This is one of those books that I'd heard so much about in the last few years, that it was kind of impossible not to read it at some point. Also, I watched the movie and although I saw the twist coming for quite some time, I really enjoyed it.
Basically Ender's Game bottles down to Ender, a young boy (at the start he's supposed to be 6 years old - something I'm just not buying), sent of to train at Battle School to learn to fight a war against some kind of creatures.
A lot has been said about this book, the series and the author. Therefore, this is not an in depth review but rather just some of the ideas I had when reading the book. The beginning really intrigued me and I thought I'd finish it within a day, since it was so compelling. However, after one particularly unnecessary sexist comment (stating women have evolution working against them) I kind of lost interest for some time.
This might also have to do something with the fact that Ender (who's only 6 years old; did I mention that?) is such a 'fantastic boy wonder genius' (no that's no sarcasm there, of course not, I wouldn't dare, he's really that good, oh and only 6(!) years old). I've always have a problem with these superduper protagonists who apparently can't do anything wrong and seem to shit rainbows and unicorns. Ender is one of those protagonists.
(show spoiler)
His siblings are planning to take over the world in a rather dull scheme, but the bright side is that it's the only break from the quite repetitive scenes of Battle School we get. I quite liked the computer game thing, except of course for the fact that special snowflake Ender was the only person smart enough to crack it. The armies and the strategy planning and the battles, they started to feel a bit repetitive as we follow Ender through his years on the school.
This all being said, I really wonder why ever I gave this book 3.5 stars. I always score books immediately after reading and just follow my gut feelings. Perhaps it was the holiday feelings that lingered, or perhaps it's the fact that despite I believe that this book is far from perfect I did have an enjoyable time reading it (I also liked watching the movie) and I would like to at least read the second book, Speaker for the dead.
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