Tag: 2 Star Reviews

All 2 Star Reviews In One Place

“Satan’s Harvest” By Ed Warren & Lorraine Warren Review

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The shocking true case of demonic possession from the reporters who first covered it in the Boston Herald. The case was discussed and you can watch the real exorcism footage in the blockbuster horror film The Conjuring. When terrifying, bizarre things kept happening to a hard-working Massachusetts farmer, he did what anyone would do.

This book is the 6th book in the book series of Ed and Lorraine Warren paranormal cases. And I gotta say the more books I read about them and about their cases the more I think that their whole persona of being “ghost hunters” is baloney.

This book contains very few photos of the priest and bishop who worked with the Warrens at some point, Ed and Lorraine at their museum, of the two victims of the “demonic” possession which this book talks about and the house belonging to the victims. But what the photos in this book doesn’t shows are the “paranormal” events taking place according to the Warrens.

If you have watched the The Nun 1 and The Nun 2, then you will know the guy which this book is about. And this guy is of course Frenchie Theriault. And let me tell you that this book is very different than The Nuns movies, since there is no Nun / Valak in this book but rather a unnamed “entity” hunting the shit out of Frenchie Theriault and his close once.

There are a lots of moments while reading this book were I got the impression that Ed and Lorraine were huge jerks. Because the way they said things in this book which really gave me the feeling of them being jerks.

This book is a very short read, my edition of this book has only 301 pages and I read this book in one day. And the way this book is written makes it every easy to read in a day.

Of course the entire book is written from eyewitness personative, in this book we have the statements from the Warrens, the possession victims, neighbors, friends, family and police officers who supposedly saw shit going down hill. 

My main issue with the eyewitnesses presented in this book are that we only hear their stories in this book and there is no video interviews of them and we cant rally hear and see how they tell their stories. We need to relay on what the Warrens tell us in this book. Which really is the main reason why I don’t believe the Warrens cases in this book series 

The writing style is very fun and easy to read. I gotta say that Ed warren is a very good writer because he has the ability to use the correct words to make people the entire book in a very short time. And actually make them interested in finishing the book.

I was interested in what we would read about in this book even thou I don’t believe in the events which allegedly happened in this book or in the other books of the Warrens. 

I still enjoyed this book a little bit so thats why I gave this book some extra points for doing this.

I Give This Book 2 / 5

“Under the Dome” By Stephen King Review

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Under the Dome is the story of the small town of Chester’s Mill, Maine which is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. No one can get in and no one can get out. When food, electricity and water run short, the normal rules of society are changed. A new and more sinister social order develops, Dale Barbara, a young Iraq veteran, teams up with a handful of intrepid citizens to fight against the corruption that is sweeping through the town and to try to discover the source of the Dome before it is too late.

I gotta say that I had quite a few expectations for this book since its a Stephen King book. But this book didn’t live up to my expectations.

The plot in this book isn’t as much “horror” as it is “fantasy”, of course there are some pretty violent moments like a female getting raped, murder, raids etc. But to me it feels more like a dark fantasy rather than horror.

The plot had a very interesting premise but the way it was presented as and written made me bored for almost the entire read of this book. But there were some good moments here and there in this book which I liked a lot, but for the most part I was just thinking when I will be done with this book.

The ending in this book wasn’t the greatest I’ve seen by Stephen King, at first the ending is okay but the more you think about it the more lame the ending seems. Or it just could be me who found the ending in this book to be lame. 

The beginning of this book was very good and it really quickly got me interested in the plot and what will happen next. But the more I read of this book the more and more disappointed I got and the more my dislike began to grow for this book.

There was a lot of action in this book, a lot of things happening and because of this I gave this book few extra points for this. But for the most part all action ending pretty quickly. And there were some things happening which really could be the whole chapter but Stephen King have forced it to be just couple of pages long. Which really annoyed me.

