Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Book Blog #88: Bored of the Rings by The Harvard Lampoon

Title: Bored of the Rings
Author: The Harvard Lampoon
# of Pages: 192 (paperback)
Genre: Humor, Fantasy
Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
Synopsis: It’s up to Boggie Frito Bugger and his band of misfits—including inept wizard Goodgulf Grayteeth, halfwit Spam Gangree, twins Moxie and Pepsi, and Arrowroot of Arrowshirt—to carry the Great Ring to Fordor and cast it into the Zazu Pits. Can they avoid death by hickey tree and escape the dread ballhog? Can the fellowship overcome the narcs and Nozdruls hounding their every move and save Lower Middle Earth once and for all? Yes, of course—this isn’t Hamlet, you know.
Review: No. Just no.

If you want to read this book and like it, you should have read The Lord of the Rings (and you'd have to have comprehended and enjoyed them, unlike me) and have a crude sense of humor, neither of which I have done. I'm not exactly sure of where I bought it, but I thought it would help me get into The Lord of the Rings. I was proven wrong.

Overall, Bored of the Rings was boring, crude, and hard to get through (I used my speed reading technique that is mentioned in the footnotes of this book).

Nor recommended.

Book Blog #87: You Have to Stop This by Pseudonymous Bosch

Title: You Have to Stop This
Author: Pseudonymous Bosch
# of Pages: 347 (paperback)
Genre: Middle Grade, Fantasy, Adventure
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Synopsis: I always feared this day would come. A secret is meant to stay secret, after all. And now we've come to this: the fifth and final (I swear!) book in my saga of secrets.

A class trip to the local natural history museum turns dangerous when Cass accidentally breaks a finger off a priceless mummy. This "crime" of vandalism leads her and her friends Max-Earnest and Yo-Yoji on an expedition into a land of majestic pyramids, dusty tombs, and the walking dead. Is it Egypt? Or somewhere much stranger...
Review: After all this time, the Secret Series has finally come to an end.

It's been a while since I read the first book, and I remember loving it. The book wasn't like most books; it's funny and ideal for those who usually don't like to read (I DO like to read). Bosch made an effort to connect with his audience, which, although is created for a younger age group, can be enjoyed by older audiences too.

You Have to Stop This didn't have quite as much Bosch (as in Bosch rambling about himself or chocolate, or something else that is completely unrelated to the plot) in it as I was hoping for, but was interesting nonetheless. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to understand what was going on since it has been a while since I read the fourth installment, but, surprisingly, I was able to understand and enjoy what was going on, picking up on the story as I read (although it wasn't too hard to figure out; the main goal is to find the Secret).

Overall, I found this book very satisfying. It's a very quick, fun, and intriguing read! I recommend it to all Secret Series lovers!!!

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Book Blog #86: Flyte by Angie Sage

Title: Flyte
Author: Angie Sage
# of Pages: 521 (paperback)
Genre: YA, Fantasy, Adventure
Rating:★★★☆☆
Synopsis: It's been a year since septimus heap discovered his real family and true calling to be a wizard. As Apprentice to Extra Ordinary Wizard Marcia Overstrand, he is learning the fine arts of Conjurations, Charms, and other Magyk, while Jenna is adapting to life as the Princess and enjoying the freedom of the Castle.

But there is something sinister at work. Marcia is constantly trailed by a menacing Darke Shadow, and Septimus's brother Simon seems bent on a revenge no one understands. Why is the Darke Magyk still lingering?
Review: I'd first like to redirect you to my review of Sage's first book of the Septimus Heap series, Magyk. That review overall reflects how I felt about Flyte.

In this book, I was looking for improvement from the first. Unfortunately, it failed to impress me and was, at times, boring (thus why it took me a while to finish it). Of course, there were some humorous parts that amused me, but still did not boost Flyte's rating to four/five stars.



I am not sure whether I recommend this book. I know that I am going to continue to reread the whole series so I could read the last book, Flyte, but I probably wouldn't reread it again. If you thoroughly enjoyed Magyk, then, yes, read Flyte. But if not, I would be hesitant to read on.

Friday, December 27, 2013

Book Blog #85: Love? Maybe by Heather Hepler

Title: Love? Maybe
Author: Heather Hepler
# of Pages: 267 (paperback)
Genre: YA, Romance, Realistic Fiction
Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
Synopsis: Just because Piper's birthday is on Valentine's Day does not mean she's a romantic. In fact, after watching her father and then her stepfather leave, she's pretty sure she doesn't believe in love at all. Then her friends concoct a plan to find them all Valentine's dates, and somehow Piper finds herself with the most popular guy in school. But true love never follows a plan, and a string of heartfelt gifts from a secret admirer has Piper wondering if she might be with the wrong guy.  
In this heartwarming romance, true love is more than a maybe - and it might be closer than you think.
Review: There goes four days of my life that I'll never get back.

