want a real life adventure? come to Australia we have spiders bigger than your hand.

I quite like her, he on the other hand is an arrogant, self-conceited wanker, tugging his own boat. I hope Wil can bring him down a few pegs off his high horse.

The giant red-headed side kick is pretty awesome bloke, very sweet.

I am so confused right now.

"They fear you as I once feared you," he said. "As you once feared me. We are all someone's monster, Nina."
- Matthias

'She had to laugh at herself. She wouldn't wish love on anyone. It was the guest you welcomed and then couldn't be rid of.'
- Nina

'Shall I tell you the secret of true love? her father once asked her. A friend of mine liked to tell me that women love flowers. He had many flirtations, but he never found a wife. Do you know why? Because women may love flowers, but only one women loves the scent of gardenias in late summer that remind her of her grandmother's porch. Only one women loves apple blossoms in a blue cup. Only one women loves wild geraniums.

That's Mama! Inej had cried.

Yes, Mama loves wild geraniums because no other flower has quite the same colour, and she claims that when she snaps the stem and puts a sprig behind her ear, the whole world smells like summer. Many boys will bring you flowers. But some day you'll meet a boy who will learn your favorite flower, your favorite song, your favorite sweet. And even if he is too poor to give you any of them, it won't matter because he will have taken the time to know you as no one else does. Only that boy earns your heart.'

I love how even with so many POVs each character has such distinct voices, they're so easy to keep track of, never blurring within each other or becoming muddled.

I have read authors who couldn't pull this off with only 2 POVs let alone with 6? - though the one at the beginning did feel a little redundant, but i suppose it was a good way to introduce us to the world and the issues our characters will be facing. Actually thinking about it, I wouldn't mind the second book opening the same way, be an interesting quirk the author could use as their opening paragraph.

Geez what a messed up an complicated relationship. I love it! lol

Like isn't even on the radar, despise wouldn't even cut it. O.O

Wait a minute. Nina has been mooning after this guy for a whole year and he doesn't even like her? Just because he's pretty!
WTF woman.

Unfortunately not as good as I had hoped, nor as good as the other series attached to this one, the Study Series.

My reasoning for this is mainly based on the characters, when you have friends like these who needs enemies? I don't understand how she called any of these people her friends, and her love relationships were no better. All the relationships in this book were brittle and weak and made zero sense to me - maybe I'm missing a big chunk of Opal's story as I haven't yet finished the Study Series but I doubt it. She only had a few conversations with some of the people she labeled her friends - at least on 'screen' which is all I can relate to obviously. One girl was just plain her enemy, legit out to get her but no Opal wanted to be besties - which I'll admit is a weirdly admiring quirk but I'm also concerned about her brain, maybe she's dehydrated after all that time near the kilns. Others were just bitchy and nasty but she thought of them...somewhat fondly O.o And the 2 nice one'sshe had bitchy thoughts about!!
Her love interests were just plain nightmares. I'm fairly certain she was mainly attracted to them because of how they looked, at least that appeared to be what she was focused on during the book - of course after she managed to snag one, she decided she didn't want him any more and was mooning over the other one, but couldn't give up the current one cause otherwise she'd be alone. *bangs head on hard surface*

Opal just wasn't as good to read about either. I don't mind reading about less adventurous, brave girls, someone who's more meek and quite but there was just something so.... annoying about Opal. I'm pretty sure it was her constant back-stepping, self doubt and whining. All those things are fine in small doses but I'm fairly certain these were aspects of Opals main personality, which drove me a little bonkers. On occasional she would suddenly gather up her courage for all of 2 seconds then throw a pity party for herself before anything actually happened, this process would then Wash and repeat. Plus towards the end everyone referred to her as smart and waited on her to come up with the daring and brilliant plans on how to defeat the bad guys and their crappy situation, which is just plain ridiculous. The girl is lucky for sure! but her plans almost never work, and when they might she doesn't even bother to try them due to overwhelming fear. It was very frustrating.

Otherwise a decent enough story, I had periods were I was very entertained and quite intrigue about what would come next. The powers, politics, etc were a blast and I loved the whole aspect of the glass work, no idea how accurate it is, but I enjoyed it.

I'll be reading the next I imagine, in theory Opal should be different, she was less annoying towards the end of this book at least, not by a lot but enough. And I really need to re-read and finish of the Study series as they constantly refer to it in this book.

Geez the movie was almost completely different from the book!! It was kind of hard to imagine they're even related, and don't get me started on the end! What was with that!? It was nothing like the book! How is Ender's brother going to take over he world? How does Valentine have such a big impact on what happens? All of it was just missing.

