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★☆☆☆☆ 1 star
It is truly a sorry affair that most sequels just do not turn out right.
Well, alright, not most. Some.
Can we settle on a lot?
I can start naming now,
(The sequel to Blood Red Road, Metro 2034…)
and I am sure you can carry on with this list to eternity. In fact, please carry on in the comments! I would really love to find out what sequel drove you mad.
So basically, I think we can draw the conclusion that you pretty much have to be J.K. Rowling not to mess up the sequels.
So am I surprised that Shift wasn’t really a charming sequel to Wool?
No, dear friends, I am not. But am I disappointed?
I don’t really know where to begin with this book, or frankly – IF I should begin at all, cause you can see I just gave it 1 star, which I pretty much never do, so you must be getting the vibe that not only did this book not satisfy me, it probably even enraged me.
In fact, if that book had been a game, I would have rage quit.
This book has many very unfortunate factors that made me hate it. Part of it was that it was a sequel to a mind-blowing book. But it’s not just that! The plot dragged and dragged and dragged… I can’t think of a book that has tortured me quite so lately.
If I had to compare it with Wool, well, first of all, the main character is such a wimp that you can’t even. Literally. Second – okay, the first book is quite depressing. But it’s also uplifting in a way, cause they keep fighting. Nobody gives up. Shift though? What happens to the guy is so depressing, that if you have any empathy at all, like even the amount sea critters have, you will probably get sorely depressed from just touching the book, much less reading it.
(Hint: I totally did.)
Unfortunately, I can’t find much more to say about this book. It’s a non-story completely. I know it will not remain in my mind at all, because, well, pretty much nothing happened. Half of it was a retelling of what happened in the first book, half told stuff about a guy I honestly don’t care to hear about, and intermingled in between all of that, there was maybe a little bit about how or why the silos were actually built. Alright, I’ll give you that – there is the backstory. But hey. I could have saved so much more time (and brain cells) if that was just given to me in like 10 pages.
Now you will say, Evelina, dear friend, WHY DID YOU NOT DNF??
Well, now. I actually have a pretty good reason for that.
You might know I do not DNF almost ever, but this time I was buddy-reading this with my mom. And since I was taking my sweet time, she kept whining about wanting to talk about the story and just tortured me into finishing it! It was terrible 😀 abuse, I tell you! Here’s a GIF of me (superstar!) to show you how I felt while reading this book – I think it’s a better outlet than text:
So have you read Shift or Wool? And what sequels let you down?
I’m Evelina and I blog about books that made an impression on me. I love middle grade, women’s, scifi and some literary too.
Oh girl. I am so sorry. That’s… just the MOST disappointing. I completely understand why you didn’t DNF. I have done that more times than I’d like to admit. When I’m reading with a buddy or for a book club, I just want to finish a terrible book so I can clearly explain to people why I didn’t like it. And so I can explain to them why there are so many other books they should read (and recommend them based on what they enjoyed about this book)! I haven’t read Shift or Wool. One of my friends did recommend… Read more »
Yeah, I loved Wool! Wool is definitely worth it. Sequels just sometimes go haywire. But I’ve heard the third part’s good! Although it might also be hard to get a hold of it for me.
I would have gladly DNFed this one, but oh well. At least I have a fun gif now, right? :D)
I think Ancillary Sword is the sequel that MOST disappointed me in the last few years. Ancillary Justice was so special and Ancillary Sword was so utterly mediocre in every way, lacking the slightest bit of what made its predecessor special.
I’m just glad you didn’t say The Dark Forest, so I don’t have to internet fight you.
I haven’t read the ancillary series yet. As for the Dark Forest! That’s one of my favorite series EVER. I would never say anything bad about it 😀
Huh. I thought AS took the series a new direction that I loved; I started picking up a culture vibe and almost liked it more than the first. Well, not really, Justice was too good not to love it the most.
Anyway, on Wool. I loved the first short story but really wasn’t a fan of the entire arc.
