Category: Book review

“Warriors of the Storm” By Bernard Cornwell Review

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The new novel in Bernard Cornwell’s number one bestselling series The Saxon Tales, on the making of England and the fate of his great hero, Uhtred of Bebbanburg. A fragile peace governs the kingdoms of Wessex, East Anglia, under the rule of the late King Alfred’s son, King Edward, and Mercia, under his daughter Aethelflaed. Uhtred, her formidable champion and greatest warrior, controls the northern parts from the strongly fortified city of Chester. But no one can prepare them for the storm that is about to descend. The Northmen, allied to the Irish, come in force under the cover of night, up the Mersey, perhaps to attack Chester, perhaps to rage and pillage through Mercia, perhaps to take the troubled kingdom of Northumbria. They are led by the terrifying Viking warrior, Ragnall Iverson, a fierce fighter and ruthless leader.

This book is the 9th book in the “The Last Kingdom” book series. And it is also my first book in this series. Which is a very bad place to start a book with. To be fully honest I got this book as an gift last year I think and I wanted to read this book to see if I would like the series before I would buy the rest of this series. And I love this book and this series so far. 

The plot of this book is amazing and really give me like the biggest Vikings vibe even thou it is a little bit different. But it gave me a deja vu to when I first started watching Vikings. Which really made me love this book even more. 

The writing style here was amazing, it was very close to being a masterpiece. It lacked couple of things here and there but it was still amazing and super good. 

The characters here also reminded me of vikings in a way. Of course they felt like a poor version of the characters from vikings but still as it being a whole different series I just loved them. Ever character here had something to them and it really felt like real people from that era. 

There were couple of funny moments here and there in this book. But for the most part this book will keep you on edge and keep you interested from the beginning to the end. 

This book have some ruthless and gory scenes here and there so if you might get triggered by it I would recommend to not read it. But for me personally these ruthless and gory scenes made it more fun to read this book because you can’t tell a viking story without the violence.  

The hatred, the battle and the drama between the Danes and Christians was really amazing here and it really made this book so much better because it added a mode to the book. 

The ending here is also very good but there was a cliffhanger there which really made me pissed off because I hate when it happens. 

I Give This Book 4 / 5

“Diary of a Wimpy Kid” By Jeff Kinney Review

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Greg Heffley finds himself thrust into a new year and a new school where undersize weaklings share the corridors with kids who are taller, meaner and already shaving. Desperate to prove his new found maturity, which only going up a grade can bring, Greg is happy to have his not-quite-so-cool sidekick, Rowley, along for the ride. But when Rowley’s star starts to rise, Greg tries to use his best friend’s popularity to his own advantage. Recorded in his diary with comic pictures and his very own words, this test of Greg and Rowley’s friendship unfolds with hilarious results.

I loved this series when I was a kid, so of course I decided to read it.

To be honest is book is very short because it has a lot of cartoons and drawings. Which means that it can be read in one sitting which of course I did do.

There isn’t a lot of things to say about this book, because it is really short and we only get to know the main character Greg because to his diary we are reading and we get to know the rest of the characters though his perspective.

In the way the characters we see in this book adds more to this book, and it makes even more fun to read. Because we get illustrations along side reading what taken place in Greg’s life.

The written style is very easy, because it is written from a teenager’s perceptive. Which of course meet we won’t find fancy words, but rather the language a teenager would use. 

The plot here is okay, it is interesting and enjoyable. Which really makes this book fun to read. But of course as you might expect it is far from a masterpiece. But if you are looking for a book to read where you can turn off your brain and have a good time then this book is the choice.

I Give This Book 3 / 5

“Night of the Living Dummy” By R.L. Stine Review

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When twins Lindy and Kris find a ventriloquist’s dummy in a Dumpster, Lindy decides to “rescue” it, and she names it Slappy. But Kris is green with envy. It’s not fair. Why does Lindy get to have all the fun and all the attention? Kris decides to get a dummy of her own. She’ll show Lindy. Then weird things begin to happen. Nasty things. Evil things. It can’t be the dummy causing all the trouble, Can it?

