Category: Book review

“Queen’s Peril” By E.K. Johnston Review

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When fourteen-year-old Padmé Naberrie wins the election for Queen of Naboo, she adopts the name Amidala and leaves her family to the rule from the royal palace. To keep her safe and secure, she’ll need a group of skilled handmaidens who can be her assistants, confidantes, defenders, and decoys. Each girl is selected for her particular talents, but it will be up to Padmé to unite them as a group. When Naboo is invaded by forces of the Trade Federation, Queen Amidala and her handmaidens will face the greatest test—of themselves, and of each other.

This book is the first book in the The Padmé Trilogy by E.K. Johnston, and I have to say that this book is far from the best star wars book I’ve ever read.

Even thou it isn’t the best star wars book to be ever written, it is still a fun and enjoyable book to read. 

I never was a big fan of Padmé so thats why I might not have liked this book so much, but I still it was very interesting and enjoyable reading about her being a 14 year old girl from Naboo who was interested in politics to becoming a 14 year old Queen of Naboo. 

This book takes place a little bit before The Phantom Menace, but at the same time 35% of this book takes place parallel to the movie. So thats a nice treat, which I wasn’t expecting. 

The plot in this book focuses on the first few months of Padmé being the queen, and because of it a little bit of this book runs parallel with The Phantom Menace.

The plot itself wasn’t masterpiece, it had couple o problems here and there throughout this book. But it was still enjoyable, interesting and entertaining to read this book. 

The characters here were okay, Padmé wasn’t as likable as she was in the movies. But dont get me wrong, I liked the characters in this book, but they were less impressive than what they were in the movie. 

Of course we get some characters we didn’t get in the The Phantom Menace. But let me put it that way, most characters were on the edge of being good but weren’t fine and the rest of the characters were meh to to put it in a nice way.

To be very honest here I liked all of the characters in this book, but I didnt bother to make place for them in my soul, or to remember them for years, as I did with characters from books I truly loved.

The writing style here were actually good, I really liked it. Because it was like the author knew what words to use to grab me and make me read until the very end.

I Give This Book 3 / 5

“Padawan” By Kiersten White Review

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Obi-Wan Kenobi really wants to be a good Padawan. The best Padawan, even. But that’s feeling more and more impossible with his new master, Qui-Gon Jinn. All of Obi-Wan’s friends are off training to be real Jedi, getting mission experience, while he’s still on Coruscant, practicing his forms and sitting in silent contemplation. Ever since Qui-Gon’s former master, Dooku, left the Order, it feels like Qui-Gon has been too busy trying to connect with the Force or arguing with the Jedi Council to properly train his Padawan.

After reading this book I started to belive that the new star wars cannon isn’t for me because Disney doesn’t know how to wrote good star wars books which we had before Disney bought star wars.

This book is about young Obi Wan Kenobi sonly after he became the padawan of Qui-Gon Jinn. And somehow the young Obi Wan Kenobi we get in this book doesn’t feel like the same Obi Wan Kenobi we get in the movies. I know that in this book he is young and he isn’t the same person he is in the movies. But still there is something off about him, and he doesn’t have the same feeling and character if you will as the on-screen Obi Wan Kenobi.

And the same thing is also relevant for Qui-Gon Jinn. In this book Qui-Gon Jinn feels very much as a misfit in the Jedi order and not like the intelligent Jedi knight we get in the movies.

But when it comes to the plot itself, it was okay but nothing good nor bad it was firmly in the midle. I dont have any strong feelings about the plot in this book because I’m very neutral to this book. It wasn’t as bad as some of the new era star wars cannon (after Disney bought it) movies and books. 

The plot was hard to get though at times because at times it didn’t make any scene. The plot also doesn’t talk about the relationship between Obi Wan and Qui Gon, it rather talks about how insecure young Obi Wan was in his early days as a padawan, and that he felt like his padawan friends were much ahead of him. Which really bored me a bit, because I wanted to see more of the Obi Wan and Qui Gon relationship as they had in the early days as padawan and master and how it could have changed to what we see in the The Phantom Menace.

This book doesn’t really gives us anything that we dont know about Obi-Wan from the movies, but as a stand alone book its okay book. 

