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Rebecca's Lost Journals, Volume 1: The Seduction (Inside Out, #1.1)
8.0
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An Inside Out novella... The secret life of Rebecca and the men who have seduced her. These are...
Rebecca's Lost Journals, Volume 3: His Submissive (Inside Out, #1.3)
9.0
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An Inside Out novella... The secret life of Rebecca and the men who have seduced her. These are...
Arthur Rackham Masterpieces of Art
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Arthur Rackham was a Victorian born illustrator and artist who influenced much of the book and...
Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole: Extraordinary Journeys into the Human Brain
Allan Ropper and Brian David Burrell
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What is it like to try to heal the body when the mind is under attack? In this gripping and...
Heather Cranmer (2721 KP) rated Alice in Zombieland - White Rabbit Chronicles in Books
Jun 7, 2018
(This review can also be found on my blog at <a href="http://themisadventuresofatwentysomething.blogspot.co.uk">The (Mis)Adventures of a Twenty-Something Year Old Girl</a>).
I've been dying to read this book since I first heard about it months ago. I love zombies because, well, zombies are just so darn cool! However, I think I built myself up a bit too much and bought in to the hype a bit too much. I didn't think the book was bad, but I didn't think it was that great either.
Alice, or Ali for short, thinks her father is crazy. He has so many rules when it comes to his daughters, especially things that involve go out during the night. He's worried about the monsters, but Alice just thinks he's going insane until one night, her whole family is killed in a car crash. It is then that she sees her first monster. Maybe her dad wasn't crazy after all. Alice will have to enlist the help of the school's bad crowd if she wants answers, and that means getting close to Cole Holland, the resident bad boy. Will Alice have her heart broken? Will she even be able to survive long enough to have her heart broken?
Okay, I absolutely, positively love, love, love the title of this book: Alice in Zombieland. It just has a certain ring to it. I'd say the title definitely describes the story. If I were to sum up this book in three words, Alice in Zombieland would be exactly what I'd say.
I do think the cover is pretty, but I feel that it's lacking. I do love the little details there are to see when you look closer at the cover, but as I said, something is missing from the cover. I think it would've been cool, maybe, to have a few zombies on the cover as well.
The world building is fantastic! Gena Showalter makes it feel as if a zombie apocalypse is actually happening or really could happen. It's so easy to get lost in Alice's world and forget that you're actually just reading a story. The author makes the world of zombies come to life, and it does get a bit scary.
The pacing is what really bothered me. I felt as if it was a bit all over the place. At the very beginning, I felt I was losing the will to live as the pacing was so slow. Then it got a bit better, then it'd get slow, then it'd get better again. My interest in this book was all over the place. I never knew what to expect in the next chapter. Was it going to be super slow or fast paced?
The dialogue was believable for the teenagers. They spoke exactly how I'd imagine teens of today to speak. However, Alice has a seven year old sister who spoke like she was at least thirteen years old. Her vocabulary, and the way she spoke were definitely not normal for a seven year old. With that said, I did enjoy the dialogue immensely especially when it came to interactions between Kat and Alice. I even loved the sarcastic interactions between Cole and Alice. There wasn't any swearing in this book which I admired.
I thought the characters were fantastic and very believable. I loved how Alice was willing to do whatever it took to avenge her family and how she wasn't willing to take anything from anybody. Cole is your typical bad boy: moody, snarly, sarcastic, etc. There is something likable about Cole, and as the story progresses, we find out a little bit about why Cole is the way he is. My favourite character had to be Kat though. I loved her witty and sarcastic sense of humour. In fact, I wish I could be like Kat. She definitely had me laughing quite a bit. The only non-believable character was Alice's little sister Emma. As stated in the previous paragraph, she didn't speak like a normal seven year old, nor did she act like an everyday seven year old. Because of that, I had a hard time relating to her as a character.
One thing I really loved about this book was the chapter names. I loved how they were zombie related but still had the Alice in Wonderland feel about them. Unfortunately, this was not enough to warrant a higher rating for this book. Perhaps it's just me though as this book does have quite high reviews, but I just couldn't enjoy it that much. I might carry on with the series in the hopes it gets better, but I'm not dying to read the next book in the series.
I'd recommend this book to those aged 14+ if I really had to recommend it. However, I'd say don't waste your money. Rent it from a library or borrow it if you really want to read it.
Alice in Zombieland (The White Rabbit Chronicles #1) by Gena Showalter gets a 3.25 out of 5 from me.
