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Loki: God of Mischief
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Every nation awaits the Mayan prediction for the world's end. Odd happenings are being reported from...
How to Build a Girl
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What do you do in your teenage years when you realise what your parents taught you wasn't enough?...
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Experience Puzzle Fighter action like never before. Assemble a team of legendary characters from...
The Fulbourn (Pitch & Sickle, #5)
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When the King of Daemonkind comes to call, be ready for hell to follow. After Lucifer’s...
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Merissa (12128 KP) rated Stuck with my Frenemy (The Karma Collectors #1) in Books
Jun 23, 2021 (Updated Jul 18, 2023)
STUCK WITH MY FRENEMY is the first book in The Karma Collectors series and if you are looking for an opposites book, then this is your winner.
Ebony is the daughter of the Morrigan, and Cherry is the daughter of Aphrodite. One is full of rainbows, the other loves black. I'll leave it to you to figure out which is which. For some as yet unknown reason, Cherry and Ebony are sent to Earth as Karma's Collectors, and their first job is to give karma to the two thieves who stole Thor's Hammer. Of course, nothing is simple, so throw in a couple of fated mates plus Loki, and you're left with a whole ball of fun.
As Maya Daniels is one of the co-authors, you can expect the pacing to be extremely fast. I think the whole book takes place over a couple of days. The characters, you will either love or hate. I know it's probably meant to be this way but I really hate Cherry! Like, seriously!!! People talk about nails on a chalkboard, well, Cherry had me like chewing on a cotton wool ball! My jaw was so tense with every scene she was in and my palms were covered in nail marks.
If humorous urban fantasy is your thing, then I can definitely recommend this book. I'm sure the series is going to be full of fun and frolics, but I'm just not sure I'm up for all that colour! I think I may just retreat into my pit of doom and gloom and be happy there.
** same worded review will appear elsewhere **
* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book, and the comments here are my honest opinion. *
Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
Jun 23, 2021
Ebony is the daughter of the Morrigan, and Cherry is the daughter of Aphrodite. One is full of rainbows, the other loves black. I'll leave it to you to figure out which is which. For some as yet unknown reason, Cherry and Ebony are sent to Earth as Karma's Collectors, and their first job is to give karma to the two thieves who stole Thor's Hammer. Of course, nothing is simple, so throw in a couple of fated mates plus Loki, and you're left with a whole ball of fun.
As Maya Daniels is one of the co-authors, you can expect the pacing to be extremely fast. I think the whole book takes place over a couple of days. The characters, you will either love or hate. I know it's probably meant to be this way but I really hate Cherry! Like, seriously!!! People talk about nails on a chalkboard, well, Cherry had me like chewing on a cotton wool ball! My jaw was so tense with every scene she was in and my palms were covered in nail marks.
If humorous urban fantasy is your thing, then I can definitely recommend this book. I'm sure the series is going to be full of fun and frolics, but I'm just not sure I'm up for all that colour! I think I may just retreat into my pit of doom and gloom and be happy there.
** same worded review will appear elsewhere **
* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book, and the comments here are my honest opinion. *
Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
Jun 23, 2021
Mothergamer (1546 KP) rated the PC version of Assassin's Creed Rogue in Video Games
Apr 3, 2019
Contains spoilers, click to show
Next in my gaming backlog was Assassin's Creed Rogue. I was curious about the story because it is told from the Templar perspective via the assassin turned templar character Shay Cormac. It started out promising enough and then it was a long frustrating adventure in disappointment. There were just so many issues that I had with this game among the story and mechanics.
Shay Cormac, the protagonist of Assassin's Creed Rogue
Shay starts out as an assassin who seems full of promise, but is brash and quick with his temper. We see Achilles from AC 3 as a much younger man and he seems a little more aggressive here because of all the anger he has inside him from losing his family. He has high hopes for Shay however and things seem to be going fairly well until a trip Shay takes to Lisbon to get an artifact, yet when he took it he discovered it wasn't a normal Piece of Eden but an artifact that kept the world together. When Shay removed it, it caused a huge earthquake that killed a lot of people.
Of course Shay was angry and there is a huge fight between him and Achilles about it because he was convinced that Achilles set him up. In fact, Achilles had no idea that would happen and it makes things worse when he doesn't believe what Shay has told him. This is when Shay leaves the Assassins and joins with the Templars. The game is all about Shay's story in this moment and what he does to try and stop the assassins from getting more artifacts that will essentially destroy the world.
This is when the frustration, issues, and annoyance with the game come into play. Let's start with the ship controls. Yes, we're in the Americas again a la AC 3 which drove me up the wall with all its issues. I didn't mind until I tried sailing The Morrigan. This was clearly a copy and paste of Black Flag (which I loved) and I could forgive that if only the ship controls hadn't been so damn clunky. I couldn't understand why they were this clunky and awkward when in Black Flag they were practically flawless. There was no excuse for these controls and it made me miss Black Flag and the Jackdaw which was a much better ship.
