Category: Book review

“Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” By J.K. Rowling Review

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When a letter arrives for unhappy but ordinary Harry Potter, a decade-old secret is revealed to him that apparently he’s the last to know. His parents were wizards, killed by a Dark Lord’s curse when Harry was just a baby, and which he somehow survived. Leaving his unsympathetic aunt and uncle for Hogwarts, a wizarding school brimming with ghosts and enchantments, Harry stumbles upon a sinister mystery when he finds a three-headed dog guarding a room on the third floor. Then he hears of a missing stone with astonishing powers which could be valuable, dangerous – or both. 

So I gotta be honest here with you and say that this was my first read of this book. I didn’t read this franchise as a kid which really may shook some of you guys. And I need to say that this book was much better than I’ve expected. But also this book was 100 times better than the movies. 

After reading this book I understand the hype with this series because it is fucking good, and it is worth reading no matter if you are 8 years old or 60 years old. No matter your age or gender this book will blow your mind. There is much more into this book than you might expect from this series but trust me give this book a chance.

This book is a very enjoyable read, because most of the characters are so well written. Most of the characters in this book have a feeling to them which makes them real to you, so this book needs to get points for that. 

The characters here are good at least most of them are good. There are some characters which could have more work done on them, but there isn’t a lot of these characters. Most characters in this book are interesting. 

The character development in this book is just through the roof, you can very clearly see how much Harry, Ron and Hermione have grow and developed as characters. J.K Rowling made the characters in this book feel super real which she needs to get point for.

When we talk about the character, I need to mention that I’ve wish that Severus Snape would have been given more time in the spotlight than what he actually had had. If you are wondering then yes Severus Snape is my favorite character at least so far after watching all the movies at least 5 times and reading this book. But lets see if that changes as I continue to read the books. 

The writing style in this one is pretty good, but it feels too easy and too simple at least for my taste. But this comes from a person who’s favorite fantasy series is A song of ice and fire. And after all this is a YA book so I need to pass the writing style because it was good enough.

The plot here was amazing, maybe not the best but still amazing. I had so much fun reading this book. I couldn’t just reading this book when I’ve first started which really speaks for itself here because this doesn’t happen a lot to me. 

When it comes to the descriptions in this book then you gotta know that they are good, but in my opinion they could have been better. In my opinion there could have been more descriptions in this book. 

I give this book 4 / 5

“Twilight” By Stephenie Meyer Review

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Isabella Swan’s move to Forks, a small, perpetually rainy town in Washington, could have been the most boring move she ever made. But once she meets the mysterious and alluring Edward Cullen, Isabella’s life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. Up until now, Edward has managed to keep his vampire identity a secret in the small community he lives in, but now nobody is safe, especially Isabella, the person Edward holds most dear. The lovers find themselves balanced precariously on the point of a knife-between desire and danger.Deeply romantic and extraordinarily suspenseful, Twilight captures the struggle between defying our instincts and satisfying our desires. This is a love story with a bite.

I gotta be honest here with you. This book really surprised me because I wasn’t expecting how good it actually was when you compare it to the movie. I personally watched the first movie when I was like 8 or 9 and I truly hated the first movie and the rest of the movie franchise wasn’t better than the first. It was actually much worse as the movies kept going. So know 11 years later I didn’t except to give this book more than 1 star and I didn’t expect that I would even thing that it was bad. I was expecting to truly hate this book and comply trash it. But here I am, I gave this book 3 stars, I found this book for whatever reason enjoying and I was really interested in the story was I was reading it. I don’t know what happened with me during read this book but I enjoyed it, I found it interesting at times and it was a huge relief to not see Kristen Stewart which I truly hate and would avoid every movie and series with her at all costs. 

Not seeing Kristen Stewart, was probably one of the reasons why I actually enjoyed this book, and I didn’t want to go to the roof of Trump Tower and jump off as I wanted to do while watching the movies.

