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“How Much Land Does a Man Need?” By Leo Tolstoy Review

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The story of a greedy peasant named Pakhom. Although Pakhom enjoys health and family happiness, he feels dissatisfied when he learns of the grand fortunes of his relatives. He decides to go on a quest for more land, only to find that with each new acquisition new problems develop… How Much Land Does A Man Need? gives a delightful insight into old Russian values

This book is a very quick read. My copy of this book has only 55 pages which means that it can be read in a hour or so.

The plot here was very weak in my opinion. Because it is very short and all the plot talks about is human greed. And how some people just want more and more in society which is true. But the way it was portrayed really makes me not like this book a lot.

The perspective here didn’t feel like something written by Tolstoy but rather it felt like something written by a new author trying to poorly write as Tolstoy.

If you never read anything written by Tolstoy then this book isn’t the place to begin the journey with him. Because this book has to be the weakest book written by him ive read so far.

I can’t say a lot about the characters in this book, because we don’t get to know them a lot in only 55 or so pages.

The writing style in this book was very weak in my opinion and well there isn’t much I can say about the writing style because we get so few pages. 

I Give This Book 1 / 5

“Light of the Jedi” By Charles Soule Review

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Long before the First Order, before the Empire, before the Clone Wars. Jedi lit the way for the galaxy in the High Republic. It is a golden age. Intrepid hyperspace scouts expand the reach of the Republic to the farthest stars, worlds flourish under the benevolent leadership of the Senate, and peace reigns, enforced by the wisdom and strength of the renowned order of Force users known as the Jedi. With the Jedi at the height of their power, the free citizens of the galaxy are confident in their ability to weather any storm. But even the brightest light can cast a shadow, and some storms defy any preparation.

This book is part of the “High Republic” storyline of Star Wars which takes place long before what we see in the movies. 

If you watched all the movies and TV shows and wonder what happened long before that then the High Republic books is the go to there. However if you didn’t read any High Republic books before or any Star Wars books before then this book might not be a go-to here. Because this book begins in the middle of action, and if you don’t have any context for it, then you won’t probably enjoy it as much.

This book is very good because it really pulls you into the plot line. I personally read this book during one sitting, yes the sitting was couple of hours long but it was worth it and at the same time I couldn’t stop reading it because this book completely pulled my attention.

The plot is very good. At from the very beginning it doest fail to grab you attention and focus because it begins in the middle of action. And there is a lot of things happening in this book, the action is very good, interesting, enjoyable and entreating. As a plus we also get some good lightsaber and spaceship action which really makes me love this book more.

The characters here are very good, they are almost as good as the OG characters like Leia, Luke, Obi-Wan etc. We don’t get a lot of characters in this book but the once we do get are very, very good which really makes up for not many characters.

There were 2 characters which I didn’t like as much as the rest but I still thought that they were okay.

The writing style here is very, very amazing. The writing style made me fall in love with this book more. The writing style here was perfect for this book. And it was like the author knew exactly what words to use to completely have me head over heals for this book.

The ending leaves us with more or less a cliffhanger, which really makes us grab the following book in the High Republic and keep reading.

I Give This Book 4 / 5

“Great Expectations” By Charles Dickens Review

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Great Expectations charts the progress of Pip from childhood through often painful experiences to adulthood, as he moves from the Kent marshes to busy, commercial London, encountering a variety of extraordinary characters ranging from Magwitch, the escaped convict, to Miss Havisham, locked up with her unhappy past and living with her ward, the arrogant, beautiful Estella. Pip must discover his true self, and his own set of values and priorities. Whether such values allow one to prosper in the complex world of early Victorian England is the major question posed by Great Expectations, one of Dickens’s most fascinating, and disturbing, novels.

This book really surprised me a lot because I was expecting to not like this one, but I found to actually be a pretty decent book. Even thou I am not the biggest fan of this book I still found it enjoyable and interesting at times.

It’s important to say that this book is far from Charles Dickens’s best work, however it isn’t the worst.

The plot here was quite interesting to be fully honest here, and there was something unique about it which really caught my attention. Even thou I need couple of breaks from this book while reading it, I still found it to be pretty good read.

The characters here were pretty good to be honest. I needed up liking some of them but at the same time there were characters which I totally didn’t care about. Which I can accept if there were some good characters as Philip “Pip” Pirrip, Estella and Miss Havisham. 

