Tag: review

Fantasy/Paranormal · Romance · Young, New adult/College

Fear University – Meg Collett

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26038790| GOODREADS | AMAZON | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥|

Goodreads synopsis: I’ve always known I was a monster, and I don’t mean some teenage vampire shit either.

My mother abandoned me when I was ten years old because I have a freakish mutant disease that makes me incapable of feeling pain. I bounced from one foster family to another because too many people like to test my medical condition in a game of “Try To Make Ollie Scream.” At sixteen, I killed a man for taking that game too far.

Two years later, I’m still on the run in Kodiak, Alaska. Here, I’m the most dangerous person around, until I come face to face with a creature that should only exist in folklore. The monster is an aswang, and I, with my medical anomaly, am uniquely qualified to hunt the beast that haunts the night. At least, that’s what the two scarred, mostly crazy ‘swang hunters tell me when they kidnap me and take me to Fear University, a school where young students learn to hunt and kill aswangs.

I arrive at the university a prisoner, but I stay because I finally find my freedom.

For once in my life, I belong. I’m needed. I make a home for myself inside the university masquerading as an old Alaskan prison. Something close to happiness warms my icy heart when I’m with my scarred, still mostly crazy tutor, Luke Aultstriver. For a murdering runaway like me, Fear University is a haven where I can put my skills to good use hunting monsters in the night.

But when certain truths come to light and even more lies are exposed, I fear that I, Ollie Andrews, am the worst kind of monster of all. And, maybe, they should be hunting me.

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My thoughts: First off, before I start to talk about the book itself. I don’t know if it is the authors fault or someone else but either way. Do not, I repeat, PLEASE DO NOT end the e-book under 90%. It makes you as an reader feel cheated, and that is not a good feeling to have your reader sit with at the end. Even more important so if the book ends on a cliffhanger. It happened with this book. Ended on a cliffhanger when I thought I had at least 10% left of the book to read. Not a good feeling at all. An quite frankly, it makes me a little pissed off and not wanting to read the second book. I will of course someday read it, because I need to know how it will end, but it will probably take awhile.

So what about the book itself? It is really good. Fresh and quite imaginative. Asuwangs is from an old Filipino folklore and I have seen and heard a lot about it from the movie world. But really not read anything. So I did not know exactly what to expect. But the story is exciting and filled with lies, mystery’s, really good characters and suspense. I like the dynamic and I like what the book is starting to build up. It’s twisted and you think you know how it all is put together but in the end that is just wrong. I do not, however, like Ollie that much. Well I like her fine, but for a girl who has been through everything she has been through, she is quite naive and really childish sometimes. And it does not get any better. I do hope she grow up some in the next book because if not, I don’t know if I want to continue reading.

I do not know the history with Asuwangs but have read a little about it now after the book and if I get it right, Collett (Which is not of Filipino descent) has done a great job with mixing the history with her line of the story and make it believable.

So as soon I have forgotten the “betrayal” I will read the second book and I really hope it is as good as the first one.

How do you feel about books ending before you think it will and cliffhangers?

Thriller/Horror

To keep a secret – M. M. Wedin

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37551431| GOODREADS | AMAZON | MY RATING: ♥ ♥|

Goodreads synopsis: A well needed week away from the mainland sounded like a great idea. But this innocent trip to a private island won’t end as well as it began. Tracy finds herself in a situation she could never have imagined as she gets to know the secrets of her love – Ryan Bailey.

The question is: when love turns to fear, how will you survive?

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My thoughts: I got this book from the author against a honest review, and even though I’m not much for short stories, the synopsis intrigued me and I wanted to give it a shot. I feel a little bad that I did not find this book as great as those others at GoodReads find it, but that’s the thing, we all do not like the same thing and that is a good thing. Right? Anyway, I will explain my thoughts about this book.

