Category: Book review

“Tess of the D’Urbervilles” By Thomas Hardy Review

Posted in Book reviewTagged , , Leave a comment

When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D’Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting her ‘cousin’ Alec proves to be her downfall. A very different man, Angel Clare, seems to offer her love and salvation, but Tess must choose whether to reveal her past or remain silent in the hope of a peaceful future.

Ive heard a lot of good about Thomas Hardy, and thats why I picked up this book to just my journey with this author.

There are very few characters in this book, and we’ll those characters we get in this book are bad and I just couldn’t care less about them than I did. This is because I found every character in this book to be very annoying and I just wanted to slap the shit out of every single character in this book.

The main character in this book which is Tess was a very silly character, and because of that fact I found it hard to like her or even relate to her in any way. So its safe to say that I dint like her. But also she was the victim in every possible situation she was in, which really annoyed me because I don’t like those kind of characters which always portray themselves as victims every single time something happens to them.

However gave this book for challenging in a way and talking about double standards between men and females which I personally am not a huge fan off. 

The plot itself in this book was very depressing and well there isn’t a lot of good things happening in this book. However the plot had shown really good the religious and social undertones of the time this book is sett in which made me like this book a little bit more.

While reading this book I got a huge feeling that the author didn’t knew a lot abut women because of he made the female characters as. Which really disappointed me because all of the female characters in this book we’re very bad and had the same problems as Tess have. 

The writing style here was meh, to be honest. I cant compare the writing style to any other books written by the author because this book was the first book I’ve read by the author so I don’t have knowledge about other books about this author. 

But the writing style in this book was not okay at the very least. It was like the author just throw at us words without thinking a lot about them. Which really didn’t sit well with me personally.

I Give This Book 1 / 5

“The Brothers Karamazov” By Fyodor Dostoevsky Review

Posted in Book reviewTagged , , Leave a comment

The Brothers Karamazov is a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, and an exploration of erotic rivalry in a series of triangular love affairs involving the “wicked and sentimental” Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov and his three sons―the impulsive and sensual Dmitri; the coldly rational Ivan; and the healthy, red-cheeked young novice Alyosha. Through the gripping events of their story, Dostoevsky portrays the whole of Russian life, is social and spiritual striving, in what was both the golden age and a tragic turning point in Russian culture.

To be honest this book have taken me awhile to finish, because I would take a really long breaks in between reading this book. And I’m gonna explain why I did so later on in the review. 

There is a lot of things going in this book, and all the things which was happening in this book were very intense and heavy topics. 

This book is a murder mystery from none other than Fyodor Dostoevsky so you know there will be some very intense and heavy topics in this book. And not solely a straight forward mystery of finding the killer and the reason why. 

My main problem with this book and well Fyodor Dostoevsky books, is that he stretched everything for far too long than it needed to be. So because of it I tend to lose focus and interest very fast with this book and with Fyodor Dostoevsky books in general. 

The characters here were okay to be honest, I didn’t care enough about them to sort of create any opinions about them. But they weren’t bad nor good. 

This book has some good moments, which really made my day while reading this book because I was ready to hate this book, which in the end didn’t happen.

The ending this book was interesting and enjoyable. Because it involved posting out the killer and the motive of why. Which really seeing that process in a Russian classic book was very enjoyable for me personally.

I Give This Book 2 / 5

“The Snowman” By Jo Nesbø Review

Posted in Book reviewTagged , , Leave a comment

Oslo in November. The first snow of the season has fallen. A boy named Jonas wakes in the night to find his mother gone. Out his window, in the cold moonlight, he sees the snowman that inexplicably appeared in the yard earlier in the day. Around its neck is his mother’s pink scarf. Hole suspects a link between a menacing letter he’s received and the disappearance of Jonas’s mother – and of perhaps a dozen other women, all of whom went missing on the day of a first snowfall. As his investigation deepens, something else emerges: he is becoming a pawn in an increasingly terrifying game whose rules are devised – and constantly revised – by the killer.

This book is the 7th book in the “Harry Hole” series, and in my opinion this book is the best book in this series so far, but I have still a few books from this series to read. 

The plot in this book was very interesting and enjoyable. There was a lot of thing happening in this book, and from start to finish you were left sitting on the edge of your sit because of the tension which was going on this book. 

