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Batman: Nightwalker - DC Icons Book 2
Batman: Nightwalker - DC Icons Book 2
Marie Lu | 2018 | Young Adult (YA)
8
7.0 (8 Ratings)
Book Rating
Batman: Nightwalker gives us an origin story for the Caped Crusader that we didn't know we needed - even if it doesn't feel like the dark, gritty Batman we know from the Dark Knight or the comics. Bruce is an eighteen-year-old boy who is still trying to figure out who he is in a world where his parents were murdered when he was a child and he has just come into their vast fortune. He struggles to figure out how to live up to his parents' legacy and finds himself in a dangerous situation.

If you go into this book expecting Batman, I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed. This is a teenaged boy who is realizing that he wants to do more for his city and is coming to the conclusion that Bruce Wayne might not be enough. This book is his real origin story and Marie Lu brings his transformation back to its roots. We meet the boy who will one day become Batman, not the man we are familiar with as the Dark Knight.

I really enjoyed getting to know young Bruce in this story, although Alfred certainly stole the show. You could feel the bond that they had with one another, which translated so much more authentically than some of the other relationships in the story. I felt that Diane and Harvey were a little underdeveloped in the story, so I never really formed a connection with them. I really enjoyed the little cameos from characters we're familiar with and the characterization of people that we know are much more important in the Batman mythology in later years.

Superhero books are definitely difficult to write because they're so action heavy and as a result, visual, but I feel that Lu managed to capture the kinesthetic nature of the book well. She definitely delved more into Batman's detective nature, which was really nice because we don't see that as often as his fighting bad guys schtick. If you're interested in seeing the detective Batman dig into mysteries and try to foil a criminal organization than you should enjoy this book - just don't expect giant action-packed fight scenes.

I have really enjoyed the DC Icons series thus far because it brings the characters we've grown familiar with back to their roots. They're teenagers who are still figuring out who they are in the world, regardless of their future superhero journey. They are fragile and unsure, yet with a thirst for justice that one day will allow them to grow into the superheroes we know and love.
  
Now I Rise (The Conqueror's Saga #2)
Now I Rise (The Conqueror's Saga #2)
Kiersten White | 2017 | Fiction & Poetry
8
8.7 (3 Ratings)
Book Rating
*I received a copy of this book from Netgalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review*

Kiersten White has beaten the second book lull. With a lot of series I have read you find that the second book is sometimes a ‘filler’ or it just not as good as it’s predecessor – This is not the case for ‘Now I Rise’, this book was darker, brutal and action packed.

I am not going to go into too much detail with this book as I don’t want to give any spoilers away. Lada is off to Wallachia with her men, she is has having a pretty hard time of convincing people to back her as being prince and then she has to contend with assassins trying to kill her. Lada’s loyal army will do anything for her, they fight for her and then follow her when she starts taking revenge on anyone that gets in her way of the throne.

Radu is still as loyal as ever to Mehmed and fantasizes that one day he will look at him the way he did Lada. He will do anything for Mehmed even if that means becoming a pawn and risking his and Nazira’s lives.

There were some great characters in this book, Nazira (Radu’s wife) she was smart, funny, had a political head on her but foremost she really truly cared for Radu. She had this warmth about her that was very much-needed as a lot of the book is dark and gritty.

Hunyadi, we hear of him a little in ‘And I Darken’ but we really get to see him in this book and though he is depicted as some awful killer that murdered Vlad Dracul and his son, we find there is more to this man and reasoning behind his motives.

This installment is much darker, bloodier and Lada is even more badass than before. I preferred this book so much more than the first one. The first book was obviously setting the scene and giving us the back story to each of their lives and this one was jammed packed with action. There is such great character development, I can’t wait to see where the story goes next.

I rated this 4 out of 5 stars
  
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Guy Pearce recommended The Godfather (1972) in Movies (curated)

 
The Godfather (1972)
The Godfather (1972)
1972 | Crime, Drama

"Okay. I do come back to The Godfather, and to be honest, if I had more time to think about it, I would probably leave The Godfather out only because I know that it’s a film that is often touted. But primarily, I think it’s about Pacino for me. I think all of the things that make The Godfather what people call the perfect film, where you’re taken into a world where, for most us, is really just — we’re never going to go there ourselves, into the world of the mafia and organized crime, but to see how it’s connected to family and how that is the basis of this story being the bond within a family, is so foreign to, I think, most of us. Foreign as far as where killing is part of family life. It’s just so unusual, but at the same time, it’s done in such a way that they make it feel perfectly normal. Of course, again, there’s Brando, there’s Pacino, and then in the second one we see De Niro. I think I’m often drawn to films primarily because of the performances, and speaking of performances, I would then probably move to Dog Day Afternoon with Al Pacino for very different reasons. We see Pacino in Godfather in an extremely restrained performance. And then, of course, in Dog Day Afternoon, we see just this loose mess of a human being spilling out out all over the place, and he’s just absolutely electric and just as compelling and just as unpredictable as the character Michael Corleone in Godfather, but completely at opposite ends of the spectrum. I just think Pacino is someone for me who, like Brando, I just find him completely watchable and can’t get enough of him. Anything he does, really, I would find compelling. Although there have been performances lately that haven’t been as interesting as the earlier stuff. [Godfather and Dog Day Afternoon] are so different. They’re really, really different. I think Godfather is a better film, but I think Dog Day — that performance — John Cazale‘s performance in Dog Day, as well — and as you know, I have really eclectic taste anyway in the kinds of things that I like, and the kinds of jobs that I choose, too. I get just as much out of both of those films. The potential energy that exists in Godfather versus Dog Day is that they’re just extreme, explosive kind of sweaty performances of Pacino [and they are] are two completely different things, but they both affect me a great deal."

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