Book Reviews

The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower I) by Stephen King

 in Adult / Adventure / Book Reviews / Books / Books-to-Movie / Creative / Fantasy / Fiction / Interesting / Series / Young Adult by

gunslingerSummary

““An impressive work of mythic magnitude that may turn out to be Stephen King’s greatest literary achievement” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution), The Gunslinger is the first volume in the epic Dark Tower Series.

A #1 national bestseller, The Gunslinger introduces readers to one of Stephen King’s most powerful creations, Roland of Gilead: The Last Gunslinger. He is a haunting figure, a loner on a spellbinding journey into good and evil. In his desolate world, which mirrors our own in frightening ways, Roland tracks The Man in Black, encounters an enticing woman named Alice, and begins a friendship with the boy from New York named Jake.

Inspired in part by the Robert Browning narrative poem, “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came,” The Gunslinger is “a compelling whirlpool of a story that draws one irretrievable to its center” (Milwaukee Sentinel). It is “brilliant and fresh…and will leave you panting for more” (Booklist).”

-From Amazon.com

Review

Well this was certainly an interesting Stephen King book and nothing like I expected. At all. His writing was quite unique in it and unlike any of his others book which I wasn’t prepared for. It has moments that the dialogue and the writing style is definitely quite difficult to follow because it’s set, I guess you could call it, in a post-apocalyptic world and there aren’t many people around and such. I got the feeling, when reading this book, of the old wild west movies were there is sand everywhere and the few buildings which are around are just made of wood and are dilapidated. Then you have the people and they’re either alive or like these demon kind of things. I would go so far to say that they are zombies because some of the people had died but they somehow came back to life again.

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I will state blatantly that after finishing this book, I am still confused on many aspects on it. Such as the man in black. I wasn’t sure if he had magical powers or if he was just a normal man but just knew more than others and was good at messing with people. But then there was this other side character in the beginning who supposedly was dead but then was alive again. So I was not sure if there was a sickness which brought people back from the dead or if someone brought people back from the dead. I mean, I was totally lost in that aspect, but I’m sure that it will be all cleared up as the series continues. And I will be reading the others because The Gunslinger movie will be coming out soon and I want it to all make sense. After reading this book, I can understand why everyone is excited for the movie to come out because if it is done well (which I pray to God that it is), it will be really good!

Now, for the characters, it was quite interesting in how it was all done. I usually get attached to characters or am able to connect to them and understand where their decisions come from, but in this book you aren’t able to do that. You just don’t have enough time to connect with the characters or have enough information to do such a thing as well. It’s interesting. It keeps you on the fringes. Which is kind of useful as well because then you don’t get too attached to the characters, but it also is frustrating because you never know what a character will do. Their decisions and their attitude keep changing depending on the situation, and also how they are in that particular instance, and so you can never predict how someone will react in a particular moment. An example was I thought when the Gunslinger met the Man in Black, he was going to kill him or something was going to go down. But what happened definitely wasn’t expected.

Then there is the whole mission which the Gunslinger has of finding The Tower which was kind of like what? I can’t reveal anything but what the Tower is explained to be towards the end of the book had me sitting there like “mind-blown”. There was a whole life conversation and it hurt my brain but was so accurate and incredibly well written, so kudos to Mr. King for his writing and logic process.

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Overall, I honestly can’t say that I enjoyed it because it took a lot of effort to even understand what the purpose of the story was. But I am definitely intrigued and had more of a like of the book in the last section of it. Even though I didn’t love the book I will be reading on because I want to know what happens and I want to find out more. Which is a good job on King because it’s rare that you can have someone not love the book but still want to read more of the series just because of the story line and such.

I do recommend reading it as this is one of those books that I cannot say to avoid or not because the writing style is so different, and so is the story, that I can’t predict how anyone will react to it. So I do suggest checking it out and letting me know what you think about the story and such.

And I will be seeing the movie because I love books to movies. I just hope that it will be good!!!

But the cast looks fantastic. I mean come on! Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey?! What’s better! But Idris will be the Gunsligner which wasn’t expected because I see McConaughey more as the Gunslinger now after reading the book, but I think the actor choice will grow on me!

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Happy Reading!!!

Forsaken by Ken Newman

 in Adventure / Book Reviews / Books / Fantasy by

81gculztwalSummary

“The powerful champion of a fallen angel she loves as a father, Maggie Black relishes her heroic life of danger and intrigue—until the day the angel betrays her and sends a witch to kill her. However, the assassin, Mrs. Kerr, is so impressed by Maggie’s unearthly abilities, she kidnaps her, making her a slave. The woman fakes Maggie’s death and changes her name to Hajar, which means forsaken. Once a hero, Hajar now serves the capricious whims of her new master, committing audacious crimes to support her lifestyle. When all seems lost, hope arrives in the form of a world-weary adventurer, Gideon Kane. Touched by Hajar’s plight, he bargains for her freedom, offering Mrs. Kerr a prize the power hungry woman cannot resist—the legendary Tree of Life, whose fruit can turn mortals into Gods.