The beginning of this book was really giving me the YA vibes and if you know me you know that I’m not the biggest YA fan. So the book looses couple of points on the beginning. But overall it wasn’t super bad but just a little bit. After the first 20-30 pages this book acutely went to be much better than I’ve expect. 

The characters in this book was much better than I’ve expect but don’t misinterpret. Because I’m not saying that they were good I only said that they were much better than ice expect them to be 11 years after I’ve suffered 2 hours and watched Kristen Stewart as the main character.  Kristen Stewart was the reason I’ve expect Bella to be completely and extremely insufferable in this book just as she have been in the movie. But actually Bella was just extremely insufferable in the movie all thanks to none other than Kristen Stewart.

Bella in this book was actually okay, I think that I would be friends with Bella if she was real person going to my high school back in the day. We wouldn’t be best friends but we would hang out like twice a month. There were a lots of moments were Bella was acting like a 5 year old. And this annoyed me everything when a teen character becomes a 5 year old for like 10 minutes to just switch back like nothing every happened. 

When it comes to Edward in this book then I gotta say that at the beginning he really felt like he had multiple personality disorder or bipolar disorder because he was like “I don’t want her, but I don’t want her. But I don’t want her” and this went on for decent 100 pages. It really annoys the shit out of me when real people and characters are like this. Whenever a person or a character is like this, I swear all I want to do is find a baseball bat and beat the shit out of them. That’s how much people like this annoys me. But after around 150 pages he turns to be a pretty good character when it comes to YA and romance books.

Jacob, when it comes to him it really surprised me to find out that he was younger than Bella. I don’t really remember the movies because I’m really good at removing bad things from my brain so I can’t tell if it was the same thing in the movies. But Jacob being younger than Bella really surprised me. And it really disappointed me to see how little Jacob was involved in this book. All he got in this book wasn’t more than 30 pages and my copy of this book is like 500 pages long. And I remember while watching the movies I’ve always found Jacob the most inserting character. But after reading this book I gotta say that my favourite character gotta be Jasper.

The writing style in this book was acutely very good, I didn’t expect it to be so good as it is. But still the writing style is just a typical YA book writing style which doesn’t go so well with me since him not a fan of YA. But it was good enough for this book and for this franchise.

The plot was actually much better than I’ve expected, it really surprised me to find out that I almost forgot everything from the first movie I’ve watched in the twilight movie series. Which is good because I wasn’t imagining Kristen Stewart as Bella. I feel like the plot in this book really adds more into the whole franchise because it has such more than the all the movies together. And the plot was so interesting and so enjoyable to keep me glued to the story. 

However there were a lots of plot wholes and the logic was super bad at many moments throughout this whole book which really made me stop read and just stare at a wall for like 5 minutes. 

I give this book 3 / 5

“Before She Disappeared” By Lisa Gardner Review

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Frankie Elkin is an average middle-aged woman, a recovering alcoholic with more regrets than belongings. But she spends her life doing what no one else will–searching for missing people the world has stopped looking for. When the police have given up, when the public no longer remembers, when the media has never paid attention, Frankie starts looking. A new case brings her to Mattapan, a Boston neighborhood with a rough reputation. She is searching for Angelique Badeau, a Haitian teenager who vanished from her high school months earlier. Resistance from the Boston PD and the victim’s wary family tells Frankie she’s on her own–and she soon learns she’s asking questions someone doesn’t want answered. But Frankie will stop at nothing to discover the truth, even if it means the next person to go missing could be her. 

With this book being read I think that I found my favourite female author and my second favourite author right after Stephen King. And the reasons for this will come below. But before we get into the reasons just know that this book was my last read of 2021 and im just super slow with reviewing it because I wanted my hype to settle a little bit before I’ve got to writing this review because I didn’t want this review to be me yapping for 3 hours about how great this book was. And with that being side lets get into the review.