• 
  
  Other things I noted being different:
• Characters are older, nor are they as ruthless. Probably for the best, it was uncomfortable to read about, let alone watch. Glad I wasn't the only one who thought it was odd by how violent Orson's 'children' were.
• Bean is there from the beginning.
• No one is running around naked, thank goodness - don't know about you guys but I did not want to watch a bunch of prepubescent boys running around starkers. Glad I also wasn't the only one who thought it was odd how many naked scene's there were in the book, I swear they spent half the time with no clothes on :/
• Ender is quite a big kid in the movie, he's meant to be tiny and almost 4 years younger than everyone else.
• Ender didn't have to fight his way to the top, nor prove himself. Every commander Ender had in the book he had to physically or verbally fight, this time he only did it once. Otherwise he seem to skim through with no issues. 
• Different insults were used, didn't remark/insult any physical characteristics or make any sexual remarks.
• The boy doesn't give the same blessing in the movie as he did in the book - actually in the movie I don't get why he's friends with any of the people he was originally close with in the book. They barely talked.
• In the book Ender has most of the original ideas, in the movie the others come up with the majority.
• The shrink - Anderson? is played by a women (How to get away with murder)
• Ender didn't start his own little rebellious group before coming commander of the Dragons, nor did they fight any fights, except for the one that is at the end of the book, just before Enders calls it quits.
• People who weren't in Ender's Dragon army in the book, are there in the movie.
• Ender didn't turn into a giant dick when he became in charge, also they used completely different tactics in the final game (if i recall correctly) and the line was clearly visible.
• No weird naked fight scene.
• The adults weren't as scheming in the movie, and they appeared to be more supportive, if idiots.
• Earth scene was completely different, for one they skipped the first scene.
• Speaking of earth, where is team Vi and Peter? Aren't they meant to be taking over the world by now? Earth isn't even really on anyone's radar in the movie.
• Face tattoos!! Ender doesn't attack teacher ruthlessly. And the teacher is much more forth coming with information and his identity.
• The final battle screen is different, I believe in the book is was described as little square boxes, like pixels that stood in for the enemy ships. Enders team also didn't fall apart, and he didn't loose there friendship. The end battle itself was different.
• The whole ending was nothing like the book. Nothing like.

So yeah, these aren't even all the differences I noted while watching, jut the ones I can recall now. It has to me never been this obvious the difference between a book and movie before. I don't know how anyone who watched the movie knew what on earth  was happening or why because they skipped out on so much information and scenes.

End thought: Movie was shit.

What on earth is with all the teenagers and young adults in this book!? I have never met so many nasty and spiteful people in my life, let alone all at once. I'm in their age category and can easily claim most people my age aren't generally dicks, even if some are immature. These guys are all immature, have no emotional regulation (which they should have learnt long before now) and have purposely tried to hurt someone for their own amusement. 

Does Snyder have a made hate for youth? or is she trying to make her main character appear more wonderful and kind-hearted in comparison by not making Opal a childish monster like the rest? who knows. Either way pretty much everyone else is a douche so far.

Apparently this is the second time I've attempted to read this series (thought it sounded familiar) and I've come across the same problem, I haven't finished the Study Series.... so I can't help but feel at a slight disadvantage. Especially when the MC from the Study series has so greatly impacted and shaped Opal into the timid girl she currently is.... I wonder what she was like beforehand?

The narrator almost ruined this book for me. The only voice that I felt was done anywhere near the definition of 'well' was The Hammer's. And that's only because it sounded interesting and rather amusing, this big tough muscle man who hunts zom's for a living with this little high pitched, red-neck voice! classic.
Side note: I also had the occasionally difficulties telling the voices apart, who was saying what, etc. And some characters - I became quite confused over who 'the brothers' were, but that all got sorted out afterwards.

Anyways onto the important subject: My Issue.
The only issue I have with the narrator (its a bit of a doozey) is that he made everyone sound bland. Bland! in a zombie book! How on earth is that even possible. This guy had so many opportunities to make this book so much more and he just piddled them all away. These characters were guttered, devastated, fearful, in immense pain and vengeful....and yet the narrator for the most part just spoke every line, and just stated the emotion afterwards. No!! I want you to sound it out for me, I was to feel what they're going through. I want to feel their pain, misery and anticipation. It is after all a zombie book, it's what I signed on for!

So yea unfortunately the book was rather bland on the emotional side of things, luckily I still enjoyed the narrator reading the book to me enough that I plan on continuing - though I believe I'll be reading the next book myself.