I've been dying to read this book since I first heard about it months ago. I love zombies because, well, zombies are just so darn cool! However, I think I built myself up a bit too much and bought in to the hype a bit too much. I didn't think the book was bad, but I didn't think it was that great either.
Alice, or Ali for short, thinks her father is crazy. He has so many rules when it comes to his daughters, especially things that involve go out during the night. He's worried about the monsters, but Alice just thinks he's going insane until one night, her whole family is killed in a car crash. It is then that she sees her first monster. Maybe her dad wasn't crazy after all. Alice will have to enlist the help of the school's bad crowd if she wants answers, and that means getting close to Cole Holland, the resident bad boy. Will Alice have her heart broken? Will she even be able to survive long enough to have her heart broken?
Okay, I absolutely, positively love, love, love the title of this book: Alice in Zombieland. It just has a certain ring to it. I'd say the title definitely describes the story. If I were to sum up this book in three words, Alice in Zombieland would be exactly what I'd say.
I do think the cover is pretty, but I feel that it's lacking. I do love the little details there are to see when you look closer at the cover, but as I said, something is missing from the cover. I think it would've been cool, maybe, to have a few zombies on the cover as well.
The world building is fantastic! Gena Showalter makes it feel as if a zombie apocalypse is actually happening or really could happen. It's so easy to get lost in Alice's world and forget that you're actually just reading a story. The author makes the world of zombies come to life, and it does get a bit scary.
The pacing is what really bothered me. I felt as if it was a bit all over the place. At the very beginning, I felt I was losing the will to live as the pacing was so slow. Then it got a bit better, then it'd get slow, then it'd get better again. My interest in this book was all over the place. I never knew what to expect in the next chapter. Was it going to be super slow or fast paced?
The dialogue was believable for the teenagers. They spoke exactly how I'd imagine teens of today to speak. However, Alice has a seven year old sister who spoke like she was at least thirteen years old. Her vocabulary, and the way she spoke were definitely not normal for a seven year old. With that said, I did enjoy the dialogue immensely especially when it came to interactions between Kat and Alice. I even loved the sarcastic interactions between Cole and Alice. There wasn't any swearing in this book which I admired.
I thought the characters were fantastic and very believable. I loved how Alice was willing to do whatever it took to avenge her family and how she wasn't willing to take anything from anybody. Cole is your typical bad boy: moody, snarly, sarcastic, etc. There is something likable about Cole, and as the story progresses, we find out a little bit about why Cole is the way he is. My favourite character had to be Kat though. I loved her witty and sarcastic sense of humour. In fact, I wish I could be like Kat. She definitely had me laughing quite a bit. The only non-believable character was Alice's little sister Emma. As stated in the previous paragraph, she didn't speak like a normal seven year old, nor did she act like an everyday seven year old. Because of that, I had a hard time relating to her as a character.
One thing I really loved about this book was the chapter names. I loved how they were zombie related but still had the Alice in Wonderland feel about them. Unfortunately, this was not enough to warrant a higher rating for this book. Perhaps it's just me though as this book does have quite high reviews, but I just couldn't enjoy it that much. I might carry on with the series in the hopes it gets better, but I'm not dying to read the next book in the series.
I'd recommend this book to those aged 14+ if I really had to recommend it. However, I'd say don't waste your money. Rent it from a library or borrow it if you really want to read it.
Alice in Zombieland (The White Rabbit Chronicles #1) by Gena Showalter gets a 3.25 out of 5 from me.
Goddess in the Stacks (553 KP) rated A Blade So Black in Books
Mar 21, 2019
I've seen the point brought up that so many fantasy protagonists have really neglectful parents. Who lets their kid be gone for an unknown amount of time doing something "important" that their kid refuses to tell them about because it's a "secret"? This book makes a point of how NOT neglectful Alice's mother is. The blurb calls her overprotective, but really it's just normal protective. Alice's mom just wants to know her daughter hasn't been shot by the police when she's gone for 24 hours and not answering her phone, that seems normal to me! I actually enjoyed how that was different than a lot of fantasy YA, even if it's really a small sideplot.
In the main plot, Alice is a Dreamwalker, wielding Figment Blades and her own Muchness to kill the Nightmares that try to cross from Wonderland to our world. Her mentor is Addison Hatta, an exile from Wonderland who's been charged to guard his Gateway and train new Dreamwalkers. Along the way we meet two more Dreamwalkers, more exiled Wonderlanders, and learn a bit about the war in Wonderland and why they're exiled but still charged with such an important mission as guiding the Gateways between our world and theirs.