The plot was very intense because of everything which was happening in this book and I personally loved it. The plot in this book really shines bright in this whole “Harry Hole” series. 

The characters here are amazing, each character in this book is very unique and have something which sets them apart from the rest of the character. When it comes to Harry Hole, he truly shines in this book and for me personally in this book he is more than a drunk who is a police detective. 

The writing style in this book is very good, because its like the author know what words to use to completely suck me into this book and to not let me go until the very end of this book.  Which I truly love when it happens in books. 

When it comes to the ending of this book, and the whole process of catching the killer is very intestate and big. And wow, I’m just left speechless after reading the ending of this book because it was so amazing. 

This book also made me somehow paranoid about snow mans, because if I’m gonna see a snow man in real life from this moment on, I will think about this book and about the killer in this book. 

I Give This Book 5 / 5

“The Alpha Enigma” By W. Michael Gear Review

Posted in Book reviewTagged , , Leave a comment

Dr. Timothy Ryan, head of the military psychiatric unit at Grantham Barracks, is meeting a new patient, a woman known as Prisoner Alpha. As she is being transferred, they are attacked by assassins, barely escaping with their lives. One shooter vanishes, leaving behind a dead companion unlike anyone Ryan has ever seen.

I didn’t know anything about this book before getting into it, and because of it I didn’t have any expectations for this book. Which I think its important to say before we officially begin this review of this book.

The beginning of this book was somehow interesting, it for sure piqued my interesting and made me think that this book could be very interesting if its properly begins, which didn’t happen. 

However I need to give this book some few extra points for having a very intriguing premise for a plot. It didn’t live up to the premise but it still at the core of it, this book had a good and intriguing intriguing.

The chapters in this book were very short, which really made me annoyed because the new chapter would start with different perspectives before you could figure out what was happening in the previous chapter you were reading.

The characters here in my opinion were very shallow, and flat. And I just couldn’t find the will in myself to care about them or to even like them. Which is a big no-no for me personally. Because for me personally the characters are as important as the plot and tension in a book. 

One of the main things which really pissed me off in this book, were that the female characters were portrayed as sex objects rather than humans. The female characters would get called very frequently as “bitch”, “full of sex-appeal” and whatever else you can imagine. 

The writing style here felt like it was written by a first time writer, but from what ive seen on Goodreads the author of this book have written a handful of books before this one, so I don’t know why this book felt like it was the first book of this author. 

I Give This Book 1 / 5

“The Redeemer” By Jo Nesbø Review

Posted in Book reviewTagged , , Leave a comment

Christmas shoppers stop to hear a Salvation Army concert on a crowded Oslo street. A gunshot cuts through the music and the bitter cold: one of the singers falls dead, shot in the head at point-blank range. Harry Hole—the Oslo Police Department’s best investigator and worst civil servant—has little to work with: no suspect, no weapon, and no motive. But Harry’s troubles will multiply. As the search closes in, the killer becomes increasingly desperate, and Harry’s chase takes him to the most forbidden corners of the former Yugoslavia.

In my opinion this book is the best book so far in this series, and of course we are talking about the “Harry Hole” series. This book is the 6th book in this series.

The mystery in this book is very engaging and interesting which really makes you sit at the edge of whatever you are siting on. However this mystery in this book has the same issues as some of the previous books in this series. Which is that when Harry is in the midst of investigation its super interesting but the moment Harry does something which doesn’t involve the investigation to catch the murderer then it suddenly becomes boring in a way. 

The plot here is interesting and enjoyable but as said above it has some down turns here and there which really made me not fully aboard with it. But the premise of a person killing a person on the stage and no one knew who that was is really creepy to me because my brain instantly goes to someone from “league of shadows” (batman reverse).

The plot in this book takes Harry to dark corners of the former Yugoslavia, which of course makes it more interesting because we get to see it from Harry’s perspective which makes fun. 

The characters in this book are pretty all over the place. Because I truly love Harry Hole as a main character but some of the side characters in this book weren’t as good of characters as Harry is. 

The writing style here was very good, its like the author knew what words to use to fully grab my attention and to not let it go until the very end.