The characters here weren’t the greatest, I found them to be annoying and if I met them in real life and had a short conversation with them I would bit the shit out of them because there were so annoying. At the same time the characters in this book seemed to not be thinking but rather have 5 years old who would get angry if they weren’t allowed to do what they wanted to do.

To be very honest with you, this book was way too long than it needed to be. Because you could easily delete the half of this book and it would have been better than it is with the full 1000+ pages we get in this book.

There are some moments in this book which drag for far too long, and at times because of these moments I wanted to just DNF this book. 

The writing style here was very good, you could easily tell that it was written by the master of horror himself. The writing style was very interesting and enjoyable. And in a way it made this book so much better than it would have been if it had writing style Which really made me give this book some extra points.

I Give This Book 2 / 5

“Queen’s Shadow” By E.K. Johnston Review

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When Padmé Naberrie, “Queen Amidala” of Naboo, steps down from her position, she is asked by the newly-elected queen to become Naboo’s representative in the Galactic Senate. Padmé is unsure about taking on the new role, but cannot turn down the request to serve her people. Together with her most loyal handmaidens, Padmé must figure out how to navigate the treacherous waters of politics and forge a new identity beyond the queen’s shadow.

This book is the first book in the Padmé  book trilogy. And I gotta say that I didn’t like this gook as much as I liked the second book in this trilogy. And yes I began reading this trilogy from the second book and then jumped back to the first book.

Of course this book fills in the gaps which the movies had, in the timeline of before, during and after The Phantom Menace movie. But it filled in the gaps in a very boring way and mostly very very slow way.

It could be just me, but I felt like this book was going much slower than it needed to. It would have chapters about insignificant things which wouldn’t even matter in the following chapter. 

The writing style was okay in this book, but it was very very far away from the best writing style in the galaxy of Star Wars.

My edition of this book is 345 pages long, and there is no action (battle, or anytime of fighting) until the page 320. Which really speaks for itself at this point.

The this book as this whole trilogy takes place in any less favorite era of star wars which is between the Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. Which I was never a big fan. So the reason it may be reason why I give this book so low rating. 

Characters here are very good, and I liked Padmé much better in this book than while watching her in the movies. Because in this book she shows much more personality than in the movies. But also this book shows us her struggle and that she constantly needed to prove herself to other people to be taken seriously and not as a kid.

When it comes to the other characters, they were as good as Padmé, there weren’t any character I didn’t like in this book. Because they all had a lot of personalities to them and it was almost impossible for me to not like the characters. Because in real life I would not have any problems becoming friends with them.

The plot in this book is about the transition from being a queen to being galactic senator which Padmé went through. And I personally liked the fact that she didn’t transition in one day but rather used to entire book and the fact that she needed to prove herself that she could be as good of a senator as she was a queen.

I like this book a fair share but since it is a star wars book and there was almost no action in it until the 2 last chapters made me very disappointed in this book just as the whole era to be honest. So it is the reason behind the low rating. 

But at the same time the mix between almost no action and the slow pace of this book really made me not appreciate this book as I wanted to do.

I Give This Book 2 / 5

“Later” By Stephen King Review

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The son of a struggling single mother, Jamie Conklin just wants an ordinary childhood. But Jamie is no ordinary child. Born with an unnatural ability his mom urges him to keep secret, Jamie can see what no one else can see and learn what no one else can learn. But the cost of using this ability is higher than Jamie can imagine – as he discovers when an NYPD detective draws him into the pursuit of a killer who has threatened to strike from beyond the grave.

Yet again we are talking about a Stephen King book which didn’t do a lot for me, but I presume that it is just my issue with the newer Stephen King books which I end up not liking after finishing reading them.

I had a few expectations for this book because a ton of people on Goodreads gives this book 5 stars reviews. And oh boy let me tell you that this book doesn’t give a damn about the expectations I had for it. Because this book is very very bad.

