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Last Four Things (2012)

by Paul Hoffman(Favorite Author)

3.54 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0241954282 (ISBN13: 9780241954287)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Penguin Export

series

The Left Hand of God

review 1: Wow, this book was so disappointing. The first one was good - like really good, despite the simplicity of it. It seems like the author thought he needed to catch up on his world building in the second one, and the amount of non-interesting, beside the point tales in this book is amazing. In a horrible horrible way.I mean intensely boring, page up-page down about this kind of people and that kind of folk, only that I don't give a blazes about them at all because I've only just heard of them and it doesn't feel natural to put it in the story. I gave this book a try. I really did! I read as far as page 240 before I threw the towel in, really miserable and disappointed.The long digressions, and multiple new plot lines came in and disturbed the story I was in fact very interest... moreed in reading: Cale's story. But even his plot line took a blow by the terrible need to slow the story down. A battle that could have lasted for two pages stretched out for chapters, filled with names of the opposing soldiers, their characteristics and heritage. I wouldn't mind, but it seemed so irrelevant and they DIE immediately. So many chapters seemed absolutely meaningless to me, because they contain story lines and one-dimensional characters which have no real impact on the story.Also, what really put me off and made me decide to put this book down (I usually always finish books, even though they are not the most exciting ones - because I want to know what happens) was the grammar mistakes. Honestly, English is not even my first language, but I noticed with horror ghastly errors and wondered how it could have made it past the editing stage. Some words were misspelled, but that could be sloppiness. Even more disturbing was the sentence structure, which was completely off some times. Often, severe comma errors would confuse the contents of the sentence, so I would have to reread it and "imagine" commas, in order to get the correct interpretation.All in all: Read the first book - The Left Hand of God, but don't bother with the sequel. Really, don't. The amount of nonsense and religious gibberish, with the lack of progress and plot development, makes The Last Four Things a very poor read.
review 2: I could go on and on, but I feel whatever I say has most likely already been said, so I shall keep this short and simple.I really enjoyed the first book, it was by no means perfect, but I really liked the character of Thomas Cale and saw a lot of potential. My problem is not really the story, but more of how it was written. The narration style feels significantly different, a lot more talk of politics and betrayal as the author takes you into the minds of several random Redeemers whose names honestly just become a great blur after a while as little distinguishes one Redeemer from the next (usually Hoffman relies on their titles to tell them apart, but titles too become blurred). You feel less personal with Cale or whoever the narrative focuses on and instead feel far more distant, much more like an observer than before, which though adds to the "watching a movie effect" I felt in the first book, it was to a level I no longer found it fun to read in this one and after a while found myself tired. This book is also has a cluster of wars and strategy, so be warned of that if you can not take that kind of barrage of information as I know quite a number of people who find no joy in reading the happenings and strategy of warfare. Lastly the characters: as I mentioned earlier, this book feels more impersonalized, which is true for the characters. You feel less connected to Cale, Henri and Kleist, IdrisPukke and Vipond lost their spark to me somehow, Arbell though is a pleasure as to me things got interesting whenever she was involved. Like the first book, Hoffman likes to introduce to the reader a new character, give them their whole backstory to the present before they encounter whatever fate whether fortunate or cruel. But this time around, unlike the assassin in the first book, I found myself just not caring about most people in this book. Bad things happened as per usual, but the only times I really cared involved Cale, Kleist, Arbell and this one girl locked in the basement, I can not remember her name.Overall, this book was good enough for me to flip to the last page, after about a year, finishing more than 4 books in between. I am not joking nor exaggerating on that one. If you liked the first book, you will find this one still enjoyable though perhaps a little underwhelming. If you did not like the first book then you will probably dislike this one further, unless of course the style here is more to your liking. less

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Reviews (see all)

nuisance

I went into The Last Four Things with lower expectations. I did what I know I should never do and took a detailed look at reviews before getting into it. The Left Hand of God left me on such a good note that I was really excited to get started with this book before looking at reviews and less so after. But despite this I went into the book and hoped that Paul Hoffman could maintain what made the first book so great.At first I was a little skeptical, not because of the reviews, but because the book started with a terribly long recap. Then in the first to chapters it spent so long explaining things that, i personally felt, weren't detrimental to the progress of the story and felt so long winded that I lost interest. This went on for a bit and I got worried that this would continue throughout the book, thankfully I was wrong.The book picked up some momentum and ended up being a fun read. It ended on a very interesting note which makes me excited to start 'The Beating of his Wings'.

tgitk

The Left Hand of God was in my opinion a fantastic book and not an easy book to follow I struggled at first to get back in step with this one the long wait between books probably didn't help and I should have read Left Hand again before starting this but it wasn't long before I was absorbed back into the world of Thomas Cale and I enjoyed it just as much can't wait for the next book, the wait being even longer this time.

Alk

Not as good as the first book, but still enjoyable.

boxrokmysox

Read for the first time: 3 starsRe-read: 4 stars

JessieMoe

Not bad. Quite heavy going at times...

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