Category: Book review

“Library of Souls” By Ransom Riggs Review

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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

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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

“The Haunting of Hill House” By Shirley Jackson Review

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It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a “haunting”; Theodora, the lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers—and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.

I had a lot of exceptions for this book, because I’ve heard a lot of good about this book but also as someone who watched and loved the Netflix show “The Haunting Of Hill House” of course I was expectations to love this book which didn’t quite happen.

The plot here is for sure unique, but it wasn’t as great as a lot of people on the interest claim it to be. Its important to say that the terror in this book focuses on the psychological horror than what we see in movies like paranormal activity.

I personally felt like nothing happened in this book which would make me love or hate this book, and because of it I am very neutral about this book. Im glad that I finally read it but I probably wont recommend this book to anyone.

As for the horror in this book, it is almost none existing. Yes some things which happened in this book were creepy and I personally would scream bloody murder if they happened to me, but I was expecting something more scarier and something bigger than what we got in this book.

There aren’t a lot of characters in this book, but the once we get are good and I liked them a lot even despite the fact we don’t spend a lot of time getting to know them other than knowing the brief facts we need to know about them. 

This book doesn’t use a lot of time on getting us familiar with the characters in this book, but rather it goes straight into the plot. Which I liked in this book because I feel like I wouldn’t like the character if we spend more time getting to know them. 

I read this book in one sitting, but it wasn’t because it was so engaging but rather because it was short and I haven’t had any plans for that Sunday I was reading this book so I decided to just read this book in one sitting.

I Give This Book 3 / 5

“Hollow City” By Ransom Riggs Review

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September 3, 1940. Ten peculiar children flee an army of deadly monsters. And only one person can help them – but she’s trapped in the body of a bird. The extraordinary journey that began in “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” continues as Jacob Portman and his newfound friends journey to London, the peculiar capital of the world. There, they hope to find a cure for their beloved headmistress, Miss Peregrine.

This book is the second book in the “Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children” series, and so far being two books deep into this series and I cant help it but be absolutely in love with this series. Because so far, this series is getting better and better. 

The plot in this book is just wow, there is so much happening in this book and with every page you read you get more and more sucked into this book. The plot is very unique and very very interesting and engaging. 

The characters here are amazing, I love so much. There is a huge character development here, which I personally love a lot. And a lot of characters here have their unique personality and something which makes you care about them and identify with them.

The fact that Jacob is new to this entire peculiar children thing, makes it so much better for us as readers because we learn new things along side Jacob and we get to see everything happen through his perspective which I personally love a lot.

The writing style here is amazing because its like the author knows what words to use to suck you into it, and to not let it go until the very end and beyond that. 

This book continues to expand the universe in this series, and we get much more action outside the loop we began this series with.

The ending here is very good, because it doesn’t live you at a cliffhanger but at the same time it does. The ending is very good and what I wanted from this book. And the ending leaves you with a urge to continue this series as fast as possible so of course when I finished this book I picked book 3 right away.

I Give This Book 5 / 5

“How to Make a Spaceship: A Band of Renegades, an Epic Race, and the Birth of Private Spaceflight” By Julian Guthrie Review

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Alone in a Spartan black cockpit, test pilot Mike Melvill rocketed toward space. He had eighty seconds to exceed the speed of sound and begin the climb to a target no civilian pilot had ever reached. He might not make it back alive. If he did, he would make history as the world’s first commercial astronaut. The spectacle defied reason, the result of a competition dreamed up by entrepreneur Peter Diamandis, whose vision for a new race to space required small teams to do what only the world’s largest governments had done before.

As someone who is very interesting in space and space travel / exploration of course I had a lot of expectations for this book, which partly this book didn’t live up to.

I personally think that the book could have been at least 100 pages shorter than it was if it had skipped talking way too long about fancy dinners between the billionaires with space exploration companies like Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and others because I personally don’t care about their dinner parties.

I have also another issue with this book, and that issue is that this book would be way too much detailed about the first X-Prize and the people behind it. Which really I don’t care about it, let me instead get the spacecrafts and space travel action.

Other than that, this book was very good to read, it is very simple to read. It doesn’t go into a lot of details of space travel and rockets engineering which in my opinion it could and it would make it so much better than it was. 

While reading this book, you will understand how much research went into this book which really made me give this book some extra points. 

The writing style wasn’t the best here, but it was okay, it wasn’t the best nor the worst. 

This book has a lot of good information in it and some of the stories we get in this book are interesting.

However it wasn’t supper interesting which would make it hard to put down, to be very honest here it was very easy to put down. 

