Some spoilers for Daughter of Smoke and Bone shall be included in this review, as this is the second book of a trilogy. I know, I know: a young adult story split into three parts. Who comes up with these nutty ideas? Nonetheless, in any three act story, you must spend the first act establishing your characters, their motivations, and set the wheels in motion for all that is to follow. In the third act you (ideally) bring character arcs to a dramatically satisfying conclusion as well […]
Jacques: High Rhulain
Brian Jacques left behind a majestic saga with his Redwall series. High Rhulain is no exception. For the unfamiliar, the Redwall series follows the exploits of various woodland creatures, all of whom are living, rational, talking beings. High Rhulain follows the exploits of Tiria, a fierce ottermaid, as she travels to fulfill her destiny of becoming High Queen Rhulain. The main thing with Jacques’ writings are that they are formulaic: there is a riddle that displays the entire plot that must be figured out by […]
Divergent.
This young adult book is a weird amalgamation of The Matrix movies, Ender’s Game, The Giver and the movie Equilibrium. Beatrice Prior, or Tris as she later renames herself, lives in a society divided by factions based solely on emotional personalities. This book has been deemed the next Hunger Games, yet it is a step above that. The writing, while nothing spectacular, is a step above Collins, Meyer and other young adult writers. Still, Roth leaves a lot to be desired. I didn’t necessarily hate […]
This book had handsome werewolves, but I liked it anyway
Let me just start out here by saying that this sort of book isn
I hate everything
Full disclosure: I’m a sucker for Amazon’s Daily Deals and getting books imported immediately to my phone/Kindle for, like, $2, so I end up reading a lot of shit. Like, a lot. I should probably get Prime so I can just rent books instead. Because I should probably be embarrassed to have read as much of this as I did. I didn’t finish it. I couldn’t finish it. I’ll add an extra book to this year. Pinky swear. Anyway, this particular piece of cow dung […]
Best damn guilt trip I’ve ever taken….
Wow. I’ve been sitting here considering just copy-pasting “wow” two hundred and forty-nine times. I’d give this book six stars if I could. I think North Korea holds a fascination for many of us in the west. Certainly it does for me. I was eight when the Berlin Wall fell; old enough to know that something was happening, but too young to really grasp the significance. North Korea is the only closed country I’ve ever been aware of. Cuba is near enough and porous enough […]