First of let me start with talking about the main character here which of course is the amazing Frankie Elkin. I love her so much because she felt like a such real and likeable human being. She didn’t feel like a fictional character, she all the time felt like a real human being like you and me. You could feel her struggle, you could feel her obsession with searching for missing people, you could feel what she was going through and you could feel her passion for bringing missing people back home. She was also super relatable which made her even more real to me, if she was a real human being I felt like I would have become good friends with her. The decisions which she made in this book also felt so real, they were or at least felt like very logical choices which not enough authors now on days gives us. 

The side characters in this book are as amazing as Frankie. They also feel like real human beings because they aren’t just bad or good just as in real life people aren’t just good or just bad. There were character who were bad but did good things at times and there were characters who were good who did bad things at times. All side characters were very good but my favourite side character was Frankie’s roommate and Detective Lotham. And I gotta say that Frankie and Detective Lotham were a very good due of deceives even thou Frankie is just a civilian with the passion. 

This book is the definition on how the characters in mystery book should be written as. Because Lisa Gardner made the characters super real and super relatable which makes you care for them and really wish them all the best. Every single character in this book was interesting. Of course some characters were more interesting than others but still everyone in this book were at somer level interesting. 

When it comes to the plot here, I gotta say that its fucking brilliant. Ive read 269 books in 2021 and this one is in the top 3 books of the year. Which really speaks for itself. And in December 2021 I’ve began to be very picky and very harsh for the books I’ve was reading and this one got through it and I’ve gave it 5 stars which really means something here doesn’t it? 

The plot was super interesting and it sucked me into it from the first page. And I just couldn’t stop myself from reading it and if I wasn’t reading it I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about it. And while reading this book I’ve could see everything I was reading I about. The plot was super enjoyable and it was for sure the best mystery book I’ve read for at least 2-3 years. 

The writing style here was fucking good, there is no other words to better describe it. It was so good that it felt like the author was in my head and just knew what word to put next so that I would complete love this book. And which I did. 

By the writing style Lisa Gardner became my second favourite author right after Stephen King. And if the rest of her books are so good as this one then I think that she might beat Stephen King and get first place as you favourite author. 

There were so many layers to this book, there were so many things which you didn’t notice until the very ending were everything got unfolded and revealed. 

The ending itself here was fucking good, and the twist at the end was even better. The ending was truly the ending which we deserved even thou it wasn’t the ending we have hoped for. There are couple of deaths at the end but come on it would be very boring if everyone survived.

I give this book 5 / 5

“The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft” By H.P. Lovecraft Review

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The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft collects the author’s novel, four novellas, and fifty-three short stories. Written between the years 1917 and 1935, this collection features Lovecraft’s trademark fantastical creatures and supernatural thrills, as well as many horrific and cautionary science-fiction themes, that have influenced some of today’s writers and filmmakers, including Stephen King, Alan Moore, F. Paul Wilson, Guillermo del Toro, and Neil Gaiman.

This one is the second last book I’ve finished in last year (2021). And I’m reviewing this one because I didn’t finish to review all of H.P Lovecraft’s work until week ago. 

This one involves every short story written by the man himself. And with this book being read means that I’ve was able to read everything from Edgar Allan Poe and H.P Lovecraft in a year.

I had so much fun reading this book because every short story had something in it. And every short story has the biggest gothic vibe to it

If I’m gonna have kids in the future then they will be made reading this book no matter what. 

Of course every short story was different from the rest. Some were much better and some were much worse. But this book as a whole was fucking brilliant. 

Reading this book was like seeing the journey of horror, it was like seeing the first steps of the horror we know so well today. 

This book is completely worth the money and the time you will spend on it because this book is full of classics and while reading this book you are seeing the journey of horror.