First of, I really like the cover. It gives the viewer (me) an eerie feeling and it is matching the story. The title of the book though makes no sense compared to the story. Who is keeping a secret and you can’t keep a secret you don’t know about? Right?  Anyhow, this is a book in the genre horror/thriller, but I personally feel that it is more Thriller than Horror. Specially since all the horrific stuff happens when our protagonist is elsewhere. So you do not get to know about it until it is done and done. There was however one part of the book that really made me cringe and that is an indicator of good writing. One other thing I also liked is that the author makes it clear already on the cover that the book is an short story. Not all do that and I hate to by a book and then find out it is just shy of 100 pages.

The story felt a little forced to me. It was stuff that just didn’t make sense. Like for an example Ryan’s history or Tracys history for that matter. You do not get to know the characters as much as I would like and the storyline is, by that result, somewhat broken. The other characters in the book are not that interesting either, but really could have been. I would have loved to get to know some things more deeply. What really happened then and what happens now?

I’m aware that the story is told after the fact that it already happened and it may explain the broken pace. And it is just so short, and I really would expect more fight from the protagonist than it was. 

The storyline is intriguing and the characters could be really great. Just a little more time and work in the backstory and a little longer I think it would be a lot better. I can see that Wedin has the knowledge to write and writes really well. It was easy to read and understand and I feel that the book can suit several different type of people. Even if this one not was one in the top for me, I do like her way of writing and she has another book, that also is a little longer, that i’m looking in to.

Contemporary · Romance

Dark Horse – Jessica Gadziala

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35228953| GOODREADS | AMAZON | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥|

Goodreads synopsis: He needed it.
The new job.
The new city.
The new life.
The second chance.
And nothing could stand in his way.
Except, maybe, the sexy as hell spitfire he found himself suddenly in competition with for a job he thought was his.
Amongst trying to begin again, office politics, and a case that wasn’t quite what it seemed, he needed to try to keep his mind off the spirited Espen, a task that was going to prove extremely difficult…

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My thoughts: This is the third book in the Dark series by Gadziala and so far, my favorite. It is funny, exciting and the characters, OH wow. Enzo has been a character that just has lurked around in the background in several other books. But you haven’t gotten a god read of him and at first I thought he was a bad guy. Well he was but not that type of bad guy as I first thought. And he is so much better.

And Espen. Ooo I like Espen. (Not the name though. In my country that’s a guy’s name. :P) She is one of those “Take no shit”, kind of girls who stands on her own two legs and can take care of herself. I think she goes a little too far sometimes but then Enzo comes in and bring her back to earth. And it is just wonderful.

However, I did miss some suspense. I feel that Gadzialas books have changed and there is no real suspense anymore. It is a nice story and all, but I also want that feeling when you can’t put the book down and hardly breath and you just want, NEED, to know how it will end. Did not quite get that feeling here.

Fiction/Science Fiction · Mystery/Crime · Suspense · Thriller/Horror

Intensity – Dean Koontz

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33297557| GOODREADS | AMAZON | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥|

Goodreads synopsis: Edgler Vess is a sociopath intent on murder. He lives for one purpose only: to satisfy all appetites as they arise, seeking ever more outrageous experience. To live with intensity.

When he attacks her friend, Laura, Chyna Shepherd is saved by the instincts developed during a dark and turbulent childhood. Not knowing Laura is already dead, Chyna follows, hoping to save her friend, as Vess carries her body to his motor home – a dungeon and morgue on wheels. The killer, unaware of her presence, drives away. But Chyna is now trapped in his dangerous orbit.

Her sole aim is to get out alive, but when she learns the identity of the killer’s next intended victim, she knows she must act to save that precious life – and take risks beyond any that she ever imagined she could endure.

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My thoughts: It is funny how years and experience can change your point of view and how you perceive the world. I read this book for the first time when I was like 11-13 years old. I think it must have been wrongly placed in the library because they where really strict about children under the age of 15, reading this types of books. And even now, I don’t really see this one as an young adult book. But anyhow, it was the first book I ever read by Koontz and it mesmerized me. Terrified me. Woke my love for thriller, horror and the mystery that is serial killers. Now, like 17 years later, I still like it a lot, but I do not feel the same mesmerized feelings for it as I did when I was younger.