I Give This Book 3 / 5

“Mercy Kill” By Aaron Allston Review

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The intrepid spies, pilots, and sharpshooters of Wraith Squadron are back in an all-new Star Wars adventure, which transpires just after the events of the Fate of the Jedi series! Three decades have passed since Wraith Squadron carried out its last mission. Taking on the most dangerous and daring operations, the rogues and misfits of the elite X-Wing unit became legends of the Rebellion and the Second Galactic Civil War, before breaking up and going their separate ways. Now their singular skills are back in vital demand—for a tailor-made Wraith Squadron mission.

And yet again we are talking about another amazing book from the Star Wars universe. This particular book is a part of a 10 books sub-series in the star wars universe. And this series is about the x-wing fighters unit, which turns out to be very interesting and not like boring as I was expecting to be before starting this sub-series. Which is a very pleasant surprise.

There are a lot of great characters in this book, which really made give this book some extra points. Most of the characters feels like real human being and I wouldn’t have no problem being friends with them.  Most of the characters had a personality, it was easy to like them and they had their own opinions, thoughts etc. which made them feel like real human being. But some characters were not that great, because they were shallow, and they felt like they simple created to fill up the void and nothing more than that.

The plot in this book is very good because there is a lot of action in this book. And there is always something happening in this book, which means that you wont get bored reading this book. Which of course made me give this book some extra points for a lot of action which this book has.

The plot feels very unique even thou that adding new things to the star wars universe can be easily get to be a very big miss which can make the star wars fan hate you. But the author doesn’t miss with this book and expands the star wars universe in a very good way. 

The writing style in this book is okay, it had some good moments but it also had some bad moments. Simple the writing style in this book wasn’t the greatest but it was okay and not as bad as it could get.

I Give This Book 4 / 5

“The Vanishing Half” By Brit Bennett Review

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The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters’ storylines intersect?

I had some high expectations because once again I fell on the highly positive comments people on Goodreads have about this book. And let me tell you that this book doesn’t live up to all these good comments people have about this book. And I quickly DNF-ed it maybe like 10 chapters into this book

The writing style in this book is very very poor, it didn’t feel like it was written by a person who have written multiple books. It feel more like it was written by a elementary school child.

The plot here is very very boring, we fall twin sisters who essentially grow apart, they live in different cities, have their own lives and no contact with each other. And the entire plot is that one twin sister wants to rebuild the relationship with her twin but the second twin doesn’t want to. And to be honest it feels more like a family melodrama than anything else. And I don’t like that category to put it a nice and easy way.

The entire plot was very very drawn out, too long then it needed to be, uninteresting and very boring. The plot itself was the definition of torture and how you shouldn’t write a book

When it comes to the characters in this book they are bad, they are very shallow, flat and very very annoying. And I had very hard time even trying to like them, or finding something about them which would make me interested in them.

I didn’t read any of the other books of this author but after trying to read this book, I dont will read anything more from this author because this book have discouraged me from doing it.

I Give This Book 1 / 5

“The Iliad” By Homer Review

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One of the foremost achievements in Western literature, Homer’s Iliad tells the story of the darkest episode of the Trojan War. At its center is Achilles, the greatest warrior-champion of the Greeks, and his conflict with his leader Agamemnon. Interwoven in the tragic sequence of events are powerfully moving descriptions of the ebb and flow of battle, the besieged city of Ilium, the feud between the gods, and the fate of mortals.

To be very honest here I didn’t have a lot of expectations for this book even thou a lot of people on the internet claims that this book is very good, I learned my lesson to not trust people on the internet with books.

Again to be honest here I don’t have any strong feelings about this book, I didn’t dislike it and I didn’t like it either. 

I personally struggled a lot to finish this book because I found it uninteresting and I just didn’t have enough will power to finish it but in the end I did finish it. 

I’m glad that I read this book but after reading this book I became very neutral to this book. I didn’t like it nor dislike it. And to be honest here, if I didn’t listen to the audiobook of this book I wouldn’t be able to finish it because its very heavy and I just count focus on it for longer portions of time.

For me personally this book was a very slow read, because all the things happening in this book were not so interesting to me but also the way this book was written in had made all the action slow so that it could describe it better in a way. 

One of the things about this book is that it keeps building up to the point where the Trojan horse will show up at one point in this book, but it never does show up and it really annoyed me here because whats the point building the plot to a moment and then the moment never comes ?

