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amaranth_wytch's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug use
Moderate: Addiction, Abandonment, Racism, Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, Violence, Antisemitism, Bullying, Child death, and Death
Minor: Sexual assault, Car accident, Sexual violence, Homophobia, and Mental illness
kjurewicz's review against another edition
dark
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Honestly, this book was a huge disappointment. For such interesting topic matter (UFOs, a cult, counterculture, racism, the tumultuous history of the 50s-80s), this book was surprisingly dull. There were too many intertwined characters and references that made it hard to follow the storyline. The most interesting and essential characters were only explored at a distance. Although I liked that each chapter focused on a specific character’s perspective to make it easier and more manageable to read, I had trouble following the plot and felt the writing style was sometimes ramble-y. Good for a writing class to use to study character development, perspective, and incorporating history into a novel…but not so good for pleasurable reading.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal death, Child death, and Racism
sarenasbookadventures's review against another edition
3.0
Nine Shiny Objects by Brian Castleberry was published on June 30th, 2020. The story centers around a UFO sighting of “nine shiny objects” in the Cascade Mountains. A group/cult referred to as ‘The Seekers’ stems from this event and the book essentially tells a story about the people that were left in the aftermath. This one was definitely a little quirky and unlike anything I have ever read before. I can’t imagine the amount of time and effort that went into creating a book spanning several generations with so many vastly different characters.
Although it was intriguing I wasn’t really able to ever feel truly attached and invested in the book.
Although it was intriguing I wasn’t really able to ever feel truly attached and invested in the book.
mariho06's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
brennarose's review
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death
pandora8655's review against another edition
4.0
This book was different than any other I've read before. Each chapter a different character, each chapter a few years ahead of the last but all the characters intertwined in some way. Sometimes I found it confusing and had to flip backwards to remember the previous characters as they were referenced. Interesting story though and it kept me thinking the whole time
sophronisba's review against another edition
3.0
This did not work for me, I'm afraid. The writing is good but each chapter is a story, and although there are some links between the individual stories, the connections were too tenuous and didn't offer enough of a throughline to hold my interest.
drewsof's review against another edition
3.0
This isn't so much the novel-in-stories that's implied by the copy, although it IS a novel composed of nine distinct short stories, with overlapping/recurring characters. The thing is, it still felt more like a collection of stories than a novel; the overarching 'why' of it all was lost on me, unless it was meant simply to be yet another American Novel kind of deal. I wanted, I'd hoped in fact, for more -- more focus on the cult, for one thing. Castleberry deftly inhabits wildly different people over the course of this novel, but as I got nearer to the end, I realized that so many of the cliffhangers and elisions made in the earlier stories would never be returned to and that, frankly, frustrated me.