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Butterfly child (6 KP) rated Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in Books

Jul 6, 2017

Exciting and interesting characters. (1 more)

A really good introduction to this whole world of wonder and magic.

Although, it does have bits of excitement through it, it doesn't really go full throttle until right at the end. (0 more)

Good introduction to a whole new world

Contains spoilers, click to show

When when I read the series as a child growing up alongside Harry Potter was a unique and amazing experience, so this book will always have a fond place in my heart where my love for all things HP grew, but on its own, its not the best of the series. For me, when everything leads up to one major excitement right at the end, (which I know Jk had to introduce the world and characters) which is why I still love this book, I much prefer the later books where we can get stuck right in with the story.

My absolute favourite part is Hagrid bursting into the little hut on the rock. Hagrid is one of my favourite characters, and his endearing and loveable personality and how he treats Harry is one of the most beautiful developed and truly inspiring relationships in the series.

I think the bad character (I won't spoil it just in case we have new readers) is probably the least developed and thus makes him in effect of my least favourite characters in the series.
Again I think could be because it's the first in the series but I just feel he lacks the evilness, possibly even charm of the other bad guys.

Overall, I will always love this book as it started me on a wonderful, journey, I already loved to read and had a bit of a geeky trait but this series fully cemented me in the love to read and the geek categories!

Kudos

David McK (3425 KP) rated Moonfall (2022) in Movies

Aug 16, 2022

Moonfall (2022)

2022 | Action, Adventure, Fantasy

5.4

(10 Ratings)

Movie Rating

Peter Capaldi, Dr Who, 'Kill the moon'

Arthur C Clarke, 'Rendezvous with Rama'

2001: A Space Odyssey.

Any number of Roland Emmerich's own disaster movies.

It might seem odd talking about all those, bit throw them in a blender and the result might be something like this!

I was expecting a traditional end of the world disaster movie - like 2012, say, or Deep Impact, or something along that vein - which the movie does start as, with the moon mysteriously knocked out of it orbit and hence causing all kinds of chaos on good old planet Earth. Roughly about 2/3rds of the way in, though, it completely changes tack, becoming more of a sci-fi spectacle than anything, and closer - perhaps - to one of Emmerich's own most successful films of the mid 90s ...

Kudos

Startup 360°

News and Magazines & Newspapers

(0 Ratings) Rate It

App

Startup 360° aims to become a leading magazine for startups and investors and provides news and...

FootyTube - Soccer Highlights Top Leagues Videos

Sports and Entertainment

(0 Ratings) Rate It

App

FootyTube - Watch The Latest Highlights Videos From The World's Top Football Leagues with our award...

RachelReads (74 KP) rated A Court of Thorns and Roses in Books

May 24, 2017

Amazing protagonist (2 more)

Action packed

It's a page turner - you will not want to put the book down!

World building got confusing (0 more)

Great Start to the Series

A Court of Thorns and Roses was just a sea of feels. It took me a while to pick this up, because I'm in love with Sarah J Maas' other series, Throne of Glass, and was scared I was going to be disappointed. I was wrong. This book is a story retelling of Beauty and the Beast, but SJM just takes it to a whole other level. This book will keep you on the end of your seat, as you fall in love with the characters and the world. This is such a fantastic first book to this series, and it honestly just gets better from here on out! Definitely pick up this book if you haven't already!

Kudos

Neverwhere

Neil Gaiman

8.8 (25 Ratings) Rate It

Book

Neverwhere is the stunningly original first novel from Neil Gaiman, the bestselling and prizewinning...

Fantasy

Woody Woodmansey recommended track Five Years by David Bowie in Stage by David Bowie in Music (curated)

Stage by David Bowie

1978 | Rock

8.0

(1 Ratings)

Album Favorite

Details

Five Years by David Bowie

(0 Ratings)

Track

"This one was one of my favorites because it was the opening track to The Rise & Fall Of Ziggy Stardust. What was wanted was a drum beat to introduce the song itself and to set an atmosphere for the whole album. The idea of the song is that the world is ending in five years, so it was about finding a drumbeat that got that across – which was quite a challenge! I remember going through drum rolls, cymbal crashes and I kind of thought: 'Well if it's the end of the world… I can't be bothered! Haha!' You wouldn't be excited and you wouldn't feel like doing a lot. So, that beat came out of sort of despair and apathy, and then when the band comes in and David starts singing, it just feels right. It felt like a really good beginning, so I was quite proud of that. I nailed the brief by all reports! It's been a lot of people's favorite bit of drumming, which is always nice to hear. They'll say: 'Oh when 'Five Years' starts, it gives my spine a tingle when I hear it!' Well my spine was tingling when I played it!"

Source

Kudos

Future Man

7.2 (17 Ratings) Rate It

TV Show Watch

A gamer stuck in a dead-end janitor job (Josh Hutcherson) is offered a chance to make a difference...

comedy sci-fi

Ross (3284 KP) rated The Constant Rabbit in Books

Aug 20, 2020

The Constant Rabbit

Jasper Fforde | 2020 | Contemporary, Humor & Comedy

8.5

(2 Ratings)

Book Rating

Great absurd book

Fforde's kay strength as an author is coming up with a premise and turning a surface-level idea into a wonderfully worked piece of fiction. My past reading of his have been more absurd crime-style investigatory books, where a character in an unusual world investigate a crime in that world. The world can unfold itself gradually over time and the story is fairly well structured.
In The Constant Rabbit, Fforde has taken the topic of racism and put it in a different setting. Due to an unexplained event, a number of animals were anthropomorphised, including a few rabbits, foxes, bears and elephants. True to their nature, that small population of rabbits has exploded and they now represent a large proportion of the population. Britain being what it is, there is a lot of ill-feeling toward these rabbits and this has made it's way into politics and societal changes. The government themselves are the UK Anti Rabbit Party, and there are a great number of restrictions on the rabbits' freedom of movement.
The book serves as a great analogy for historic racism and xenophobia that still remains in the UK and the western world as a whole.
The story itself only reveals itself gradually, it takes a long time to be set up and generally just unfolds. There is no real underlying plot from the off, it is the unfolding of a scenario.
To that end, I felt this book was a little more about the idea, and the effort put in to fleshing that out, and the story itself has suffered slightly. There are long sections of exposition throughout the book, and at times it does get a little boring.
Far from Fforde at his best, it is still a great funny book and a wonderful thought experiment and demonstration of the ludicrousness of xenophobia.