Well this was a fascinating and unusual read. It took me about a month to get through it. The book concerns a 30-something-year-old woman named Smilla. She is of Greenland Inuit descent & a Denmark citizen. These are two countries I knew literally nothing about & it was very interesting to learn about the histories and cultures of both. She lived a nomadic existence as a hunter in Greenland throughout her childhood, then lost her mother & brother tragically, then was sent to various boarding schools and lived in Denmark with her rich doctor father. Smilla is pretty unrealistic, but she is one of the more dynamic female heroines I have ever read about, so I will let it go. Her Inuit background led her to have uncanny spatial abilities and inner knowledge of ice. She is also a world renowned scientist not living up to her potential. She is 5'2" but can fight military-trained men effortlessly. And dresses to the 9s. She is both smart and a smart aleck. She is an interesting personality & I found the relationship between the Aboriginal and European/Western colonial culture the most fascinating part of the book. Smilla is interesting and I was intrigued reading about her. The thriller part of this novel, not nearly as interesting, moves at a glacier's pace (haha!) and is also not very realistic. Everything falls into place for Smilla a little too neatly/coincidentally and wow, what a conspiracy. By the end I was annoyed and just wanted to figure everything out.

Harper Lee is an interesting woman and author but this book would have been better suited as a long magazine article. It gets really boring and repetitive really quickly and the author grates a bit

Written as a spoof of your basic American History textbook, this book is both hysterical and educational, much like The Daily Show!

At first I thought this book was fabulous. I bought it in an airport and didn't put it down until I had landed in a new city. It has fascinating insight into Afghani culture and I really learned a lot about the Middle Eastern mindset. It was educational without being boring. That being said, the ending really disappointed me. Things fell into place in a way that Dickens would have loved, but I found silly.

I have to give the author credit for an incredible, fast-moving plotline that makes this entire series addictive. However, ultimately, despite my rapid-fire reading, I felt as if the series was missing a lot. The characters were not very deep, I didn't care about the love triangle, and the ending is so pessimistic and blah that I feel as if there was no real arc or development to the stories or the characters.

Good middle book of the series, but not a lot happened, just made me desperate to read the third one!

Started off interesting. Definitely had a French adventure type story feel to it, like [b:The Count of Monte Cristo|7126|The Count of Monte Cristo|Alexandre Dumas|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309203605s/7126.jpg|391568] and other Dumas stories. However, after a few riveting escapes and an interesting segment involving a leper colony and the main character living with a Native American tribe, this quickly became tedious and hard to finish.

This is not so much a zombie book or a horror book, but rather a commentary on human nature during trying times. Many of the problems addressed in the book are not caused by the zombies, but by our current military-industrial complex and ongoing political conflicts. So...the real monsters in this book turn out not to be the zombies...but...wait for it...the humans! (GASP!) (I know, this is hard-core literary analysis here, huh?)

The writing format is unique, it is written very realistically like a historical war documentary, with short snippets of tales from survivors. The style copies so closely other legitimate books that I have read, that at first, I was greatly amused, while also being a tad insulted. (The first that comes to mind is this book on genocide I had to read for a class:

[b:Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts|1165549|Century of Genocide Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts|Samuel Totten|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1181566256s/1165549.jpg|1153229])

I give Max Brooks (wait, he's the son of MEL BROOKS?!?) kudos for the idea though and for his excellent ability to copy that format pretty effectively.

That format was also the book's biggest weakness, in my opinion. I felt like I was reading a lot of short stories or essays, that could all stand on their own. There was no real narrative running through the novel, and it left a sort of disconnected and confusing overall picture of the plot and why things happened the way they did. (Because of this format, I have no idea how they turned this into a movie!) (I also have no idea what "ferals" are, even though they get brought up several times). I was also frustrated because many of the stories had just gotten me hooked, when they ended, and I wanted to know more! It was like a constant tease. Also, he used way too many characters to try to fabricate that many unique voices. A lot of the characters ended up sounding similar to each other. I found myself losing interest about halfway through and not wanting to continue, because I felt like nothing was getting added.

This book is just like your favorite little snack. Fun, easy, harmless, entertaining, no real value, and next thing you know, you have devoured the whole package

I had abandoned this at one point but was able to come back and finish it. It is somewhat boring and rambling, with a character that is a sad-sack couch potato, and I skimmed parts. He lacks volition to the point that he wastes his life away. It was interesting when he briefly manages to meet a woman, but he cannot get it together enough to marry her. I think it would have been better as a short story.