When I was a kid I loved Goosebumps TV shows, which of course made me read this book and start the adventure with this book series. 

I really wanted to rate this book high, but I just couldn’t because there were a lot of things that didn’t go well with me when it comes to this book.

One of my main problems with this book is the 2 main characters. Which are Lindy and Kris which are twins and 12 years of age. Every time we get both of them in the same scene in this book they are arguing about something or making a challenge about who of them is better at the thing they are doing. 

And if they aren’t together, they complain about each other to their friends. Which really made me so bored. It was like the main problem in this book was that the twins hated each other. And the spooky dummies which came to life was just a side plot.

The plot here was okay, but it could have been better if the twins weren’t arguing all the time, pulling rude pranks at each other or just complain about each other. It felt like I was reading a drama book about twins hating each other rather than a horror book.

May second problem with this book is the parents. They blame Kris for everything when Lindy is seen as the golden child to the parents. Which really made me angry because Lindy made much worse things than Kris but the parents decided to blame Kris for it rather than Lindy.

I Give This Book 3 / 5

“Paradoks” By Artur Urbanowicz Review

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What do you think – are you the best version of yourself? The best you can afford…?Maks Okrągły “Square” is the best math student in the department and a morbid perfectionist. His mind, imbued with the queen of science, has switched to extreme efficiency – the boy learns faster, does more and achieves better results than his peers. However, this situation has its dark side – Maks subconsciously despises other people and treats them in advance. Paradoxically, however, he most despises… himself – especially when he makes a mistake that, in his opinion, is unbecoming of him, and he feels powerful anger about it. Sometimes it takes extreme forms – Maks inflicts increasingly severe punishment on himself through self-mutilation and is tormented by paranoid thoughts interspersed with terrifying visions – including that he is being stalked by his doppelgänger who hates him and wants to kill him. However, he does not know that the real nightmare is just coming and he will find out for himself the literalness of the saying “Better is the enemy of good”. Has Max’s doppelgänger, the epitome of his obsession with perfection, really ceased to be just a hallucination of a tormented mind?

At the time of writing of this review this book is only available in polish. 

I gotta say that this book started really hot, and it really didn’t fail to grab your attention and your interested. But the last 100 pages of this book really killed off some of the hype which the book was building up to from the first page.

This book is categories in the horror genre, but to be fully honest it rather a mystery book than a horror book. There is one scene in this book which feels like a horror but the rest of this book is rather a mystery investigation.

The characters in this book are very good and it really felt like I would have no problem becoming friends with the characters. The characters here are few of them but they really felt like real human beings in a way because you spend almost 600 pages of getting to know them.

The ending is okay, I expected it to be different but it was super satisfying and the evil might win at the end of this book. Which really made me like the ending.

This book is very good at living in your head when you take break from it. And it really keeps you wondering what will happen next.

Descriptions in this book are very good, and they give you an very good picture in your head. Which I personally love when this happen. 

I Give This Book 4 / 5

“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” By Quentin Tarantino Review

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RICK DALTON – Once he had his own TV series, but now Rick’s a washed-up villain-of-the week drowning his sorrows in whiskey sours. Will a phone call from Rome save his fate or seal it? CLIFF BOOTH – Rick’s stunt double, and the most infamous man on any movie set because he’s the only one there who might have gotten away with murder. SHARON TATE – She left Texas to chase a movie-star dream, and found it. Sharon’s salad days are now spent on Cielo Drive, high in the Hollywood Hills. CHARLES MANSON – The ex-con’s got a bunch of zonked-out hippies thinking he’s their spiritual leader, but he’d trade it all to be a rock ‘n’ roll star. HOLLYWOOD 1969 – YOU SHOULDA BEEN THERE

As someone who watched the movie when it first came out I need to say that I didn’t have any expectations for this book because I wasn’t the biggest fan of the movie. However I am a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino which made me very disappointed in this book because in a way I was expecting something more from this book. 