I bought this book months ago because it was on sale (probably sometime after Valentine's Day). I didn't like the cover at all; it's too plain for me. However, I have to give it some credit; it represents the book well (no sarcasm).

What really ticked me off was our protagonist, Piper. The best way to describe her is how the supporting characters describe her: cynical (a word that her friends are constantly calling her) and stupid.

"'For such a smart girl, you sure can be stupid sometimes'" (Hepler 243).
This quote does a great job of reflecting my thoughts of Piper. Hepler tries to portray Piper as a smart girl who always seems to have homework that she needs to finish, etc., etc. Yet she gets caught texting in class (if she's going to text, at least be smarter about it) and is missing stuff relating to her love life that even her friends have picked up on!!! It's very frustrating when the protagonist is completely oblivious.

The second major dislike I have for this book is the writing style. Sentence structure was awkward at times to the point where it disrupts the flow of the plot. Hepler's character development is sloppy; she was still developing Piper's mom half way into the book!

To sum it all up, this book was bad. I would not read it again, nor would I recommend it to anyone.

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Book Blog #84: Magyk by Angie Sage

Title: Magyk
Author: Angie Sage
# of Pages: 584 (paperback)
Genre: YA, Fantasy, Adventure
Rating: ★★★★☆
Synopsis: Septimus Heap, the seventh son of the seventh son, disappears the night he is born, pronounced dead by the midwife. That same night, the baby's father, Silas Heap, comes across an abandoned child in the snow -- a newborn girl with violet eyes. The Heaps take her into their home, name her Jenna, and raise her as their own. But who is this mysterious baby girl, and what really happened to their beloved son Septimus?
Review: This is my second reading of the Septimus Heap series after several years. I remember enjoying this book very much and even rated it five stars (and added it to my favorites shelf) when I joined Goodreads.

Unfortunately, Magyk has found it's way off the favorites shelf.

Sage's writing style didn't impress me as much as it did all those years ago. I don't know it my standards are higher now, but I no longer consider this book to be at the same level as some other books such as The Fault in Our Stars. Now, don't get me wrong; Sage is still a wonderful writer. She created an engaging, entertaining read that is also CLEAN, thus is enjoyable for all ages.

But it was missing that special something that other YA books have (although some can classify this book as Middle Grade, but I still think that it fits in the young adult section). Maybe Sage found it in Fyre, the seventh book. I wouldn't know yet because I am rereading the Septimus Heap series in honor of it's release this past summer.



Despite my slight change in opinion about this book, I still highly recommend it!

Friday, December 20, 2013

Book Blog #83: Tracker by Gary Paulsen

Title: Tracker
Author: Gary Paulsen
# of Pages: 96 (paperback)
Genre: YA, Realistic Fiction, Adventure
Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
Synopsis: For John Borne's family, hunting has nothing to do with sport or manliness. It's a matter of survival. Every fall John and his grandfather go off into the woods to shoot the deer that puts meat on the table over the long Minnesota winter.

But this year John's grandfather is dying, and John must hunt alone. John tracks a doe for two days, but as he closes in on his prey, he realizes he cannot shoot her. For John, the hunt is no longer about killing, but about life.

Review: What did I just read?

I've read two of Paulsen's works before, and I thoroughly enjoyed them, thus why I was so eager to start Tracker. While I was surprised how short the book was, I was expecting a good read.

If I could describe Tracker in one sentence, I would say that Tracker is about a boy who is distraught over his grandfather and has a sick obsession with a deer. There it is. You don't even have to read the book because there really is nothing to it. The ending is abrupt, and the whole plot is pointless. Am I missing something here? Is this a part of a bigger story? Because I think I just wasted an hour of my life.

No, I don't recommend this book.

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Book Blog #82: Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya

Title: Nectar in a Sieve
Author: Kamala Markandaya
# of Pages: 186 (paperback)
Genre: Historical Fiction, Cultural, Classics
Rating: ★★★★☆
Synopsis: Married as a child bride to a tenant farmer she had never seen, she worked side by side in the field with her husband to wrest a living from land that was ravaged by droughts, monsoons, and insects. With remarkable fortitude ad courage, she sought to meet the challenge of changing times and to fight poverty and disaster. She saw one of her infants die from starvation, her daughter become a prostitute, and her sons leave the land for jobs that she distrusted. And somehow she survived....This beautiful and eloquent story tells of a simple peasant woman in a primitive village in India whose whole life was a gallant and persistent battle to care for those she loved.
Review: As you might have observed by now, I did not read this by choosing, but I will write a review for it all the same.

