This book is another that I’ve recently picked up, my fifth this year. It is a book that follows a twin that is overshadowed by her sister, and scorned by her family. She’s a very interesting narrator that helps introduce you to the world. I really have been enjoying this book so far. It does take place in a universe that was established in the author’s previous works Seraphina and Shadow Scale but this book is actually able to introduce you to the universe without any difficulty. I highly recommend this for anyone who wants to read a well-built fantasy universe with a strong female protagonist that has an equally strong and interesting personality.
Category: Book Review
REAMDE Book Review – Neal Stephenson
How do you write a review for a 1,000 page book full of complex plot lines and complicated characters without spoiling the whole thing? Not sure, but I’ll give it a try.
REAMDE is, like I said in my first update, a story that begins fairly simple but quickly spirals out into a series of events spanning several weeks. Every character has no idea what they are getting into, and often throughout the seemingly unrelated sub-plots, they are all operating on different levels of information, and from different locations. The fascinating thing is how they all come together in the end, for a huge and action packed finale.
This book is written in a way that gets you attached and interested in every single aspect of the plot, from a hacker in China to a mountain cat in Iowa. It’s incredibly engaging, and forces the reader to think hard about what connections every detail mentioned has to the plot. I would confidently recommend this to anyone looking for something long to read, that will still manage to keep them going even several hundred pages in.
Lord of the Flies review
Lord of the Flies by William Golding is a classic novel that follows a group of British schoolchildren during world war 2, after their plane crashes onto an uninhabited island. At first they are all content to be without adults and have fun and live a productive life under the rule of charismatic leader Ralph. After many days on the island however, with no sign of rescue, things take a turn for the worse for the boys as violent hunter Jack butts heads with Ralph, until eventually everything spirals down to a chaotic and bloody ending that teaches us a valuable lesson on how easily society can crumble.
Overall I enjoyed it a lot and would recommend reading this classic story.
Rebound Book Review
Rebound written by Kwam Alexander was a very good book. Charlie Bell is the main character and also the most complex. We see how he changes during the course of the book and we see many different sides when he goes to visit his grandparents. At the beginning of the book you need a little bit of patience but it picks up quickly. Charlie Bell has an internal conflict that relates to his external conflict, he’s going through a lot of changes in his life and demonstrated that with his actions. I would recommend this book to any reader but especially to people who are into basketball. We see how Charlie Bell found a love for basketball and connects a deeper bond with his grandparents but overall I enjoyed the book and would recommend it for anyone.
Film, Alcohol, and Alcohol Poisoning
As I approach the end of Hollywood by Bukowski, I look back in retrospect at the events Bukowski’s alter-ego, Henry Chinaski, lived through while writing his first screenplay and having it adapted into a movie. I have come to realize that I will miss the experience of reading this for the first time. Although it hasn’t become my favorite book, there is this aspect of it that I really identify with. I can’t exactly put my finger on it. Maybe it is how Bukowski incorporates film into this narrative, or his passion for writing, or how real the characters feel. I don’t know. All I do know is that I am glad this was my first impression of him. To be quite honest, I was expecting this to be very politically incorrect and extremely explicit, since he is known for his misogynistic, graphic content. However, I was pleasantly surprised. I think adding those elements would make it excessive and too contrarian-like.
Overall, I would understand if somebody else gave Hollywood a bad review, but I enjoyed it because it resonated with me and I liked the topics it included in its plot. This will be the first of many Bukowskis for me.
Harry Potter Book Review
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling is an amazing book that invites the reader to a magical story that introduces us to the main protagonist, Harry Potter. Harry’s story starts off with his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, they are not the nicest people. Harry became an orphan at a very young age and was left with the last resort of Harry’s mothers sister, Aunt Petunia. One morning, Harry goes to do his normal chores, wash the dishes, make breakfast, and to fetch the mail. Although one morning when Harry was grabbing the mail, he noticed something strange. This time, he had gotten a letter… but he had never gotten mail ever before in his life. He had but utterly surprised because he somehow had gotten accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, when he didn’t even know he applied for it. With resistance from Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon on his decision on going, Harry was easily convinced to be escorted by a representative of Hogwarts, Hagrid. After little to no time, Hogwarts became his home, a place where he could be himself, explore his capabilities, make new friends, and find happiness.