The plot here follows many characters and it is quite confusing because it switched characters without any heads up but after a while you get used to it but still it was very confusing and annoying.

We are given a lots of information in this book and most of this information is very useless and overwhelming. It feels like Quentin Tarantino is throwing random names and information at us without using it later in this book just to fill up the page and have this book longer.

This book isn’t a novel nor novelisation of a movie it is rather a movie memorabilia which really was the worst choice which Quentin Tarantino could have done. This book feels like a very weak first draft of a movie or a book.

The writing style here was okay for the most part but it didn’t feel like something written by Quentin Tarantino.

The characters here are super boring and really uninteresting. The only character Ive almost liked was Cliff but mostly I didn’t care for all of the characters in this book. Because they are super flat and boring.

I Give This Book 2 / 5

“Angels & Demons” By Dan Brown Review

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World-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a cryptic symbol seared into the chest of a murdered physicist. What he discovers is unimaginable: a deadly vendetta against the Catholic Church by a centuries-old underground organization — the Illuminati. In a desperate race to save the Vatican from a powerful time bomb, Langdon joins forces in Rome with the beautiful and mysterious scientist Vittoria Vetra. Together they embark on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, and deserted cathedrals, and into the depths of the most secretive vault on earth…the long-forgotten Illuminati lair.

Frankly I don’t know why I read this book, since I didn’t have any interested in it other than wondering if the hype of it was really worth a try. And after reading it I can say that it isn’t worth it.

This book was more of a conspiracy theories talk rather than a mystery book. However as a fan of conspiracy theories myself, I need to say that I liked this aspect of this book.

However the beginning of this book was slow, and there was a point when I became very uninterested but I continued to read.

The characters in this book feels very annoying, if they were really human beings I would haver a really hard time getting along with them. The characters were entreating at times but overall they were more the pain in the ass rather than anything else.

The writing style were okay for the most part, however it was weak at times. And we were told more about the Illuminati and the Vatican and its church system it felt more like a boring religious lesson or a conspiracy theory lesson made by the crazy teacher from elementary school. 

The descriptions in this book were probably the best part about this book, because they really gave you a clear picture of the scenario and I came to enjoy it a lot. 

My main problems with this book, and why I came to like it so little is because this book is full with stereotypical characters and tedious and very dubious historical references. But also that the 600 pages of this book can be summarised in one sentence. Which is an absurd story which is carried out smoothly behind the scenes of the Vatican.

I Give This Book 2 / 5

“The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales” By Jacob Grimm & Wilhelm Grimm Review

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Originally titled Children’s and Household Tales, The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales contains the essential bedtime stories for children worldwide for the better part of two centuries. The Brothers Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm, were German linguists and cultural researchers who gathered legendary folklore and aimed to collect the stories exactly as they heard them. 2012 marked the 200th anniversary of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and what better way to celebrate than to include all 211 stories into the Knickerbocker Classic Series?

If you heard or read some of the classic tales for children then I would say that they are this book is a must read.

To be fully honest reading this book is a pure enjoyment and pleasure because it is very nostalgic to return to some tales and stories I’ve heard when I was very small but this time in their original version which is slightly different from the version kids now hear and read with their parents.

The majority of the tales in this book are dark in a way, but to be honest I liked them much better in this original form because I am a huge horror fan. These tales are dark but they won’t raise in you the fear but rather introduce you the gothic vibe in a way but also this old time vibe which I personally am a huge fan of.

Both all of the stories and the illustrations in this book are just amazing and magical in a way. For me it was like returning to childhood again.

This book is very quick and enjoyable read. And the cover which I personally have is to die for. 

All of the tales in this book were written 1800s ish and you can truly feel the old vibe to all of the stories which really gives these stories more fun and more unique vibe. 

The writing style in all of the stories are very good and it really gives you the old time vibe as I’ve said before. 