This book taken me couple of weeks to read because at times I wouldn’t read this book for few weeks because I didn’t have the urge to finish this book.

I Give This Book 3 / 5

“The Devil’s Star” By Jo Nesbø Review

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A young woman is murdered in her Oslo flat. One finger has been severed from her left hand, and behind her eyelid is secreted a tiny red diamond in the shape of a five-pointed star – a pentagram, the devil’s star. Detective Harry Hole is assigned to the case with his long-time adversary Tom Waaler and initially wants no part in it. But Harry is already on notice to quit the force and is left with little alternative but to drag himself out of his alcoholic stupor and get to work.

This book is the 5th book in the “Harry Hole” series, and so far the series been going up and down for me personally.

The plot in this book is about a serial killer running around in Oslo, Norway who is obsessed pentagrams. Which made me expect some kind of satanism themed stuff happen in this book which of course didn’t happen.

The plot was interesting when the action was happening, the action of a murder scene or the investigation was very interesting and enjoyable. But when the action wasn’t on, which means when Harry was doing something else which didn’t involve the investigation was on the very edge of becoming boring. Which means that I have some very mixed opinions about the plot.

But also in this book we get sucked deeper into the sub-plot which was happening in this book and in the previous 2 books in this series which of course is the corruption in the police force and which is the reason why Harry still has a job as a police detective even thou he struggles with alcohol and shows up drunk or drinks at the job.

The characters here were very mixed here, of course I like Harry Hole a lot, and I find Oleg to be a very good side character which makes Harry’s personality really shine and show Harry not only as a alcoholic which happens to be a very good detective. I also liked a lot Rakel and wish that we could get more of her in this book which hopefully the next books in this series will fulfill the wish.

But when it comes to the rest of the characters they were pretty uninteresting, and I found myself not caring about them as much as I wanted to. 

The writing style here was very good, because it was like the author knew what words to use to fully grab my attention and to not let me stop reading this book until the very end. 

There is no cliffhanger at the end, which really doesn’t give me the urge to finish this series as fast as possible which I wish it would. 

I Give This Book 3 / 5

“Treasure Island” By Robert Louis Stevenson Review

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Designed to forever kindle a dream of high romance and distant horizons, Treasure Island is, in the words of G. K. Chesterton, ‘the realization of an ideal, that which is promised in its provocative and beckoning map; a vision not only of white skeletons but also green palm trees and sapphire seas.’ G. S. Fraser terms it ‘an utterly original book’ and goes on to write: ‘There will always be a place for stories like Treasure Island that can keep boys and old men happy.’

Ive heard a lot of good about this book, and because of it I had a lot of expectations for this book which this book didn’t live up to.

I personally found the plot to be very boring and uninteresting. For the most part it felt out of place, but at the same time it was most meant for the younger readers, so maybe thats the reason why I didn’t like the plot and found it boring.

I need to give this book some credit because, this book was the thing which made pirate themed movies, shows and books so popular, and don’t get me wrong I love the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies.

The characters here, were very flat, predictable, boring and uninteresting. They almost like the author just needed some character who no one would care about to care along the larger picture of the plot.

This book overall, is a very almost too generic treasure hunt book, and at this point it is too generic because the are thousands and thousands of treasure hunt movies, shows and books which are exactly as this one but with different character and by different author. 

The writing style was very old timey and very heavy with old English, but I’m gonna give this book a pass on this one because it was written in 1882, so of course the language and the writing in this book will be very outdated from what we expect today.

I Give This Book 1 / 5

“After We Fell” By Anna Todd Review

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Just as Tessa makes the biggest decision of her life, everything changes. Revelations about first her family, and then Hardin’s, throw everything they knew before in doubt and makes their hard-won future together more difficult to claim. Tessa’s life begins to come unglued. Nothing is what she thought it was. Not her friends. Not her family. The one person she should be able to rely on, Hardin, is furious when he discovers the massive secret she’s been keeping. And rather than being understanding, he turns to sabotage.

This book is the third book in the “after” series by Anna Todd. To be honest this book took a longer time to read than the previous two books in this series, because I start to get tired of this series, and all the drama between Tessa and Hardin.

I personally feel like im getting close to the point where I’m getting sick of the back and forth drama and fucked up situations between Tessa and Hardin, at this point I’ve read 3 books in this series, and each of those books had over 800 pages in them.

While I was reading this book, I had some many thoughts about why Tessa didn’t leave Hardin at this point? This was the first time it happened to me while reading this series.

The plot in this book, wasn’t the great as the plot in the first and second book in this series, I can honestly say that the series is going down the hill with this book. But this series is far better than “Fifty Shades Of Grey”.

