Booknan the Bookuser

There were parts I genuinely liked among all the things that were only so-so. Lauren Beukes is like a butterfly in this book, flitting from one subject to the next, trying to cover all the flowers in the field, and never really completely emptying one of nectar. In her wake is a host of flowers half-drained and unsatisfied. Oh, and for all that research she did, she really should have known a Smith&Wesson uses a magazine, not a clip :P

Although never quite boring(this book is about one thrilling heist and long con after another after all), this book was, at times, disappointingly predictable. It seemed like Lynch thought he was a lot smarter than he really is, thereby constantly underestimating his readers. Your interludes are not clever! They're just unnecessary, too revealing and defuse the tension you spent two chapters carefully building. All that backstory didn't really do much for the plot, or the worldbuilding, and at times it only felt like filler so Mr Lynch could pad out his book to a respectable fantasy-size. I felt like I was being force-fed information that I really didn't need, or had any desire to know, much like reading anything by Rothfuss. Both Lynch and Rothfuss seemed to have Hemingway's iceberg-principle backwards - only 20% are supposed to be visible, not 80%!!! I like the setting, though. P.S. I think Hannu Rajaniemi did a better job telling almost he same story, only with fewer words...

Remember that feeling you had when you finished watching Donnie Darko, Primer and Coherence for the first time? Or even Prometheus, Memento and Inception... That weird feeling in the pit of you stomach telling you that you have all the puzzle pieces, you're just looking at the puzzle wrong? Fuuuuuuuck This was weird from start to finish, and I loved every second of it. I am in awe of Vandermeer's imagination, ingenuity, his poetic prose and his wonderfully odd characters. I don't think I'll ever read something quite like this again