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Lindsay (1804 KP) rated Dawn of Destiny (Epic, #1) in Books
Aug 30, 2018 (Updated Apr 9, 2019)
This tell a story about Scott Remington. He seem determine to help all his comrades. Though most of his bosses think he can not be jumping ranks. He win an award after only one mission. He seem to let his buddies do what they do. He makes some really good friends in Richmond.
He battles with his fiancee over the phone when she calls. Though he tries to calm her, he hangs up and says he will call later. When she find out he was in the mission, She freaks out. Scott befriends a sniper, several comrades.
This book has action though out the book. Scott and three comrades get transferred to Russia. They seem to find new friends. Though he is though first fight. They all think Scott is their for Glory. Do they learn that he does not like being there. They go on mission, They find out about one thing that is not fair. They are attacked.
There one surprise that I can not want to tell you about. It would spoil the end. If you enjoy Action and Adventures then this is a book for you. Dawn of Destiny is really well written and a filled with Action on every turn. Who will win this battle? His bosses want him to show he deserve this new rank. What to happen next, I can not wait to read the next book.
He battles with his fiancee over the phone when she calls. Though he tries to calm her, he hangs up and says he will call later. When she find out he was in the mission, She freaks out. Scott befriends a sniper, several comrades.
This book has action though out the book. Scott and three comrades get transferred to Russia. They seem to find new friends. Though he is though first fight. They all think Scott is their for Glory. Do they learn that he does not like being there. They go on mission, They find out about one thing that is not fair. They are attacked.
There one surprise that I can not want to tell you about. It would spoil the end. If you enjoy Action and Adventures then this is a book for you. Dawn of Destiny is really well written and a filled with Action on every turn. Who will win this battle? His bosses want him to show he deserve this new rank. What to happen next, I can not wait to read the next book.
Micky Barnard (542 KP) rated The Cruel Prince in Books
Sep 15, 2018
A great start to the series
THE CRUEL PRINCE was a great start to this series and it holds so much promise in terms of future book potential. The strengths of this series lie in the meeting of mortal and faerie worlds and the mixing of mortal and faerie beings, with hierarchy and prejudice being prominent. The book is full of strong characters to like, love, dislike and hate. Each character was developed so well, even some of the lesser characters. However, there are many lead characters and this exemplifies Holly Black’s talent.
Jude, the female main character was a strong young women who had had a life of hardship, trauma, bullying and adversity. She went through a coming of age that was forced on her during this read and she was just fantastic to focus on. The family relationships were complex and fascinating; the potential romantic relationships were unexpected and intriguing.
I listened to this on audio and I have to admit to feeling a lack of focus mid-way, where it either lost pace or the audio wasn’t working for me. The narration was good however. I can see myself flipping to the book a re-read before book two and continuing in this format.
I am truly excited at the continuation of the series and the final 15% was thrilling. Most YA fantasy fans will roll around in the muddy hype on this one, feeling satisfied.
Jude, the female main character was a strong young women who had had a life of hardship, trauma, bullying and adversity. She went through a coming of age that was forced on her during this read and she was just fantastic to focus on. The family relationships were complex and fascinating; the potential romantic relationships were unexpected and intriguing.
I listened to this on audio and I have to admit to feeling a lack of focus mid-way, where it either lost pace or the audio wasn’t working for me. The narration was good however. I can see myself flipping to the book a re-read before book two and continuing in this format.
I am truly excited at the continuation of the series and the final 15% was thrilling. Most YA fantasy fans will roll around in the muddy hype on this one, feeling satisfied.
Jo (37 KP) rated Honestly Ben in Books
Oct 6, 2018
I really liked Ben in Openly Straight, but being inside his head, here, kinda ruined him for me. He was just all over the damn place - whiny and tightly wound and infuriatingly obsessed with what other people think of him - and, like, what the hell happened to the quietly confident guy that Rafe and I grew attached to the previous semester? The dude who had not one flying fuck to give about labels or peer opinion??? I couldn't align these two sides of him up at all.
Also, Rafe didn't get nearly enough page space, and because of that, my belief in their intense connection took something of a nosedive.
Way too much attention was given to Ben's dipshit teammates and to Hannah...
Now, I actually quite liked Hannah. But I did not like the fact her only purpose to the plot was as an obstacle between Ben and Rafe. She opened herself up to Ben, let him in at a particularly vulnerable and difficult point of her life, and the way he used and hurt her (however unintentionally it may have been) for the sake of sorting his own head out totally peed me off!