And that is what I mean about how different your point of view gets with age and experience. I remember a lot from the book but there was some really important details that I did not remember an actually surprised me. It was nice to read a book, where I did not remember it all, but still did. Do you know what I mean? And I perceive the book completely different now and what I did then. And in my opinion, there is no horror. It is an thriller and it is great. But I have probably read and seen to much, gotten to jaded, to feel that this is an horror. It does not mean it isn’t good. But I just don’t see it as an horror anymore.

I have read a lot by Koontz but here you can really see that it is his earlier work of art. I feel he writes his book different nowadays and that his older works, usually is better. More real and terrifying. Vess is just such an weird killer, so different from what you usually read about in books. He is just so much more down to earth, smart and not insane and very logical. And THAT is certainly terrifying. Chyna is a little gray and I think that really was the point with her history and all. But it made it a little boring and somewhat repeatable until she got her fighting spirit going and refused to let some asshole decide over her life. Overall a great book, worth to be read by those who likes thrillers and getting in the mind of the characters and see the actions through the killers mind, not only the good guys.

Classic/Historical · Fantasy/Paranormal · Fiction/Science Fiction · Young, New adult/College

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis

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100915| GOODREADS | AMAZON | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥|

Goodreads synopsis: Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy find their way through an old wardrobe into the world of Narnia. There, they unite with Aslan to fight the White Witch and save Narnia from perpetual Darkness.

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My thoughts: This is the second book (chronological order) in the children series about Narnia. I have never read the books before but I have seen some movies, which this is the one I remember the most. I did not expect that the book would be so short and actually a little meager. I remember the movie as so much more and even better now after I’m done with this book. I do not know if that is true so I need to watch the movie again.

But yeah, it went to fast, was a little meager and actually a little bizarre. I feel that the emotions of the children that was in the first book was more realistic and here, this kids just took it all a little to easy. But I do have to say that the movie (as I remember it) is a great and match the book perfectly.

I have to remember that these books are written for children and that I am not a reader of the genre children and young adult. I try but I cant lie to my self and you when it comes to the rating, just because everyone else loved it. I do however think that children to appreciates this book so much more than me, and that I will read this for my children in the future.

Fiction/Science Fiction · Mystery/Crime · Romance · Suspense

Blue Smoke – Nora Roberts

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114184.jpg| GOODREADS | AMAZON | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥|

Goodreads synopsis: Reena Hale grew up with an intimate knowledge of the destructive power of fire. When she was a child, her family’s restaurant was burned to the ground, and the man responsible was sent to jail. The Hale family banded together to rebuild, and Reena found her life’s calling. She trained as a firefighter and then as a cop, always with the end goal in sight: to become an arson investigator. Now, as part of the arson unit, she is called in on a series of suspicious fires that seem to be connected-not just to each other, but to her. And as danger ignites all around her, Reena must rely on experience and instinct to catch a dangerous madman who will not stop until everything she loves has gone up in smoke.

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My thoughts: I have said before that my biggest problem with Roberts books, is that they often start of slow. And we do not talk about just a couple of chapters but like 1/3 or 1/4 of the book is Slow. No difference here either, but this time it did not bother me as much. Maybe because it still happens a lot even though we have like 20 years to get through before we are the ace of the book. Or maybe it is because I was so prepared on the fact that it would start slow and I just need to have patience.

The story is great and as always I love all of the characters. That is something Roberts are very good at. Writing good and alive characters. And I love Bowen and how well he fit together with Reena and she is all thorns on the outside but he manages to sneak in between without getting stung to bad and that just makes it all so much better. But I have a huge problem with this book. And that is the red thread, the ending, the answers or what not I should call it. I knew it all from the start, and I mean all, through out the book but often thought for my self that, soon it will come an curveball. Soon something will happen and my thoughts will change drastically. It just can’t be this obvious. But yeah, it is that obvious which gave me an anticlimactic feeling in the end of the book.