The writing style was very good in this one. I didn’t expect it to be that good but it was. This fact made me interested in reading more of Charles Dickens books.

After reading this book I understand why people love this book so much even thou I am far from loving this book.

I found this book to be very enjoyable and interesting at times which I haven’t expect happening but of course it did.

I Give This Book 3 / 5

“Life Debt” By Chuck Wendig Review

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The Emperor is dead, and the remnants of his former Empire are in retreat. As the New Republic fights to restore a lasting peace to the galaxy, some dare to imagine new beginnings and new destinies. For Han Solo, that means settling his last outstanding debt, by helping Chewbacca liberate the Wookiee’s homeworld of Kashyyyk.

Yet again we are talking about another good Star Wars book. This book takes place after Emperor and Darth Vader die and we see what Han, Chewbacca and Leia are up to after the curtains close on episode 6.

This book is one of these new books written by authors hired by Disney to make more Star Wars book. And to be very honest with you, they are worse than the books written before Disney bought Star Wars franchise. 

If you are interested in the time period right after episode 6, then the aftermath trilogy is good starting point. Because it don’t require you having read any star wars books before and the trilogy takes off where episode 6 leaves us.

The plot here is very interesting, we see a lot of Han Solo and Chewbacca and there are a lot of moments where we see Leia. We don’t see Luke in this book but the action we see from Han and Chewbacca makes up for it.

In this book we also see more of Leia and Han which I loved a lot. Because it gives us what the original movie trilogy should have given us but didn’t. But also Han and Leia are the perfect couple, you just can’t argue with that.

There is a lot of action in this book, there is almost no lightsaber fights but there are a lot of spaceship fights and a lot of smuggler adventures from Han.

In this book we get a new character named Sinjir Rath Velus, which is an bad-ass and I would love to learn more about him in the next star wars books. Because he seems like a very interesting character which is fully worth exploring further. 

This book has a lot of mind control and plot line of destroying relationships. Which really was more interesting than I’ve expected.

However this book had some uninteresting moments here and there. Which really disappointed me.

The writing style here was okay, but to be very honest here the first book in this trilogy had much better writing style if you compare this book and the first one together.

I Give This Book 3 / 5

“Digital Fortress” By Dan Brown Review

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When the National Security Agency’s invincible code-breaking machine encounters a mysterious code it cannot break, the agency calls its head cryptographer, Susan Fletcher, a brilliant and beautiful mathematician. What she uncovers sends shock waves through the corridors of power. The NSA is being held hostage… not by guns or bombs, but by a code so ingeniously complex that if released it would cripple U.S. intelligence.

I had some expectations for this book which it didn’t live up to. Ive seen a lot of people call this book “excellent techno-thriller” which really got me excited to read this book, which turns out to not be the truth.

Sometimes the technological digressions in this book is simply too much, and it pretty much hard to keep track of it and why things are happening because of it.

The beginning of this book was very good because it was very interesting and it was fun and interesting to figure out what was happening in this little chaotic beginning. 

However the longer you dive into this book the worse it becomes, because it quickly becomes boring and the entire plot revolves around a software program which really wasn’t something very exciting.

After fishing this book, I noticed that all of the main characters in Dan Brown’s novel are very good looking, like a top model good looking. Which really should be answered by Dan Brown on why he does that.

When it comes to the characters in this book, well there isn’t a lot to say about them. They are interesting at first but the more we get to know them, we notice that they are very shallow and not so bright if it isn’t a last minute knowledge illumination.  

Another thing which annoyed me about the characters is that we get one woman and the rest of the recurring characters are men. We get 2 other female characters in this book which we only see for couple of pages. But the point is that this book is 99.8 % only men characters. And as you can expected all of the men characters in this book are running after the main character who is a female and trying to get to have sex with her more or less.

There are many times where the plot focuses more on the software program than on anything else. Which really annoyed me because I understand that, that software program is a big deal in this book but why not focus on the action or something else than only on the software program.

The writing style isn’t the best. Ive read one book from Dan Brown before going into this one, and well the writing style when it comes to Dan Brown or this book really don’t live to the fact that some people call him one of the greatest living authors. 

I Give This Book 2 / 5

“The Pacific” By Hugh Ambrose Review

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Between America’s retreat from China in late November 1941 and the moment General MacArthur’s airplane touched down on the Japanese mainland in August of 1945, five men connected by happenstance fought the key battles of the war against Japan. From the debacle in Bataan, to the miracle at Midway and the relentless vortex of Guadalcanal, their solemn oaths to their country later led one to the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot and the others to the coral strongholds of Peleliu, the black terraces of Iwo Jima and the killing fields of Okinawa, until at last the survivors enjoyed a triumphant, yet uneasy, return home. 