This book had a lot of heavy and hard moments to get through in this book, and some moments in this book were actually okay and I liked them. But the most of this book is hard and heavy to get through.

The writing style here was very heavy and I just count bring myself to like it. And I’m not sorry about it. I didn’t like the writing style because it felt very heavy and hard.

I Give This Book 2 / 5

“The Godfather” By Mario Puzo Review

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Almost fifty years ago, a classic was born. A searing portrayal of the Mafia underworld, The Godfather introduced readers to the first family of American crime fiction, the Corleones, and their powerful legacy of tradition, blood, and honor. The seduction of power, the pitfalls of greed, and the allegiance to family—these are the themes that have resonated with millions of readers around the world and made The Godfather the definitive novel of the violent subculture that, steeped in intrigue and controversy, remains indelibly etched in our collective consciousness.

This book has to easily be the best book I’ve read this entire year (2024). I never expected this book to be so incredible as it was.

From the very moment I started reading this book I was sucked into it and I just couldn’t pull myself away from this book. And even when I wasn’t reading this book I was thinking about and what will happen next in this book. Which was really surprising because I couldn’t never actually finish the movie based off of this book which is a paradox I will not understand.

The plot in this book was purely gold. It was very interesting, enjoyable, fascinating, tense and instant attention grabber. There was a lot of action in this book but there wasn’t actually a lot of killing happening, it was a decent amount of killing happened but we actually weren’t there when the killing happened but rather we got told by different character something like “he is dead, so and so person killed them” and we would just move on to the next thing happening. Which I found to be a more tense solution than the author writing the murder scenes in details which never worked for me personally.

The edition I have of this book has almost 600 pages, but it really felt very short because I read this book so fast because I so sucked into this book. And after reading this book I fully understand why so many people love this book, it is because this book is so very good, and it is easily in my top 10 all time favorite books and it might or might not be the number one for the moment.

All the characters in this book are very very incredible. It will very easy to relate to them but more importantly they felt like real human beings which I personally wouldn’t have any problems being friends about. 

But also you know that the Corleone family is up to no good, you can help but root for them and see them survive and be successful in whatever shade things they are doing. And thats what happened to me during the process of reading this book. 

The writing style in this book is very incredible because it was like the author knew what words to use to grab my attention and to not let it go to the very end of the book. And as I have said above somewhere, I was completely clued to the book and the writing style was one of the reason why I was clued to it. 

I Give This Book 5 / 5

“Nightmares and Dreamscapes” By Stephen King Review

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A solitary finger pokes out of a drain. Novelty teeth turn predatory. The Nevada desert swallows a Cadillac. Meanwhile, the legend of Castle Rock returns… and grows on you. What does it all mean? What else could it mean? Stephen King is back with a powerful new collection of stories – a vast, many-chambered cave of a volume.

Let me start this review by saying that this book is hell of a long book with a lot of short stories inside of it. And by the way I already reviewed every single short story in this book before actually writing the review about this book as a whole. 

My edition of this book has 836 pages which is a pretty decent length if you ask me. And for me this is very long when it comes to short stories written by Stephen King, because as you might know Stephen King’s short stories doesn’t work for me and I just end up very much disliking them.

For me Stephen King’s short stories just lack something which I cant really put a figure to, and because of this paradox I end up disliking them a lot.

Of course some of the short stories in this book were better than others but still I disliked them. But of course some I disliked more and some I disliked less. But still the dislike were present for all of the short stories in this book.

The majority of the short stories in this book just didn’t feel like they were written by Stephen King because the characters were bad, shallow, boring, uninteresting and flat but the plot and writing style didn’t feel neither like something created by the master of horror himself. 

To be honest I think I should take a break from Stephen King because me and him lately aren’t working out. Because all the books written by him I’ve read this year ended up on the lower raking side of things b because I didn’t like them as much as I wanted to. I think it is just me this year who end of being way too hard to books, because 60% of the books I’ve read until June this year (2024) ended up having a rating of one star. So its me either picking the wrong books for me or me being way too harsh to books this year.

I Give This Book 2 / 5

“The Only One Left” By Riley Sager Review

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Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.

This book wasn’t a master piece but I still have a lot of fun with this one.