To know it all, from the start off the book, and hope you are wrong, but are not, is just not a good feeling for me. And that only took of an star/heart in my rating of this book. That is how much it effected me. The story is still god and if I would have been prepared that it is somewhat clear water, it would probably not have affected me as much. But yeah, nothing to do about it now. Still a good book and I can still recommend it.

Fantasy/Paranormal · Fiction/Science Fiction · Mystery/Crime · Suspense · Thriller/Horror

Blood Harvest – Sharon J. Bolton

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8658911| GOODREADS | AMAZON | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ |

Goodreads synopsis: Sometimes I wish that she’d just leave me in peace . . .

Psychologist Evi is worried about one of her patients – a woman who is convinced her little girl is still alive. Two years after the fire that burnt their house down.

Meanwhile, the new vicar in town is feeling strangely unwelcome. Disturbing events seem designed to scare him away.

And a young boy keeps seeing a strange, solitary girl playing in the churchyard. Who is she and what is she trying to tell him?

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My thoughts: I’m not one of those people who scares easily buy movies, series or books. I often feel them to much and quite exaggerated and overrated. I can enjoy an good scary movie but they do not affect me to that degree that I will have nightmares after. This book however did give me nightmares. And it is such a clever written book.

We get to meet Evi, Harry and the family Fletcher. They are like the main characters. Harry is the new vicar in town and the Fletcher’s are the new family who moved there not long ago. Then mysterious things begin to happen. Things they can not explain and one of the sons in the family is not believed by other than Harry, who is still trying to find natural explanations to it all. Then other stuff happens, children are disappearing and they are trying to find the truth to it all.

I think that the reason the book is so “scary” for me is the children. I cant go to close into it without give you an spoiler. But it is seriously terrifying and gives you that one bad feeling you cant really explain and put words on. It’s just sits there in you chest, sucking you dry of every confident feeling you ever had. I even woke up several times one night with the feeling that someone was watching me. However I do not want to scare you away from this book because it is seriously good. And in the end it is not really an horror story at all. I love the small English country town with there history and people but the very best ting with the book is that you get an explanation for EVERYTHING. Not a loose thread to be wondering about and it was great. Believable and fit the story perfectly.

I do however need to point out that on the absolute last page, it did happen one thing that I did not like and the story would have been better without it. But hey, you cant get it all and knowing Bolton, she is good to throw you curveballs in her books. So I should not be surprised.

Fantasy/Paranormal · Thriller/Horror

The Knowing – Ninie Hammon

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27791721| GOODREADS | AMAZON | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ |

Goodreads synopsis: It starts with a school shooting.
It ends with the return of an evil as ancient as the skeleton of the universe.
In the middle, normal garden-variety people must figure out how to live their everyday lives—how to survive!—after they discover that all those childhood horror stories … well, most of them are true.
When the hot call comes over the radio: “Code Red! Active shooter at Carlisle Elementary School,” Police Sergeant Jack Carpenter has one job and only one job. Find the gunman; take him out. He rushes into the school, fully armed and focused on cold, hard reality. But what happens to him in the next few hours shatters the world as he has always known it. And in the next three days, everything Jack Carpenter believes about himself, about life and reality, about good and evil and the whole nature of the universe will be challenged.

Can it possibly be true—seriously?—that invisible monsters prowl among us every day?
That there exists in the real world a winged creature more horrifying than any Hollywood-animated, computer-generated, mechanical unreality?
And that the single-minded mission of that beast—a creation of absolute, soul-less evil—is to kill Jack Carpenter?
That’s crazy! Fairy-tale-science-fiction-horror-movie-bogeyman crap!
Bottom line: it flat-out cannot possibly be true.
But it is.