This book took me awhile to read, due to its size and my low motivation for reading it.

This book is an addition to the HBO miniseries with the same name. I personally haven’t watched the miniseries as of the time of writing this review, so I can’t say much about the miniseries.

I personally enjoy books about WW2 but this book was very uninteresting and boring at times for me personally.

This book is more about presenting us with the highs and lows of the second world war. And we see the story through the eyes of those that did the fighting at the lowest levels. Which haven’t work for me personally.

The writing in this book is very the true hell, because its very boring, demotivating and tortuous. The whole writing style felt like the author was trying to give us a book which would kill your enjoyment of reading books.  

When I had around 27% left of this book, I just couldn’t take it anymore and I ended up with DNF-ing it.

However it would have been much better if the author wrote multiple books about subjects rather than just squeezing everything together in one book and hope for the best. 

I Give This Book 2 / 5

“Fairy Tale” By Stephen King Review

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Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a hit-and-run accident when he was ten, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself—and his dad. Then, when Charlie is seventeen, he meets Howard Bowditch, a recluse with a big dog in a big house at the top of a big hill. In the backyard is a locked shed from which strange sounds emerge, as if some creature is trying to escape. When Mr. Bowditch dies, he leaves Charlie the house, a massive amount of gold, a cassette tape telling a story that is impossible to believe, and a responsibility far too massive for a boy to shoulder.

This book was for sure a very unique one. Because I wasn’t expecting the master of horror to get into fantasy but with this book he of course did.

The beginning of this book started really big and had big Psyho vibes. Which really made the trick for me to get me hocked. The beginning had strange accident,  mysterious old house, weird noises coming from the shed, an old dog and a teenager. 

The beginning had huge suspense in it, and from it alone I was expecting Pet cemetery 2 in a way. But of course it wasn’t it.  

Even thou it started really hot and big, the book went downhill from that point in my opinion. As you continue reading this book it will turn into a teenager’s adventure. Which wasn’t bad but it wasn’t that original. In a way this book really disappointed me in a way because I was expecting something more from Stephen King.

Charlie and Mr. Bowditch were good characters even thou I wasn’t the biggest fan of them. But the rest of the characters in this book were meh to be fully honest here. I personal remembered the rest of the characters as “Deaf-one”, “Blind-one” etc. Even thou they had names as you expect, I didn’t bother to remember their names because I found them boring and uninteresting. 

To be fully honest my favourite character in this book is Radar which is the old dog in this book. 

Even thou this book is an enjoyable read, it is at least 150 pages too long in my opinion. Because after you read the half of this book, it being to drag for far too long.

The writing style in this book was very good at the beginning but as the book continues the writing style in a way goes slowly downhill which really disappointed me. But I haven’t noticed it until I finished the book.

The ending was actually good, I didn’t expect it being so good because of 2 / 3 of this book being boring and somehow uninteresting for me. 

I Give This Book 3 / 5

“Educated” By Tara Westover Review

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Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her “head-for-the-hills bag”. In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father’s junkyard.

To be very honest here, I didn’t know anything about this book nor the author before going into this book. All I knew about this book was that it was very popular on Goodreads. Which might be the reason for the low rating I gave this book.

This review will be very unpopular. And this entire review is from my opinion, so if you don’t agree with anything I say here you don’t need to post some mean comments, you can just keep scrolling. This review is what I think about the book, and I know that not a lot of people will agree with me and you have to do the same just agree with the fact that not everyone will have the same opinion about as you.

I personally had very hard time reading this book because I found it boring and uninteresting but at the same time I couldn’t believe how hard time the author had while growing up in the family she has.

This book is for sure very eerie due to the emotional and physical abuse the author went through in her life on the hands of her family. Which really is terrifying how some people, who you call family can treat you like shit due to their’s believes.

Even thou I didn’t like this book, there is a part of me which doesn’t want to criticise a book of someone’s life.  But for a honest review you need to do some hard things.

This book only focused on the real bad things in the author’s life, and often skipped months at a time, which really annoyed me because its like the author is telling us that she her entire life was super bad without a single good things happening. 