I found this book to be uninteresting, boring, very predictable and very repetitive. It just wasn’t a good book or even close to being a good book. And after I finished this book I was left with a feeling that it was incomplete and that Stephen King didn’t even try to give us a good book.

The characters here wasn’t what I expected from a Stephen King book. Because all of the characters were very flat and annoying. But my main problem is the main character who was the worst out of all the characters in this book. 

Because the main characters was very very annoying and repetitive. Every few minutes he would remind us that “its a horror story” but it wasn’t horror story it was a fiction story. There wasn’t anything even close to classify as “horror” in this book.

The beginning of this book was okay, because it was intriguing but as you went on with this book the more and more it was becoming a torture to read.

The entire plot about this book was about a boy who can see ghosts and he shits his pants every other page because he can see ghosts. And we follow his journey from being a kid and growing up to be adult.

I gotta say that the plot wasn’t that unique because I feel like there are a tone of movies I watch about people being able to see ghosts. And I want to a new take on it and the repeat and repeat formula on this topic.

To be honest this book isn’t that long but you are reading this book, it seems very very long. It is for sure much longer than it needed to be. This book could easily be a short story rather than a book, because there is a lot of moments where they dont go anywhere whatsoever. 

I Give This Book 2 / 5

“The Rebel Files: Collected Intelligence of the Alliance” By Daniel Wallace Review

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Branded as rebels and traitors, the members of the Alliance worked from the shadows, gathering information and support from across the galaxy to bring an end to the Empire’s tyranny. Concealed within a secure case, their most vital and sensitive information was collected by one of Mon Mothma’s most trusted aides and kept hidden until now. Discovered in the ruins of an abandoned rebel base, these files have been passed among members of the Resistance, who have added notes, updates, and new insights to the documents. A repository of Alliance intelligence, The Rebel Files weaves together classified documents, intercepted transmissions, and gathered communications to trace the formation of the Rebel Alliance. Within the case, an imbedded projection unit — activated by the push of a button — displays the Death Star plans plus a reconnaissance image of Death Star II. Unlock the secrets of the Rebel Alliance!

This book is the third book I’ve read from the series of “Secrets of the Galaxy Guidebooks Series”. And I gotta say that this book was less impressive and less interesting than the previous 2 books I’ve read from the series.

I found this book less enjoyable but being more of a university lecture type of book about the Rebels in the star wars universe. 

I think that the main reason why I didn’t like this book as much as I wanted to do was because I never were a big fan of the rebel aspect of the star wars. In fact the rebel aspect in star wars are one of the less interesting aspects for me of the star wars universe.

I dont know if it is just me but this book seems disjointed. And the characters notes in the margins of this book are not done so well as in the previous books in this series. Which really didn’t make it easier for me to like this book. 

But at the same time the character notes in the margins of this book seems like the characters talking with each other rather than one character making a note and then another character making a note commenting on the previous characters note which was done in the previous book. In my opinion that aspect of the character notes worked in the previous books in this series but just didn’t work for this book because it was made so differently.

The thing which also bothered me with this book was that, all the rebel interruptions weren’t descried but rather talked about in the retrospect on why they worked or didn’t work. Which really annoyed me because I wanted to see more of the prep work before the interruptions rather than having notes from characters talking about why they didnt work or work.

I Give This Book 2 / 5

“The Iliad” By Homer Review

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One of the foremost achievements in Western literature, Homer’s Iliad tells the story of the darkest episode of the Trojan War. At its center is Achilles, the greatest warrior-champion of the Greeks, and his conflict with his leader Agamemnon. Interwoven in the tragic sequence of events are powerfully moving descriptions of the ebb and flow of battle, the besieged city of Ilium, the feud between the gods, and the fate of mortals.

To be very honest here I didn’t have a lot of expectations for this book even thou a lot of people on the internet claims that this book is very good, I learned my lesson to not trust people on the internet with books.

Again to be honest here I don’t have any strong feelings about this book, I didn’t dislike it and I didn’t like it either. 