I give this book 4 / 5

“Sweet Evil” By Wendy Higgins Review

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What if there were teens whose lives literally depended on being bad influences? This is the reality for sons and daughters of fallen angels.Tenderhearted Southern girl Anna Whitt was born with the sixth sense to see and feel emotions of other people. She’s aware of a struggle within herself, an inexplicable pull toward danger, but it isn’t until she turns sixteen and meets the alluring Kaidan Rowe that she discovers her terrifying heritage and her willpower is put to the test. He’s the boy your dad warned you about. If only someone had warned Anna.

I gotta be honest with you here, this is the second book which is in the category of YA which I personally enjoyed a lot even though it was far from the best. I had a lot of fun time with this book and I couldn’t stop reading it because I got so much into this book.

The plot itself isn’t that unique because there are dozens and dozens movies, series and book for teens about demons, angles, teenagers as the main characters and forbidden love. Which essentially this book is all about. However if you consider this book nothing more than just something to fill your time with then the book is good but the moment when you start analysing and thinking about this book you all realise that this book doesn’t deserve more than 2 stars at the best. However it does have a little bit of an original take on the demons / angles / nephilim situation which ill give the book points for.

The writing style in this book is typical writing style for teenagers to get them to read. What I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t expect much from the writing style because you won’t get much from it. The writing style in this book is clearly at the high school level which really speaks for itself. 

The characters here are like the most generic and typical characters in a YA book which you can ever have. The main character Anna is the generic “good girl” who does very well in school, has 1 friend, doesn’t party and wants something more from life than just be the shy girl and one evening she falls in love with the bad guy of the town. The other character is Kaiden he is the town’s bad boy, he dated a lot of girls, he is in a band, his father his rich and he has a thing with Anna aka “the good girl”. The third character is Patti, she is the adoptive mother to Anna. Patti is the generic mother from YA books which is overprotective, “no- dating”, no parties mother which every YA books has at some point or another. And the last character ill mention here is Jay, the best friend, lame guy, the guy who falls in love in with every girl at school and so on.

The characters aren’t unique which really didn’t made me care for them, but however since they were so generic as they were it was easy to connect with them because it felt like I’ve already knew them inside and out.

To be honest with you i’ll walked into this book without knowing anything about it, I didn’t even know the plot or who the author is. I was totally blindfold when I’ve started this book. And I had 0 expectations for this book and maybe that’s why I’ve enjoyed it so much as I did because I didn’t expect anything from this book. And sometimes it is good to not know anything about something you are going to do and no have any expectations for it.

I personally couldn’t put this book down for whatever reason, because of this I’m giving it extra points for that even if it wasn’t as original and good as it could be.

I give this book 3 / 5

“The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life” By Alice Schroeder Review

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Here is the book recounting the life and times of one of the most respected men in the world, Warren Buffett. The legendary Omaha investor has never written a memoir, but now he has allowed one writer, Alice Schroeder, unprecedented access to explore directly with him and with those closest to him his work, opinions, struggles, triumphs, follies, and wisdom. The result is the personally revealing and complete biography of the man known everywhere as “The Oracle of Omaha.”

It is important o mention that this book cover topics as:  1) Trade offs of various forms of success. 2) Value Investing. 3) Importance of Relationships. 4) Internal Values. 5)  Understanding your purpose and priorities. 

This book is a little bit long, but the value which you get from this book is really worth the time you’ll spend reading this book. However there are couple of parts of this book which really felt like a waist of paper because it was so uninteresting to me but that could be just me here.

The writing style here is okay for the most part but there are moments where the writing style turns into complete into a text book from high school which no one cared about and never read. 

And for me personally I was super disappointed because Ive heard so many good things about this book, but it didn’t live up to my expectations. For me this book feels more like a trivia of Warren Buffer personal life than his business life. 

This book is more about what Warren Buffet did before he got to the point where he is now. But it isn’t about what he did for business but it is more about where he bought a house, what he did when he was a kid, who he meet along the way, who he hang out with in the early stages of his career and so on. If the author would cut these things out then this book would be like 200 pages long with true value instead of over 900 pages with very little value and a lots of boring moments.

