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Janeeny (200 KP) rated The Iliad in Books

Jun 10, 2019  
The Iliad
The Iliad
Homer, E.V. Rieu, Peter Jones | 2014 | Essays
6
7.1 (11 Ratings)
Book Rating
Personally I think this should have also counted towards my classic read for the month aswell, but hey, I don’t make the rules . . oh, wait . .
For those of you not in the know The Iliad is Homers epic poem about the Trojan war, this version was translated by EV Rieu.
What can I say about this, without sounding like a complete philistine? It is essentially a Soap Opera based around testosterone fuelled macho men and a bunch of Gods having a hissy fit! I loved it!

Crivens, there’s a lot of people in it though!! It did take me a little while to get into it, and being a little rusty on my Greek mythology I kept forgetting who was on whose side, but I eventually found my stride, and if you can wade through all the different ways that different people were killed (Homer does really like describing how each person died, potentially the Tarantino of his day!) It is a really detailed account of a mythological war that inspired a whole wealth of literature, and I can see why it is a classic.
  
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Dakota Morrill (17 KP) rated the Nintendo Switch version of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in Video Games

Mar 4, 2018  
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
2017 | Action/Adventure
Graphics, storytelling (0 more)
Boring simple combat, stamina, sudden difficult puzzles (0 more)
Beautiful world, nice story, but some flaws
In the beautiful land of Hyrule you'll experience a wonderful modern story of the famous knight Link and his adventures to aid Princess Zelda. In a beautiful world full of interesting creatures and sometimes unique ways to kill them using your environment or smacking them with their own hand, you will also find yourself drowning after 30 seconds of swimming in a river or trying to rock climb as you'd expect a famous knight to be capable of. You will also find yourself in epic battles with giant mechanical beasts then inside of them doing insanely difficult puzzles that will make you give up and just google the solutions only to realize you still have no idea how to get through them.

This game is the high praise game of the year for all the Nintendo die hards and young adults who grew up with the Zelda series, but in reality is an average game that feels like it took way too much spotlight away from better games such as Horizon: Zero Dawn, or Super Mario Odyssey.
  
The Bone Queen (The Books of Pellinor #0.5)
The Bone Queen (The Books of Pellinor #0.5)
Alison Croggon | 2017 | Science Fiction/Fantasy, Young Adult (YA)
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
When I found out The Bone Queen was coming out it was a pleasant surprise. I read the original Pellinor series years ago and have always remembered it as one of my favorite fantasy series. I was originally a bit worried that all these years later this book wouldn't live up to the rest of the series, but I'm happy to report that my fears were unjustified.

The Bone Queen is beautifully written, and something about the writing or perhaps the general world building evokes a feeling very similar to that of The Lord of the Rings, with an emphasis on the ultimate powers of good over evil, even when evil manages to take a terrible toll on the world. Though there is certainly action and plenty of adventure to be had, this book focuses on very human themes of forgiveness and guilt. Cadvan struggles to forgive himself for the irreparable damage one foolish mistake caused, and those around him struggle to do the same.

For those looking for a thoughtful bit of epic fantasy that still manages to have some fun, this is a must read.
  
The Fellowship of the Ring
The Fellowship of the Ring
J.R.R. Tolkien | 2010 | Fiction & Poetry
6
7.9 (65 Ratings)
Book Rating
I switched off from audiobook to book & back with this book and I enjoyed it for the most part. The narrator was good but slow just like the book.

I have consistently been told that I need to read "The Fellowship of the Ring" and I am happy to say that I finally finished it. Fellowship of the Ring is more of an adult novel compared to "The Hobbit" which I was happy about. Honestly, I wasn't a huge fan of "The Hobbit" and I found it slow & drawn out. I would still say that "The Fellowship of the Ring" was slow & drawn out but I found it more entertaining.

I love fantasy but I also want a book that is fast paced and I felt that this book moved just as fast as molasses. The writing was beautiful which is what kept me engaged. Honestly, I feel that about 200 pages could have been removed and we still would have had the epic fantasy that "The Lord of the Rings" is.

All in all, it was good but not a must read for me.
  
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Tammy (5 KP) rated Wuthering Heights in Books

Aug 19, 2018  
Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights
Lucasta Miller, Emily Brontë, Pauline Nestor | 2003 | Fiction & Poetry
10
7.4 (43 Ratings)
Book Rating
Epic love story
Contains spoilers, click to show
I have a list of my top ten favourite books and wuthering heights is at the top of that list.
Not only is it beautifully written but the story itself got into my very soul when I first read it when I was 12 and I've read it every year since. Heathcliffe is the long suffering, misunderstood, brooding young man that I had hoped to meet when I was younger, his passion for Cathy was so intense and it still breaks my heart the lines written as he looks down at her dead body. I related to Cathy as a young woman, in so many ways. The wild at heart wanderer that wanted to be free and had a heart full of passion and adventure but also knew that at some point she had to conform to what was expected of her as a young woman. There are so many deeper meaning to this book and the struggles of growing up and whether to go with your heart or your head, you can see why it's in so many people's hearts.
  
