Ender's Game

By Orson Scott Card

Genre: sci-fi

My rating: 3 1/2 stars

I don't know why I put off reading this book for so long.  I've had it sitting on my bookshelf for years.  I've heard rave things about it.  But what finally led me to crack the book open and settle down to read it was when I saw they were making this:

Yeah.  And I'm a big fan of reading the book before seeing the movie.

So anyway, what I thought of the book:



Pros:
I LOVED the concept.  It's what kept me reading.  I think it will be interesting to see as a movie, as it's hard to imagine simulated battles in zero-gravity, but I'm sure it'll look awesome on the big screen.  Or at least, I hope so.

I found all the characters to be fairly well-developed.  Considering there are so many, we grew to love the ones that sided with Ender, and hate the ones who did not.  We grew to really understand Ender, what he wanted and how he thought about things.  He was a very interesting character.

I thought the POV was interesting, alternating between Ender and the government and leaders of the Battle School.  It seems kind of weird at first, but it makes sense as the story unfolds.  Especially after the twist toward the end.

Cons:
I found Ender to be a little hard to relate to.  I mean, he's a kid.  Who can naturally do EVERYTHING brilliantly.  Kind of hard to believe, and hard to root for someone who can do anything and everything. Especially when they're significantly younger than you.

The twist towards the end was done distastefully in my opinion.  Twists should come about in an interesting way, that not only surprise you, but that make you want to keep reading.  When I read the twist, sure, I was surprised, but it honestly made me want to stop reading.  I continued for Ender's sake, to find out if anything good ever comes out of all the trials of his battle school experience, but I had no desire to find out what would happen to everybody else involved after that twist.

The ending was so dissatisfying.  Depressing even.  Maybe it's the whole thing with the twist and how everything after that played out.  But I was not happy with the ending at all.

As a former teacher I have a problem with the fact that all the teachers do not help Ender.  They push him in horrible ways because he is so gifted.  They let him get away with stuff he shouldn't.  What kind of teachers did Card have in his past to make him want to write the story this way?

Final Verdict:
Yeah, lots of cons.  But I still am glad I read the book.  Looking at the reviews on Goodreads, it seems as if people either love or hate this book.  Much more love it than hate it.  Very few people are in the middle like me.  But I can see why people rave about this book.  And I am looking forward to seeing the movie.  (I just secretly hope they change the ending of it.  For my sake.)

Have you read this best-selling book?  What did you think of it?  

Are you interested in seeing the movie?