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There are currently 27 member reviews
for The God of Endings
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Beth B. (New Wilmington, PA)
No End --- Just Endure
Jacqueline Holland has crafted a unique book that has an interesting premise with one important codicil: NOT FOR THE FAINT-HEARTED. Richly stated world wisdom (biggest doesn't always win) and deeply felt truths are interwoven with paganism. Definitely not a book I could easily recommend.
That aside, I was impressed with the author's knowledge of the transitory nature of life, how young children's minds work, and her acquaintance with art and the materials with which to create it. I particularly was drawn to the main character's discovery of joy in nature's beauty and painting and the all-importance of love.
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Shaun D. (Woodridge, IL)
The God of Endings - meh
I usually don't have any problems racing through hefty novels. However, this particular tome left me rather blah. I didn't realize it was about a vampire when I initially requested it as I'm not a fan of that genre.
In order for a book of this length to truly succeed it has to capture and keep the reader's interest throughout so that when you put it down at night you can't wait to pick it up again the next day. I found my mind wandering a lot during this book. It definitely needed some serious culling ... was surprised that so much repetition wasn't edited out.
I got the feeling that this was the author's inaugural debut as it read like a freshman effort. I wondered if the author kept adding to her original outline thinking that more is more. I'm also unclear of what type of categorization or audience for which this book was intended? Meaning was it originally leaning more toward YA? Or maybe fantasy? There is almost a contradiction of sorts going on here ... to be this lengthy big ideas, big quandaries, big themes and big ideals are needed, but that said, these things need to be balanced with a careful distribution of details. Some passages are so long and overly detailed as to cause the reader to skim through while others are overly weighty yet unresolved. At times I almost felt like I was reading the first draft of a screenplay as if the author was envisioning the book as a mini-series or movie. Overall I thought the book started fairly strong but then took too many detours, some circuitous, before bringing the story and characters back around again. I wanted to like The God of Endings but never feel like I really connected with it.
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M K. (Minneapolis, MN)
The God of Endings
What popped into my head as I started getting into this book was the Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times." I had a lot of mixed feelings about this book. For a first novel this woman writes extremely well, but also like many first novels, it's twice as long as it needs to be. Given that the main character, Collette LeSange is immortal, spending so much time of the book detailing her search for the life sustaining elixir of blood seems at the very least ironical. Collette is a lonely soul without many resources to achieve much more than simple survival. Rather than giving us more of a panoramic historical view and sharing that kind of commentary, it's simply a well written book where most of it focuses on survival. I was disappointed. I hope her next novel is better.
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Lois B. (Craftsbury, VT)
Lost Interest
I requested this book because of the storyline but sadly I could not get invested in the main character. I just felt like the character could have been fleshed out more. There we three storylines happening; past, present, and what was going on with main character (hunger). Some things seemed so unrelated that I got frustrated and skipped to the end where I discovered that where I thought the story was going is where it went but I didn't really care at that point. This was just not the book for me.
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Lesa R. (Joliet, IL)
Stranger Take on Vampire Story
I am not a big fan of vampire stories. No offense, I just never got into the genre as millions of others did. If it wasn't for the swift moving prose I may not have gotten through it. I found it to be much too long with confusing, unnecessary names and places being thrown in here and there. Some situations seemed to never be fully explained like the WWII section. Although I felt the book ran on and on I did particularly enjoy the Paul character the most and thought the ending made sense.
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John A. (Ashland, OR)
A Bloody Disappointment of a Vampire Book
This was a very original take on the vampire saga, and it was well written and sensitive. Unfortunately, it moved at a glacial pace and was frequently repetitive and uninteresting. It was a challenge to make it through the entire book, and I can't recommend it.