The plot was interesting but at times it was getting very close to the edge of becoming boring. 

The characters here were good, but in this book I started having problems with Tessa, because in one moment she says she is done with Hardin and in the next moment she is running back to him. Which is annoying me so very much in this book, because whats so hard to with sticking to what you say.

I found myself liking more and more throughout this book Tessa’s father which came in big into this series at the very end of book two, and he becomes one of the major side characters in this book. Which really was good, because it have taken a lot of drama away from Hardin and Tessa and put it on Tessa’s father.

We also get a huge plot twist from one of the character in this book, which really blow my mind in a way but at the same time I was expecting something like the event which happened to occur but not from the character which it came from.

But still I found myself to be consumed in this book, and read in front to back without any major hesitation.

I Give This Book 4 / 5

“A Little Princess” By Frances Hodgson Burnett Review

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Sara Crewe, an exceptionally intelligent and imaginative student at Miss Minchin’s Select Seminary for Young Ladies, is devastated when her adored, indulgent father dies. Now penniless and banished to a room in the attic, Sara is demeaned, abused, and forced to work as a servant. How this resourceful girl’s fortunes change again is at the center of A Little Princess , one of the best-loved stories in all of children’s literature.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book, because on the one side it was sweet and I liked it but on the second side I didn’t like it so much as I wanted to.

The beginning of this book was very sweet and nice, because the main character Sarah, was a very sweet child which I loved but as the book continues to go further and further Sarah was becoming way too perfect, which really made me dislike here.

Its important to say that this book is meant for kids rather than adults. And because I read this book as an adult might explain the low rating I gave this book. Very fast Sarah became Boringly perfect, and I know how harsh it will sounds like, but I know why the adults at the school didn’t like Sarah, thats because she was way too perfect.

There were things I liked about this book which of course is that this book prompts  being nice to people no matter how pretty their are, how wealthy they are or whatever else there might be involved. 

The characters here well not the greatest, Sarah was a very bad character because as I’ve said before, she is way too damn perfect, which made me dislike her very very fast. To be honest I never went from liking a character to truly hating a character so fast as I’ve did with Sarah while reading this book.

As of the rest of the characters, they all were ignorant, shallow, and helpless which really didn’t help me liking this book. 

The writing style makes it very easy and you don’t have to be a genius to see solely from the writing style that this book was meant for children.

I Give This Book 2 / 5

“The Witches of Vardø” By Anya Bergman Review

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Norway, 1662. A dangerous time to be a woman, when even dancing can lead to accusations of witchcraft. When Zigri, desperate and grieving after the loss of her husband and son, embarks on an affair with the local merchant, it’s not long before she is sent to the fortress at Vardø, to be tried and condemned as a witch.

Its important to say that I didn’t know anything about this book nor the author before picking up this book. This book was recommended to me by a staff members where I buy my books at.

Its also important to say that I DNF-ed this book after having read like 55% of it, but I will explain why I DNF-ed this book later on in this review.

In this book we follow two perspectives, one perspective is from Anna and the second perspective is from Ingeborg. And in my opinion the perspective from Anna was much more interesting than the perspective from Ingeborg. However both of the perspective were pretty boring and uninteresting.

The beginning of this book was actually interesting, but the further it got the more and more uninteresting and flat it became. It has something to do that the action we got in this book was written in a very uninteresting way. But also there were a lot of moments in this book were there like impossible moments would arrive and the characters were like “no worries I can climb a cliff side with only my hands and feet”.

The plot itself had good premise of witch hunt in Norway in the 1660s, but the way it was just presented to us just didn’t grab me and made interested enough to make me finish the book. Overall the way the plot it was presented to us gave me a huge feeling that this book was meant for preteen audience rather than it qualifying to the young adult category. But at the same time this book cant be meant for preteen audience because this book has some graphic scenes of sex and killing accused women of being witches.

The characters here were pretty flat, boring, uninteresting and shallow. Ingeborg had some character to her, but the rest of the characters we get in this book felt like the same character over and over again. And I personally had a very hard time remembering who’s who. 

The characters here weren’t engaging enough, and they were very hard to like. But also the dialogs between the characters felt like neither of the characters wanted to talk with each other 

The writing style here was very flat to be honest, it felt like it was written by a 15 year old rather than a 57-year old woman. The writing style feels like it was written for a younger audience but the scenes of sex and killing points towards a more older audience.

There were a lot of action in this book, but all that action which we got in this book, didn’t have any details and it felt more like it was just like “this happened, then that and that happened”. All the action in this book was briefly touched and nothing more than that.

I Give This Book 1 / 5