There's a lot of D-Rep here, which was great (although, I didn't feel like much of it was particularly well handled).
In all honesty, it was entirely Toby and Albie who saved this book for me. Love those oddballs!
Also, Rafe didn't get nearly enough page space, and because of that, my belief in their intense connection took something of a nosedive.
Way too much attention was given to Ben's dipshit teammates and to Hannah...
Now, I actually quite liked Hannah. But I did not like the fact her only purpose to the plot was as an obstacle between Ben and Rafe. She opened herself up to Ben, let him in at a particularly vulnerable and difficult point of her life, and the way he used and hurt her (however unintentionally it may have been) for the sake of sorting his own head out totally peed me off!
There's a lot of D-Rep here, which was great (although, I didn't feel like much of it was particularly well handled).
In all honesty, it was entirely Toby and Albie who saved this book for me. Love those oddballs!
Merissa (13816 KP) rated Star Brides: The Meat Market (Star Brides #2) in Books
Oct 19, 2018
Star Brides: The Meat Market (Star Brides #2) by Pia Manning
The Meat Market is the second book in the Star Brides series, but can be read as a standalone. It is actually a bit of a misnomer. I thought we would start off by 'seeing' the Meat Market, but no. Instead, we dive right into the story and only learn about the market through Tasmyn's remembrances.
Basically, she went there with a friend, got tangled up with a creature, and ended up being 'married' to two men, brothers. She goes back to their planet, to find out everything has changed, and they are shipped off to a different planet. There they have to learn how to live and work together, as well as deal with dangers on the way.
This is an easy to read book, with no great depth to it, or twists and turns. However, what is here is excellently written, and provides enough story for a nice, lighthearted, read. The characters all work together, and help to round each other out. The scenery is easy to see, and the pacing is smooth. There were not editing or grammatical errors to disrupt my reading flow.
A great read, perfect for what I wanted, and thoroughly enjoyable. Definitely recommended by me.
* 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!
Basically, she went there with a friend, got tangled up with a creature, and ended up being 'married' to two men, brothers. She goes back to their planet, to find out everything has changed, and they are shipped off to a different planet. There they have to learn how to live and work together, as well as deal with dangers on the way.
This is an easy to read book, with no great depth to it, or twists and turns. However, what is here is excellently written, and provides enough story for a nice, lighthearted, read. The characters all work together, and help to round each other out. The scenery is easy to see, and the pacing is smooth. There were not editing or grammatical errors to disrupt my reading flow.
A great read, perfect for what I wanted, and thoroughly enjoyable. Definitely recommended by me.
* 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!
Andy K (10823 KP) rated Aliens (1986) in Movies
Oct 23, 2018
Sci fi action at its finest
Alien and Aliens have to be up there with The Godfather I and II and Raiders/Temple of Doom and one of the greatest one-two punches in movie history.
"They mostly come at night...mostly"
Make sure if you are watching after not seeing for awhile or never seen you watch the 1990 "Director's Cut". As with several Cameron epics, the story and characters get flushed out a lot more and the extra scenes are very good. With Aliens, though, I would have omitted the scene near the beginning where we meet Next and her family when they discover the chestbursters. I think Newt's reveal works better if we were to first meet her while crawling around underneath the decks of the colony.
The only thing that ever bothered me was the extremely bad timing of Ripley being floating in space for 57 years, then she gets found, then they lose contact with the colony on LV426 right after that? Talk about a horrible coincidence!
Another remarkable item of the film;s slow progression is we don't even see an alien until well over a hour into the film and it doesn't matter. The tension built and anticipation Cameron delivers are amazing!
Nonetheless, Aliens is a masterpiece of sci fi cinema which has rarely been equaled. Now if only they wold quit trying!.
"They mostly come at night...mostly"
Make sure if you are watching after not seeing for awhile or never seen you watch the 1990 "Director's Cut". As with several Cameron epics, the story and characters get flushed out a lot more and the extra scenes are very good. With Aliens, though, I would have omitted the scene near the beginning where we meet Next and her family when they discover the chestbursters. I think Newt's reveal works better if we were to first meet her while crawling around underneath the decks of the colony.
The only thing that ever bothered me was the extremely bad timing of Ripley being floating in space for 57 years, then she gets found, then they lose contact with the colony on LV426 right after that? Talk about a horrible coincidence!
Another remarkable item of the film;s slow progression is we don't even see an alien until well over a hour into the film and it doesn't matter. The tension built and anticipation Cameron delivers are amazing!
Nonetheless, Aliens is a masterpiece of sci fi cinema which has rarely been equaled. Now if only they wold quit trying!.