I Know What You Did Last Summer-Book Review
I Know What You Did Last Summer by Lois Duncan is a Young-Adult suspense/mystery/coming of age book about four teenagers who find themselves in a struggle for their lives when the horrible secret of “what happened last summer” eventually gets out, and a killer is out for their blood. The story has extremely well written characters, however the horror aspect is quite old and predictable considering the age of the book, which originally came out in 1973 when teen-horror was still relatively fresh. The book hooks readers from the beginning by not mentioning exactly what happened last summer, although it is not difficult to figure out. Then, once the mystery starts to pick up, the events from last summer are revealed, and at this point readers are now interested in how the conflict will be resolved. The book is set in a traditional 70’s town. Not very big, not the kind of place where a killer would be expected, and where each character has their own small desires. (Such as getting a job, going to University, etc.) The most complex characters in the book would be the four main protagonists, who are each unique and go through many dynamic changes throughout the story. The characters are Julie, the one most affected mentally by the accident, Ray, the mature one, Helen, the pretty TV star, and Barry, the cocky football hero. The book slowly build the tension as the killer starts making more and more dangerous moves on the protagonists, however the main internal conflict is the kids decision to keep the accident a secret so that they could resume their lives as normal, though bearing the pain of what they had done. Overall, the book is a great mystery story, and has great characters and good pacing, and is a very good suspenseful read for those who don’t like hardcore horror.
The 7 1/2 Deaths Of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
This book was one that I had been meaning to read for a while, and I finally got around to it after the new year started and I decided I would read 36 books in 2023. This was my first one, and it was pretty interesting.
The main premise of this book is that a man named Aiden Bishop is trapped in a time loop, and every day, he will wake up in the body of another person. He has eight days to solve the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle, who dies every night at 11:00 PM.
When I first read it, I enjoyed it, but there are a few things that I think are confusing. This book definitely requires you to pay close attention to it, and even then, the ending will catch you off guard. I really enjoyed this aspect of it, because there is truly no way to know how the mystery will be resolved.
Unfortunately, while the time loop provides room for a lot of interesting worldbuilding, you never really find out what’s going on behind the scenes. There’s certainly some clarity provided in order to reach a resolution, but if you’re looking for a book with time travel mechanics that are very well thought out, this isn’t it.
I recommend this book if you like complex murder mysteries, books you have to pay attention to, and amnesia and time travel with tiny elements of psychological horror.
I would not recommend this book for those who don’t like scenes of violence, semi-anticlimactic endings, and complicated plot lines. There’s also not much humor, and the font (at least in the copy I got) is pretty tiny, the text is pretty dense, and the book is very long ( 133,607 words/~528 pages).
1 of 36: The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (Rating: 3.5/5)
The Butcher [Reading Update]
I just started reading The Butcher by Laura Kat Young, but it caught my attention right from the beginning. The premise is intriguing and horrifying: a world where people are punished for their crimes by having body parts removed. However, that requires somebody to have the job of removing them—and that duty falls upon the shoulders of the Butcher. I’m not super far through this book just yet, but it’s already become one of my favorites.
The plot does set up a lot of violence, but from what I’ve seen so far, there’s also a lot of psychological elements to it. The world is set up in such a way that it makes the reader and the characters question and discover whether punishing bad acts with more suffering is justifiable. I highly recommend this book for people who like stories that make you think deeply about both the fictional world that’s written and the world we live in.
When Dimple met Rishi (Book Review)
When reading When Dimple met Rishi, the reader needs a little more patience. It is a romance book but it doesn’t start off as one. There is an incident where you might be intrigued but apart from that a reader must wait to see more. Since the book is romance, anyone who reads this could wish they were in that position and hope for that level of affection for themselves, so that immerses you into a new world. I know that I certainly want that type of romance in the future. In addition, Dimple is the most complex character in the book, she is set on the fact that she doesn’t want to follow anything her parents tell her to do. She wants to live her own life, find her own partner, and be a rebel. She feels strong emotions about this because she is 18 and doesn’t have to experience harsh things in life yet. She does experience some change in her personality, there are times when she is selfless and other times where she puts herself first. In some moments you are drawn in by how lovely the scene is but then the character gets a thought that just ruins it all, most of the time it’s Dimple. A sentence I feel describes this book is “Opposites attract.” There are a lot of cute scenes between the main characters so if a reader enjoys those I think they would love this book.
Ready Player One Review
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is the ultimate page turner book filled with unexpected occurrences throughout the story as well as a twist or cliff hanger at the end of each chapter. This book immerses you into a digital world in which anything is possible. The characters have diverse opinions and ever changing emotions. As the book continues and the characters are even more immersed in their digital paradise where the hunt for the creator of the world’s fortune is on, you become a spectator in these shocking turn of events. This was one of the best books that I have ever read and I highly recommend it to people who like futuristic and science fiction books.