As Gideon and Hajar track down Eden, they face both old enemies and new, while fighting their growing desire for each other, unaware they are pawns in a deadly game that could decide the fate of life on earth.”

Review

Mr. Newman contacted me over reviewing this book and it was quite interesting, although I wasn’t able to finish it due to my current time commitments in University. I read about half of the book, or more, and so far it was good.

The whole idea of magical creatures or people with strange abilities is quite popular in literature now adays. My only one complaint was the amount of sarcasm within the book. There was quite a lot of that through out and it was just one bit after another of either sarcasm or banter between the characters. Don’t get me wrong, I love some great banter but it had moments of being just a lot of it and it got a little repetitious.

There were a few moments in the story where there was a jump of what was going on and I got a little bit confused but it wasn’t that much of a big deal in those moments.

The idea of people being used for an evil persons deeds is also an interesting idea as well and haven’t come across that type of theme in a book for a long time. The whole someone is forced to do something for another because if they don’t then someone they cared about would get killed or worse.

Since I wasn’t able to finish the book, I can’t write a terribly in depth review, though I hope to be able to come back to it in the summer and finish it, and maybe then I can try and re-review it, but so far I really was liking the character development as well as the direction of the story and really do hope to be able to finish it.

I do recommend checking it out and giving it a go and to let me know what you think!

Happy Reading!

Finding Magdalena by Shannon Cordon

 in Book Reviews / Books / Interesting / Older Readers / Young Adult by

412bihgrw7hl-_sx331_bo1204203200_Summary

“Magdalena “Maggie” Curran is a freshman at a prestigious Virginia boarding school when she suffers an unbearable tragedy. Maggie has only one true friend to lean on—Graham Ashford. He is the only one who can help her through the depression and night terrors that follow.
In her junior year, the school deems her stable enough to have a roommate, and her new friend Sarah quickly draws Maggie out of her shyness and into the dating world. While at Sarah’s house for Thanksgiving, however, she meets Sarah’s older brother, Eric, and what starts as a shy crush soon turns into terror as Eric becomes obsessed and violent toward Maggie.
Maggie runs to the safety of Graham, now her boyfriend. But not even Graham can protect her from Eric when he assaults her in her dorm room. Eric is given a light sentence in a mental institution, and Maggie leaves everything behind and moves to her mother’s hometown of Malaga, Spain, to attend college on a music scholarship and try to find her mother’s estranged family.
Beginning with the death of her parents, Maggie has had to reach inside herself to find the strength and resilience to move on. This book will capture your heart in the first few pages and hold you until the shattering climax.”

-From Goodreads.com

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So this review has been coming for a while due to having this book sitting in my ‘to be read’ pile and never actually getting to it as I was too busy with University work. However, I finally finished sat down and got through it in about 24 hours and I have to say it definitely wasn’t what I expected.

In the beginning it was a traditional YA romance novel with teens in relationships and having issues and breakups, then there was a little sex (that was “graphic”, so I would classify this as a more mature YA novel), then there was this violent dude, and then there was more relationships, and then more violence and I was just like what? I couldn’t keep up with everything and it kept you guessing as to what was going to be happening next, which was good, and bad. My one complaint was that all of this happened in about 350 pages which was a little bit too much in just many pages. I could see this book put into two books to make it a series to prolong the story as I did feel that towards the end it was rushed a bit, bad people being caught and all of this other stuff going down. So either to make a longer book or just make it into two books. But it was YA and I am reading it from an adult perspective and adult books do have more description. For YA it was good though, but as it was more mature YA, some of the things could have been expanded a little bit.

It did go from 0-100 quite fast in moments where one of the characters attacked someone else and then there was a threat of rape and I was kind of there like…wait what?

For the sex, besides the first sex scene which wasn’t bad but went into a little bit of detail, all the other mentions of sex did the ‘drawn-curtain’ kind of scene where it would gloss over the event which was nice.

Honestly, overall it was quite good though. There was some character development, but not a ton. I didn’t love how Maggie was kind of a whiny girl, crying over everything. I did want to sometimes shake her and tell her to grow up. She’d cry over small things. Don’t get me wrong, I know she had been through a lot in the story but she would cry over the sillies of things and I just wanted to smack her. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing because if a writer and bring about an emotion in me while I am readying their writing, then that is pretty darn good. Whether it be bad or good.

I do recommend it as it is a decent read and you can probably fly through it quite fast and it is new so show some love!

But overall, a perfect YA kind of book!

Happy Reading!

 

Siren’s Call (A Rainshadow Novel) by Jayne Castle

 in Adult / Book Reviews / Books / Fantasy / Older Readers by

Siren's Call by Jayne Castle Jayne Ann Krentz writing as Jayne Castle

Summary

“In the mysterious world of Harmony, there are places filled with unexplored marvels. But Rainshadow Island isn’t about to give up its secrets…

In the alien catacombs of Rainshadow, there are creatures whose compelling songs lure the unwary to their death. That’s why Rafe Coppersmith, hired to clear out the catacombs for exploration, needs a music talent. He’s knows the perfect one, but she probably doesn’t want anything do with him…

Ella Morgan had once fallen hard and fast for Rafe, but then he disappeared for months…and he’s not about to tell her why. Ella, too, has secrets that only her dust bunny knows. She’s not just a music talent, she’s a Siren: a paranormal singer capable of singing men to sleep—or to their deaths.