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My thoughts: Have you ever read a book that you really like but at the same time really did not like at all. And you can’t for the life of you, understand why? Why in the heck did I not like this book, when I liked the story. With a 4.23 at Goodreads and a 4.6 at Amazon, this should be a top book for me. But no, it really was not.

I cant put my finger on what exactly that rubbed me the wrong way. The story is the same as have been in other books and movies many times before. But I expected it and was prepared for it so I do not think it is that.

No, I will leave it with that. I can’t understand it. Oh and one more thing. There is nothing in this book that is in the category “Horror” for me. Maybe I’m just not that easily scared anymore, but everything that happened in the book was expected.

Classic/Historical · Fiction/Science Fiction

To kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

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2657| GOODREADS | AMAZON | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥|

Goodreads synopsis: The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic.

Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill A Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior – to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature. 

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My thoughts: This is an hard review to write. Trying not to step on any toes here. I dont really know how I should put my thoughts and feelings in understandably words. This is one of those classic books that “you just have to read before you die”. Well I haven’t read it before and the story intrigued me so why not? However I dont think it made the same impact on me like on the other millions of people. I have grown up with the learning that every human being, no mater skin color or sex, should not be treated different. We should treat all humans and living things, like for an example animals, such as we want our self to be treated by others. That is such an obvious thing for me that it is hard to think that this is not an reality all over the world. I have seen racism and I have friends who have experienced it. And quite frankly it is hard for me to imagine that people have been and still are, that mean, selfish and disgusting.

In that time period when this book was published (1960’s) the story takes on an really important topic that, at the time was highly discussed and Martin Luther King was on the way up. I know the books was banned from several states in the US and that really shows how close minded some people are and I wish to believe that this book did some great things with lifting some of the problems. Today I think it’s more used as an history novel and classic that shows us how it was and still are at some places. To not forget and to learn and understand and not do the same mistakes again. Do you understand what I mean?

To make a point with this review, the book is really great. Not an full five star rating from me because in this day and time, I do not perceives it as any greater than many other books about the similar theme I have read. I like the story, the characters and Lee has done a wonderful work with describing both the story line and surroundings so that me as an reader gets a feeling that I’m really there. I would totally recommend it to anyone who would listen and feel that no mater where in the world you are from, you should read it.

Mystery/Crime · Suspense · Thriller/Horror

The Nightmare – Lars Kepler

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13722526| GOODREADS | AMAZON | MY RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥|

Goodreads synopsis: A drowned young woman is discovered on an abandoned pleasure boat drifting by the Stockholm archipelago—strangely, her clothes are dry. The next day in Stockholm, a man turns up dead, hanging from a lamp hook inside his completely bare apartment—but how could he have hung himself with no furniture to climb upon? As Detective Inspector Joona Linna begins to piece together the two mysteries, he discovers that they are a mere prelude to a dizzying and dangerous course of events.

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My thoughts: For you who do not know it, Lars Kepler is actually a pseudonym name for the married couple Alexandra and Alexander Ahndoril. They are both published authors but together they write the series about Joona Linna under the name Lars Kepler. This is the second book in the series and even though I’m not much for “local” litterateur, I really like this book.

I listened on the first book about Joona Linna, back in 2012. I know that I also started the second book but could not remember if I actually finished it. There where parts that i recognized but i dont remember it all so I just listened on the whole thing again to be sure.

This one is the continuing book about Joona. The first book did not end on a cliffhanger but you as an reader should know that there is a lot of details about Joona that you dont really get to know. Also in this book. But i recon that later on in the series, all my questions will be answered.

I like the book even though I think the story about weapon export is a little dry and there is some parts in the book that really do not make sense for the books plot. I do like that I have gotten to know Joona a little bit more but still do not know all of his “secrets”. It is a book I can recommend but be advised that this is a slow burner in 500+ pages. Not as fast pacing (in my opinion) as the first book, but sometime it is nice withe those to.