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Magic Study (Study, #2)
Maria V. Snyder | 2006 | Young Adult (YA)
8
8.3 (7 Ratings)
Book Rating
I greatly enjoyed this book and seeing all these hateful, negative reviews honestly puts a bad taste in my mouth. I can understand if it’s not someone’s cup of tea but some of the things people are complaining about are just nonsensical. I feel that they have never been in the situations these characters have and therefore judge them in ways that are ignorant and unfair.

I didn’t feel like Yelena was a Mary-sue. In fact, she had her butt handed to her on more than one occasion. Most of the skills that Yelana has, she developed herself through hard work and practice. I also feel people misinterpreted her relationship with her brother and her brother’s behavior. It clearly states why she was upset with him, and I agree with her. I also understand why her brother acts the way he does and it is not unrealistic considering the circumstances.

And heaven forbid people have faults. Any time a character has a negative trait or does something wrong, etc. people down them for it. I feel it made the characters more human and realistic. People have faults and mess up sometimes. That’s life!

I would also like to point out that this series is about Yelena. Not Yelena and Valek. It is not about them or their romance. Therefore, it didn’t bother me that Valek was only present for the last fourth of the book. If you go into this book hoping for more than that, then yes you are going to be disappointed. But you should have expected it from the way Poison Study ended and the synopsis.

I will agree, however, that there are a lot of similarities between Magic Study and Poison Study in terms of villains and their actions, but I don’t think the author was lazy about it. It didn’t detract from enjoying Magic Study whatsoever.

I understand there are a lot of bad reviews for the book, but I honestly think that this is one book you need to ignore the reviews and just read for yourself and come to your own conclusions.
  
AU
An Undeniable Rogue (Rogues Club, #1)
2
5.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
With all the rave reviews at Amazon I really thought I'd like this book; too bad I was wrong. I really don't think it is anything out of the ordinary as the reviews state or imply. For me the story just seemed to plod along and never get anywhere interesting. I've read similar stories/plots that I've enjoyed much, much more, which were written in a way that let the reader into the story and didn't hold them at a distance. That's the way all Annette Blair books I've read have made me feel, I've never connected to any of them with the exception of The Butterfly Garden, which I loved and why I continue to read her books.

In this book I increasingly began to dislike Sabrina, but liked Gideon enough (with the exception of his liking, let alone loving, Sabrina). Even with her past, I felt she was too much of a Mary Sue and didn't have any redeeming features. For the most part I found her boring, tedious, stupid, and unworthy of Gideon. I will read the others in the Rogue series because (1) I have them lying around and (2) the next book sounds intriguing (hey, what can I say, I like scarred and/or tortured heroes! :P). I'll continue to give Annette Blair a chance so I can see if she has captured the magic that she had in The Butterfly Garden.
  
Murder from Scratch
Murder from Scratch
Leslie Karst | 2019 | Mystery, Thriller
9
8.8 (6 Ratings)
Book Rating
Murder From Scratch
By: Leslie Karst
Crooked Lane Books
Mystery/Thriller
320 Pages
Pub Date 9 April 2019
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I enjoyed this book. I love me a good cozy mystery story. This book also has the recipes in the back of the book. This is a mystery so I will not go into too much detail.
The story is a about a woman who is found dead by her blind daughter. Evelyn is her name. She insists that her mom wouldn't take her life and there are clues to support her. Her cousin, Sally owns a restaurant that left to her by her deceased Aunt but before that she was an attorney. She helps her cousin but researching the clues and doing a little bit of investigating on her own. She actually helped the police with her Aunts murder in a previous book. This is the same aunt whom left her the restaurant. There is some interesting turns in this story and like I said I enjoyed myself. I was able to figure out who did it but it wasn't until 2/3's into the story. I would recommend this book for you to read if you like cozy mysteries.
  
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Sarah (7800 KP) rated Venom (2018) in Movies

Nov 1, 2018  
Venom (2018)
Venom (2018)
2018 | Action, Sci-Fi
Much better than expected
Considering some of the terrible critics reviews for this I was expecting it to be horrendous, but for the most part it was actually quite enjoyable.

Tom Hardy makes this film. He is fantastic as Eddie Brock and Venom, even if he does go a little ott cringey in parts. He really injects some much needed humour and likeability into this film, without him this really would have been terrible. Some of the CGI is patchy in parts and the final fight scene is overwhelming due to the sheer amount of CGI going on. There's some dodgy editing and an even dodgier script, and the ending feels rather rushed. Riz Ahmed is a great actor but vastly underused, and to echo every other reviews Michelle Williams is absolutely awful. She contributed nothing other than major irritation for the entire film.

I'm not a massive comic person but do recall Venom from comics and some of the earlier Spiderman cartoons, and I'm actually fairly impressed with this origin story and how Venom has been portrayed. Let's face it, they couldn't get much worse than what came out in Spiderman 3. Whilst this film has a lot of faults, it's still very entertaining.

I do wish they'd given this a proper Marvel film though. It already comes across as quite dark, and I think this could've been fantastic had they given it a Deadpool type makeover.
  
A Whole New World
A Whole New World
Liz Braswell | 2015 | Young Adult (YA)
8
7.0 (11 Ratings)
Book Rating
This book has had very mixed reviews… and to be honest I can see why.

The first about 1/3 of the book follows the Disney film pretty much to the letter, and without surprising anyone too much that is when the story changes.

In the film Aladdin gets the lamp… in this book he doesn’t (I won’t write “spoiler” as that bit is written on the front cover) and needless to say the camel dung hits the fan.

Where I think people might not like this book is the style of writing. Without being derogatory to the style this is very fanfictiony. You know those AU stories where one thing has changed? Well, that. At times the language is a bit too modern, it IS set in old Agrabah afterall.

I can see where the author tried to go with the plot, and while maybe not the most highbrow retelling of the story, it also wasn’t as bad as the previous reviews I’d read made it out to be. Certainly not a kids story (a tad gory, character death warning, violence etc) but a logical enough route for the bad guy winning.

Don’t go into this book expecting an epic Disney tale and you might well enjoy it. The author has rewritten Beauty and The Beast and Sleeping Beauty to follow this one, and I’m going to give them a read as well.
  
Recursion
Recursion
Blake Crouch | 2019 | Science Fiction/Fantasy
10
8.3 (7 Ratings)
Book Rating
Wow! A well-thought-out and well-executed story with great writing. Just wow!
I was provided with a complimentary copy of this book so I could give an honest review.

Wow! Wow! Wow!

I write 200-word reviews. They are exactly 200 words. For Blake Crouch's Recursion, my review could be just writing the word "wow" 198 times and to end it with "read this!".

I rarely rate a book 5 stars. They have to be extraordinary, either extraordinarily written or be an extraordinary story. This was both. I also usually write my reviews soon after finishing a book but I needed time to decompress and process this story.

I was a Psychology major and had several people close to me suffer from Alzheimer’s so I am fascinated by memory. In Recursion, in 2007, a scientist works to create technology to preserve our memories to help her mother who has Alzheimer’s. In 2018, people suffer from False Memory Syndrome, an affliction that drives people mad with memories of living an entirely different life, a life they never lived.

Recursion asks, "what if you could go back through your memories and “fix” them? Change events in order to protect children, countries, civilizations." Would you?

I have wanted to read Blake Crouch for more than a decade but did not get around to it. I am annoyed I did not read him sooner.

This review was published on Philomathinphila.com on 7/2/19.
  
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Heather Cranmer (2721 KP) Jul 9, 2019

I just started reading this book. I am loving it so far. It draws you in right away!

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