Not bad, but lacking anything special
I picked this from the library the other day, and I was shocked to see it was a novella. I’d been so looking forward to the latest King novel, and was a little disappointed to see this only stretched to a meagre 132 pages. It’s a shame too that the story itself is also a bit of a disappointment.
King has written some brilliant short stories in his time, so once I realised Elevation was a novella, I’d been expecting another thrilling story. Sadly whilst being a decent quick read, this doesn’t have all of the usual King magic. Characters are King’s speciality and it’s fair to say that the characters in this are fairly likeable and well developed for such a short story. And usual, his writing style is impeccable. The problem is that the story is detailed, just not anywhere near detailed enough and the plot is quite weak. You probably couldn’t stretch this out for a full length novel, but that’s because the plot itself is just a bit dull and lacklustre. It reminds me a lot of a slightly different take on Thinner, which is worrying - is King starting to lose his originality?
This isn’t a terrible novella by any means. You can still see King’s captivating story telling shining through, it’s just a shame it’s a very weak plot that doesn’t live up to his talent.
King has written some brilliant short stories in his time, so once I realised Elevation was a novella, I’d been expecting another thrilling story. Sadly whilst being a decent quick read, this doesn’t have all of the usual King magic. Characters are King’s speciality and it’s fair to say that the characters in this are fairly likeable and well developed for such a short story. And usual, his writing style is impeccable. The problem is that the story is detailed, just not anywhere near detailed enough and the plot is quite weak. You probably couldn’t stretch this out for a full length novel, but that’s because the plot itself is just a bit dull and lacklustre. It reminds me a lot of a slightly different take on Thinner, which is worrying - is King starting to lose his originality?
This isn’t a terrible novella by any means. You can still see King’s captivating story telling shining through, it’s just a shame it’s a very weak plot that doesn’t live up to his talent.
Sarah (7800 KP) rated X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) in Movies
Jun 19, 2019
One of the best X-Men films
The X-Men have always been some of my favourite superheroes, and I loved the original 2 films (and I refuse to mention The Last Stand). Whilst First Class was a nice introduction to the younger versions of the X-Men, it wasnt great. X-Men really needed this next film to be something special, and for me it really is.
Bryan Singer really knows how to work his magic when it comes to the X-Men films and you can tell. He did it with the originals and he did it with this too. The idea to work a plot involving the original X-Men and the younger versions is a genius idea and gives us the best of both worlds. Admittedly I do wish they'd shown us more of the originals, but I dont think my heart could take much seeing them get picked off by the Sentinels.
Putting Wolverine into this works really well and new addition Quicksilver gets possibly the best scene of the entire film. And we've also got Magneto being his usual sneaky self with some great scenes of him really using his powers. Don't get me wrong the actual minute details in the plot are a little bit ridiculous and farfetched but this can be ignored for the most part as it's just an all round enjoyable film. Just a shame it's the last decent X-Men film that they've made.
Bryan Singer really knows how to work his magic when it comes to the X-Men films and you can tell. He did it with the originals and he did it with this too. The idea to work a plot involving the original X-Men and the younger versions is a genius idea and gives us the best of both worlds. Admittedly I do wish they'd shown us more of the originals, but I dont think my heart could take much seeing them get picked off by the Sentinels.
Putting Wolverine into this works really well and new addition Quicksilver gets possibly the best scene of the entire film. And we've also got Magneto being his usual sneaky self with some great scenes of him really using his powers. Don't get me wrong the actual minute details in the plot are a little bit ridiculous and farfetched but this can be ignored for the most part as it's just an all round enjoyable film. Just a shame it's the last decent X-Men film that they've made.
Deborah (162 KP) rated The Lost Kings: Lancaster, York and Tudor in Books
Jan 13, 2019
Riddled with Errors - Drove me to Despair!
The Lost Kings of Lancaster, York & Tudor by Amy Licence might be better as The Lost Copy Editor. There were so many mistakes it was just laughable. You're trying to read something and stopping really frequently as brain is telling you something doesn't add up. I got so frustrated that even in the first chapter I started writing in amendments with a pencil! In fact the first chapter is itself a massive blunder - it's entitled Edmund, Duke (Sic) of Rutland! How could the son of James I die in 1598 when Elizabeth I was still on the English throne and he wasn't James I? Well, he didn't die until 1612, as I ascertained within seconds - if only someone here had done the same!
