Tag: 2 Star Reviews

All 2 Star Reviews In One Place

“The Library Policeman” By Stephen King Review

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This is the third gripping tale in the four-part audio series from Stephen King’s best-selling book Four Past Midnight. Set in Junction City, Iowa, “The Library Policeman” is the story of Sam Peebles, a middle-aged businessman who happens to have some overdue books. It seems a minor offense—but not to Junction City’s malevolent monster of a librarian. What follows is spine-tingling suspense as only Stephen King can deliver it.

This short story was one of 4 short stories in “Four Past Midnight” written by Stephen which I’ve reviewed already, but it was a review about the book as a whole rather than about each of those 4 short stories. So thats why we are here today to talk about this one.

Its important to say that short stories written by Stephen King doesn’t work for me for whatever reason which I cant really name for some reason.

The plot in this short story wasn’t the best to be fully honest here. It had some good and interesting moments here and there, but those moments were very rare. But overall the plot in this short story was uninteresting and even boring at times. 

But I need to give some points to this short story for having a good and unique premise, which isn’t used enough, in my opinion. 

However this short story had a very brutal and graphic scene in which a child got raped. And really it came out of nowhere and it really it didn’t sit well with me personally.

The ending in this was awful to be honest, it felt Stephen King didn’t even try to give us a good ending. Overall the ending felt very lazy, and it felt like even Stephen King didn’t even want to write it.

I Give This Book 2 / 5

“Clown in a Cornfield” By Adam Cesare Review

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Quinn and her father moved to tiny, boring Kettle Springs to find a fresh start. But ever since the Baypen Corn Syrup Factory shut down, Kettle Springs has cracked in half. On one side are the adults, who are desperate to make Kettle Springs great again, and on the other are the kids, who want to have fun, make prank videos, and get out of Kettle Springs as quick as they can.

To be fully honest here and say that I have very mixed feelings about this book because I didn’t like it nor had I hated it.

This book has all the parts which people love in horror movies, games and books. Which of course are death, murder, mental illness, physical violence and gore, but in a way all of those things didn’t work for me in this book.

The plot here was interesting at the beginning because a family of a daughter and her dad, moved into a small town a recent family tragedy in Philadelphia. But very soon it became uninteresting and boring, because the plot was stretched for far too long, before any horror have started. 

The horror here, was all over the place here, because when things started to go down hill in the beginning you didn’t know what the f**k was happening or if it was one person or multiple people.

The characters in this book were very flat in this book to be honest here. The main character and her dad were okay as characters, but the rest of the character, I really had a hard time to telling them apart because they seem like the same character to me. Because all of the character even the main character and her father didn’t have a lot personality going on. 

But the main character and her father had some kind of personality going on, but the rest of the characters just didn’t have it.

The writing style here, was probably the best thing about this book. It was very easy and simple, which made this book a quick read 

But you could tell solely from the writing style that this book was meant for young adults, because the author didn’t use any big or complicated words. 

I Give This Book 2 / 5

“Peter Pan” By J.M. Barrie Review

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Peter Pan, the mischievous boy who refuses to grow up, lands in the Darling’s proper middle-class home to look for his shadow. He befriends Wendy, John and Michael and teaches them to fly (with a little help from fairy dust). He and Tinker Bell whisk them off to Never-land where they encounter the Red Indians, the Little Lost Boys, pirates and the dastardly Captain Hook.

I need to admit that I never was fairytale child when I was a kid, so picking up this book as an adult might not have been the best choice. Which might be the reason why I gave this book so low rating.

This book didn’t have a huge appeal to me like some other classic books for children as “the wonderful wizard of oz”, but Im glad that I finally read it because this book has been laying on my TBR for couple of years now.

The characters here was on the bad side if you ask me. Wendy was very annoying and Peter here was really a shallow character. When it comes tot the side characters in this book they were even worse than Wendy and Peter. All of the side characters were way to similar to each other and you couldn’t set them apart and say who is who here because they felt like the same character.

