Rate this book

Genius Wars (2010)

by Catherine Jinks(Favorite Author)

3.93 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0307746143 (ISBN13: 9780307746146)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Listening Library (Audio)

series

Genius

review 1: To be honest, I didn't really enjoy The Genius Wars. It wasn't what I expected and it wasn't as great as the other previous books of this trilogy. The only good part of this book was that we got to see another side of Prosper English. We got to see him break down from his former genius and into his crazed, almost devolved self. This was probably the only appealing detail of this book for me. There were many things that made this book terrible. Yes, terrible. I scarcely ever say a book is terrible, and this time it's not the subject matter that bothered me. It's how the story is given to the reader. Cadel became annoying about midway through the book. He continued to think about Prosper English and how to stop him and scarcely reflected on other things. It became almost red... moreundant. Not once did he stop and think that maybe the police could handle Prosper. There was no character development whatsoever. Hell, anything that he gained from the second book backtracked into this obsessive, I-can-only-do-this Cadel. It was obnoxious and I nearly put the book down because of this. Another annoying aspect of this book was when Catherine Jinks continued over and over about the surveillance. I understand that it was a huge part of the story, but I felt like she hammered in the point about a thousand times and it was annoying to no end. Having Cadel have to remind all the adults in the story how to avoid being detected and being paranoid about every camera in sight was bothersome and I feel like he should have figured something out so that he wouldn't be as paranoid, if only to give the reader a break from Cadel's paranoid babbling. There were also less interesting characters. You basically had the same cast of characters as the second book, which would have been fine if they had been used. I feel like, having dealt with many different, interesting characters in the first book, that being isolated to just Cadel in the third book was boring, especially when he was just being paranoid the whole time and trying to solve things that the police might have helped him with. Having a few new actually engaging characters might have sweetened the pot. The plot didn't really do it for me as it did in the other two. I expected a fast paced, action packed book, but it really wasn't as exciting as the first two. I really had to force myself to read and it just felt slow. I feel like some of this was Cadel's paranoia. Another issue I had with the plot was that the characters that did recur and that could have had an interesting part to play in the plot weren't used, or were barely used. Niobe's assassination attempts could have helped quicken the plot. Com and Dot could have been used more. Sonja and Hamish could have been used more. The plot was underwhelming and just a disappointment to me after reading the former two books.Finally, I didn't really like the end. I think Jinks could have added a few more chapters on why Cadel had a sudden change of heart, of which I won't go into as I don't want to spoil anything. She didn't really wrap up loose ends, which was frustrating. It wouldn't have been a big deal if there were going to be more books in this series, but there aren't, so reading the ending was a huge let down. If anything, even if it didn't tie up the loose ends, Cadel's reactions to the past events could have been expanded to give it a halfway satisfying ending. This book was just a huge disappointment for me. I do not recommend this book, although if you have read the first two, then I suppose you should read it so that you can get the rest of the story. Just be forewarned that it isn't as good as the first two. Don't set yourself up for disappointment.
review 2: I thought this book was very good and had a great ending, and it was a great finale to the series. My only problem with it was that it left me hanging at the very end. What happens to Cadel after he gets home? Is Prosper still alive or did he die in the boat accident? There are still many questions that are left unansewred for me, but overall this was just as action-packed as the first 2 books and it was very fun and exciting to read! less

Download links for: Genius Wars

Advertising