to learn how to trust others so she can succeed. Being predictable isn't necessarily a bad thing (Contagion, which I recently read, was also predictable), but in this case I felt like I didn't need to actually read the book to feel like I had read the book.

Perhaps a bit more time could have been spent on the race and how dangerous it actually was to compete in, and the motivations and the lives that the racers were trying to escape (like Velocity, another book focused on a life-or-death cross-country race): there are mentions of work assignments and breeding camps and brief mentions of still-existing concentration camps, but I never really felt the need to escape an oppressive regime that would have lent the book a better sense of urgency. As it stands, a lot is left to the reader to fill in the details of a German and Japanese run world, which doesn't quite work.

I did like the reveal at the end that Yael was the first of a successful program to create skinshifters, and the implication that Aaron-Paul had indeed killed Hitler only to have him replaced by a series of doppelgangers. It drives home the idea of Hitler as a necessary figurehead without being too heavy handed.