The Morrigan, woohoo clunky sailing
Then there are the battles that involve running. It got pretty old fast when Shay would constantly be trying to climb buildings or trees when I didn't want him to. The controls for combat were clunky as well, plus there were moments where the game would freeze or Shay would be hanging in mid air for no reason at all. A few times I would get a black screen and the game wouldn't load at all. With all those issues, I truly don't understand how AC Rogue got all these great reviews from others and makes me wonder if we had played the same game, because it is not perfect at all.
Shay never doing what I want him to do during battles
The story started off interestingly enough, but then it just flops around and makes me despise Shay. I understand the story shows you that there really is no good or bad on either side and that both are flawed although they both claim to want the same goal of peace. I thought Connor was bad in AC3, but Shay is a whole new level of emo asshat. For someone who claims he doesn't want to kill innocents, kill others, and wishes the assassins and Templars would talk to each other he does a lot of killing of his former comrades and practically no talking at all. It's a lot of yelling bravado about how he wants to protect the world which is all well and good except for the part where he hunted down his fellow assassins and murdered them. I will never forgive the writers for him killing Adewale who was one of my favorite characters in Black Flag.
At the end it's not even satisfying when you realize this is all over a misunderstanding on behalf of Achilles who didn't believe Shay until the end when he sees for himself and realizes that he was right about the artifacts and telling the truth about what happened in Lisbon. There's the usual final battle and of course Shay kills his best friend who still believes in the assassins to the very end. Achilles is the only one left and of course Haytham Kenway (poor Edward Kenway would have hated to see that his son joined the Templars and became a total jerk) shoots Achilles in the shin making sure he'll never be able to get in his way again, but we know how that turns out later.
Here's the thing, Shay does question some of the things the Templars do as well and yet he still stays with them. Yes, the assassins aren't perfect but so many of the Templars are evil sadists and he thinks he's going to protect the world with them. Really? Rogue just ignores so much of the already established lore and gave me a character that wasn't likable at all and in fact made me want to shove him off a cliff at so many intervals. Even the side quests with taking over gangs wasn't enjoyable because of the frustrating game play mechanics. This was as disappointing as AC 3 and that says quite a lot. So this isn't worth it at all. You can just skip it and get the back story with Unity which I will be playing next.
Shay Cormac, the protagonist of Assassin's Creed Rogue
Shay starts out as an assassin who seems full of promise, but is brash and quick with his temper. We see Achilles from AC 3 as a much younger man and he seems a little more aggressive here because of all the anger he has inside him from losing his family. He has high hopes for Shay however and things seem to be going fairly well until a trip Shay takes to Lisbon to get an artifact, yet when he took it he discovered it wasn't a normal Piece of Eden but an artifact that kept the world together. When Shay removed it, it caused a huge earthquake that killed a lot of people.
Of course Shay was angry and there is a huge fight between him and Achilles about it because he was convinced that Achilles set him up. In fact, Achilles had no idea that would happen and it makes things worse when he doesn't believe what Shay has told him. This is when Shay leaves the Assassins and joins with the Templars. The game is all about Shay's story in this moment and what he does to try and stop the assassins from getting more artifacts that will essentially destroy the world.
This is when the frustration, issues, and annoyance with the game come into play. Let's start with the ship controls. Yes, we're in the Americas again a la AC 3 which drove me up the wall with all its issues. I didn't mind until I tried sailing The Morrigan. This was clearly a copy and paste of Black Flag (which I loved) and I could forgive that if only the ship controls hadn't been so damn clunky. I couldn't understand why they were this clunky and awkward when in Black Flag they were practically flawless. There was no excuse for these controls and it made me miss Black Flag and the Jackdaw which was a much better ship.
The Morrigan, woohoo clunky sailing
Then there are the battles that involve running. It got pretty old fast when Shay would constantly be trying to climb buildings or trees when I didn't want him to. The controls for combat were clunky as well, plus there were moments where the game would freeze or Shay would be hanging in mid air for no reason at all. A few times I would get a black screen and the game wouldn't load at all. With all those issues, I truly don't understand how AC Rogue got all these great reviews from others and makes me wonder if we had played the same game, because it is not perfect at all.