Nectar in a Sieve is relatively short but interesting read. The protagonist, Rukmani, marries a man of lower class than she and finds many hardships in her life (as in third-world problems). Therefore, this book is VERY DEPRESSING. The reader is dragged along on this journey of never-ending torture and may be emotionally affected!

My biggest complaint is that the book was a little too short. The plot seemed to be extremely compress, and my sense of time was a bit off. By the end of the book, I still pictured Rukmani as a much younger person than she is at that point. Also, Markandaya could have extended the plot a bit more so that the reader could find out what happens to the characters after the end of the book

For those of you who have not read this book and would usually not read a book of cultural/historical fiction/classic genres, I would highly suggest that you give it a try. It's not a hard read at all; I recommend it!

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Book Blog #81: An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

Title: An Abundance of Katherines
Author: John Green
# of Pages: 228 (paperback)
Genre: YA, Romance, Contemporary
Rating: ★★★★☆
Synopsis: When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton's type is girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact. On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washedup child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun–but no Katherines. Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere, and finally win him the girl.
Review: It's amazing! I thought that since Green wrote this so many years ago, it wasn't going to be that good. And, although it did take me longer than usual to finish a Green novel, I found that I enjoyed it. A lot.

Be warned, potential readers, there is a plethora of smart-ness and complicated looking math (of course, this is debatable. The math included can look complicated to some, but not to, perhaps, a child prodigy/genius or an assistant professor, as was the one who created the theorems), so if one is uninterested in that type of thing, I'd highly advise you NOT to read this book.

And, of course, if you have some strange hate for footnotes (or if you do not like your reading to be interrupted with little side notes on the information you are reading), you defiantly should NOT read this book. However, if you have loved Green's works thus far (or even if you have only read TFIOS and loved it) or have never read a single Green book and would like to read one, then yes, you should read this book.  .

For all TFIOS fans, I found this book to be somewhat similar. You know those moments in The Fault in Our Stars when you're bawling your eyes out one moment and then laughing hysterically the next? Yeah, there are a few moments like that in An Abundance of Katherines. I'd be reading a scene in horror one moment and then I find myself laughing like a crazy person. Maybe that's just me though...

Yes! Read this book!!!

Monday, December 2, 2013

Book Blog # 80: Keeping the Castle by Patrice Kindl

Title: Keeping the Castle
Author: Patrice Kindl
# of Pages: 261 (paperback)
Genre: YA, Historical Fiction, Romance
Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
Synopsis: Seventeen-year-old Althea is the sole support of her entire family, and she must marry well. But there are few wealthy suitors--or suitors of any kind--in their small Yorkshire town of Lesser Hoo. Then, the young and attractive (and very rich) Lord Boring arrives, and Althea sets her plans in motion. There's only one problem; his friend and business manager Mr. Fredericks keeps getting in the way. And, as it turns out, Fredericks has his own set of plans . . .
Review: This review will contain minor spoilers covering the contents of the beginning of the book (i.e. character development). Major spoilers will be hidden as usual.

No. Just no.

Althea is not humble nor does she seem to take marriage seriously. I'm also a bit concern as to how knowledgeable she is to certain matters. Below is a quote from the first chapter:

"'...Best to aim for a younger man. You see, dearest, there are certain aspects of marriage - ' She bent her head as she helped Alexander to climb up upon her lap - 'it is not proper for you to know about them yet, but you must trust me to know what I am speaking about - that make a younger man much more pleasing'" (Kindl 8).
This is her mother saying this to Althea. I find it peculiar that this seventeen year-old girl has yet to learn about such things that her mother was avoiding telling her about.  Throughout the book, Althea continues to tell herself (and others tell her) that she is still young yet to marry. And while this may be true today, (to my knowledge) seventeen is well into marrying age. And, yes, I found Althea very, very annoying. She goes on about how horrible her stepsisters, yet she's not exactly an angel herself.

Also, if Althea and her family are so poor, why do they have servants? I get that they kept the castle for Alexander's inheritance, but if they are struggling to eat, wouldn't they fire their staff first? For a while, I thought that perhaps the servants were not there because they were being paid, but because they were loyal to their family. However, later on in the book, it is said that the servants are paid. Wouldn't it but SO much better if they had the money that they had to use to pay the servants? Plus that's quiet a few mouths that they wouldn't have to feed.



I absolutely DO NOT recommend this book!