Category: Book review

River steamboat captain Charles Marlow has set forth on the Congo in Africa to find the enigmatic European trader Mr. Kurtz. Preceded by his reputation as a brilliant emissary of progress, Kurtz has now established himself as a god among the natives in “one of the darkest places on earth.” Marlow suspects something else of Kurtz: he has gone mad.

I need to admit here that this book might be a little overrated by a lot of people, because I’ve heard a lot of good things about this book, but after actually reading this book I need to be honest here and say that it isn’t as good as people claim it is. But at the same time I need to give this book some credit because this book has a few things I really liked about this book. But lets talk all about those things in this review. 

The first thing I really liked about this book was that out was very well written, it was like the author knew what kind of words to use to complete grab my attention and not let it go until the very end of this book even thou I wasn’t that interested in the plot. 

But at the same time the writing style could have been better on few fronts here, one of the issues I had with the writing style in this book was the fact that the paragraphs are very long and dense, which really made it hard for me to really enjoy the book and give it a good rating.

The last thing I need to mention about the writing style is that it is full of those four-dollar words which in my opinion would very quickly get boring and uninteresting. 

Another thing which I didn’t like that much about this book is the fact that it uses endless metaphors and the rare dialogs we do get in this book end up being those very big and bulky paragraphs of one character’s monolog before the other character starts his / her’s monolog.

Another things which I really didn’t like about this book is the fact that the author was jumping from one topic to the next constantly and in the blink of an eye. Which really made it hard to get invested in the plot of this book because the topics would constantly change. At times I felt like the author was on cocaine or heroine and was just rambling about stuff without knowing about it because of how often and quickly the damn topics changed in this book.

But at the same time this book had some good moments, because it touches onto some topics I found interesting, and when the characters doesn’t go onto those very long monologues, I actually liked this book a lot even thou I wont probably read this book again nor recommend it to anyone.

The characters in this book were okay for the most part when they weren’t doing those very energy draining monologs which I really hated. But I gotta say that I liked them because they weren’t too complex but they still had that unique thing which made them feel like real human beings rather than characters on a piece of paper. 

The plot in this book is pretty much all over the place. Because as I’ve said before, the author dumps from topic to topic in seconds in this book, which is really hard to follow the main plot in this book without getting confused and wonder what the fuck is happening.

I Give This Book 3 / 5

On a drowsy afternoon by a riverbank, a young and distracted Alice follows a rabbit into a fantastical underground world that grows curiouser and curiouser. Dared, insulted, amused, and threatened by a succession of anthropomorphic creatures, the indomitable Alice falls deeper into a swirl of the imagination where logic has no place.

I gotta say that this book had disappointed me, since I was expecting to love this book. Because I remember watching the Alice in Wonderland movie with Johnny Deep and Alan Rickman when I was 8 years old (yes I am a 2002 kid) and completely loving that movie, So I was expecting to also love this book. But oh boy was I wrong on this one ? But enough of chit chat, lets get into the review. 

I gotta say that I love the plot, because it is filled with crazy surprises, amazing adventures, very rational beheadings and tea parties. Whats there not to love about this plot right ? 

I feel like the narrative this book, makes the entire plot feel less fun like it tries to hard to contain the plot and make it seem realistic. But then again it could be just me here, wouldn’t be the first time I had a controversial take on a book. 

For some reason this book took me very long to finish because I needed to take breaks from this book as I was reading it because I would get tired and bored off this book in a way. But in the end I finished this book, which I am really happy that I did. 

To be honest here if I didn’t know the basic plot of this book from the 2010 movie of Alice in wonderland and pop culture, I wouldn’t like this book as much as I did. Because I found it very hard to actually focus long enough on this book to get into the plot.

The characters here were okay, but we don’t get to know them a lot in this book. Because this book does have a lot of characters in this book and we simply don’t get enough time to get to know them on deeper level as I wanted to.

The writing style in this book wasn’t that good as I expected it to be. Because it is very simplistic, in my opinion way too simplistic for even children which is primarily who this book is aimed towards. 

I Give This Book 3 / 5

The portrayal of Stephen Dedalus’s Dublin childhood and youth, his quest for identity through art and his gradual emancipation from the claims of family, religion and Ireland itself, is also an oblique self-portrait of the young James Joyce and a universal testament to the artist’s ‘eternal imagination’. Both an insight into Joyce’s life and childhood, and a unique work of modernist fiction, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a novel of sexual awakening, religious rebellion and the essential search for voice and meaning that every nascent artist must face in order to blossom fully into themselves.

I gotta admit that this book was much better than I expected it to be, because I had expected to not like this book and give it a 2 star rating at tops before I got into the book. But after reading this book I need to admit that I liked this book much more than I expected even thou I didn’t quite love it, but I still like it.

The plot in this book is very interesting and enjoyable. And I had a lot of fun with this book as I was reading it. The plot in this book talks about reflecting on life experience to and your coming of age story which I liked a fair share, because I personally like a lot the coming of age books. Which easily made me give this book some extra points for doing.

The narrative of this book is very basic, as I said the book has very promising aspect but the way it is gives us makes it feel like a generic college novel about the main character trying to find himself and what he wants to do in life which we all face at some point in our lives.