Monster : Final Book Review
Monster (Walter Dean Myers) is a suspense, mystery novel. where Steve Harmon, along with James king, and Richard “Bobo” Evans, are put on trial for the murder of a convenience store owner in Harlem NY. Steve claims to never have even been there. and the novel follows the events of the trial, and also some interior monologue with Steve. The reader needs patience when reading because only after the first few pages does the story get interesting. The book is in the format of a screenplay because the protagonist Steve, wants to be a screen writer. The book brings the reader into the setting of the story. you can perfectly picture the courtroom, thanks to imagery, you can be in a jail cell with our protagonist. It’s a great book that helps the reader travel to the story. It’s a great book and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys a mystery novel.
Family of Liars
The book Family of Liars by E. Lockhart is a prequel to We were liars. Both books are amazing but reading We were liars first would make more sense but the books could go in either order. This book follows a privileged family with 3 daughters who spend every summer at their private island. The summer this story follows is different because a group of boys comes to island as well. This book is a mystery it uncovers more and more secrets after every chapter. Exposing the Sinclair family for what it is. The family is constantly putting up a facade and painting a perfect picture from their family. Under all of that there are a lot of secrets and problems especially with Carrie who is the narrator and the oldest daughter. In the story she is dealing with the loss of the youngest sister which no one seems to acknowledge. This cause lots of problems between Carrie and the family especially her sisters. This is a story of betrayal, secrets, and lies. I would recommend this book to someone who likes mystery’s and drama. It is a great books with lots of levels and plot twists and gets better and better every chapter you read.
Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin
In this book by Ursula K. Le Guin, Lavinia, a side character from the Aeneid, is given a whole plot. She becomes a person with emotions and thoughts and a role to play, instead of just Aeneas’ wife. This book showcases the world even before Rome was built, and goes deep into culture and the inner workings of a city during times of trouble. Overall, the story manages to take many characters and make every single one of them fleshed-out and alive. Definitely worth a read.
The Summer I Turned Pretty Book Review
Jenny Han’s, “The Summer I Turned Pretty” was a great read. The book hooks you in from the beginning by introducing the reader to complex characters in a short amount of time, all of which are really easy to fall in love with. The tension between Belly and the boys is prominent from the beginning, which helps make almost all of the characters complex and dynamic, all coming with their own personal backstory.
The plot of the story thickens as Belly has her best-friend Taylor come for a visit, forcing tension with Taylor and Jeremiah, and Belly and Conrad.
Belly is left with the choice between Cam, Conrad, and Jeremiah, which she struggles to pick throughout the book
Towards the end of the summer, when the teens find out about Susannah’s sickness, readers are left on a cliffhanger about what Susannah is going to do to either combat her illness, or accept her fate.
Overall, I recommend this read to anyone who likes an easy read, multiple perspectives, a beachy setting, and a lot of romance.
The Shining Book Review
The Shining is a book written by renowned horror author, Steven King. The book is about a man named Jack Torrence, a complicated man who is a retired alcoholic. He is looking after the Overlook Hotel as his last chance for a good job. He brings with him his wife Wendy and his son Danny. Jack has had a rough past with abuse, with him being abused by his father when he was a child and assaulting his son while he was drunk. He was also fired from his last job for assaulting another child by popping holes in Jack’s car. While Danny is at the hotel, he envisions many horrible things, even one entity strangling him. After a few months in the hotel, Jack starts having strange envisions as well, and starts to go insane. As he descends into madness, he is told by the hotel to kill his family, and eventually attempts to. Unfortunately for Jack, Danny is able to use a special ability called shine to call a man named Dick Halloran to save him and his mother. With Dick arriving, he is able to save Danny and Wendy while Jack is left in the hotel, accidentally causing it to burn down because the boiler exploded.
After finishing the book and the film, I can say both pieces are great horror. They both have an off-putting feel to them, making the viewer always on the edge of their seat. The characters are exceptionally written, making me care even for Jack during the story. Story-wise, I think that the novel is superior to the film because it is able to develop these characters, although the film is much more enjoyable to ingest. Overall, The Shining by Steven King is a fantastic horror read and I highly recommend it.
Metro 2033: A Trek Through the Radiation-Ridden Metro of Moscow
Metro 2033 is a post apocalyptic novel in the formerly grandiose catacombs of the long since decayed corpse of Moscow, Russia.
