Tag: Book Reviews

All Book Reviews In One Place

“A Tale of Two Cities” By Charles Dickens Review

Posted in Book reviewTagged , , Leave a comment

A Tale of Two Cities is Charles Dickens’s great historical novel, set against the violent upheaval of the French Revolution. The most famous and perhaps the most popular of his works, it compresses an event of immense complexity to the scale of a family history, with a cast of characters that includes a bloodthirsty ogress and an antihero as believably flawed as any in modern fiction. Though the least typical of the author’s novels, A Tale of Two Cities still underscores many of his enduring themes—imprisonment, injustice, social anarchy, resurrection, and the renunciation that fosters renewal.

i actually didn’t have any expectations for this book and it turns out that it was far better than I had though about it would be. Its important to say that I didn’t know anything about this book before getting into it. 

This book is a very heavy reading because it doesn’t have any humour, and it talks about storming of the Bastille around 50 years after it happened. This book also contains a lot of very violent ogress. 

The characters here were actually very good, even thou I didn’t love them, I still liked them a lot to care about them. 

Some characters in this book were better than others. And by this I mean that some characters were shallow and flat and straight forward uninteresting. But some of the other characters were very interesting and I liked them a lot. 

This book is a roller coaster of a read because it contains a lot of good and bad moments for me personally. And because of it my thoughts about this book are all over the place when it comes to this book. 

The writing style in this book was very good, show how it was available to suck me into the story against my will. It was like the author knew what words to use to completely grab my attention and to not let it go. 

Even thou the writing style was available to suck me into the story, some of the moments really throw me out of the beat and made me like “WTF an I reading?”. Because some moments in this book didn’t sit well with me. 

I Give This Book 3 / 5

“Pinocchio” By Carlo Collodi Review

Posted in Book reviewTagged , , Leave a comment

This is the story of Pinocchio, filled with harrowing yet inspiring adventures. Carved by a poor man named Geppetto, Pinocchio is a wooden puppet that comes to life. He soon leaves his maker and commences a journey of misadventures.

Again reading a classic clearly meant for children as an adult is not the greatest decision to be made. Because I didn’t like it and I found it not as good as it would have been if I had read this book as a child. 

Before picking up this book I was expecting to get a lot of nostalgia from this book because I liked a lot as a child watching the Pinocchio movie. But it didn’t happen, instead I was reminded how stupid Pinocchio was and I really made an opinion that if he was a real human child he wouldn’t survive for 2 minutes without an adult supervision. 

My opinion is probably very unpopular because a lot of people seem to love this book, which my opinion doesn’t align with. Because I didn’t like this book after reading it. 

Before reading this book you should be warned that this book isn’t as fairy tale like as the Disney movie, instead this book has a lot of violent moments which involve cut-throat, thieves, bullies, murder, imprisonment and other violent things. So maybe giving this book to an young child maybe want be such as good thing.

But don’t get me wrong this book had some good moments here and there but those moments were very rare and they weren’t long enough for me to truly give this book an higher rating than I did.

The characters here were not the best ive seen. I personally liked the father of Pinocchio but we didn’t get enough of him in this book which really made me sad. As of the other characters including Pinocchio were very arrogant, stupid and they didn’t use their brains a lot in my opinion. 

The writing style here was actually surprisingly good because I wasn’t excepting such a good writing style from a classic book meant for children because my journey with those books tend to be very rocky. 

I Give This Book 1 / 5

“The Silent Patient” By Alex Michaelides Review

Posted in Book reviewTagged , , Leave a comment

Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.

I personally had high hopes for this book because I’ve heard so much good about this book. And well after reading this book I have to say that this book isn’t as good as people say it is.

While reading this book I needed to force myself to finish this book because even thou I didn’t like this book, I don’t like DNF-ing books.

The characters in this book were very bad, the main character here Theo Faber, was the best character in this entire book because he had much more personality than the other characters in this book, but I still didn’t like him. Because at one point in this book he finds out that his wife have cheated on him countless times but he still didn’t face the issue with his wife but rather swept it under the rug like it was his wife forgetting to throw out a candy wrapper. 

All the female characters in this book were full of stereotypes which most of the times lead to things involving misogyny. Which of course is a big no for me personally. 

