Skip to main content

Lost Boys by Orson Scott Card

By
Brief synopsis (no spoilers):
Children start disappearing in a town in North Carolina in the early 1980s. A young father of a Mormon family moves into town, working to keep bread on the table. Most of the book is spent exploring computer science and membership in the Church, while the real plot takes a back seat until the end.

Category:
Fiction

Why I chose this book:
Orson Scott Card

My personal opinion:
There are LOTS of reasons not to read this book. If you don't like language, stay away. It's not the "heavy" stuff, but there's more than there should be. If you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and you don't like any negativity around the Church or its members, stay away. If children being harmed is a trigger for you, stay away. If you don't like getting close to a major character, only to have them killed off, stay away. I cannot recommend this book to anyone, really, unless none of those warnings bothers you, and you're a fan of Stephen King novels.
This is one of the most esoteric novels I've ever read. In order to understand everything in the book, you have to be a member of the Church that has been in a leadership position. You also have to have a background in, or more than a basic understanding of, computer science. You also have to have children. That's a really small sliver of humanity.
It was definitely not one of my favorites, and I doubt I'll ever read it again. But the author is a phenomenal storyteller, and I basically could put the book down. Even when some of the plot twists were predictable, I still couldn't stop reading the thing. I also couldn't fathom how one character could possibly provoke so much rage in so many people in such a short time, all while basically trying to be a "good person".

Warnings
Language: regular, but mostly the milder words
Violence: children being harmed
"Adult" situations: yes, some with more detail than I like
Death: yes, including major character(s)

Movie rating equivalent:
R

Protagonist description: 
Step is a young father, just trying his best to provide for his family and be a good human

Point of view of story: 
First-ish. It flipped from third to first on a regular basis

Book length:
Medium-long

Story flow:
Great, gripping story

Grammar and spelling issues:
I believe that someone scanned and OCR-ed a paper version of the book, to make the Kindle version. There were many spelling issues.

Character connection (no spoilers):
None

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Happily Ever After Kiera Cass

By
Brief synopsis (no spoilers): Short novellas and after stories from the perspective of other main characters from The Selection Series. Includes: -The Prince (with the two bonus chapters), Maxon’s novella -The Guard, Aspen’s novella -The Queen, Amberly’s novella -The Favorite, Marlee’s novella -Three scenes from Celeste’s POV -Lucy’s scene (bonus scene from The One) -The bonus epilogue -Where are they now? Category: YA Why I chose this book: Selection of novellas filling in gaps in The Selection series.  My personal opinion (the review): Of the entire series this was by far and away my favorite. I loved getting to hear parts of the stories from other perspectives. There was also additional details not found in the original story. All my questions or things I wondered about where answered through these stories.  Warnings Language: None  Violence: None "Adult" situations: As with the other novels, a few scenes with more description than I would have liked. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Game by Terry Schott

By
Brief synopsis (no spoilers) What if this life is just a simulation? What if our bodies are in another world, plugged into a virtual reality game, and our entire life is just one play in that game? What would our real life be like, if we could experience several full simulated lifespans, in our teen years, and then enter adulthood? That is the premise of this story. Category Sci-Fi Why I chose this book It was either free or discounted on Amazon, and sounded interesting My personal opinion (the review) Too many inconsistencies. For example: The real world is able to view the players in the game in "real time", but time in the game is sped up, so that a week in real life is worth a decade in the virtual world. How do real world people have enough time to experience the virtual world, in real time, while still being accelerated? Danielle enters the game 3 days behind Trew, but she only ends up being 1 year younger. If a week is a decade in the game, then 3 days should have be...
Post a Comment
Read more

Tap the Magic Tree by Christie Matheson

By
Summary: Every book needs you to turn the pages. But not every book needs you to tap it, shake it, jiggle it, or even blow it a kiss. Innovative and timeless, Tap the Magic Tree asks you to help one lonely tree change with the seasons. It begins with a bare brown tree. But tap that tree, turn the page, and one bright green leaf has sprouted! Tap again—one, two, three, four—and four more leaves have grown on the next page. Pat, clap, wiggle, jiggle, and see blossoms bloom, apples grow, and the leaves swirl away with the autumn breeze. (Amazon) Attention Span/reading level: Perfect for my three year old. I would say that ages 2-10 would really enjoy something like this. It really keeps kids engaged and makes them feel like part of the story. There is one word to one sentence per page. Good uses for book in teaching: Interaction, that the reader takes part in making the story, what a tree can do (leaves, blossoms, fruit) Favorite part:      Child: The fact that ...
Post a Comment
Read more