Anthony Burgess reviewed Metro 2034 by Dmitry Glukhovsky
Why does this book have such a good rating?
1 star
Content warning Spoilers about Metro 2034, but seriously it's a bad book, you wouldn't miss anything anyway, not reading it.
The first book, Metro 2033 was a fantastic read, which is why I started the sequel, but I'm surprised how bad this one is. No person in this story makes sense, everyone is just running around philosophizing all the time, making weird decisions and doing random things. Did the author just have a weird artsy trip and wanted to write some high literature, showing off how intellectual he is? Maybe I'm just too dumb for this one?
I don't even know where to start, Hunter is just this killing machine that suddenly turns into a fragile baby. There could have been much more depth, coming out of Metro 2033, but I guess he only has two emotional states now.
Sasha is just a dumb overemotional kid, but we had to know her whole story with her dad, which was totally brushed aside as soon as she meet Hunter. Why spend all this time on that and her anyway? I also hated her story being intersected all the time in the beginning. It's like an ad break, where you want to just speed things up to get to the more interesting stuff.
Don't get me started on Homer, he's just a pretentious old man, that has his midlife crisis, but HAS TO find a meaning to philosophize about at every corner. People are starving and he's just there, having a chill time thinking about what book to write to become famous.
It sure makes sense, to have a kid be a dumb kid and a guy called Homer be philosophizing a lot, but it just seems so misplaced in a post-apocalyptic time in an underground metro system.
Oh and I almost forgot about Leonid, that guy comes out of nowhere, wants to get laid, telling a lot of lies just to get in bed with an underage girl, risking a bunch of lives for fun.
Ugh, I'm just annoyed that I wasted so much time on this book. All this exposition, describing, philosophizing about all kinds of weird things without any substance. It all felt like the author really tried to be intellectual but failed miserably.
I have to stop here, because I could just rant about this book all day. My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined. If anyone read through this rant, PLEASE tell me WHY this book is supposed to be good and why it's not just trash in comparison to Metro 2033 (and maybe Metro 2035)