There are times where I had to push myself through this book, because I just couldn’t get into the plot. 

For me personally this book was more on the uninteresting because as said before I was never a fairy tale person.

This book is best suited for young children, so if you have a child who likes to read or you are trying to make your child pick up reading then this book is a good choice.

I Give This Book 2 / 5

“Little Women” By Louisa May Alcott Review

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It is no secret that Alcott based Little Women on her own early life. While her father, the freethinking reformer and abolitionist Bronson Alcott, hobnobbed with such eminent male authors as Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne, Louisa supported herself and her sisters with “woman’s work,” including sewing, doing laundry, and acting as a domestic servant. But she soon discovered she could make more money writing. Little Women brought her lasting fame and fortune, and far from being the “girl’s book” her publisher requested, it explores such timeless themes as love and death, war and peace, the conflict between personal ambition and family responsibilities, and the clash of cultures between Europe and America.

I’ve heard a lot of good about this book which is why I decided to read it, and I got to say that this book doesn’t deserve all the hype it gets on boktube. 

It is important to keep in mind that this book has two parts, which sometimes are published as two different books. And these two parts are named “little women” and “good wives”. 

My main problem with this book is that we get 4 main characters, and all of them are way too perfect. They never do anything wrong, they want to please everyone, they want to serve everyone etc. they were super unrealistic which really makes it very detached from reality.

And all the love stories which the 4 main characters are just so perfectly shows us that it really doesn’t make sense to the reader, and really makes us thing that they would last an hour in the real world.

The writing style here was actually very good and it was the reason why I gave this book 2 starts instead of one. 

However you are a feminist and like books with feminist themes then you will like this book a lot. 

This book was very uninteresting and even boring at times which really made me angry because when I wanted to really love this book, but of course it didn’t happen.

The plot itself in this book is sort of a feminist novel set it 1862, I personally don’t like feminist novels, so it might explain why I didn’t like this book as much as I wanted to.

I Give This Book 2 / 5

“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” By Washington Irving Review

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Ichabod Crane, a schoolteacher, came to Tarry Town in the glen of Sleepy Hollow to ply his trade in educating young minds. He was a gullible and excitable fellow, often so terrified by locals’ stories of ghosts that he would hurry through the woods on his way home, singing to keep from hysterics. Until late one night, he finds that maybe they’re not just stories. What is that dark, menacing figure riding behind him on a horse? And what does it have in its hands? And why wasn’t schoolteacher Crane ever seen in Sleepy Hollow again?

This book is very disappointing for me, because I really really wanted to love this book, but wow where should I begin on why I didn’t love it.

Its important to say that before I started reading this book I didn’t know anything about the Sleepy Hollow town nor the legend of Headless Horseman. 

The beginning of this book was very good because it had a huge gothic vibe to it, but the further and further you got into this book the less fun this book was becoming and it was turning into boring. at the same time the further you got into this book the less thing were happening.

When it comes to the characters in this book then I have to say that they weren’t the best, I was expecting much better characters than what we actually got in this book. 

The characters in this book were flat, there where times were the actually were good, but those moments were rare. And for the most part the characters in this book were uninteresting and boring.

This book had a good and unique premise, but the way it was given to us really was very bad. 

I Give This Book 2 / 5

“Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance” By Angela Duckworth Review

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In this must-read book for anyone striving to succeed, pioneering psychologist Angela Duckworth shows parents, educators, students, and business people both seasoned and new that the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent but a focused persistence called grit.

This book has to be one of the worst psychology books I’ve read so far. Because this book starts as a psychology book but then it turns into a biography of the authors career life and what she has done during school and during work. By doing it this book turned from being a psychology book to being a mix between self help and biography book.

This book was hard to stick to and pay attention because this book was all over the place with its stories. Which really disappointed me.

The chapters here felt like the same over and over again. Because the author kept repeating more or less the same things in every chapter but just in other words and other stories which led to the same conclusions.