I Give This Book 4 / 5

“A Tale of Two Cities” By Charles Dickens Review

Posted in Book reviewTagged , , Leave a comment

A Tale of Two Cities is Charles Dickens’s great historical novel, set against the violent upheaval of the French Revolution. The most famous and perhaps the most popular of his works, it compresses an event of immense complexity to the scale of a family history, with a cast of characters that includes a bloodthirsty ogress and an antihero as believably flawed as any in modern fiction. Though the least typical of the author’s novels, A Tale of Two Cities still underscores many of his enduring themes—imprisonment, injustice, social anarchy, resurrection, and the renunciation that fosters renewal.

i actually didn’t have any expectations for this book and it turns out that it was far better than I had though about it would be. Its important to say that I didn’t know anything about this book before getting into it. 

This book is a very heavy reading because it doesn’t have any humour, and it talks about storming of the Bastille around 50 years after it happened. This book also contains a lot of very violent ogress. 

The characters here were actually very good, even thou I didn’t love them, I still liked them a lot to care about them. 

Some characters in this book were better than others. And by this I mean that some characters were shallow and flat and straight forward uninteresting. But some of the other characters were very interesting and I liked them a lot. 

This book is a roller coaster of a read because it contains a lot of good and bad moments for me personally. And because of it my thoughts about this book are all over the place when it comes to this book. 

The writing style in this book was very good, show how it was available to suck me into the story against my will. It was like the author knew what words to use to completely grab my attention and to not let it go. 

Even thou the writing style was available to suck me into the story, some of the moments really throw me out of the beat and made me like “WTF an I reading?”. Because some moments in this book didn’t sit well with me. 

I Give This Book 3 / 5

“Pinocchio” By Carlo Collodi Review

Posted in Book reviewTagged , , Leave a comment

This is the story of Pinocchio, filled with harrowing yet inspiring adventures. Carved by a poor man named Geppetto, Pinocchio is a wooden puppet that comes to life. He soon leaves his maker and commences a journey of misadventures.

Again reading a classic clearly meant for children as an adult is not the greatest decision to be made. Because I didn’t like it and I found it not as good as it would have been if I had read this book as a child. 

Before picking up this book I was expecting to get a lot of nostalgia from this book because I liked a lot as a child watching the Pinocchio movie. But it didn’t happen, instead I was reminded how stupid Pinocchio was and I really made an opinion that if he was a real human child he wouldn’t survive for 2 minutes without an adult supervision. 

My opinion is probably very unpopular because a lot of people seem to love this book, which my opinion doesn’t align with. Because I didn’t like this book after reading it. 

Before reading this book you should be warned that this book isn’t as fairy tale like as the Disney movie, instead this book has a lot of violent moments which involve cut-throat, thieves, bullies, murder, imprisonment and other violent things. So maybe giving this book to an young child maybe want be such as good thing.

But don’t get me wrong this book had some good moments here and there but those moments were very rare and they weren’t long enough for me to truly give this book an higher rating than I did.

The characters here were not the best ive seen. I personally liked the father of Pinocchio but we didn’t get enough of him in this book which really made me sad. As of the other characters including Pinocchio were very arrogant, stupid and they didn’t use their brains a lot in my opinion. 

The writing style here was actually surprisingly good because I wasn’t excepting such a good writing style from a classic book meant for children because my journey with those books tend to be very rocky. 

I Give This Book 1 / 5

“The Silent Patient” By Alex Michaelides Review

Posted in Book reviewTagged , , Leave a comment

Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.

I personally had high hopes for this book because I’ve heard so much good about this book. And well after reading this book I have to say that this book isn’t as good as people say it is.

While reading this book I needed to force myself to finish this book because even thou I didn’t like this book, I don’t like DNF-ing books.

The characters in this book were very bad, the main character here Theo Faber, was the best character in this entire book because he had much more personality than the other characters in this book, but I still didn’t like him. Because at one point in this book he finds out that his wife have cheated on him countless times but he still didn’t face the issue with his wife but rather swept it under the rug like it was his wife forgetting to throw out a candy wrapper. 

All the female characters in this book were full of stereotypes which most of the times lead to things involving misogyny. Which of course is a big no for me personally. 

The plot in this book was bad, it had few good moments in the beginning but the further you get into this book the worse it becomes. The plot in this book was for the most part very flat, shallow and uninteresting which is a really bad combination of a what a plot can be.