Shay never doing what I want him to do during battles
The story started off interestingly enough, but then it just flops around and makes me despise Shay. I understand the story shows you that there really is no good or bad on either side and that both are flawed although they both claim to want the same goal of peace. I thought Connor was bad in AC3, but Shay is a whole new level of emo asshat. For someone who claims he doesn't want to kill innocents, kill others, and wishes the assassins and Templars would talk to each other he does a lot of killing of his former comrades and practically no talking at all. It's a lot of yelling bravado about how he wants to protect the world which is all well and good except for the part where he hunted down his fellow assassins and murdered them. I will never forgive the writers for him killing Adewale who was one of my favorite characters in Black Flag.
At the end it's not even satisfying when you realize this is all over a misunderstanding on behalf of Achilles who didn't believe Shay until the end when he sees for himself and realizes that he was right about the artifacts and telling the truth about what happened in Lisbon. There's the usual final battle and of course Shay kills his best friend who still believes in the assassins to the very end. Achilles is the only one left and of course Haytham Kenway (poor Edward Kenway would have hated to see that his son joined the Templars and became a total jerk) shoots Achilles in the shin making sure he'll never be able to get in his way again, but we know how that turns out later.
Here's the thing, Shay does question some of the things the Templars do as well and yet he still stays with them. Yes, the assassins aren't perfect but so many of the Templars are evil sadists and he thinks he's going to protect the world with them. Really? Rogue just ignores so much of the already established lore and gave me a character that wasn't likable at all and in fact made me want to shove him off a cliff at so many intervals. Even the side quests with taking over gangs wasn't enjoyable because of the frustrating game play mechanics. This was as disappointing as AC 3 and that says quite a lot. So this isn't worth it at all. You can just skip it and get the back story with Unity which I will be playing next.
Janeeny (200 KP) rated How to Be Famous in Books
Jul 8, 2019
I’ve been ‘aware’ of Caitlin Moran’s work for a number of years. I think she first came to my attention in 2011. I worked in a bookshop and Morans book ‘How to be a Woman’ was in the charts. The cover art just seemed to exude a quirky confidence and it went straight into my ‘theoretical’ TBR pile.
As you can imagine, a booksellers TBR pile is a challenging Behemoth, so when ‘Raised by Wolves’ (a sitcom written by Caitlin Moran and her sister Caroline) came on the telly in 2013 I still hadn’t read ‘How to be a Woman’.
Happily, ‘Raised by Wolves’ was hilarious, putting Caitlin Moran well and truly on my radar as someone who had a lot of interesting and humorous opinions that I would really need to read about some day.
(On a little side note Alexa davies who plays Aretha in this is hilarious and worth keeping an eye on.)
Cut to 2019 Caitlin Moran has released 4 more books and I haven’t read a single one of them! So when NETgalley offered me a copy of ‘How to be famous’ in exchange for an honest review I had to say yes, as despite the fact that I actually own a copy of ‘How to be a girl’ I still haven’t read it, so I figured, if I have a deadline for a review that is going to spur me on to actually read this one!
It worked, I read it, and it was everything I thought it would be.
It had some definite laugh out loud moments, Morans humorous writing style comes through triumphantly.
So, the blurb . . .
“Johanna Morrigan (AKA Dolly Wilde) has it all: at eighteen, she lives in her own flat in London and writes for the coolest music magazine in Britain. But Johanna is miserable. Her best friend and man of her dreams John Kite has just made it big in 1994’s hot new BritPop scene. Suddenly John exists on another plane of reality: that of the Famouses.
Never one to sit on the sidelines, Johanna hatches a plan: she will Saint Paul his Corinthians, she will Jimmy his Pinocchio—she will write a monthly column, by way of a manual to the famous, analyzing fame, its power, its dangers, and its amusing aspects. In stories, girls never win the girl—they are won. Well, Johanna will re-write the stories, and win John, through her writing.
But as Johanna’s own star rises, an unpleasant one-night stand she had with a stand-up comedian, Jerry Sharp, comes back to haunt in her in a series of unfortunate consequences. How can a girl deal with public sexual shaming? Especially when her new friend, the up-and-coming feminist rock icon Suzanne Banks, is Jimmy Cricketing her?”
First off, despite the fact that this is the second book in a series, you don’t lose anything of the story by not having read the first one. If anything it makes you want to read the first one even more, as you want to know how Dolly got to where she is and the adventures she’s had on the way.
Secondly, the characters were just brilliant not a two-dimensional one among them, the dialogue just flows beautifully, and you’ll end the book wishing you were friends with them.
Thirdly, in my inexpert opinion its really well written, the story flows effortlessly and you are just grabbed by the collar and dragged along on this adventure.