The plot in this book was bad, it had few good moments in the beginning but the further you get into this book the worse it becomes. The plot in this book was for the most part very flat, shallow and uninteresting which is a really bad combination of a what a plot can be.

The beginning of this book was actually interesting in a way, but as said above, the further you got into this book the more you wanted to throw this book into a fire and ask yourself why you spend time and money on this book.

The ending here was very terrible, because the whole book was building onto the feeling that the ending will be incredible and big, but when you get to the ending you get very disappointed and you are like “thats what happened ? That’s bull shit”.

The writing style in this book felt like I was written by a teenager who wanted to be the next Stephen King. The writing style was very straight forward and it was leaving nothing to wonder about but rather it told us “thats how it is, the end of the story”. 

I Give This Book 1 / 5

“Library of Souls” By Ransom Riggs Review

Posted in Book reviewTagged , , Leave a comment

As the story opens, sixteen-year-old Jacob discovers a powerful new ability, and soon he’s diving through history to rescue his peculiar companions from a heavily guarded fortress. Accompanying Jacob on his journey are Emma Bloom, a girl with fire at her fingertips, and Addison MacHenry, a dog with a nose for sniffing out lost children.

This book is the third book in the “Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children” series and I need to say that this book is my favorite book in this series so far at least. At the same time this book is the longest book in this series so far.

The plot here is just wow, I didn’t expect the plot to be better than in the second and first book but the author proves me wrong and writes an much better plot in this book than what we got in the first and second books in this series.

There is a a lot of action in this book, and wow I cant wrap my head around how many things happened in this book. There is a lot of things going down in this book, and there are a lot of plot twists in this book. 

There is a lot of action in this book from the very first page of this book to the very last page of this book. And I completely loved this fact, because throughout this entire book you will sit at the edge of your sit and wonder what will happen next.

The characters in this book are so much better than they were in the first book, and I just cant help it but fall in love with them with each book in this series. Because the character development is huge in this book as the whole series in general. 

Jacob becomes a perfect main character, because he starts of not knowing anything about the peculiar children thing and now in this book he just like wow, I cant say much about how it turns out in this book because I will spoil a lot of things from this book for people who haven’t read this book yet.

The writing in this book is just as amazing as in the previous books in this series. And this means that the writing style feels like the author knows exactly what words to use to completely grab my attention and suck me into the story and not let me go until the very end. 

The ending in this book is very big and there is a lot of things happening at the end which really blow my mind. At the same time the ending we get in this book is very satisfying. And I cant believe still how incredible the ending was. 

I Give This Book 5 / 5

“Dracula’s Child” By J.S. Barnes Review

Posted in Book reviewTagged , , Leave a comment

Dracula returns. It has been some years since Jonathan and Mina Harker survived their ordeal in Transylvania and, vanquishing Count Dracula, returned to England to try and live ordinary lives. But shadows linger long in this world of blood feud and superstition – and, the older their son Quincy gets, the deeper the shadows that lengthen at the heart of the Harkers’ marriage. Jonathan has turned back to drink; Mina finds herself isolated inside the confines of her own family; Quincy himself struggles to live up to a family of such high renown. And when a gathering of old friends leads to unexpected tragedy, the very particular wounds in the heart of the Harkers’ marriage are about to be exposed.

I need to give this book a huge applause to the author of this book because reading this book gave the same feeling and vibe as reading “Dracula” by Bram Stoker.

This book is an unofficial sequel to Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”, and wow this book is amazing. We get all the original characters from Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” like Van Helsing, Mina Harker, Jonathan Harker, Jack Seward and Arthur. 

Its important to say that this book is much longer than Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”, but its fully worth reading this book despite its size. 

The plot here continues the plot from Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” but its 10 years or so after the events of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”. The plot is very interesting, engaging and very thrilling. Its very hard to put this book down because the moment you start reading this book you get completely sucked into it and you wont be able to put this book down.  

The original characters from Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” we get in this book are as good as in Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”. If I need to be bold a little bit and say that the original characters from Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” are even better in this book than in Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”.

We also get new characters in this book, and the new characters are also very very good. They might not have same nostalgia as the original characters have but they are still very very good and each of them have their unique personalities and something which makes them stand out from the rest.