I personally struggled a lot to finish this book because I found it uninteresting and I just didn’t have enough will power to finish it but in the end I did finish it. 

I’m glad that I read this book but after reading this book I became very neutral to this book. I didn’t like it nor dislike it. And to be honest here, if I didn’t listen to the audiobook of this book I wouldn’t be able to finish it because its very heavy and I just count focus on it for longer portions of time.

For me personally this book was a very slow read, because all the things happening in this book were not so interesting to me but also the way this book was written in had made all the action slow so that it could describe it better in a way. 

One of the things about this book is that it keeps building up to the point where the Trojan horse will show up at one point in this book, but it never does show up and it really annoyed me here because whats the point building the plot to a moment and then the moment never comes ?

This book had a lot of heavy and hard moments to get through in this book, and some moments in this book were actually okay and I liked them. But the most of this book is hard and heavy to get through.

The writing style here was very heavy and I just count bring myself to like it. And I’m not sorry about it. I didn’t like the writing style because it felt very heavy and hard.

I Give This Book 2 / 5

“Nightmares and Dreamscapes” By Stephen King Review

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A solitary finger pokes out of a drain. Novelty teeth turn predatory. The Nevada desert swallows a Cadillac. Meanwhile, the legend of Castle Rock returns… and grows on you. What does it all mean? What else could it mean? Stephen King is back with a powerful new collection of stories – a vast, many-chambered cave of a volume.

Let me start this review by saying that this book is hell of a long book with a lot of short stories inside of it. And by the way I already reviewed every single short story in this book before actually writing the review about this book as a whole. 

My edition of this book has 836 pages which is a pretty decent length if you ask me. And for me this is very long when it comes to short stories written by Stephen King, because as you might know Stephen King’s short stories doesn’t work for me and I just end up very much disliking them.

For me Stephen King’s short stories just lack something which I cant really put a figure to, and because of this paradox I end up disliking them a lot.

Of course some of the short stories in this book were better than others but still I disliked them. But of course some I disliked more and some I disliked less. But still the dislike were present for all of the short stories in this book.

The majority of the short stories in this book just didn’t feel like they were written by Stephen King because the characters were bad, shallow, boring, uninteresting and flat but the plot and writing style didn’t feel neither like something created by the master of horror himself. 

To be honest I think I should take a break from Stephen King because me and him lately aren’t working out. Because all the books written by him I’ve read this year ended up on the lower raking side of things b because I didn’t like them as much as I wanted to. I think it is just me this year who end of being way too hard to books, because 60% of the books I’ve read until June this year (2024) ended up having a rating of one star. So its me either picking the wrong books for me or me being way too harsh to books this year.

I Give This Book 2 / 5

“Paper Towns” By John Green Review

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Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs into his life—dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge—he follows. After their all-nighter ends, and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues—and they’re for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees the girl he thought he knew.

Ive heard a lot of good things about this book and well to put it simple, this books didn’t live up to all the good things I’ve heard about this book. 

The reason why I decided to read this book is because I love “the fault in our stars” which of course is by the same author, and the one of the workers at the bookstore I purchase my books told me that if I loved “the fault in our stars” I will love this book as well. And well I didn’t,  so thanks you to the person who have recommended this book to me (you know who you are.)

To put it very simple this book is all the things you dont want a book to be. And by this I mean boring, uninteresting, meh plot, and the characters are as bad as it they can be. 

Margo, which of course is the female main character is very very bad and very self absorbed which really really pissed me off because she was always acted like the damn world revolved all around her. 

And Quentin which is the male main character was a little bit better, but went Margo bolts from the town he immediately jumps to the conclusion that he is meant to find her and that margo is playing some kind of twisted version of hide and seek with him. 

Both of the main characters in this book really proves us from start to finish that they are typical, not thinking teenagers and well it didn’t help me to like them but instead helped me to hate them more and more with each chapter of this book. 

