Mary Ellen's Reviews > The Sparrow
The Sparrow (The Sparrow, #1)
by
by
Sadly, goodreads has yet to allow a kill-it-with-fire rating, so I'll have to content myself with a one star review and a nice cup of tea to quell the overpowering nausea. Not due to the "shocking" ending, which I would have welcomed somewhere around page two. Not due to the incompetent sci and incredibly half-assed fi. Due to the revolting, self-congratulatory, aren't-we-so-clever-and-cute, wink-to-the-audience characters. But perhaps this was intentional. Perhaps Ms. Russell intended her audience to greet the tragic death scenes with laughter, loud cheers, and grateful relief that these idiots will FINALLY shut up. No? There's still more than 100 pages left? ... God, damn it.
I can only imagine Ms. Russell's thought process went a little something like this:
"Now I want to set this book in the future, but I don't actually want to go to the effort of developing a rich, textured, and believable future society. I know! I'll have all my main characters be obsessed with the 20th century! And they'll do nothing but reference 20th century pop culture! And then they'll all stand around complimenting each other on how funny and brilliant and totally sexy they all are! I mean, anyone reading my book will HAVE to think my main character is witty if all my other characters say he's witty. Ooo! Ooo! And they'll all agree with everything I think, and one of them will actually be me, but no one will notice because I'll be super subtle about it and -"
You would think that at this point someone would have stepped in, if not for Ms. Russell's sake, if not for the sake of future generations, then for the whole field of science fiction. They've already dumped Stephenie Meyer on us. Did we really need this too?
I can only imagine Ms. Russell's thought process went a little something like this:
"Now I want to set this book in the future, but I don't actually want to go to the effort of developing a rich, textured, and believable future society. I know! I'll have all my main characters be obsessed with the 20th century! And they'll do nothing but reference 20th century pop culture! And then they'll all stand around complimenting each other on how funny and brilliant and totally sexy they all are! I mean, anyone reading my book will HAVE to think my main character is witty if all my other characters say he's witty. Ooo! Ooo! And they'll all agree with everything I think, and one of them will actually be me, but no one will notice because I'll be super subtle about it and -"
You would think that at this point someone would have stepped in, if not for Ms. Russell's sake, if not for the sake of future generations, then for the whole field of science fiction. They've already dumped Stephenie Meyer on us. Did we really need this too?
Sign into Goodreads to see if any of your friends have read
The Sparrow.
Sign In »
Reading Progress
Finished Reading
August 6, 2011
– Shelved
August 6, 2011
– Shelved as:
kill-it-with-fire
January 17, 2015
– Shelved as:
reviewed-with-words-and-everything
Comments Showing 1-19 of 19 (19 new)
date
newest »
message 1:
by
Michael
(new)
23 mar. 2014 02:58
reply
|
flag
Not necessarily LOL!
I am a huge fan of literary Sci Fi, but this was "barely literate" sci fi. She writes like a middle schooler. Very silly book.
Oh, gee, I thought it described the novel perfectly. Terrible book.
This is not high tragedy, this is junk.
But what I really dislike, is that aspects of the book are OK, which lured me into finishing it. I wont get those hours of my life back.
Some of the character interactions are unbearably twee. Just nauseating.