But once on Rainshadow, Rafe and Ella will learn that surrendering to passion doesn’t come without risks—and fighting fire with fire only adds to the flame…”

-From back of book

Review

And I’ve done it again. This is the fourth book in the series I think…

I mean, you can kinda read it out of order, it does make sense, though there are questions. Of course….I LOVE to do this. Grab a good book and find out that it’s not the first book in the series. Click here to view Jayne Ann Krentz’s website and her page for her pen-name Jayne Castle and see which books are part of the Rainshadow Series.

But honestly, even though I hadn’t read the other books in the series, there weren’t that many questions which were kind of hanging there because I didn’t have previous knowledge. I mean, yes there definitely were things which didn’t add up or took me a little longer to figure out what was meant, and that was kind of annoying, but it is what you get for reading out of order.

Now, I will review this book as well as I can for reading it…out of order. >Violently smacks head against the book.<

Honestly, I did enjoy it quite a lot. It was well written and had an interesting storyline. I don’t think it was based on earth, as far as I could tell, but there were humans and other creatures as well. They kept referencing these Aliens and Alien technology so I’m thinking that they traveled to another world and had found stuff on the planet and stuff. But either way, it was a cool concept.

And while it was a fantasy book, it also did have romance in it. I don’t think this is classified as erotic literature at all though. There was definitely a little bit of sex, and it was kind of explicit, but I don’t think it was defined as erotic, so I’d just say it was a fantasy book with a smattering of…sex. Because of the sex though, I would classify it as an adult book, by far.

The writing was good, the sentences being a little more challenging than regular romance book and books like this, so it kept me interested as well. Also a lot of the characters kept you curious as well, interested to see who would kill who and who the bad people were, though you didn’t know until the end. I didn’t really like though that the main characters didn’t really develop, in my view. I like to see some type of character development, even if it is just the character letting a secret out that they don’t like to share and showing another side of themselves, but there wasn’t really any of that in this book. Now this of course doesn’t bother most people, so this complaint is something more personal, but with the summary, it made it seem like there was some big secret which was kept. And it wasn’t as big as it was made out to be which was kind of annoying. All of this suspense for nothing.

But, overall it was a decent book. I’m not sure if I’ll bother to read the first book, but maybe if I have some time.

Happy Reading!

The Research Project (The Research Project Trilogy Book 1) by Sarah Fawcett

 in Adult / Book Reviews / Books / Fiction / Series by

The Research Project coverSummary

“It seems like a good idea. Psychologist Colleen Couisneau is organized and logical. She even schedules date nights with her husband Steve once a week. Unfortunately, Steve leaves Colleen, stating that her robotic and methodical behaviour is the cause of his unhappiness.

Colleen believes that her lack of experience in the bedroom is the root cause of their split and recognizes that she needs to improve her repertoire to reconcile with Steve. She decides to begin a research study about casual sex.

New environments and testing her limits are all key to the research. The samples and data she collects open her eyes and lead her to form new hypotheses about what makes a marriage work.

As Colleen learns about her own wants and needs, she starts to reevaluate her own life. Will she be able to put the new theories to the test?”

–From Sarah Fawcett’s website

Review

Ms. Fawcett contacted me asking to review this book for her and I am sooooo glad she did as I loved it. It does fall into the erotic romance genre, but it did have a lot more going on as well with the whole relationship aspect.

It follows Colleen who has a horrible husband and he leaves her because she is supposedly mechanical in sex, though you find out more is happening later, and she decides to go and explore her sexuality and figure out what she’s doing. I really did like the protagonist because I was able to connect with her because she was so real. She didn’t seem to be this extraordinary woman and she was easy to connect to.

One key thing I also did like in the writing was there was a lot of verbal communication and the use of protection. A lot of romance stories assume that the woman says yes and, I’m guessing, assume that protection is used. But if it’s not there, then I usually assume it didn’t happen. So I was really happy that it stated that protection was used and there was verbal consent as it also made it more realistic as well.

There was a lot going on in the book too. Colleen was searching for her sexuality and finding her way which was nice but she was also doing it for an interesting reason. She wanted her husband back, after everything which happened. I did want to sometimes shake Colleen and make her see what her husband was truly like, but of course I can’t do that. I did like that the story evoked many emotions in me. As a reader I don’t want to be reading it and just reading it for that purpose. I like to feel something or many different something. And when I can dislike a character I really like the story more because I can easily like character, but disliking them is sometimes hard, so I did like that aspect.

But my main love for this book was the whole consent aspect. With sexual assault being a massive issue and some of the new sayings being ‘If she doesn’t say yes, assume it’s no’, I liked how with all of the guys she had relations with they always were asking about consent and that really was comforting. While it isn’t completely realistic in every case, it was nice to ready a story where the consent was obvious.

Overall I really did enjoy the book and do recommend it. I really want to read the other two books in the series to see where it all goes as I’m extremely curious. Enjoy and happy reading!