I liked the entire first part, but this one.. No no no. Have you read The Three Body Problem series though, Nathan? I forget 🙂
Love the gif lol. Sorry this disappointed you though :-/ I get frustrated when books repeat everything that happened in the previous one, and the dragging plot does sound like a problem.
Yeah… I suppose maybe it’s good when you’re reading it years after the first book?
I mean, I imagine that’s why authors do it. Or they do it for the people who skip the earlier books. But I like to binge read, and I keep my own summaries of books so that I can read the summary before starting the next book in a series if it’s been a while. So for me the recaps are frustrating. And people who skip books and expect to understand everything annoy me so they don’t deserve recaps lol.
Yeah, I suppose! It’s tough to do a recap where you’re informative but not annoying 😀
I really enjoyed Wool, but I never got around to reading this sequel. And isn’t there also a third book?? Now I’m SO glad I didn’t bother, thanks for the warning!
Yeah, there’s a third book, they say it’s much better. But this one is definitely not worth it. Not every day do you give 5 stars to the first book in the series and then 1 start to the next one 😀
Sequels are so tricky! I feel like the pressure of the first book pushes many authors to overdo, overwrite, over-everything, and it ends up a disaster!
Or, like, suffer from the middle book syndrome. Where the middle of the series is the weakest one? You know what I mean.
hahaha I agree! You asked me about the sequel of Dust Lands. I did like it but it wasn’t a five starts. Maybe 4. I stared the last and UGH. No sure. LOL I wasn’t able to get through Wool and I was going to try because of your review but given that the series doesn’t continue hat good.. Hummmm…
Oh wait, so you just posted a review of the first part, but not the others? Because I commented on your review thinking you still haven’t read it yet 🙂 yes, the last one is so totally ugh, what was the author thinking even?! Right?
[…] The Garden is a retro fantasy based in a pre-war Chicago (think gangsters, orphans and magic) and Shift is the sequel of Wool – a dystopian story about how the world ended and people got plunged into […]
First, omg, I love how you title your review posts! And second, I’m sorry to hear you had a bad experience with this book. I haven’t read these in particular, but I’ve certainly had had books disappoint me when I had high expectations from a previous book. Sigh. What to do. Sometimes some books really should stay as Standalones.
Haha, thank you 😀 yeah, I’ve been trying to click-bait my titles at least a little bit, haha 😀 I think it makes it more interesting to check it out, anyway. I’m so glad someone notices these things 🙂
Thanks for dropping by!
Hahaha, yeah it works! It makes it seem less like review and more like a discussion. Kudos to you! And no problem! xd
Thank you 🙂
Sorry to hear this book was so disappointing for you. I am the same when it comes to DNF-ing. I always say that maybe the book gets better, but most of the time there`s only 5 pages left and the book got worse.
Haha, totally 😀
There is one series that comes to mind that had a good sequel. In fact, I like the second book better then any other in the series!
It’s Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy by Ally Carter.
(The first book in the Gallagher Girl Series is I’d Tell You That I Love You, But Then I’d Have To Kill You.)
Interesting, that is rare that the sequel is better than the first one 🙂
🙁 Big sads. I HATE it when sequels are a let down and 1 star? That must have been AWFUL. I’m so sorry!
I haven’t read Wool, never heard of it until you actually, but now it’s definitely off my list just because of the sequel!
What did your mom make of this, by the way?
My mom had a similar opinion, although she didn’t hate it as much as I did 🙂
As for Wool, it’s still worth a read! It was a stand-alone, technically, and it was genius.
This seems to be a thing. That the sequels are bad ad they are often! Then the authors try to cover it up by saying that it’s a trilogy, or a series so no one will remember the sequel…
Yeah. I suppose, middle books in the series are hard to write? But it happens so often! It really is kind of sad. I can think of so many sequels that just didn’t deliver.
[…] great luck with sequels this year. In fact, I have written quite a few posts about bad sequels (Shift, sequel to Wool and A Closed And Common Orbit, sequel to A Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet). […]