I Give Play 5 / 5

“Call Me By Your Name” By André Aciman Review

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Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents’ cliff-side mansion on the Italian Riviera. Unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, at first each feigns indifference. But during the restless summer weeks that follow, unrelenting buried currents of obsession and fear, fascination and desire, intensify their passion as they test the charged ground between them. What grows from the depths of their spirits is a romance of scarcely six weeks’ duration and an experience that marks them for a lifetime. For what the two discover on the Riviera and during a sultry evening in Rome is the one thing both already fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy.

I gotta admit that this book didn’t grab me as it had other people. I personally found more bad things about this book than good.

The story here was pretty decent, and there were some good moments here and there but overall it wasn’t something I personally liked. The story in this book was for sure different and unique in a way, but it just didn’t work for me personally. This book had some sweet and nice moments here and there, but for me personally 95% of this book was boring. 

The characters here are very flat and overly stereotypical. It might be because of the fact that the author focused more on the storyline than rather on giving us good characters which readers can actually like or relate to. 

This book being from Elio’s perceptive, and the farther we get in this book the more we notice how big of a creep Elio is. Because there were times when the main character became a full stalker over the man he fall in love with. And there was a moment when the main character thought about killing the guy which he fall in love with.

The age gap between Elio and Oliver is 7 years but the way the author presents the age gap to us makes it feel like it is 30 years not 7.

The writing style here was very, very weak and it really made this book even more difficult to like and find interesting.

The ending in this book was all over the place. Because it kept jumping forward in time without any warning or sign that it would happen. 

The ending also kept building up to the fact that Elio and Oliver will end up together at the end but what really happened at the end was Elio’s father dying, and Oliver coming back to Italy to pay his respects.

I Give This Book 1 / 5

“The Complete Works of William Shakespeare” By William Shakespeare Review

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Complete Works of William Shakespeare is the standard name given to any volume containing all the plays and poems of William Shakespeare

This book is a collection of all of William Shakespeare’s work. To be honest the majority didn’t go well with me but there were very few good once. 

There are 38 plays, 2 long poems and 154 sonnets in this book. I’ve already reviewed each of them separately so if you are interested you can always look back at them.

This book is very good for collector of classic works, but also this book is a good one to have if you want all of William Shakespeare’s work in one place which would look amazing in the bookshelf. 

To be honest after reading this whole book I need to say that maybe William Shakespeare is a little bit overrated because I personally didn’t understand why so many people love William Shakespeare’s work.

I Give Book 4 / 5

“Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” By Ransom Riggs Review

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A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs. It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow-impossible though it seems-they may still be alive. A spine-tingling fantasy illustrated with haunting vintage photography, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children will delight adults, teens, and anyone who relishes an adventure in the shadows.

Oh my god, this book was amazing. It really gave the biggest nostalgia to childhood and the books I used to read back then. This book has adventure, danger, good characters and basically all you want in all a good fantasy book. 

This book and the plot of it gives the biggest Harry Potter and x-men combined vibe. Because this book involves friends, kids with special abilities and adventure feeling to it. This book is also mysterious, weird in a sense and intriguing.

The beginning of it started big but then after like 25 pages it went boring and then the it got back up to the interesting and enjoyable part on the last 1/3 of this book.

The characters here feels like real human beings. And the characters in this book feel like I wouldn’t have any problems with getting along with them which doesn’t happen often for me in fantasy books.

90% of all the characters in this book are children or teenagers, and we get to follow the plot through eyes of a teenager and it somehow made this entire book and plot more interesting.

The plot here is super mysterious at the first 1 / 3 of this book and we as readers don’t know what’s happening. But then as the book continues we learn more and more until we eventually fall in love with this book. 

The plot in this book is very unique and different. Which really made me love this book much more.

In this book we also get illustration or rather old pictures which add even more to this book. Which really adds more unique feeling to this book.

The writing style in this book was very easy and it really didn’t take a lot of brain power to enjoy it.

I Give This Book 5 / 5