Praiseworthy Pages

Reader Rating: ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ (4/5 stars)

The fact that this story wrapped everything up in such a perfect bow made me so nervous, because if things worked out so nicely in this book and there’s a whole other book still left to read, that means all the lovely tied-up endings entirely unravel in book three. Which means more suspense, more sitting on the edge of my seat, more wrestling with myself because I need to get things done in my life but I can’t put the dang book down…

*Sigh.* Thus is the life of a reader, am I right?

In all seriousness, this novel is a flabbergastingly (it’s a word now; deal with it) brilliant sequel. I mean, the plot of The Dark Forest ought to be a case study in how to craft a “book two.” I don’t think that the characters necessarily add anything particularly dazzling to the story–plot is where this novel shines, to be sure. However, Cixin Liu does a masterful job expanding the problem from book one into a bigger, even more dramatic problem in book two, which left me utterly impressed.

I like to think of well-written sequels as pizza dough. The plot of a first book is your initial lump of pizza dough: the author’s put together all the ingredients correctly (plot, characters, style, etc.), mixed them up, and kneaded them to the correct texture so that the overall outcome of the series will taste alright. A second book takes a little more care, a little more caution, because it requires an author to take the dough he or she has already prepared and stretch it, expand it, and mold it into the shape he or she envisions the final product to be. If the author stretches it too much, the readers get lost in holes, gaps, and places where the dough is too thin to carry the weight of a substantial book three. If the author doesn’t stretch it enough, he or she ends up with a really small sequel with not a lot of space for growth and all the other good stuff a third book has to offer. In my opinion, The Dark Forest expertly handles the dough from its predecessor, spreads it perfectly (not too fast or too slow, not too thin or too thick), and sets the author up for a kick-butt finale. Writers and readers alike should give it a read, see if they agree with me.

Language: 7/10 (Occasional swearing).
Sex: 10/10 (No sexual content).
Violence and gore: 7/10 (Not detailed or extensive).

Plot: 10/10 (What a sequel! The way things came together, adding to the plot of the first novel and spinning into something even bigger, even more fascinating…it should be studied. Why don’t schools include books like this in their assigned reading? This is a masterclass in how to plot a sequel).
Characters: 8/10 (Like the first installment in this trilogy, the characters in this novel seemed one-dimensional. Plus, the fact that no reference to the main character of book one ever popped up surprised me, but I can see why the author chose that route. Wang Miao had served his purpose).
Writing style: 8/10 (Again, because this novel was translated from one complex language into a completely different complex language caused the writing to feel a little more rigid than most other well-written novels. I have no doubt, however, that the English translation is incredible, and that the author would be proud of the way his work is portrayed in the English version).

Genre: Adult literature, new adult literature, science fiction
Potential triggers: Betrayal, depression, suicide, suicidal ideation, etc.
Is this book part of a series? Yes.
I would recommend this book to readers aged 18+.