About the only thing I didn't like about this book was how it left so many questions unanswered at the end. We got a cliffhanger to lead us into the sequel, A Dream So Dark, but it isn't due out until September! I'm also wondering where the Cheshire Cat is - he's too instrumental a character to leave out, I would think - but I have a few possible ideas about where the author is going with that, so I'm anxious for the sequel, to see if I'm right.
A Blade So Black is a very unique take on Wonderland by a POC author, starring a POC heroine. There's also an adorable lesbian couple as side characters. With minority racial representation, a fairy tale base, and a splash of LGBT+ rep, this book checked a lot of the boxes I look for in my fantasy. It wasn't the best YA fantasy that I've read in the last year, but it was definitely fun!
You can read all my reviews at http://goddessinthestacks.com
In the main plot, Alice is a Dreamwalker, wielding Figment Blades and her own Muchness to kill the Nightmares that try to cross from Wonderland to our world. Her mentor is Addison Hatta, an exile from Wonderland who's been charged to guard his Gateway and train new Dreamwalkers. Along the way we meet two more Dreamwalkers, more exiled Wonderlanders, and learn a bit about the war in Wonderland and why they're exiled but still charged with such an important mission as guiding the Gateways between our world and theirs.
About the only thing I didn't like about this book was how it left so many questions unanswered at the end. We got a cliffhanger to lead us into the sequel, A Dream So Dark, but it isn't due out until September! I'm also wondering where the Cheshire Cat is - he's too instrumental a character to leave out, I would think - but I have a few possible ideas about where the author is going with that, so I'm anxious for the sequel, to see if I'm right.
A Blade So Black is a very unique take on Wonderland by a POC author, starring a POC heroine. There's also an adorable lesbian couple as side characters. With minority racial representation, a fairy tale base, and a splash of LGBT+ rep, this book checked a lot of the boxes I look for in my fantasy. It wasn't the best YA fantasy that I've read in the last year, but it was definitely fun!
You can read all my reviews at http://goddessinthestacks.com
Undiluted Hocus-Pocus: The Autobiography of Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner, Persi Diaconis and James Randi
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Martin Gardner wrote the Mathematical Games column for Scientific American for twenty-five years and...
Pages and Co: The Bookwanderers (Pages and Co. #1)
8.0
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A magical adventure to delight the imagination. A curl-up-on-the-sofa debut from a uniquely talented...
Sarah (7798 KP) rated Sucker Punch (2011) in Movies
Sep 20, 2018
All style, no substance
Apologies in advance to all of the male Smashbombers, but this film basically feels like a teenage boy’s fantasy. I saw it when it first came out at the cinema and wasn’t impressed in the slightest, but I thought I’d give it another go in case I was wrong. Unfortunately I wasn’t.
Girls wearing barely anything, mental asylums, brothels, monsters, war zones, robots, dragons, zombies.... did nobody stop to think that this was maybe a bit too much? Zack Snyder has compared this to Alice in Wonderland, but it is far from it. The plot could’ve worked better if it had just stuck to a girl resorting to a inner fantasy world to escape reality in a mental asylum, but instead it just gets far too ridiculous and silly. Visually it looks very good, although I don’t think the CGI looks quite as good on the small screen as you’d hope, and the soundtrack is great, it’s just a shame the rest of the film is so dull and laughably bad. You’ve got some great actors in here (even a brief cameo from Jon Hamm) but they really are wasted in this.
Girls wearing barely anything, mental asylums, brothels, monsters, war zones, robots, dragons, zombies.... did nobody stop to think that this was maybe a bit too much? Zack Snyder has compared this to Alice in Wonderland, but it is far from it. The plot could’ve worked better if it had just stuck to a girl resorting to a inner fantasy world to escape reality in a mental asylum, but instead it just gets far too ridiculous and silly. Visually it looks very good, although I don’t think the CGI looks quite as good on the small screen as you’d hope, and the soundtrack is great, it’s just a shame the rest of the film is so dull and laughably bad. You’ve got some great actors in here (even a brief cameo from Jon Hamm) but they really are wasted in this.
H(a)ppy: A Novel
Book
From the internationally acclaimed, Man Booker-shortlisted Nicola Barker comes a new novel, a...
Science fiction