Tag: 4 Star Reviews

All 4 Stars Reviews In One Place

“Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America” By Ari Berman Review

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In this groundbreaking narrative history, Ari Berman charts both the transformation of American democracy under the VRA and the counterrevolution that has sought to limit voting rights, from 1965 to the present day. The act enfranchised millions of Americans and is widely regarded as the crowning achievement of the civil rights movement. And yet, fifty years later, we are still fighting heated battles over race, representation, and political power, with lawmakers devising new strategies to keep minorities out of the voting booth and with the Supreme Court declaring a key part of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional.

I gotta be honest and say that this book is one of the best political books I’ve read so far. I personally am super interested in politics and books so why not start reading political books right? 

This book is about the voting rights and how black people and white people need and still need to face when it comes to the voting right in USA. We all know that USA have huge problems and this book shows that problems with voting rights is still relevant even at the end of 2023. Which is mind blowing to think about. 

This book starts with the Voter Rights Act in 1965 and it goes all the way to the Obama administration. Which is couple of decades and we truly see how little the voting rights have changed to be fully honest.

This book have good research in it which we get to see in this book. And this book provides us with evidence that voting rights issues are still relevant. 

The writing style here is amazing. The writing style really creates a soul in this book which I really enjoyed. 

I Give This Book 4 / 5

“The Last Command” By Timothy Zahn Review

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The embattled Republic reels from the attacks of Grand Admiral Thrawn, who has marshaled the remnants of the Imperial forces and driven the Rebels back with an abominable technology recovered from the Emperor’s secret fortress: clone soldiers. As Thrawn mounts his final siege, Han and Chewbacca struggle to form a coalition of smugglers for a last-ditch attack against the empire, while Leia holds the Alliance together and prepares for the birth of her Jedi twins. Overwhelmed by the ships and clones at Thrawn’s command, the Republic has one last hope–sending a small force, led by Luke Skywalker, into the very stronghold that houses Thrawn’s terrible cloning machines. There a final danger awaits, as the Dark Jedi C’baoth directs the battle against the Rebels and builds his strength to finish what he had already started: the destruction of Luke Skywalker.

This book is the last book in the 1990s Thrawn trilogy.

This book was very interesting and enjoyable. But also is a page turner. I read it in 3 sittings.

This book as the rest of the trilogy brings the old nostalgia or watching star wars for the first time. Because this book have all the things which the original star wars trilogy had which of course is bad vs good, heroism, action, battles, power struggle, romance, amazing characters and so much more. 

The plot in here is very good, and I personally had a very hard time trying to put it down once I’ve started reading. 

There is a lot of things happening in this book, and we get a lot of new character introduced. There are battles, there are amazing space ships journeys. 

The OG characters in this book which are of course Luke, Leia, Han, C-3PO, R2-D2, Chewie are still the amazing characters which we got to meet in the original trilogy. If I’m gonna be fully honest with you, they are even better in this book and this trilogy than in the original movie trilogy. 

We also get a lot of new characters in this book, (and series of course) like Mara Jade, Grand Admiral Thrawn but in this book Leia gives birth to twins Jacen and Jaina Solo. Which means that the Skywalker legacy becomes bigger. And I personally can’t wait to read more books with the twins and learning more about them.

In this book Mara Jade plays a much larger role than she did in the first two books in this trilogy. Which I loved, because we get a bigger chance to getting to know her and she is so good character with an amazing backstory which really makes her to an intriguing character.

The writing style here is amazing. This book and this trilogy really shows how good of an author Timothy Zahn really is. Because it feels like Timothy Zahn really know what words to use to grab your attention and not let you go until you finish.

The ending is so good that I don’t have words to describe it. And I can’t say too much without spoiling anything. But is the perfect ending to this trilogy and it fully left me satisfied that I read this book and the trilogy. 

However I have one problem with this book and trilogy as a whole. And that problem is that this trilogy should be canon not legends.

I Give This Book 4 / 5

“Fire & Blood” By George R.R. Martin Review

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Centuries before the events of A Game of Thrones, House Targaryen—the only family of dragonlords to survive the Doom of Valyria—took up residence on Dragonstone. Fire and Blood begins their tale with the legendary Aegon the Conqueror, creator of the Iron Throne, and goes on to recount the generations of Targaryens who fought to hold that iconic seat, all the way up to the civil war that nearly tore their dynasty apart.

This book is amazing. It was one of the best books I’ve read this year so far at least. 

The art in this book is stunning and it really adds more to this book. They were really good and amazing adds to the book.

This book is in another book from the A Song Of Ice And Fire series but this is book happens 300 ish years before the first book in the main series which means that it is sort of the backstory to the whole series.

I personally had an amazing time reading this book, but there were couple of moments were I thought that they were unnecessary. The first half of this book is very fast and it only gives us couple of sentences about previous kings and other Targaryens. Which really annoyed me because I wish that we could get more of these previous Targaryens before the main characters in the House Of The Dragon series.

The characters in this book are amazing, and they really felt like real life human beings rather than a fantasy book characters. Most of the characters in this book were so amazing that I just can’t explain. There were some characters were I felt were super flat and boring in a way. 