However if you consider this book a biography of Warren Buffet instead of a business book then this book is very good and I would give this book 4 stars but since it is ranked as business book means that I can’t give that rating to this book. However this book as a biography still isn’t the best biography I’ve read but it was good enough for me to give it 4 stars if it was ranked as biography

I need to give this book points for showing us that Warren Buffet is a complex character, and there is a lot to him which we don’t know about. And after reading this book I want even more to have a talk with Warren Buffet because it really shows how smart and how unique he really is. An I truly think after reading this book that I and Mr. Buffet would vibe if I ever get the chase to talk to the man. 

I give this book 3 /5

“Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain” By Charles R. Cross Review

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Heavier Than Heaven traces Kurt Cobain’s life from his early days in a double-wide trailer outside of Aberdeen, Washington, to his rise to fame, fortune, and the adulation of a generation.

You might not know that but I’m a fan of Nirvana so this book was a must read for me. So when I saw this book at the bookstore I knew that I needed to read this book. 

For the most part it was a decent book, but there was couple of parts which was boring and the book would be much better if these parts were cut short of they were not in the book.

The author does a pretty decent job at putting together Kurt Cobains’ life and his quick rise to fame. So I need to give the author point for that.

The writing style could be much better. I lot couple of biographies and this one is far from them because of the writing style was poor. 

The last chapter was pretty fucked up (excuse my language if you got offended here). I don’t want to spoil anything for people who haven’t read this book yet.

This book feels like Courtney Love approved versions of “actual events” which really made me pretty angry. Because I picked up this book to read about Kurt Cobain and his life and not read Courtney Love’s version of Kurt Cobain.

However this book gives us couple of cool facts about Kurt Cobain and his life which I didn’t know about, so of course I needed to give this books points for that. 

I give this book 2 / 5

“Dark Tide I: Onslaught” By Michael A. Stackpole Review

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Twenty-one years after the destruction of Darth Vader and the Emperor, the Star Wars galaxy has been hit by a threat more deadly than anything that has gone before. In VECTOR PRIME, aliens invaded from outside the galaxy and were routed at great cost to our heroes. Now, in a climate of mistrust – especially of the Jedi – Leia cannot convince the New Republic that the threat may not be over, even as the next wave of alien warships are entering the galaxy.

So this was my first star wars book I’ve ever read. Of course I’ve read some star wars comics here and there but not actually a book. And since im a huge star wars fan who have seen every movie at least 10 times and played most of the star wars games I’ve head expectations for this book. 

At first this book was very good but as the ending was closer and closer it was going farther and farther down the hill. And when the last 5 chapters were around the corner I was questioning if there is a point of reading it to the end.

The writing style was okay, but it was far from the best I’ve seen or read. But still it could have been better. I don’t know if the author is to blame here or the whole editorial team behind the “New Jedi Order” book series.

When it comes to the plot, then at the beginning it was good but after like 150 pages is just ran down the hill which is so fucking sad because it is Star Wars we are talking about right now.

There are couple of things which I didn’t like, of course I won’t give you any spoilers because spoilers aren’t cool. But that thing which made me the most angry was that Han Solo, was only in this book for half page. And later he was just once mentioned which is sad. Because I wanted to see more of Han Solo and not just Leia and Luke.

The ending was a torture to read, it was so boring and so badly done. Both the plot at the end and the writing style at the end were the worst thing you have ever seen in the star wars franchise. Even when you compare it with the new star wars trilogy. 

This book was the biggest disappointing since watching how bad of a character Kylo Ren was in the movie trilogy. 

I give this book 2 / 5

“A Clash of Kings” By George R.R. Martin Review

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A comet the color of blood and flame cuts across the sky. Two great leaders—Lord Eddard Stark and Robert Baratheon—who hold sway over an age of enforced peace are dead, victims of royal treachery. Now, from the ancient citadel of Dragonstone to the forbidding shores of Winterfell, chaos reigns. Six factions struggle for control of a divided land and the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms, preparing to stake their claims through tempest, turmoil, and war. 

