Customer Reviews

Gateway

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

OK- I love Sharon Shinn. All of her book are automatic pre-orders. Gateway is one of her YA Fantasy novels. Since her other YA Fantasy Summers at Castle Auburn is one of my all time favorites, I was eager to read this book.

Our heroine is Asian and her adventure takes place in a parallel Universe with Ancient Chinese overtone. As usual a gentle romance accompanies the fantasy adventure.

Although the premise and setting are great, somehow the execution was dull. The usual depth and richness of a Shinn novel was missing. The adventure was flimsy. The romance felt forced. My feelings towards the heroine were lukewarm.
I am sorry to give this book just 3 stars.

If you want to get a sample of Ms. Shinn at her best- try out her anthology of novellas that was just released :Quatrain

If you want a better written YA Historical Fantasy with an Asian heroine in an Ancient Chinese setting try out Cindy Pon's Silver Phoenix: Beyond the Kingdom of Xia

I don't usually read alot of SF/fantasy, but I thought this was a fun, interesting YA novel. It definately makes me want to check out more by this author and explore this genre further. It wasn't long, under 300 pgs, and I think it would be enjoyable and appropriate for any age. It's something that I would like to share with my daughter. I enjoyed it for many reasons: Daiyu's adventure in the other iteration is both like and unlike Earth in many intersting ways. It leads you to ask yourself questions about the world we live in. Just how different is Jai from Earth, anyway? The explanations of the ins and outs of travel between iterations are simple and not bogged down with alot of nonsence facts. The descriptions of Jai were fun; I liked the world it created in my head. I really enjoyed the author's writing style. I give it four stars because it was an enjoyable read that was light but also thought provoking. I skipped the fifth star because the story didn't always move along quickly, and it took awhile for me to feel connected to the main character, Daiyu. A solid four stars, I'm glad I found this one.

There were so many features in this book for me to love: the cover, world travel, setting, etc. Yet, for some reason, most of this novel just fell flat. While Shinn's premise was really interesting and creative, the pacing of the novel was just not fast enough for me. I kept waiting for something exciting to occur which would fully grab my interest, but it never happened. In addition, the novel was pretty straight forward. I had hoped that there would be some great twist, but sadly, that did not happen.

Despite a few flaws, I really enjoyed this novel. The characters were unique, and I love the idea of world travel. I am not sure if this novel will have a sequel, but I really hope it does. There are many questions that went unanswered and with an open ending, I would really like to learn more.

I've been an avid reader of Sharon Shinn's books ever since the Twelve Houses series. This is one of her Young Adult books and it has a much simpler plot and younger characters than her more mature work. But that isn't to say this book didn't shine. In fact, I thought her characterization was top notch. The main character, Daiyu, was an enjoyable person to watch the story unfold through. Her thoughts, dialogue and choices were all very real and believable.

I would have preferred a less ambiguous ending, but I still felt this book deserved 5 stars.

I recommend this book for anyone who wants to spend a few days reading a fun, lighthearted story with intelligent and engaging characters, an interesting premise, and a charming plot with sweet, gently romantic overtones.

I should start out by saying that I love Sharon Shinn's novels. Her Samaria Novels and The Twelve Houses Novels are my favorites. When I picked up Gateway I somehow failed to miss the fact that it's a young adult novel. Not that there's anything wrong with young adult novels. I read plenty of them. It's just not what I was expecting when I picked up Gateway.
That said, even though it's not what I was expecting, this is an amazing story. I love Daiyu, and her quirky family reminded me of my own family. The descriptions of the worlds and the people were fascinated and rich with a new culture. Kalen and Daiyu stole my heart with their young love and innocence. As a bonus surprise Gateway didn't end the way that I thought it was going to. Usually I can have the ending of a novel figured out about halfway through reading it, and with Gateway I thought that I had. Nope, surprise! This was a delightful, quick read that I highly recommend.

If you like this book you may want to read:

Archangel by Sharon Shinn (ISBN: 978-0441004324)

Abarat by Clive Barker (ISBN: 978-0062094100)

[...]