The language used in this book was easy to understand, and because of this it made me give this book some extra point. Because there were some psychology books I came across where it seemed that you needed a bachelor degree in psychology to understand it. Which didn’t happen with this book which is probably the best thing about this book in my opinion.

The writing style here wasn’t the greatest. You could tell that the it was written by a researcher, but it was on the worse side of things when it comes to the writing style. The writing style felt very monotone, like the author didn’t care about getting your attention and make you interested in what you read.

There were some rare examples of grit which were very good in my opinion. But the 90% of the rest examples of grit was very uninteresting and boring to say it simply and in a nice way.

In my opinion this whole book could have been taken 20 pages with things sticking to the main topic of this book. The 277 pages we get in this book are too much because we get a lot of sub stories which aren’t really relevant for the topic other than having some words relating to the topic.

I Give This Book 2 / 5

“All Your Perfects” By Colleen Hoover Review

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Quinn and Graham’s perfect love is threatened by their imperfect marriage. The memories, mistakes, and secrets that they have built up over the years are now tearing them apart. The one thing that could save them might also be the very thing that pushes their marriage beyond the point of repair.

The more books written by Colleen Hoover I read, the more sure I become that she is one of the worst authors I came across because her books are so bad.

One of my main problems with this book is the female main characters which is very dumb and weak character. She leaves her fiancé after she cheats on her with some woman who works in his company, to just fall in love with the women’s boyfriend and then marry him, have him cheat on her and just to forgive him.

The female character also gets very obsessed with having a kid, which makes her threat her husband as shit and not give a shit about him, and then get blame him for everything and for kissing another woman.  Yeah her behavior makes sense (it doesn’t). 

I had a lot of moments while I was reading this book where I though “what the F**k am I reading?” Or “why am I reading it?”. Because this book was very hopeless and really the hype about this book and about this author is stupid because there is nothing special about this book or any other book written by this author.

The writing style in this book was the best part about this book. It was okay, easy to read and pretty much it made it quick to read.  Because it was like the author knew what words to use to get your attention.

The plot here was very bad. As I said before the female main character had a lot of thinks to figure out but also the plot kept going back and forth which really wasn’t that necessary in my opinion.

I Give This Book 2 / 5

“Four Past Midnight” By Stephen King Review

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At midnight comes the point of balance. Of danger. The instant of utter stillness when between two beats of the heart, an alternative reality can slip through, like a blade between the ribs, and switch you into a new and terrifying world. “Four Past Midnight”: four heart-stopping accounts of that moment when the familiar world fractures beyond sense, the fragments spinning away from the desperate, clutching reach of sanity.

This book is a collecting of 4 short stories written by Stephen King which take place around midnight.

The name of the short stories which are in this book are The Langoliers, Secret Window, Secret Garden, The Library Policeman and The Sun Dog. I personally think that the Secret Window, Secret Garden was the best short story in this book. And it is for sure the short story in this book which I had the most fun reading.

I didn’t have a lot of expectations for this book, because I didn’t know much about it other than it contained 4 short stories written by Stephen King. And that the short stories take place either in Castle Rock or in Derry.

Those 4 short stories we get in this book are pretty different from each other but they have couple of things in come, which of course is that they take place around midnight, and they are horror short stories. 

The characters in The Langoliers and The Sun Dog weren’t my favorite, and I found them to be boring and annoying at times. Which really disappointed me because Stephen King is known fin creating amazing characters. But it didn’t happen in those 2 short stories.

When it comes to the characters in the two remaining short stories which of course are Secret Window, Secret Garden and The Library Policeman. I need to to admit that the characters are very good, and I really came to like the majority of the characters in those two short stories. But of course there were a couple of characters in those 2 short stories which I found to be annoying or boring.

The writing style in those 4 short stories which this book has is very good. The way it was written you just could tell that it was written by Stephen King. The writing style is so good that you could tell that Stephen King knew what words to use to grab your attention and interested. 