Another amazing, awesome, incredible and beautiful fantasy book. This one is the second part in the “A song of ice and fire” book series. I gotta be honest here and say that this second book is less impressive than the first book in this book series but none a less it is still fucking brilliant.

This book has a lot to live up to and it doesn’t disappoint the reader. Which in my opinion is very good because when it comes to book series it tends to go down the hill after the first book but it doesn’t happen yet with this book series which im really thankful for because if the rest of the series is so good as the first two books then it might be my all time favorite book series.

The character are so awesome, they feel so fucking real. And every single character is so different from the rest which makes this book and whole series so unique as it is. Every character in this book has depth to them, they have characteristic which are unique only to them. Every character have things which they don’t like and like. As I’ve already said every character in this book feels like real human beings because there are so much into them. 

The writing style here is also as impressive as the characters. Because the writing style is so good that the pages fly past when you pick up the book and you will be siting for hours and hours reading this book without even noticing it. The writing style makes you seeing these things in your head which you are currently are reading about.

The plot in this book is just amazing. There is love, there is drama, there is death, there is the unknown, there is betrayal, there are big families who are fighting for the throne, there are friends, there are enemies, there are lover, there is intrigue, there is fighting, there is power struggle and there is so much more. When there is so much things in a book you just can’t help yourself but love it.

There is also history in this book of what was going on before the current events in this book and before the events in the first book. Whenever there is so much history in a book, how could you not love it ? Because most of the fantasy books now on days doesn’t have that aspect which this series so far has. 

This book also needs to get extra points for being a page-turner. The main reason why I didn’t get into this series sooner is because the size of ever book has always scared me. But after getting into this series I’ve resized that this series (at least so far) is a page turner which really helps because every book in this series is huge. But since it is a page turner you don’t really feel the size of every book because the pages go so fast by.

The dialogs between the characters in this book is also important to mention so here it is. The dialogos here are pretty good but some of them felt little bit off and unnatural but there are few of them. It takes couple points away from the rating but nothing major. 

I give this book 4 / 5

“Sleepless” By Lou Morgan Review

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Young, rich and good-looking, Izzy and her friends lead seemingly perfect lives. But exams are looming and at a school like Clerkenwell, failure is not an option. Luckily, Tigs has a solution. A small pill that will make revision a breeze and help them get the results they need. Desperate to succeed, the group begin taking the study drug. It doesn’t take long before they realize there are far worse things than failing a few exams.

I gotta be honest with you here, this book is the first YA book which I truly enjoyed. Which is pretty weird when it comes to me because I never liked YA books or anything close to it. I didn’t give this book the highest possible rating because there were couple of things which didn’t go well with me but overall it was an interesting and enjoyable read. 

I can summarise this whole book in 5 words which are = 1) teens. 2) studying. 3) drugs. 4) murder. 5) horror. And that’s pretty much the entire book. It wasn’t the most advanced book ever because after all it is a YA book but it was surprisingly good and enjoyable. And it had couple of moments where it was keeping you on the complete edge of your chair and waiting on what will happen next. 

However the ending here is completely awful. It really ruined everything which the author was trying to with this whole book. The ending here is the definition on a terrible ending and what you as an author should never do. 

The writing style here was okay, it was very far from good but it was on the level with the rest of the book. In which case I won’t take any points away from this book because it didn’t ruin anything.

The plot itself wasn’t that good however so far at least I didn’t read anything similar to this before and maybe that’s why I did enjoy it so much.

The beginning was pretty slow but after it got started it had no intentions of stopping which I really don’t mind. Because I prefer when things go faster than slower. 

This book had some creepy parts which I enjoyed and I think you will too. But don’t expect anything from this book because after all it is just a YA book which doesn’t mean that much in the end other than just giving us an entertaining read. 

I give this book 3 / 5