Written by the Russian writer Dmitry Glukhovsky, who created his bestselling novel after becoming enthralled with apocalyptic stories and the interesting nature and uses of the Moscow Metro
This novel is set a fresh 20 years after the end of the world, where the former citizens of Moscow have been reduced to less than moles living in the durable yet decaying tunnels of the once beautiful Moscow Metro. Though nobody knows who fired first, what came of it was destruction. The citizens of Moscow rushed into the metro as the bombs fell, those who could be considered unlucky survived and those who did not make it were either gunned down in protest or evaporated in nuclear hellfire. However, the story begins with one such survivor, nameless they may be, important nonetheless because they are the mother of the then one-year-old Artyom, our protagonist. The story starts (like many others) with our protagonist the aforementioned Artyom awakening, but this time to an argument between his adoptive father: Alexander Sukhoi and his father’s friend Hunter. Taking place directly outside of his tent. While the cause of the argument is unknown to us, we can listen to the argument through Artyom’s ears as he eavesdrops on the spat. The topic of the argument is about the future of humanity and more importantly the looming threat to the subterranean citizens of the metro, the “Dark Ones”, boogeymen for the people of Moscow. Hunter prevails and wins the argument Sukhoi lurks off in defeat, Hunter having noticed Artyom eavesdropping calls out to him. Finally Hunter Gives Artyom a request, one that will send him across the entirety of the metro and will ultimately decide the fate of the humans that dwell under the deceased corpse of Moscow.
Metro 2033 is an amazing book that can immerse even a rock into it’s living world.
By constantly describing the environment that the characters live in, whether it be a frigid and grimy tunnel or a station converted into a town bursting with life, rife with the smell of manure and rat-kebabs. Glukhovsky likes to leave hints throughout his books, they could be small yet meaningful metaphors, or unassuming sentences that foretell the end of the story. The main actors in this depressing book, feel like people, they act on fear, they have meaningless conversations, and they live.
As much as I like this book it has some flaws.
Mainly redundancy, the environments the book trudges through are usually grey, light grey, dark grey, etc. Now this is not to say there are no exceptions. One thing is action or lack thereof it. If Glukhovsky is good at one thing it’s action, whenever (if rarely) there is a fight or a high-stakes situation. You can smell the stale air abundant with gunpowder, you can see the flashes among the blue rays of sunlight peeking through the cracks in the metro, and you can feel the glow of the blood red emergency lights reaching every corner of the tunnel as you are rocked back and forth by the reverberations of gunfire. However the wonderful paragraphs that are his action rarely appear. Throughout the book Artyom is traveling through dingy tunnels monologuing on the nature of his quest to save the metro, or having philosophical conversations with a stranger.
Ultimately Metro 2033 is not a book for everyone.
If you have a short attention span or do not have the time to put in, then this book I would not recommend for you, but by all means please do read it if you want to! On the other hand if you love long reads and want something to kill time Metro 2033 is perfect for you, along with the rest of the series: Metro 2034, and 2035. Or if you want to see the Metro with your own eyes 4A games and Deep Silver have adapted the books into a video game series of the same name: Metro 2033, Last Light, and Exodus all great games with praise from critics and journalists everywhere! in the end you should read Metro 2033 before world war three really does happen!
Be More Chill review
this book was a very good book to read for me it kept me reading the whole time. the book follows and boy in high school who wants to fit in better, so he decides to take action but those actions end up have there bad side show a bit more. this book for me was 5/5 very good book i would for sure to read this book.
Book review of Monster by Walter Dean Myers
Monster, A novel by Walter Dean Myers, is an enthralling book about a young man’s struggle with the American Judicial society. Steve Harmon, 16, was mixed up in a robbery of a drugstore in which the owner was shot and killed. No one knows who actually pulled the trigger, or even who exactly was involved. Steve is on trial for first degree murder, but in the meantime is locked away in the county prison. The story is told from two different perspectives; the diary in which Steve keeps as a record of his life and time in prison, and as a movie script. The diary and movie script is a very interesting way to quickly shift modes, and to give the reader a chance to speculate as to what is going to happen. With plenty of strong evidence from both sides of the story, and a relentless prosecutor hell-bent on proving Steve guilty, this story is sure to leave you breathless. As the story progresses, the tension builds, and one burning question is stuck bouncing around Steve’s mind: Am I guilty? Read Monster to find out for yourself.
Book review: The Block
The Block, the second book in The Loop trilogy is even more interesting than the first. Luka goes to new places, goes on more adventures, meets new people and obviously almost dies a lot more too. Things get more intense when Happy an AI that sees humans as a cancer steps up its efforts to wipe the final survivors out. I recommend this book to anyone that likes plot twists and adventures.
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