When it comes to the ending to those 4 short stories, they weren’t the best. From experience I can honestly say that Stephen King can write much better ending than what he did in those 4 short stories.

I Give This Book 2 / 5

“Nemesis” By Jo Nesbø Review

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After a drunken evening with former girlfriend Anna Bethsen, Police Detective Harry Hole wakes up at home with a headache, no cell phone, and no memory of the past twelve hours. The same day, Anna is found shot dead in her bedroom, making Hole a prime suspect in the investigation led by his hated adversary, Tom Waaler. Meanwhile, the bank robberies continue with unparalleled savagery, sending rogue detective Hole from the streets of Oslo to steaming Brazil in a race to close two cases and clear his name. But Waaler isn’t finished with his longtime nemesis quite yet.

This book is the 4th book in the “Harry Hole” series. Even thou you don’t need to read this series in a chronological order, I still choice to do it just to keep things simple for myself.

I need to say that this book was much better than the 3th book in this series. But so far I kept struggling through this and the previous 2 books in this series hoping that it would get better.

The plot here was intriguing when Harry Hole is framed as a murder. But still the majority of the plot is flat, uninteresting and boring at times. Which really disappointed me further.

This book has two bad guys in its plot, which are a bank robber and a murder framing Harry Hole for murders which actually were done by the murder himself. Which means that there were a lot o things happening in this book, which made it somehow hard to following the events in this book and keep track of everything.

This book first started as saying more or less that the bank robber and the murderer were two different people, but then it quickly got to the point were the bad guy here framed Harry Hole for being both the bank robber and the murderer which I really made it hard for me to wrap my head over how the bad guy could have done that shit.

The characters in this book were on the premise of being good characters, which really hurt me in a way, because you could see that Jo Nesbø was trying to make them good but somehow missed the mark by few inches.

The writing style was good, which means that it was much better than in the previous book. And it somehow made me hope that with this book you see the light of this series becoming better than the 2nd and 3rd book in this series.

I Give This Book 2 / 5

“Cockroaches” By Jo Nesbø Review

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When the Norwegian ambassador to Thailand is found dead in a Bangkok brothel, Inspector Harry Hole is dispatched from Oslo to help hush up the case. But once he arrives Harry discovers that this case is about much more than one random murder. There is something else, something more pervasive, scrabbling around behind the scenes. Or, put another way, for every cockroach you see in your hotel room, there are hundreds behind the walls. Surrounded by round-the-clock traffic noise, Harry wanders the streets of Bangkok lined with go-go bars, temples, opium dens, and tourist traps, trying to piece together the story of the ambassador’s death even though no one asked him to, and no one wants him to—not even Harry himself.

This book is the second book in the “Harry Hole” series written by Jo Nesbø. I loved the first book in this series, but this book wasn’t nearly as good as the first book in this series.

This book takes place in Thailand after a Norwegian ambassador is found dead in a brothel in Thailand. The Norwegian ambassador which was found was best buddies with a high positioned politician in Norway, so of course there was a lot of pressure put on Harry Hole.

The beginning of this book was very good, because we didn’t know what was happening, but as this book kept going it began going more and more down the hill for me personally.

However the plot itself was solid as well as the writing. But the twist at the could have been bigger and better in my opinion. Because I felt like there was something missing in the twist at the end.

I personally found the plot to be very unrealistic and confusing which really disappointed me a lot after the first book in this series was so great in my opinion.

The characters (expect of harry hole) were very flat and boring in a way. And I found myself not caring about them at all, and I was less interested in Harry Hole less interesting than in the first book. Which really made me take away some points from the final review of this book.

This book had also a lot of subplots which really made me uninterested because I picked up this book to follow harry hole on his journey of solving a murder instead of getting mini lectures about money-exchange, international business, politics in the police rankings, political power struggle and finance. If I wanted to get to know about these subplots I would pick up a nonfiction books about these topics and not learn about them from a mystery book.

I Give This Book 2 / 5