The stuff about attitudes towards death and the impact of the deaths of these individuals was fairly interesting, but a lot of it was trying to squeeze complicated history into a relatively short space, which didn't do it justice. There are also rather large assumptions made without any particular evidence of reasoning. She goes on and on about Edward V being murdered, when in fact there isn't any evidence that would stand up in a court of law that he was killed by anyone. She apparently thinks that the Tyrell smothering story is 'most likely'. If she really believes that, there's a bridge I'd like to sell her......
The stuff about attitudes towards death and the impact of the deaths of these individuals was fairly interesting, but a lot of it was trying to squeeze complicated history into a relatively short space, which didn't do it justice. There are also rather large assumptions made without any particular evidence of reasoning. She goes on and on about Edward V being murdered, when in fact there isn't any evidence that would stand up in a court of law that he was killed by anyone. She apparently thinks that the Tyrell smothering story is 'most likely'. If she really believes that, there's a bridge I'd like to sell her......
Merissa (13816 KP) rated Star Brides: The Meat Market (Star Brides #2) in Books
Dec 17, 2018
The Meat Market is the second book in the Star Brides series, but can be read as a standalone. It is actually a bit of a misnomer. I thought we would start off by 'seeing' the Meat Market, but no. Instead, we dive right into the story and only learn about the market through Tasmyn's remembrances.
Basically, she went there with a friend, got tangled up with a creature, and ended up being 'married' to two men, brothers. She goes back to their planet, to find out everything has changed, and they are shipped off to a different planet. There they have to learn how to live and work together, as well as deal with dangers on the way.
This is an easy to read book, with no great depth to it, or twists and turns. However, what is here is excellently written, and provides enough story for a nice, lighthearted, read. The characters all work together, and help to round each other out. The scenery is easy to see, and the pacing is smooth. There were not editing or grammatical errors to disrupt my reading flow.
A great read, perfect for what I wanted, and thoroughly enjoyable. Definitely recommended by me.
* 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!
Basically, she went there with a friend, got tangled up with a creature, and ended up being 'married' to two men, brothers. She goes back to their planet, to find out everything has changed, and they are shipped off to a different planet. There they have to learn how to live and work together, as well as deal with dangers on the way.
This is an easy to read book, with no great depth to it, or twists and turns. However, what is here is excellently written, and provides enough story for a nice, lighthearted, read. The characters all work together, and help to round each other out. The scenery is easy to see, and the pacing is smooth. There were not editing or grammatical errors to disrupt my reading flow.
A great read, perfect for what I wanted, and thoroughly enjoyable. Definitely recommended by me.
* 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!
Merissa (13816 KP) rated Atlantis Rising (Atlantis Rising, #1) in Books
Dec 17, 2018
I received this book from Young Adult Bound Book Tours in return for a fair and honest review.
If you like stories based on Atlantis then I'm sure that you will enjoy this. It is a light, young adult book that incorporates a sideline of romance but it doesn't overpower the story.
Allison had a hard start in life. She was left in foster care at age 3 but she can't remember anything from before that. She was in the system for a while before being fostered and adopted by the McKyes. Three years ago though, she is approached by a man in the park who was there with his family and told that her abilities (that she knew about... sort of) were wanted by a 'bad man' who wouldn't hesitate to hurt her family to get to her. So Allison tries to fade into the background. She thinks she's doing okay until Ian and Brandy come along and shake things up.
This is a well-written story that moves along at a steady pace. Ian and Brandy are brilliant characters and really help this story to come alive. There are lots of other great supporting characters though, not just including the family and Lillian (who rocks!).
The ending is bittersweet and I am hoping that this will be part of a series. There are unanswered questions left over and I really want to see more of Allison and Ian. Definitely recommended!
If you like stories based on Atlantis then I'm sure that you will enjoy this. It is a light, young adult book that incorporates a sideline of romance but it doesn't overpower the story.
Allison had a hard start in life. She was left in foster care at age 3 but she can't remember anything from before that. She was in the system for a while before being fostered and adopted by the McKyes. Three years ago though, she is approached by a man in the park who was there with his family and told that her abilities (that she knew about... sort of) were wanted by a 'bad man' who wouldn't hesitate to hurt her family to get to her. So Allison tries to fade into the background. She thinks she's doing okay until Ian and Brandy come along and shake things up.
This is a well-written story that moves along at a steady pace. Ian and Brandy are brilliant characters and really help this story to come alive. There are lots of other great supporting characters though, not just including the family and Lillian (who rocks!).
The ending is bittersweet and I am hoping that this will be part of a series. There are unanswered questions left over and I really want to see more of Allison and Ian. Definitely recommended!