But at the same time I found this book to get very repetitive at times and some of the descriptions and moments in this book would get pretty wordy. Which made me bored of this book a few times as I was reading this book. I personally think that at least 100 pages could have been cut out of this book making this book better, which really shows how many repetitive it was and how unnecessarily long the descriptions were at times in this book.

The characters in this book were okay, we don’t get a lot of characters in this book but those characters we actually got in this book were pretty okay. I personally didn’t have a lot of strong feelings about the characters in this book because I didn’t care about them or hate them. Yes the characters could have been better in this book but they were for the most part bearable unlike characters in other books which I really hated.

The writing style was okay for the most past, but as I’ve said above it gets pretty receptive and the descriptions get way out of hands very quickly in this book. I don’t know if it typical of this author because this book is the first book I’ve read from James Joyce, but if his writing style is the same in his other books as in this one, I think I will have to pass his other books.

I Give This Book 3 / 5

This extraordinary historical French gothic novel, set in Medieval Paris under the twin towers of its greatest structure and supreme symbol, the cathedral of Notre-Dame, is the haunting drama of Quasimodo, the disabled bell-ringer of Notre-Dame, as he struggles to stand up to his ableist guardian Claude Frollo, who also wants to commit genocide against Paris’ Romani population.

I need to be honest here and admit that when I was getting into reading this book, I was fully prepared to not like this book because I felt like it wasn’t one of the books I typically love to read. But now that I have finally read this one, I gotta say that I love this book a lot. But as always I will explain everything in this review. 

First of all the story in this book is very very good. It has the gothic vibe to it which I always cant help myself but love, and we also get French in the 1480s which also made me like this book more. 

There is something about the story which really made it very fun and interesting for me to read it even thou this book isn’t one of the books I typically love. The story has an amazing gothic atmosphere and the story is like a bitter sweet tragedy themed. 

The story is very tragedy, but it doesn’t fail to be interesting, enjoyable and very attention grabbing. While I was reading this book I couldn’t stop reading it and if I wasn’t reading this book I just couldn’t stop thinking about this book and what would happen next in the story.

The characters in this book are so very well made. Which really made me give this book some extra points for doing that. Every character in this book has a lot of personality to them which I personally like I lot and it makes me always give the book extra points for. 

The main character is so amazing. He’s very different from the typical main character I’ve got to know in other books. The main character struggles with good and bad a lot, and he is disabled. He is also half-blind and almost completely deaf which isn’t the dream life we image our typical main character to have in the end. 

But at the same time the main character but also the rest of the characters in this book are very complex which make them feel like real human beings rather than fictional characters in a book which were written a very long time ago 

The narrative of this book is very very good. Because it sucks you right into the plot and it doesn’t let your attention and interest go until the very end of this book.  Which for me personally doesn’t happen a lot. 

The ending of this book is very powerful and just wow. I cant say much about it without spoiling the ending for those of you who haven’t read the book yet but are interested in doing so. But let me tell you that the ending is very tragic but at the same time very good which makes worth reading this book which is over 550+ pages long (or at least the edition of this book I got was over 550+ long).

The writing style which this book got is very good, and it makes the the whole story and characters feel more time era appropriate. Since this book has a lot of old English writing in it which for me is either a hit or a miss, but in this book it was a big hit for me personally. 

I Give This Book 4 / 5

Life is good for Buck in Santa Clara Valley, where he spends his days eating and sleeping in the golden sunshine. But one day a treacherous act of betrayal leads to his kidnap, and he is forced into a life of toil and danger. Dragged away to be a sledge dog in the harsh and freezing cold Yukon, Buck must fight for his survival. Can he rise above his enemies and become the master of his realm once again?

Let me start this review by saying that I love books where an animal is the main character. And this book delivers why I love books with this topic. 

I gotta say that this book was very depressing for me to read because of how people treat this dog who is the main character of this book. Buck gets kidnapped, beaten, forced to be a sledge dog in a harsh cold Yukon. I mean you get possible get more cruel than this to a cute dog. 

I need to admit there were a lot of time where I wanted to beat the shit out of the people who were monsters to Buck because like I don’t understand how fucked up of a person you have to be, to be so cruel to an animal. 

Because of the fact that this book was able to get such emotions from me, means that I was very invested in the story and in this book. 

The story of this book was very good, interesting, enjoyable and it grabs your attention and doesn’t let it go until the very end of the book.  Yes the story has some very heavy topics but at the same time thats the reason why I liked this book so much as I do after reading it. 

The characters here are very good, because they have a lot of personality and feel like real human beings even thou I wanted to murder most of them over how they treated Buck in this book. 

Buck is an amazing main character, and I really wish that we would get more characters like Buck in books. Where the main character is a animal and goes through a lot of shit in their lives. Because thats the recipe of how to get my attention and truly like the book.

The writing style, is pretty old English since it was published over 110 years ago, but in my opinion this book is one of the books where the old English only helps the book to be better rather than making the entire book feel like torture as you read it. 

This book is also very good read for all ages not only for adults, because I watched a movie adaptions of this book when I was a kid and I remember loving the movie. And after finally reading the book, I gotta say that I love this book much more than I loved the movie based of this book which I watched when I was a kid.

I Give This Book 4 / 5