The plot in this book is amazing. There is so much action here, there are deaths (as you expect from George R.R Martin), there are a lot of family and politics drama and so much more. 

The writing style here is super amazing, it really is on level with the rest of books in the A Song Of Ice And Fire series. And really shows that A Song Of Ice And Fire series might be one of the best book series ever and that George R.R. Martin might be one of the best authors to ever live. 

This book is super interesting, enjoyable, fun and it really blows you off to another universe. 

I Give This Book 4 / 5

“Pride and Prejudice” By Jane Austen Review

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Since its immediate success in 1813, Pride and Prejudice has remained one of the most popular novels in the English language. Jane Austen called this brilliant work “her own darling child” and its vivacious heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, “as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print.” The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud beau, Mr. Darcy, is a splendid performance of civilized sparring. And Jane Austen’s radiant wit sparkles as her characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, making this book the most superb comedy of manners of Regency England.

I gotta say that this book was okay. I didn’t have a lot of expectations for this book but it still disappointed me in a way because I wanted to like much more this book than I’ve did after reading it. 

The plot here is again too much about romance in a way, which I personally aren’t the biggest fan of. But if we look away from the romances in this book than I found myself enjoying the plot in this book a lot and I found it to be interesting and enjoyable read overall. 

This book is mostly a character study of 19th century England and of its societies, courtships etc. I am a big fan of that part of this book because I found it super interesting. 

The characters here was likeable, and I liked them a lot. There were couple of times were I was annoyed with the characters but still I’ve liked them. The moment were one of the female characters rejected a man’s proposal but then she found out that he is rich and he instantly changed her mind made me literally throw the book across the room. Talking about an 19th century gold digger. 

There were couple of moments in this book which were really boring and I wanted to DNF this book. But I struggled through them and I found myself with positive feedback for this book. Of course  not all polite as you might have seen above but still I gave it a high rating.

I Give This Book 4 / 5

“Warriors of the Storm” By Bernard Cornwell Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I Give This Book 4 / 5

“Paradoks” By Artur Urbanowicz Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I Give This Book 4 / 5

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

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

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

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

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

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

I Give Book 4 / 5

“The Restaurant at the End of the Universe” By Douglas Adams Review

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Facing annihilation at the hands of the warlike Vogons is a curious time to have a cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his curious comrades in arms as they hurtle through space powered by pure improbability – and desperately in search of a place to eat. Among Arthur’s motley shipmates are Ford Prefect, a long-time friend and contributor to the The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; Zaphod Beeblebrox, the three-armed, two-headed ex-president of the galaxy; Tricia McMilan, a fellow Earth refuge who’s gone native (her name is Trillian now); and Marvin, who suffers nothing and no one gladly.

I gotta say that this book so far is the best book in the The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. 

Somehow this book takes the world and plot from the first book and builds onto it. Because of this we get to see more of the world in this series and we get a better plot in this book. Which I really came to like much more this book than the first book. 

The plot here was very good. Its very unique and its very interesting to read. There was something really intriguing and entertaining about this book. Which really caught my attention and kept me reading to the end.

The characters in this book gets better than they were in the first book. It might be a character development or me taking the time to actually like them. 

However this book has the same problem as the first book had. Which is that the humour was very weak and it didn’t fall in with me.

I Give This Book 4 / 5

“This Long Vigil” By Rhett C. Bruno Review

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After twenty five years serving as the lone human Monitor of the Interstellar Ark, Hermes, Orion is scheduled to be placed back in his hibernation chamber with the other members of the crew. Knowing that he will die there and be replaced before the ship’s voyage is over, he decides that he won’t accept that fate. Whatever it takes he will escape Hermes and see space again, even if it means defying the regulations of his only friend — the ship-wide artificial intelligence known as Dan.

I didn’t know anything about this one before getting into this one. Which turns out wasn’t so bad things after all. 

I am not typically a big fan of Sci-fi but this one really surprised me because I came to like it very much. 

The plot in this one was very good, because it was a unique turn on the sci-fi space travel topic which now is very watered down. 

The characters in this one were very good, and I came to like them. They were very few characters in this one. But the once we got really made it up for it.

The writing style here was very simple, almost too simple in my opinion. And that’s pretty much the only bad thing I have to say about this one. 

I Give This Book 4 / 5

“Sense and Sensibility” By Jane Austen Review

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Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor’s warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her. Through their parallel experience of love—and its threatened loss—the sisters learn that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find personal happiness in a society where status and money govern the rules of love.

After reading this book I fully understand the hype with Jane Austen because this book was amazing and I found myself enjoying this book much more than I’ve expected. 

The plot here is amazing. But I found myself not carrying for the romances in this book. But it was super fun reading this book and seeing where the plot in this book takes us. The plot in this book follows two teenager girls and their romances which I found very boring. 

The writing style was super old school but at the same time very fun and enjoyable. 

The characters here were okay but I wasn’t the biggest fan of all the characters here. I really didn’t care for them but I didn’t mind them at the same time. Which is a weird combination. 

This book would have been one of my favourite books if I didn’t focus so much on romances and the same thing goes to the characters in this book. 

I Give This Book 4 / 5