Will M.'s Reviews > Ender’s Game

I can't believe it took me forever to finally read this. I chose to watch the movie first last year, because I remember not having the physical copy of the book yet. That was the biggest mistake of my reading life.

The book is way better than the movie. I know you've probably seen that phrase a million times, but I can't fully express how it truly applies to Ender's Game. I can't find a flaw even if I wanted to. Everything seems perfectly written and constructed. I'm going to be honest and say that I hated most of the overhyped books here on goodreads, but the hype that Ender's Game received's truly deserving. It lived up to my expectations, and continued to amaze me as every page went by.

The character development in this novel's truly astounding. It's really nothing like the way the movie introduced the characters. Everyone in the novel felt important, and their transformation had a huge impact to me. Valentine and Peter were both very much established, and their life journey [as children] was somewhat different, but completely interesting and amusing at the same time. If I remember correctly, the movie didn't even show that both of them became Demosthenes and Locke. That part of their story truly amazed me. This novel showed that age doesn't matter in making a difference. It's all about courage and knowledge to truly express what's inside your head. I didn't like Peter in the moral sense, but his violence and bullying led to Ender and Valentine's positive growth. It may have affected Ender in a bad way, but if you look at the overall change that Ender exuded, it's remarkable how violence led to success.

I think I'm going to retract my statement that I can't think of any flaws. I believe the author was too harsh with his characters, too harsh in a sense that it became a bit unbelievable. Unbelievable in the sense that I haven't really encountered a child who was pushed too much that he's capable of murder. I'm not talking about Ender, because despite everything he did, his humanity was still very much evident. I'm talking about Bonzo. How could he be capable of murder, and not have any guilt afterwards. If the author presented a violent past, then maybe I could still digest the fact that he became evil , but he was just evil like that. He expressed his anger by raging on Ender, without a concrete and well-explained reason why. That's the only problem I could think of, and it's not even really a problem to be honest. It's so minor that the magnificence of the novel can easily cover up this personal opinion of mine. It's not even bothering me, I just wanted to present a slight flaw so that this review wouldn't seem to kiss the novel's ass so much, even though I think it is.

I've lived too long with pain. I won't know who I am without it

Yeah, that line in the near end says it all. Ender's a changed man, call me sadistic, but I believe it changed him for the better. He's become the strong young man he's supposed to be.

The plot and character development were both amazing, as I repeat. It's original [for me at least] and the ending truly depicts that the author's not done trying to destroy Ender's humanity. I can't wait to read the succeeding novels, even the Shadow series after. This series made it to my top favorite, alongside A Song of Ice and Fire, or maybe I could just say that this is my favorite Sci-Fi book, and possibly series. If you really read the review, then it's obvious that I'm giving this the highest possible recommendation to anyone. The hype might make you cautious, but seriously, this is novel is amazing.

5/5 stars, truly remarkable.