The plot here was okay for the most part, but I was very very far of being a fan of it. It had some good moments here and there but for the most part it was very boring and uninteresting and I just could not keep my focus during reading this book because I wanted more to look at the paint dry than reading this book. 

The writing style here was okay, but far from the best I’ve seen, I’ve read one book by this author before so I know that he can do better than what he did in this book. But I hated this book so much that I dont think I won’t be reading any more books from this author 

I Give This Book 2 / 5

“Gone Girl” By Gillian Flynn Review

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Who are you? What have we done to each other? These are the questions Nick Dunne finds himself asking on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police suspect Nick. Amy’s friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn’t true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they weren’t made by him. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone.

I had very high expectations for this book because of all the good things I’ve heard about this book. But unfortunately this one didn’t live up to my expectations. After reading this book I think that this book is very over hyped because it isn’t as good as people claim it to be.

The plot in my opinion is very weak, is very boring and uninteresting and it is way too long. The entire plot could have been cut in half and do much better. The plot sidetracks a lot in this book in the way that it talks about the main plot and then suddenly it just switches to something else which happened few years ago which doesn’t have anything to do with the main plot which really annoyed me.

The characters in this book were very annoying, because all the female character and even police just seemed like they knew Nick had killed his wife especially in the beginning when she first went missing and where there were absolutely no evidence that Nick had killed his wife. Its very sexist if you ask me, because it was like everyone believed Nick had killed his wife just because he was the husband.

When it comes to the two main character which of course are Nick and Amy were very far from being the good main characters. Both Nick and Amy were very flat and uninteresting. 

But Amy especially was a character I truly hated because she is psychopath and not in a good way. She just does shit just because she wants to be the center of the universe, she just wants everything t revolve around her and if she doesn’t get the attention from you well some very bad shit will happen for you.

And Nick in my opinion is just bad character as well because he isn’t trying to do anything to stop his bad shit crazy wife and even try to leave. Like your wife tried to blame you for murdering her and make you get (in the best case scenario) life in prison or (in the worst case scenario) get a death sentence. And you still love her and stay with her and pretend like nothing happened ? Its not what I would have done in this case.

The writing style here was very boring and chaotic. I don’t know what it is but there was something about the writing style which really really annoyed me. Because it is a strange thing because I already read one book by this author before reading this one and I liked that previous this book but I absolutely hate this one.

I Give This Book 2 / 5

“The Brothers Karamazov” By Fyodor Dostoevsky Review

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The Brothers Karamazov is a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, and an exploration of erotic rivalry in a series of triangular love affairs involving the “wicked and sentimental” Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov and his three sons―the impulsive and sensual Dmitri; the coldly rational Ivan; and the healthy, red-cheeked young novice Alyosha. Through the gripping events of their story, Dostoevsky portrays the whole of Russian life, is social and spiritual striving, in what was both the golden age and a tragic turning point in Russian culture.

To be honest this book have taken me awhile to finish, because I would take a really long breaks in between reading this book. And I’m gonna explain why I did so later on in the review. 

There is a lot of things going in this book, and all the things which was happening in this book were very intense and heavy topics. 

This book is a murder mystery from none other than Fyodor Dostoevsky so you know there will be some very intense and heavy topics in this book. And not solely a straight forward mystery of finding the killer and the reason why. 

My main problem with this book and well Fyodor Dostoevsky books, is that he stretched everything for far too long than it needed to be. So because of it I tend to lose focus and interest very fast with this book and with Fyodor Dostoevsky books in general. 

The characters here were okay to be honest, I didn’t care enough about them to sort of create any opinions about them. But they weren’t bad nor good. 

This book has some good moments, which really made my day while reading this book because I was ready to hate this book, which in the end didn’t happen.

The ending this book was interesting and enjoyable. Because it involved posting out the killer and the motive of why. Which really seeing that process in a Russian classic book was very enjoyable for me personally.

I Give This Book 2 / 5