After reading some reviews that were lukewarm on this book of Ms. Shinn's, I was a little hesitant to purchase it on the Kindle, but since it's seldom that I dislike a book by Sharon Shinn, I decided to go ahead and order it on my Kindle, throwing caution to the winds.

First, let me mention that, due to earlier reviews, I was expecting an excessive amount of formatting problems/"typos" due to the conversion to Kindle format, but frankly they were far fewer than I had been led to expect, and most were easily-decipherable mash-ups of words, and not frequent enough to be much noticeable to me. Your mileage may vary, as it were.

As for the book itself, maybe it was because my expectations were lowered, but frankly, I don't think so. Being a St. Louis native, all of the descriptions of St. Louis settings/events just charmed and delighted me, and I instantly warmed to the main character and her family, a knack of imparting an instant connection that Shinn often has with her character depictions. The young man who was the romantic interest was also instantaneously likable and trustworthy, while Shinn conveyed the heroine's sense of distrust in other characters and her confusion and conflicting feelings regarding the charming villain with her usual deftness. The story was straightforward, yet still filled with the wonderful character-driven complexities and nuances of Shinn's best works. It was such a satisfying read that I was disappointed when it ended and would love to see a sequel.

If you haven't read Sharon Shinn's YA works, I recommend them. What I love most about Shinn is her books, while sometimes involving romance, never center around that romance. There's no predictable endings and the characters always face complex issues. While Gateway isn't as good as The Safe-Keeper's Secret was, it still has plenty of strength on its own.

Daiyu is the adoptive daughter of a couple who was unable to have a child of their own. Adopted from China and brought over to the States when she was a baby, she knows very little of China and has never been to visit it. Now a teenager, she is a hard worker and looking to go to college soon - that is, until she stumbles across a "gateway" to another reality, a reality in which China discovered the United States.

St. Louis is renamed, the landmarks we all know are gone, and the largest minority are Caucasians. But evil still exists - and it's against that evil that Daiyu has to figure out where she stands and what decisions she needs to make regarding her future.

This was a very easy book to read, the story flowed well and Sharon Shinn's development was great, as always. It seemed a little stilted in parts, however, almost like she was writing for an audience younger than the subject matter would normally speak to - but overall I had a blast with Gateway and will be recommending it.

This book is a change of pace for Sharon Shinn. Unlike some of her other books, this book is more character-driven rather than plot-driven. No bold romantic adventure in this book (so typical of the fantasy genre), but instead a fine cast of characters, planted in a believable and fascinating Asian alter-world. The story, like its characters, is also more subtly and finely drawn. In particular, the main character, Daiyu, makes an independent decision that is key to this story--not an obvious right choice to make, and in fact, it may even have been the wrong choice! The ending is ambiguous, too, not a 100% happy ending. I liked all these developments.

As I was reading this book I was reminded of Ursula Le Guin's fantasy novels, which are considered more literary rather than representative of the fantasy genre. That may be happening with this book of Shinn's. Her characters and her storyline are breaking away from some of the stereotypes and conventions of the genre. This book has its flaws (don't they all?), but I appreciate how Shinn has expanded what she can do in this book. And, when all the analysis is said and done, this book is a very good, enjoyable read. Worth more than 4 stars, IMO, perhaps not an exceptional 5 stars, but I'm going with the higher rating for the effort it took to push the boundaries of the genre.

This was the first book I read by Sharon Shinn. It was really creative - what would life be like if a different culture was the majority? I enjoyed the twists and turns and followed the wild changes easily, thanks to the writer. I thought the hero-girl was realistic, although I didn't feel like I became Daiyu. It was more like watching someone and wishing I could tell her what I would do if I was her, but not being sure of anything in such a strange situation.

One of my favorite Shinn book! An amazing love story! It was so good and fast passed and fun to read. I am a huge Shinn fan so I am a little biased. The idea was so original and sweet! I loved the end too and know many people won't like it but it was just right for the book. Perfect!