(Tiny Spoilers ahead) 
 I came into this book expecting big things. 
 A modern classic, they said. A work of wonder, they said. Your eyes will bleed from the awesomeness of Ender's Game, they said. 
 My friend, whose opinion I trust beyond most others, puts Ender's Game in his top five favorite books of all time. 
 So why didn't I enjoy it all that much? 
 Sometimes expectations can be deadlier than the little kids in this damn book. Not to mention all those little stars on GoodReads 
 I don't know... 
 What I do know, though, is that at a lot of times, I found this book to be slightly childish. And yes, maybe that was the point, a majority of the characters were children, but it felt overdone. The way these children acted were almost more immature than I acted when I was their age (or as immature as I act now). 
 I think there was also a slight time-barrier, at least for me. I was born at the very tail-end of the Cold War and a lot of the background murmurs of the Warsaw Pact fell a little flat. 
 I also thought that the interactions between Peter and Valentine were annoying, and that Valentine's view of her relationships between her two brothers was naive. 
 In and of itself, the naivety is fine and dandy, except that in this case, it's never fully fleshed out and it just sort of ends. 
 What I did love of this book though, were the trials that Ender kept getting put through, and how he kept taking over the situation with seeming ease. Ender was one of the only believable characters in the book. 
 Now for the part I really didn't like: The twist. 
 Obviously, because some of you will not have read the book, I won't spoil it. 
 It's meant to be a clever twist, and in some ways it was. It's not really something I expected. That's not because it was such a far out idea though. I didn't expect it because I had thought about the possibility and decided, no way, that's the easy way out. 
 Ok, I need to use a slight spoiler, otherwise I can't really get my point across. Don't read below unless you don't care: 
 SPOILER 
 The entire book, literally from the first page, discusses the attempt to get Ender up to speed to destroy the Buggers. But then, just when it gets to that point, you cover it up by having the reader think he's still running training exercises? I found it a weak and anti-climactic choice by Orson Scott Card. It will be interesting to see if Hollywood goes the same route. 
 END SPOILER 
 Anyway, I was disappointed in the end. Not a bad read, especially for a science fiction fan, but a little childish, obvious and more than a little anti-climactic. 
 Perhaps the series gets better with the long line of Ender's sequels?