The characters here weren’t perfect, in fact they were very very far from being perfect. The characters in this book were hard to tell apart. So I didn’t get a lot of those small clues here and there while reading this book which it turns out took a lot out of this book for me.

The writing style here was okay, but from what I read about this book on Goodreads before reading this book I had a lot of expectations for the writing style because Ive read it was very good which it wasn’t. So be warned, dont be fooled by people on the internett. 

The plot twist at the end was very good, but because I couldn’t tell the characters I didn’t like it as much if I had better control about who is who in this book. 

The plot here reminded me a little bit about “turn of the key” by Ruth Ware which I really like. But the difference between this book and  “turn of the key” by Ruth Ware is that “turn of the key” by Ruth Ware does actually have a good plot and good character not like this book. 

The plot here was for sure somewhat unique but the way it was presented to us wasn’t as good as it could have been if the author tried a little bit harder. 

But I need to give this book one point for making me want to read more books from the author which I will do at some point. 

I Give This Book 3 / 5

“The Flatshare” By Beth O’Leary Review

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Tiffy Moore needs a cheap flat, and fast. Leon Twomey works nights and needs cash. Their friends think they’re crazy, but it’s the perfect solution: Leon occupies the one-bed flat while Tiffy’s at work in the day, and she has the run of the place the rest of the time. But with obsessive ex-boyfriends, demanding clients at work, wrongly imprisoned brothers and, of course, the fact that they still haven’t met yet, they’re about to discover that if you want the perfect home you need to throw the rulebook out the window.

I think this book is my final Rodeo with contemporary books because I truly hated this book, and I just very quickly DNF-ed it. 

All of the characters in this book annoyed the shit out of me.  Tiffy the main character in this book imbecile who plots all the time how to get back with her ex-boyfriend. Like she honest understand when someone wants to be left alone and not be bothered by you.

The entire plot is made very very badly, to the point where the plot is almost nonexistent because all the shit which doesn’t matter for the main plot keeps getting throw in our faces all the time during reading this book. 

This book also talks a lot about emotional abuse amongst other types of abuse which well didn’t go well with me and what I like in books. 

To put this book in a very simple term, dont read it because its a waste of time and money. Its very boring, drags for far too long, uninteresting and will torture you a lot.

This book put me in the biggest reading slump ever, I didn’t have so big reading slump ever as I had after reading this book. 

This book was a very painful reading to say at the very least. 

I Give This Book 1 / 5

“Verity” By Colleen Hoover Review

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Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish.

Another book written by Colleen Hoover which I DNF-ed and which was very very bad. Why does so many people love her books so much ? All the books I’ve read written by her and just good for nothing else than to burn them after beating the shit out of them. 

The plot in this book was nonexistent and really it was a pure torture trying to read this book, so thats why I DNF-ed it so fast as I did. There are so many red flags in this book about this whole book and how are people liking this book or any of Colleen Hoover’s books? That’s this decades paradox I will never understand.

Did you hear about plot holes in books before ? This book doesn’t have them but instead they have plot craters. Because there are at least 15 plot holes I can tell you about within the first 10 chapters of this book. 

The characters here are very very bad, they are selv centered, and they are so shallow, annoying and uninteresting. To me all of the characters felt like the same f-ing character and I just couldn’t tell them apart.

My main reason for hating the characters in this book is when one of the characters attempts to murder 2 people, and the main character acts like that character just eat her ice cream like “its not a big deal”. The main character just justifies the attempt and forgives the character like double murder attempt happens everyday to everyone. Perfectly normal thing isn’t it ? Happens to everyone all the time isn’t it?

The writing style is oh boy, I dont know what to say to not be offensive and keep it under 18+. The best thing I can do is to say that the writing style felt like it was written by a horny 9 year old boy. Which isn’t a good thing when we are talking about books which you want people to like. 

Goodreads rank this book as a “thriller” book, but it feels more like “young adult worthy of hell fire” book than anything else than that. 

Just writing about this book and Colleen Hoover as a author gets me so so so angry. And the reason behind this is because I hate all over books and I dont understand why people like her so much and why people on Tik Tok hype her books so much because they aren’t worthy of the attention or even space in the book store.

The main problem I have with this book is that it exists. Which it shouldn’t.

I Give This Book 1 / 5