Anonymous

Lovely

Reviewed: 04-21-15

I saw the movie years ago and found the book only slightly different, both are lovely and dreamy and sad in a good way.

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Terrific

Reviewed: 02-07-15

I really enjoyed this book. The world that she built was very interesting. I liked the heroine very much. The romance was a bit muted for my taste and kind of crammed into the end, not completely satisfactorily. I will definitely read the next book in the series. The reader was wonderful. She really enhance the book.

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Not as original as it seemed at first

Reviewed: 03-12-13

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I can see why people like this book - there's some compelling stuff here. But it gets rather buried in the book's flaws.

A major one is that the book starts out as one thing and becomes something else, and not in a good way; more in way that suggests the author was making it up as she went along and didn't quite know where she wanted to go (and she needed a much better editor). And the X-Men parallels in the second half just make the whole thing seem derivative, even though it started out pretty fresh and original.

Another major flaw is that the main character, Juliette, isn't very appealing. After spending a few hundred pages with her, you're really longing for a kick ass character like Katniss. Three quarters of the way through, I was just trying to finish it so I could read something else. I certainly won't bother with the sequel.

Despite my disappointment, I must admit that it would make a great movie, especially since Juliette's endless interior monologue would have to be jettisoned for the screen.

The reader was terrific, better than the material.

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Interesting

Reviewed: 03-12-13

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A fun book - enough detail to be interesting without getting bogged down. The reader had an odd way of emphasizing the wrong words in the sentence, which was confusing and annoying. He didn't do it a lot, and in general he was very good, but it definitely detracted from my enjoyment.

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Compelling and vivid

Reviewed: 08-25-12

Where does Pure rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Very high.

What other book might you compare Pure to and why?

The Hunger Games - wrenching and memorable.

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

Multiple narrators bring the story to life.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes!

Any additional comments?

An inventive and gripping book. Characters who you come to know rather slowly, and each is more complex than you originally thought. JB confounds your expectations several times, which I really appreciated. But the book is also filled with terrible imagery that was sometimes a bit much for me (maybe even worse than The Hunger Games). I love dystopia, but I can only take the post-apocalyptic stuff in small doses. That said, I can't wait for the sequel, which unfortunately, is not due out until next year. JB's descriptions of this burned out world makes you appreciate the small pleasures of everyday life that we so take for granted. The book has been optioned for a movie, which I would love to see, and I hope they do it justice.

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Intriguing

Reviewed: 08-24-12

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It's hard to judge a book by just one chapter, but this one seems like a gripping story based on the first 15 minutes.

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Charming and fun

Reviewed: 08-24-12

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Fun and funny story - I laughed out loud several times. The only thing stopping me from giving this 5 stars is that I thought the ending was abrupt and a bit unsatisfying. But this charming story is well worth listening to.

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Believe the hype.

Reviewed: 06-26-12

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Absolutely wonderful. Literate, engaging, and thought-provoking. It's very much to John Green's credit that he didn't write it like a big tragedy, even though it *is* a big tragedy.

The reader, Kate Rudd, was wonderful. She made an excellent story even better. And, bonus, there's an interview with the author at the end, wherein he explains how he came to write it. The only downside to listening to this on audio is that it's the kind of book in which you want to underline passages, and that's impossible to do.

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Excellent and thought-provoking

Reviewed: 06-18-12

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Amazing the amount of misery created by these two inexplicably angry young men. A great read if you can handle the distressing subject matter - informative, thought-provoking, and thorough. Especially fascinating is the careful way the author dispels the many media myths about the incident, including that the killers were bullied, and that they were associated with "goth" culture. Of course, hard to read as a parent - I cried a couple of times, reading about the terrible loss experienced by the parents of those killed, and it's utterly terrifying to read the minimal signals the killers gave of what they were planning and, even more, what they were capable of. This one is going to stick with me. The reader was excellent.

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2 people found this helpful

Delightful

Reviewed: 06-18-12

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What a fun and inventive story, with engaging characters, and such an interesting take on the time period (WWI). Alan Cummings is an exceptional reader, which of course is no surprise. I really enjoyed this. I must read the sequel, Behemoth.

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