The writing style here feels like it was written by Bram Stoker, because it has the same feeling as Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”. It just proves how good of an author the author of this book is.

however the ending here was not as great as the rest of the book, which is the reason why I gave this book 4 stars instead of 5. The whole books builds to the huge ending and in reality the ending was very weak and I was very angry about the ending.

I Give This Book 4 / 5

“The Haunting of Hill House” By Shirley Jackson Review

Posted in Book reviewTagged , , , Leave a comment

It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a “haunting”; Theodora, the lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers—and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.

I had a lot of exceptions for this book, because I’ve heard a lot of good about this book but also as someone who watched and loved the Netflix show “The Haunting Of Hill House” of course I was expectations to love this book which didn’t quite happen.

The plot here is for sure unique, but it wasn’t as great as a lot of people on the interest claim it to be. Its important to say that the terror in this book focuses on the psychological horror than what we see in movies like paranormal activity.

I personally felt like nothing happened in this book which would make me love or hate this book, and because of it I am very neutral about this book. Im glad that I finally read it but I probably wont recommend this book to anyone.

As for the horror in this book, it is almost none existing. Yes some things which happened in this book were creepy and I personally would scream bloody murder if they happened to me, but I was expecting something more scarier and something bigger than what we got in this book.

There aren’t a lot of characters in this book, but the once we get are good and I liked them a lot even despite the fact we don’t spend a lot of time getting to know them other than knowing the brief facts we need to know about them. 

This book doesn’t use a lot of time on getting us familiar with the characters in this book, but rather it goes straight into the plot. Which I liked in this book because I feel like I wouldn’t like the character if we spend more time getting to know them. 

I read this book in one sitting, but it wasn’t because it was so engaging but rather because it was short and I haven’t had any plans for that Sunday I was reading this book so I decided to just read this book in one sitting.

I Give This Book 3 / 5

“Hollow City” By Ransom Riggs Review

Posted in Book reviewTagged , , Leave a comment

September 3, 1940. Ten peculiar children flee an army of deadly monsters. And only one person can help them – but she’s trapped in the body of a bird. The extraordinary journey that began in “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” continues as Jacob Portman and his newfound friends journey to London, the peculiar capital of the world. There, they hope to find a cure for their beloved headmistress, Miss Peregrine.

This book is the second book in the “Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children” series, and so far being two books deep into this series and I cant help it but be absolutely in love with this series. Because so far, this series is getting better and better. 

The plot in this book is just wow, there is so much happening in this book and with every page you read you get more and more sucked into this book. The plot is very unique and very very interesting and engaging. 

The characters here are amazing, I love so much. There is a huge character development here, which I personally love a lot. And a lot of characters here have their unique personality and something which makes you care about them and identify with them.

The fact that Jacob is new to this entire peculiar children thing, makes it so much better for us as readers because we learn new things along side Jacob and we get to see everything happen through his perspective which I personally love a lot.

The writing style here is amazing because its like the author knows what words to use to suck you into it, and to not let it go until the very end and beyond that. 

This book continues to expand the universe in this series, and we get much more action outside the loop we began this series with.

The ending here is very good, because it doesn’t live you at a cliffhanger but at the same time it does. The ending is very good and what I wanted from this book. And the ending leaves you with a urge to continue this series as fast as possible so of course when I finished this book I picked book 3 right away.

I Give This Book 5 / 5

“How to Make a Spaceship: A Band of Renegades, an Epic Race, and the Birth of Private Spaceflight” By Julian Guthrie Review

Posted in Book reviewTagged , , Leave a comment

Alone in a Spartan black cockpit, test pilot Mike Melvill rocketed toward space. He had eighty seconds to exceed the speed of sound and begin the climb to a target no civilian pilot had ever reached. He might not make it back alive. If he did, he would make history as the world’s first commercial astronaut. The spectacle defied reason, the result of a competition dreamed up by entrepreneur Peter Diamandis, whose vision for a new race to space required small teams to do what only the world’s largest governments had done before.

As someone who is very interesting in space and space travel / exploration of course I had a lot of expectations for this book, which partly this book didn’t live up to.

I personally think that the book could have been at least 100 pages shorter than it was if it had skipped talking way too long about fancy dinners between the billionaires with space exploration companies like Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and others because I personally don’t care about their dinner parties.