Now off that subject, lets talk about the Characters.
Boy Benny was a whiny bitch wasn't he? goodness for someone who grew up in a world filled with zombies he sure whinged a lot. You think the kid would be a lot tougher. I am being serious when I say his main goal at the beginning of the book was to do the least amount of physical work, that wasn't exceptionally boring, that's it. His life goal - what a champ aye? luckily towards the end after his brother stopped coddling him - or should I say started paying attention to him, Benny grew up a lot. He became a decent sort, which is nice. His brother, Tom was pretty cool, like to drop his wisdom nuggets on all the other suckers, actually he would make a pretty good guidance counselor. Lol.
Nix was a fantastic character, not cliched, which is nice. Red hair, pale skin, short, freckles, (according to boy's who have no other females their age to go off - very attractive, with big boobies. Which of course is a very important character definition to teenage boys) incredibly intelligent, higher achiever, ambitious, loves learning and researching but is also physically strong, she neither this nor that, but a mixture of things. Willing to put in 110% effort into anything she try's. If anyone one is going to conquer this destroyed world its Nix. She also get's jealous, is incredibly poor, unwilling to take 'handouts' and possible doesn't have the best taste in boys. (yet to be determined).
The Lost Girl was a nice surprised, Maberry would have been boring and made her a hot babe, who kick zombie ass, and was incredibly flirty (the usual combo) but he wen't somewhere different with it, I won't say how - spoilers and all that, but I will say that I appreciated it. Quite a nice surprise.
Chong was a funny boy, and brilliant. I love his smart little lines that flew over Benny's head.
The others, were alright. The baddies, were actual realistic baddies. Someone you can easily picture being created based on the world they live in.

I Also want to point out and say kudos to Macberry for remarking on Benny's attempts to save the 'Lost Girl' from herself and her current lifestyle, and not understanding why she wouldn't except his 'gracious' offer. This is a common behaviour for humans, we note someone is living differently to us, maybe in a way we ourselves would not like to live, and offer them, usually with good intentions to change their living styles. Not taking into account that it is in fact their choice, and that they may be happy with it. Many countries and religious groups do this, Australia included. What I loved about how Macnerry handled this situation was he didn't have the girl accept their offer under pressure, or fold just because the others didn't, couldn't understand. They thought she was a bit nutty for her choices, sure. But they accepted them in the end, and didn't harass her afterwards about it. This I loved.

The zombies were good, not to intense but not without their strengths and the world was great - set 14(?) years after 'first night' which was a nice change from the usual. Overall an entertaining read. Looking forward to the next one.

I'm just going to be upfront and honest.... I had some issues with this book. The Veil could have been great, better than great even, but somehow got lost between the idea of this book and the finish product. I'm not really sure what it is that wen't wrong, though I suspect the characters are partially to blame, they just didn't pull me in. The book itself was fun and interesting, I loved the setting, which is based in New Orleans after a giant war between paranormals 'paras' and the human population, who barely won and are still facing the consequences. Unfortunately the powers were rather mediocre - been there done that, but how they came about was superb and unique. The same could be said for the characters actually, they were rather been there, done that. I felt as though I should have loved them, but they just..... didn't feel genuine? I suppose. Something about them felt off and I didn't connect with them. I actually had to push myself to pick up this book. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy it, just that I didn't feel the need to read it, but I was determined to finish it. Besides I wanted to know what happened at the end - which was a bit of a plot disaster.
I'm warning you now I'm about to spill some spoilers.
The book spent all this time building up towards the end, legit 95% of the book, then we had our battle about 5 pages from the end. And just like that the battle was over, took all of 2 seconds to read! I felt rather let down. To top it off its not enough that they have to deal with all the ramifications of an upcoming war, traitors, learning how to utilize their power and people turning evil they also had a nice little personal bomb dropped on Claire's head where her mother isn't actually dead like she had always believe but possibly playing for the 'bad side' - who mind you are a bunch of uninformed nutters hell bound on killing everyone for the good of man kind, because the misguided idiots think they can kick ass. Sigh.

Anywho, as I was saying, this book had all the potential to be amazing, but for me just came short of the mark. I'm sure other's are going to devour it, what with all the hot studs running around, all the details of what said studs look like, how good their pants fit their bootys, and all the hot and sweaty dancing (it is NO after all) chuck in a few paras, some kind-of secretive evil guys, sleuthing and action and I'm sure this right up a lot of people alleys. For now I'm going to be skipping the rest of the series, I'm glad I read the first book but can think of many other books I would prefer to read before starting The Sight. Maybe after I have finished all those I may give it a shot.

Really? There isn't enough going on at the moment - there's about to be another war, literally seconds away from starting - and you drop the bomb 'my mum isn't actually dead like I've always believed' card on Claire's head?
Sigh. What a mess.