And the sense of intense violence which were in this book were way too frequent. She really made me point how fucked up her family is with the first of these moments and we didn’t need 50 of them to understand it.

Another things which really annoyed me about this book, was the miracles of getting back to full head when her father, mother and brother got injured. It was like on one page they were very injured and on the next page they were back to full health. And the author didn’t even bother telling us how they got back to health or anything like this. It was more like Boom and the next morning they woken up being back to full health.

Other things which I found bad about this book was her school education. She was homeschooled until she was accepted to a university. And her education at home was very, very far from a proper education. All she learned during her home school was how to read and that was it. And when she was accepted to university she was on perfect student getting As on all tests and exams. How is that possible ? Someone who only learned how to read and do some very basic math which children in kindergarten can do is randomly an A student in a university. 

When I read nonfiction books or biographies I want logic and things making scenes not what happened with the author’s education in university or her family members randomly healing up over night after getting injured.

And the last thing I will mention about which really annoyed me about this book. Is that the author taken like 3 singing lessons and overnight she was the musician which everyone looked up to in town. It’s almost like the author wants us to believe that within 3 singing lessons you can go on a stage and be the next Taylor Swift.

I Give This Book 1 / 5

“Emma” By Jane Austen Review

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Emma Woodhouse is one of Austen’s most captivating and vivid characters. Beautiful, spoilt, vain and irrepressibly witty, Emma organizes the lives of the inhabitants of her sleepy little village and plays matchmaker with devastating effect.

This book is yet again another classic which didn’t work for me personally. But yes I still read classics even thou 80% of them aren’t for me and this book is one of them.

The first 100 page of this book is Emma looking down at people who have lower living standards than her. A good example of this will be the following quote from early in this book “Oh, my dear, that’s good because I would have to knock you flat on your arse if you were considering someone of such low birth.”

Emma is the main character of this book of course. And she has every requirement of a character which I personally hate the most. Emma is annoying, she meddles in things which clearly isn’t her business, she is very immature, a huge snob and her mistakes is never her fault but someone else’s. 

The rest of the character here was so boring and uninteresting that I can’t even tell you any of their names. 

The plot in this book is about a rich and very snobbish girl who looks down and trash talk people who have less money than her. And her only hobby is to matchmaking for people she doesn’t know at all. And the consequences of her hobby is not her fault but rather the people’s she involve in her awful hobby.

The writings style was probably the best thing about this book. It gives us the amazing mood and it is very easy to read even with the old English.

To be fully honest here this book is way too long. The length of my copy of this book is 480 pages, which is way too long. Because this book is very doll, boring and uninteresting.

Even thou I finished this book there were so many times I wanted to just stop reading, or fall asleep while reading this book. 

I Give This Book 1 / 5

“Sharp Objects” By Gillian Flynn Review

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Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: she must return to her tiny hometown to cover the unsolved murder of a preteen girl and the disappearance of another. For years, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful thirteen-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed in her old bedroom in her family’s Victorian mansion, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims—a bit too strongly. Dogged by her own demons, she must unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past if she wants to get the story—and survive this homecoming.

I gotta say that this book really surprised me, because it has a disturbing plot as well as disturbing characters and it doesn’t fail to make you feel very uncomfortable while reading it.

I personally didn’t love this book but it was the best thriller book I’ve read last year (2023).

This book took me a very long time to really get into it. Because I found it very hard to like the characters at the beginning and the beginning was all over the place for me personally.

However I find it really hard to write this review because I have very mixed feelings about this book. On one had I know this book is a bestseller and on the other hand the more I think about this book the less I like it.

The writing style in this book was defiantly good when you look at the fact that this book was the debut novel by Gilliam Flynn.

This book involves a lot of dark topics which may trigger some people. Some off the dark topics are self-harm, child abuse, druging children,  sexualization of children, murder of young children amid couple of other things which I can’t say because they will be seen as spoilers.

This entire book is from a journalist perspective who was more or less forced by her employer to return to her own town to investigate the murders of children there. Which I personally found to be very boring.

The big twist at the end, wasn’t truly a twist because we were getting small hints of the ending from the beginning of this book.

The characters in this book were pretty flat and uninteresting. However the main character had some really good moments here and there throughout this book but I found it very hard to like her because she was such a weak character who wasn’t suited to be a crime journalist.

The rest of the characters were almost as flat as the main character. The mother of the main character is an abusive b-word, which really made me hate her a lot.

I Give This Book 2 / 5