I quite literally cannot find the words to say how much I admire Morans writing style, as I said before, this is so well written and the characters are so relatable. It’s full of many laugh out loud moments and some very frank and hilarious conversations about sex, and amongst the humour are actually some quite serious issues, like the clear displays of the inequality of women within the music industry (even though this was set in the 90s, I’m sure much of it is still true today)
And coming from somebody who never seems to get symbolism or messages from books, I took away a LOT from this one
One of my favourite moments was a letter that Dolly writes to her musician friend (Johnny) who is troubled by accusations of ‘selling out’
It basically addresses the scorn heaped on bands, with a predominantly teenage female following, by ‘Elitist’ fans and the music industry. She asks Johnny to appreciate his ‘screaming’ girls fans, as just because they’re louder, more emotional, younger, and haven’t been part of the fanbase since day one, doesn’t mean they don’t appreciate the music any less or feel any less. Yes, they are the ones putting money in your bank account, putting you in the charts, but just because they are part of the mass market doesn’t make their feelings any less valid.
Seeing as I’ve been both a ‘screaming girl fan’ and an ‘Elitist Fan’ I understand and appreciate what’s being said here.
There is so much to love bout this book, the strong female characters, the humour, the feminist message, and underneath it all a good old fashioned love story
As you can imagine, a booksellers TBR pile is a challenging Behemoth, so when ‘Raised by Wolves’ (a sitcom written by Caitlin Moran and her sister Caroline) came on the telly in 2013 I still hadn’t read ‘How to be a Woman’.
Happily, ‘Raised by Wolves’ was hilarious, putting Caitlin Moran well and truly on my radar as someone who had a lot of interesting and humorous opinions that I would really need to read about some day.
(On a little side note Alexa davies who plays Aretha in this is hilarious and worth keeping an eye on.)
Cut to 2019 Caitlin Moran has released 4 more books and I haven’t read a single one of them! So when NETgalley offered me a copy of ‘How to be famous’ in exchange for an honest review I had to say yes, as despite the fact that I actually own a copy of ‘How to be a girl’ I still haven’t read it, so I figured, if I have a deadline for a review that is going to spur me on to actually read this one!
It worked, I read it, and it was everything I thought it would be.
It had some definite laugh out loud moments, Morans humorous writing style comes through triumphantly.
So, the blurb . . .
“Johanna Morrigan (AKA Dolly Wilde) has it all: at eighteen, she lives in her own flat in London and writes for the coolest music magazine in Britain. But Johanna is miserable. Her best friend and man of her dreams John Kite has just made it big in 1994’s hot new BritPop scene. Suddenly John exists on another plane of reality: that of the Famouses.
Never one to sit on the sidelines, Johanna hatches a plan: she will Saint Paul his Corinthians, she will Jimmy his Pinocchio—she will write a monthly column, by way of a manual to the famous, analyzing fame, its power, its dangers, and its amusing aspects. In stories, girls never win the girl—they are won. Well, Johanna will re-write the stories, and win John, through her writing.
But as Johanna’s own star rises, an unpleasant one-night stand she had with a stand-up comedian, Jerry Sharp, comes back to haunt in her in a series of unfortunate consequences. How can a girl deal with public sexual shaming? Especially when her new friend, the up-and-coming feminist rock icon Suzanne Banks, is Jimmy Cricketing her?”
First off, despite the fact that this is the second book in a series, you don’t lose anything of the story by not having read the first one. If anything it makes you want to read the first one even more, as you want to know how Dolly got to where she is and the adventures she’s had on the way.
Secondly, the characters were just brilliant not a two-dimensional one among them, the dialogue just flows beautifully, and you’ll end the book wishing you were friends with them.
Thirdly, in my inexpert opinion its really well written, the story flows effortlessly and you are just grabbed by the collar and dragged along on this adventure.
I quite literally cannot find the words to say how much I admire Morans writing style, as I said before, this is so well written and the characters are so relatable. It’s full of many laugh out loud moments and some very frank and hilarious conversations about sex, and amongst the humour are actually some quite serious issues, like the clear displays of the inequality of women within the music industry (even though this was set in the 90s, I’m sure much of it is still true today)
And coming from somebody who never seems to get symbolism or messages from books, I took away a LOT from this one
One of my favourite moments was a letter that Dolly writes to her musician friend (Johnny) who is troubled by accusations of ‘selling out’
It basically addresses the scorn heaped on bands, with a predominantly teenage female following, by ‘Elitist’ fans and the music industry. She asks Johnny to appreciate his ‘screaming’ girls fans, as just because they’re louder, more emotional, younger, and haven’t been part of the fanbase since day one, doesn’t mean they don’t appreciate the music any less or feel any less. Yes, they are the ones putting money in your bank account, putting you in the charts, but just because they are part of the mass market doesn’t make their feelings any less valid.
Seeing as I’ve been both a ‘screaming girl fan’ and an ‘Elitist Fan’ I understand and appreciate what’s being said here.
There is so much to love bout this book, the strong female characters, the humour, the feminist message, and underneath it all a good old fashioned love story