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Sarah (7800 KP) rated Salem's Lot in Books

Sep 14, 2018  
Salem's Lot
Salem's Lot
Stephen King | 2011 | Fiction & Poetry, Horror
9
8.1 (50 Ratings)
Book Rating
King's fantastic take on vampires
Despite being a massive King fan, I've never read Salem's Lot. Its just one of his books that it never occurred to me to read, until i started to collect his entire works and read everything I hadn't read before.

I never knew that this book was about vampires, and whilst this becomes fairly obvious quite early into the book, it was a pleasant surprise. As with most of King's books, this is extremely well written, and has his usual mix of varied and interesting characters, with the writing style split between all of them. There are some good and obvious references to Dracula in this, but its a fantastic modern(ish - 1970s) take on a classic vampire story. And unusually for King, this story isn't an epic novel like some of his others. It doesn't seem to go into as much detail either storywise and characterwise as some of his other bigger novels (The Stand, Needful Things etc), and this is really my only criticism. The story is still detailed and a very good, it just isn't what I'd come to expect from a King novel especially with a plot like this.
  
Furyborn: Empirium Trilogy Book 1
Furyborn: Empirium Trilogy Book 1
Claire Legrand | 2018 | Science Fiction/Fantasy, Young Adult (YA)
9
8.3 (7 Ratings)
Book Rating
Epic fantasy
I absolutely loved reading Furyborn by Clare Legrand. This was one of the best fantasy novels that I have read so far this year and I'm so happy that this is going to be a series, I cannot wait for book two. The cover art is gorgeous and completely drew me in to want to learn more about what this story was about. For the most part I really enjoyed all of the characters especially Simon and Eliana, and I can't wait to see what is going to happen with their part of the story. All of the characters are so well developed and the author has such an amazing imagination in creating this world. The only thing that I didn't love about this book was the way it went back and forth between Rielle and Eliana's stories, it was at times a little hard to follow and in my opinion would have made much more sense to have the book broken up into a part one and part two instead. Overall, I would definitely recommend and I will be continuing this series when book two comes out.
  
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Karica Truebenbach (156 KP) rated Unbreakable (2000) in Movies

Sep 29, 2018 (Updated Oct 4, 2018)  
Unbreakable (2000)
Unbreakable (2000)
2000 | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
Samuel L. (0 more)
The movie (0 more)
Nope
Contains spoilers, click to show
So a guy in a wheelchair who breaks a bone if someone breathes on him too hard decides to go around setting epic disaster-sized booby traps and murdering people simply so he can find someone who consistently survives said traps unscathed because that person must be a superhero? Because he decided one day that he must be a supervillain? And the hero's costume is a yellow rain slicker because his kryptonite is water? Look, I'll watch Samuel L do darn near anything, but the entire premise of this movie stretched the bounds of reality. I know that Shyamalan loves twists and turns, but this one went straight off a cliff. Who got Glass to all these places? His elderly mother? What possessed him to go, "I must be evil because why else would I have the uber version of brittle bone disease?" Perhaps if this had been released as a graphic novel-type movie ( a la Sin City), I would have been more accepting of the plot, but it wasn't and I wasn't. Hopefully the third movie will be better...
  
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Sarah (7800 KP) rated Cujo in Books

Oct 14, 2018  
Cujo
Cujo
Stephen King | 1981 | Fiction & Poetry, Horror, Thriller
8
7.9 (50 Ratings)
Book Rating
Poor Cujo...
I’m sure I’m not the only one who read this book and felt tremendously sad and sorry for Cujo. A loving, yet huge, dog who just gets himself into the wrong place at the wrong time and then winds up on a murderous rabies fuelled killing spree.

What I really liked about this book is that King also tells some of it from Cujo’s point of view in addition to the human characters, it makes for a refreshing change and a story that isn’t all about the horror (even if there is a lot of horror in here). As with all King novels, it’s wonderfully written with some well thought out characters. The main issue is that there’s only so much you can throw into a book about a rabid dog, and it isn’t something that can be drawn out indefinitely and you can tell that at just over 300 pages, the story is really being stretched. But then the ending arrives far too quickly and is over in the space of a few pages. It’s a typically good King novel and definitely worth a read, just not one of his usual epic stories.
  
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
1978 | Horror
Zombies Run The Mall
Contains spoilers, click to show
Dawn of the Dead- is the second movie in the living dead franchise directed by horror icon George A. Ramero.

The plot: As hordes of zombies swarm over the U.S., the terrified populace tries everything in their power to escape the attack of the undead, but neither cities nor the countryside prove safe. In Pennsylvania, radio-station employee Stephen (David Emge) and his girlfriend, Francine (Gaylen Ross), escape in the station helicopter, accompanied by two renegade SWAT members, Roger and Pete. The group retreats to the haven of an enclosed shopping center to make what could be humanity's last stand.

On the way these surviors to encourter a bike gang that raids the mall and some how the survivor have to survivor the bike gang without getting killed.

You really get to care about these charaters, because you are with them, you are one of them, you fell like your apart of them and trying to survivor the zombies.

This movie is 2h and 30mins long but that is the perfect amont of time, for this zombie epic.

A must see horror movie, a must see zombie survival movie and george a ramero director it.