I have also another issue with this book, and that issue is that this book would be way too much detailed about the first X-Prize and the people behind it. Which really I don’t care about it, let me instead get the spacecrafts and space travel action.

Other than that, this book was very good to read, it is very simple to read. It doesn’t go into a lot of details of space travel and rockets engineering which in my opinion it could and it would make it so much better than it was. 

While reading this book, you will understand how much research went into this book which really made me give this book some extra points. 

The writing style wasn’t the best here, but it was okay, it wasn’t the best nor the worst. 

This book has a lot of good information in it and some of the stories we get in this book are interesting.

However it wasn’t supper interesting which would make it hard to put down, to be very honest here it was very easy to put down. 

This book taken me couple of weeks to read because at times I wouldn’t read this book for few weeks because I didn’t have the urge to finish this book.

I Give This Book 3 / 5

“The Devil’s Star” By Jo Nesbø Review

Posted in Book reviewTagged , , Leave a comment

A young woman is murdered in her Oslo flat. One finger has been severed from her left hand, and behind her eyelid is secreted a tiny red diamond in the shape of a five-pointed star – a pentagram, the devil’s star. Detective Harry Hole is assigned to the case with his long-time adversary Tom Waaler and initially wants no part in it. But Harry is already on notice to quit the force and is left with little alternative but to drag himself out of his alcoholic stupor and get to work.

This book is the 5th book in the “Harry Hole” series, and so far the series been going up and down for me personally.

The plot in this book is about a serial killer running around in Oslo, Norway who is obsessed pentagrams. Which made me expect some kind of satanism themed stuff happen in this book which of course didn’t happen.

The plot was interesting when the action was happening, the action of a murder scene or the investigation was very interesting and enjoyable. But when the action wasn’t on, which means when Harry was doing something else which didn’t involve the investigation was on the very edge of becoming boring. Which means that I have some very mixed opinions about the plot.

But also in this book we get sucked deeper into the sub-plot which was happening in this book and in the previous 2 books in this series which of course is the corruption in the police force and which is the reason why Harry still has a job as a police detective even thou he struggles with alcohol and shows up drunk or drinks at the job.

The characters here were very mixed here, of course I like Harry Hole a lot, and I find Oleg to be a very good side character which makes Harry’s personality really shine and show Harry not only as a alcoholic which happens to be a very good detective. I also liked a lot Rakel and wish that we could get more of her in this book which hopefully the next books in this series will fulfill the wish.

But when it comes to the rest of the characters they were pretty uninteresting, and I found myself not caring about them as much as I wanted to. 

The writing style here was very good, because it was like the author knew what words to use to fully grab my attention and to not let me stop reading this book until the very end. 

There is no cliffhanger at the end, which really doesn’t give me the urge to finish this series as fast as possible which I wish it would. 

I Give This Book 3 / 5

“Treasure Island” By Robert Louis Stevenson Review

Posted in Book reviewTagged , , Leave a comment

Designed to forever kindle a dream of high romance and distant horizons, Treasure Island is, in the words of G. K. Chesterton, ‘the realization of an ideal, that which is promised in its provocative and beckoning map; a vision not only of white skeletons but also green palm trees and sapphire seas.’ G. S. Fraser terms it ‘an utterly original book’ and goes on to write: ‘There will always be a place for stories like Treasure Island that can keep boys and old men happy.’

Ive heard a lot of good about this book, and because of it I had a lot of expectations for this book which this book didn’t live up to.

I personally found the plot to be very boring and uninteresting. For the most part it felt out of place, but at the same time it was most meant for the younger readers, so maybe thats the reason why I didn’t like the plot and found it boring.

I need to give this book some credit because, this book was the thing which made pirate themed movies, shows and books so popular, and don’t get me wrong I love the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies.

The characters here, were very flat, predictable, boring and uninteresting. They almost like the author just needed some character who no one would care about to care along the larger picture of the plot.

This book overall, is a very almost too generic treasure hunt book, and at this point it is too generic because the are thousands and thousands of treasure hunt movies, shows and books which are exactly as this one but with different character and by different author. 

The writing style was very old timey and very heavy with old English, but I’m gonna give this book a pass on this one because it was written in 1882, so of course the language and the writing in this book will be very outdated from what we expect today.

I Give This Book 1 / 5