After violently killing all of the inhabitants of a small Australian town, a mutating fungus is contained and buried deep within the sub-basement of a military owned cold storage facility. Decades after being locked away, the fungus has found its way …
Hi! I am back today with mini reviews of a few books that I’ve finished recently. I went through a reading slump recently but it’s slowly coming back to me. With summer around the corner I hope to get even more reading in. I rarely …
Another great installment of the Eve Dallas series. This one involves a shady anti government organization set on bringing down the current government with violent demonstrations of chaos. They’ve chosen Eve as worthy oponent in this game and send her cryptic clues that she must piece together or thousands of lives could be lost….Read More>>
There’s really no way to sum up this epic tome that is the grand finale of The Lunar Chronicles, but I’ll do my best. Fans of TLC will not be disappointed with this one. Yes, it’s over 800 pages long but no words are wasted. Everything that happens in the book happens for a reason and leads up to the breathless conclusion. Meyer really takes her time with this book and crafts a deft narratives that weaves together many different characters and storylines…Read more »
The best way to describe Bird Box by Josh Malerman is creepy. It’s the type of horror novel that plays off your fear of the unknown. What is out there that is driving everyone who sees it into a murderous and suicidal rage? Obviously no one can say because everyone who has seen it is dead. Is it a mysterious creature, aliens or some kind of fog that attacks the viewer? It’s unknown which is part of why it’s so unnerving.
I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. I am always a little wary going into a popular series that people love. I think the expectation is just sometimes too high and I end up disappointed. It may have helped that I saw the movie first and liked it. The film also gave me a good primer on the world here and it was easy to jump in. There were definitely changes from book to film but the overall spirit and plot of the book remains intact and I didn’t find any huge differences.
It’s going to sound like I’m telling you spoilers, but almost everything I mention here is already on the jacket cover or takes place in the first few chapters of the book. Astronaut Mark Watney ends up stranded on Mars with just his wits and a limited supply of resources with which to survive. Not only must he figure out how to make do until someone comes to take him back to Earth (or he dies of misadventure), he’s got to figure out how not to go crazy. Luckily, he’s got a diverse set of technical skills, a sarcastic sense of humor, and a few decade’s (uh, the 70’s and 80’s) worth of classic TV and music to keep him company.
I have so many mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, at the core of it, I think that there are some interesting ideas and the seeds of what could be a really fun world. On the other hand, the execution of this novel left a lot to be desired. There is little world building despite the fact that the book is set in a very different world than ours. Instead of slowly introducing the reader to the history and nuances of this new world in engaging and subtle way, the author crams hundreds of years of history into large sections of info dumping. We barely begin to get to know one world when Paige is suddenly taken away to a completely new world. The excessive use of nicknames and slang was also confusing. There is an extensive glossary at the back of the book to help with this but it makes it hard to read a book when you have to look up a word every few sentences.
My first introduction to the work of Brian K. Vaughan came from reading Runaways. It was snarky and fun and I loved it. It was my first actual comic book series. Yes, I know I was late to the party but I am here now. Isn’t that what counts?
Fortunately, when I started Runaways, I had the first eight volumes available to read. Sadly, after seven volumes, Vaughan left to work on other projects, and vol 8 was written by the amazing Joss Whedon who maintained Vaughan’s vision and voice. However, after Whedon when the voice changed with a new writer, I decided to follow Vaughan rather than the Runaways, and I have been following him ever since.