tv series is better

I saw the tv show before I saw the book so I was exited to see it was a written story, as they are usually better. Not really the case with this one. perhaps seeing the show tainted my expectations, but I was a little disappointed. I finished it because I thought it would take me beyond the first season of the show, but it actually ended much sooner. I am a 28 year old male, so I don't care for a ton of emotional love story stuff. I really don't mind a little, but the written book seemed to be way over the top, at least for me. 14 year old girls will probably love it. I did like having two narrators, one for male characters and one for the females, that was a good touch. but over all I think the tv series is the real winner.

44 people found this helpful

Formulaic and repetitive

I loved the TV show on the CW so I thought I'd give this one a shot and bought the book. While the performance was mediocre the plot and characters were so poorly developed that their performance is the only good thing about this. Each chapter is told from a 1 of 4 character perspectives which is interesting BUT each chapter is basically written as "2 pages talking about what they are doing now, then flashback for the rest of the chapter". While I'm intrigued by how life was like before they landed on earth, I wanted a story that was equal parts "life in space" and "life on earth" but it was more about space. You hear a bit about the character's concerns about living on earth but you don't really see or hear about the struggles of survival. How do you build a fire? How do you learn to track animals? How do you build a shelter? How do you build a weapon? I mean as a reader, how am I supposed to believe that these children who have lived their WHOLE LIFE in space magically know how to survive on earth? There's only so many times you can say that a character "read it in a book" so they knew how to do it in real life.

I'm extremely disappointed in this book, from the characters, to the low vocabulary used, to the poorly described and developed scenery. I've read better fanfic on this concept/show than this, the original novel.

33 people found this helpful

ehhhhh

It sounded more like a first draft than something that had been edited extensively. I can't believe I'm saying it but... the TV show is better.

10 people found this helpful

Watch the show instead.

One of the rare instances where the show did it far better than the book. Don't bother unless you're a pre-teen girl looking for a poorly written book about love stricken teenagers.

4 people found this helpful

I enjoy the TV Series more.

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

I think young people will enjoy this book. It is a great idea and has been a very successful TV series that I enjoy very much. The book was more about teen romance than the story of survive and exploring a new world.

What could Kass Morgan have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

I like the changes that were made from the book to the TV series. I also think Kass could have gone into a little more about the space station and what was really happening to the people that they had to send 100 kids to the planet. The book only went into how superficial the different groups of people were, but it felt more like everyday groups, not people trying to survive on a space station.

What three words best describe Justin Torres and Phoebe Strole ’s voice?

Enjoyable to listen to.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointment. It was too short and the story did not evolve enough for me.

13 people found this helpful

Dissapointing

As a i watched the tv series and liked it a lot i must say hat i found this book to be very disappointing. as an audio book i found it unnecessarily difficult to tell when they go between present day and flashbacks, i hope the rest of the books are better.

3 people found this helpful

Enjoyable even if you’ve already watched the show

I watched the show before reading the book, and the two are different enough that I was still entertained and wanted to know what would happen next. The book is slower paced, with more flashbacks and some characters we don’t see at all on the show, and more background on the space station and what life was like there before the 100 were sent to the planet. it was a little sappy for my taste, but that’s typical for teen books. I’m definitely going to keep reading!

#dystopian #postapocalyptic #tagsgiving #sweepstakes

2 people found this helpful

completely different then the show

definitely not what i expected but very grabbing. it has its slow moments however stick with it well worth it. if your a fan of the 100 series on cw then you want to read this book. i love that this book follows each of the characters lives and points of view. the dual narration really sets the mood while listening helps break up the character switches.

2 people found this helpful

Great Performers but the story was lacking

After a long weekend of discovering and binge watching the television series with this same title, I was thrilled to stumble upon this book. I was hopeful it would dive deeper into histories of these characters I had developed an attachment to.
But I was dead wrong.
This book resembles juvenile fan fiction with the all the immature love triangles as it's main focus. I cringed over and over at the overused words of beauty and electricity, the amount of times I heard the phrase "every cell of his or her body radiated" and don't even get me started on the amount of times "The sun gently glinted or glistened off her golden hair." Good Lord. This story is supposed to be about the survival of the human race, and the question of morals and ethics during seemingly impossible situations .. not a love triangle. I'm pretty confident that in this particular situation anyone would be more concerned about Radiation poisoning, finding food or FINDING THE MISSING MEDICINE TO SAVE YOUR DYING FRIEND..... But instead our main characters take a very unbelievable make out break while the sun glistens off her beautiful golden hair. I want these two together. Trust me. They were a big reason I dove into the book. I ship them so hard. But this scene was so out of left field that I didn't believe it.
When I finally finished the book,  I felt like I still didn't have answers to a lot of my questions. Whole sections of their history were vaguely referenced to but not explained. I care about these characters. And now I'm struggling with the decision to move on to the next book. That's what's so infuriating. I am actually trying to decide if I can stomach out of left field romantic narrative just to find out what happens to these people.
I'll admit I liked the last part of the book, when things finally sped up. And I enjoyed finding out dark secrets each of these characters had and seeing how the story wove together at the end, but it was a long road man.
If you can go into this knowing that it is a COMPLETELY different story from the show... You may enjoy it. But beware... unbelievable love triangles await.

2 people found this helpful

good listen

I started this book cuz I was obsessed with the show. this is nothing like the show but I'm ok with that. I like it when books and shows/movies are different i like to see where the ideas come from.

1 person found this helpful