The beginning of this book was actually interesting in a way, but as said above, the further you got into this book the more you wanted to throw this book into a fire and ask yourself why you spend time and money on this book.

The ending here was very terrible, because the whole book was building onto the feeling that the ending will be incredible and big, but when you get to the ending you get very disappointed and you are like “thats what happened ? That’s bull shit”.

The writing style in this book felt like I was written by a teenager who wanted to be the next Stephen King. The writing style was very straight forward and it was leaving nothing to wonder about but rather it told us “thats how it is, the end of the story”. 

I Give This Book 1 / 5

“Library of Souls” By Ransom Riggs Review

Posted in Book reviewTagged , , Leave a comment

As the story opens, sixteen-year-old Jacob discovers a powerful new ability, and soon he’s diving through history to rescue his peculiar companions from a heavily guarded fortress. Accompanying Jacob on his journey are Emma Bloom, a girl with fire at her fingertips, and Addison MacHenry, a dog with a nose for sniffing out lost children.

This book is the third book in the “Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children” series and I need to say that this book is my favorite book in this series so far at least. At the same time this book is the longest book in this series so far.

The plot here is just wow, I didn’t expect the plot to be better than in the second and first book but the author proves me wrong and writes an much better plot in this book than what we got in the first and second books in this series.

There is a a lot of action in this book, and wow I cant wrap my head around how many things happened in this book. There is a lot of things going down in this book, and there are a lot of plot twists in this book. 

There is a lot of action in this book from the very first page of this book to the very last page of this book. And I completely loved this fact, because throughout this entire book you will sit at the edge of your sit and wonder what will happen next.

The characters in this book are so much better than they were in the first book, and I just cant help it but fall in love with them with each book in this series. Because the character development is huge in this book as the whole series in general. 

Jacob becomes a perfect main character, because he starts of not knowing anything about the peculiar children thing and now in this book he just like wow, I cant say much about how it turns out in this book because I will spoil a lot of things from this book for people who haven’t read this book yet.

The writing in this book is just as amazing as in the previous books in this series. And this means that the writing style feels like the author knows exactly what words to use to completely grab my attention and suck me into the story and not let me go until the very end. 

The ending in this book is very big and there is a lot of things happening at the end which really blow my mind. At the same time the ending we get in this book is very satisfying. And I cant believe still how incredible the ending was. 

I Give This Book 5 / 5

“Dracula’s Child” By J.S. Barnes Review

Posted in Book reviewTagged , , Leave a comment

Dracula returns. It has been some years since Jonathan and Mina Harker survived their ordeal in Transylvania and, vanquishing Count Dracula, returned to England to try and live ordinary lives. But shadows linger long in this world of blood feud and superstition – and, the older their son Quincy gets, the deeper the shadows that lengthen at the heart of the Harkers’ marriage. Jonathan has turned back to drink; Mina finds herself isolated inside the confines of her own family; Quincy himself struggles to live up to a family of such high renown. And when a gathering of old friends leads to unexpected tragedy, the very particular wounds in the heart of the Harkers’ marriage are about to be exposed.

I need to give this book a huge applause to the author of this book because reading this book gave the same feeling and vibe as reading “Dracula” by Bram Stoker.

This book is an unofficial sequel to Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”, and wow this book is amazing. We get all the original characters from Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” like Van Helsing, Mina Harker, Jonathan Harker, Jack Seward and Arthur. 

Its important to say that this book is much longer than Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”, but its fully worth reading this book despite its size. 

The plot here continues the plot from Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” but its 10 years or so after the events of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”. The plot is very interesting, engaging and very thrilling. Its very hard to put this book down because the moment you start reading this book you get completely sucked into it and you wont be able to put this book down.  

The original characters from Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” we get in this book are as good as in Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”. If I need to be bold a little bit and say that the original characters from Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” are even better in this book than in Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”.

We also get new characters in this book, and the new characters are also very very good. They might not have same nostalgia as the original characters have but they are still very very good and each of them have their unique personalities and something which makes them stand out from the rest.

The writing style here feels like it was written by Bram Stoker, because it has the same feeling as Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”. It just proves how good of an author the author of this book is.

however the ending here was not as great as the rest of the book, which is the reason why I gave this book 4 stars instead of 5. The whole books builds to the huge ending and in reality the ending was very weak and I was very angry about the ending.

I Give This Book 4 / 5