Otherworldly

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black [Book Review]

 in Book Reviews / Books / Fantasy / Otherworldly / Young Adult by

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Summary

“Of course I want to be like them. They’re beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever.

 
And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe.
 
Jude was seven years old when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.
To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences.
In doing so, she becomes embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, discovering her own capacity for bloodshed. But as civil war threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.”
Review
I had really high hopes for this book because literally everyone is talking about it all over Bookstagram  and I kept getting emails from book blogs that I followed reviewing the book and raving about it. Now, don’t get me wrong, it was a really well done book and really enjoyable but for me I felt like it was…kind of like a lot of other YA fantasy books out there.
Strong female character who was powerful too!
You know me. I love me a good strong female character who takes charge and kicks butt. Jude definitely hit that on the mark. She was badass, she was powerful and she kicked butt. I would have liked to see her develop more as a Spy though. I felt it was kind of glossed over…like she was a spy and got a little training but her missions were pretty lackluster. But as for her throughout the story, she went from being cool and strong to being a Kingmaker! How cool!
Traditional power struggle story.
The story itself, not looking at the fact that it had fae people, was a pretty common frame of someone being in charge and there being the evil brother and then overthrowing people and stuff. I don’t know, maybe I’ve just read too many of these kinds of books that I sometimes want something new or a new angle or something. The only reason I didn’t give it up was because it had these interesting fae creatures in it as well as it mixing between the fae world and the human world which was an interesting aspect – mixing these two worlds into one.
Quick read – writing was simple.
I know this is a YA book, so this is part of it, but the writing was really simple. The book was like…nearly 400 pages long I think and I got through it in about 6 hours which I was shocked about. It definitely caught my attention, so that helped, but also the writing was simple to read so this definitely was a middle YA book. Even with the ‘violence’, it is perfectly suited for mid to up YA (although most people reading it are adults I’ve seen LOL!)
Overall, I did definitely enjoy it and will read the second one.
Even though I had moments of being like ‘what is the hype all about’, I did ultimately enjoy the book. I want to read the newest one, The Wicked King, soon because everyone is loving that one as well and after the ending of this one, I do want to see what happens!
I do give it a 4 out of 5 teacups because it’s an enjoyable book and I think that it’s something to check out!
4 Teacups
Happy Reading!

The Haunting of Hill House [Netflix – TV Show Review] 25

 in Books-to-Movie / Otherworldly / TV by

Starring

Carla Gugino – Olivia
Michiel Huisman – Steven Crain
Victoria Pedretti – Nell Crain
Henry Thomas – Young Hugh Crain
Oliver Jackson-Cohen – Luke Crain
Elizabeth Reaser – Shirley Crain
Kate Siegel – Theodora Crain

Summary

“Flashing between past and present, a fractured family confronts haunting memories of their old home and the terrifying events that drove them from it.”

From IMDB.com

Review

I’m going to start with my overall opinion before I get into the nitty-gritty details, which I don’t normally do.

Overall, I really did enjoy the show. It was the perfect mixture of psychological horror, true horror and small jump scares and a deep back story. So, as a show I thoroughly did enjoy it. However, as a show by the title of The Haunting of Hill House, I really didn’t enjoy it as much.

Not like the book at all.
This show is supposed to be based, or loosely based, on The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. To me, besides some of the names, the name of the home and maybe a few of the small details, the show wasn’t the book whatsoever. In the beginning, I had this feeling that they were going to be connecting it somehow to the book or making it fit into the story. However, I was slightly disappointed when I found out that was not the case. There were some moments that harped back to the book but for the most part, it was just a horror story about a family in a haunted house.

Could have changed the name and it would have been just as good!
The name of the show could have been changed, so it wasn’t affiliated with the book, and it would have been so much better. To many people, the name won’t matter as they won’t have read the book and they most likely won’t have seen the original movie. They may have seen The Haunting with Liam Neeson, which was a little closer to the TV show, but even then, it was quite far off. If they had changed the names of some of the characters and maybe the name of the house, and kept the entire story, I think it would have been better. Maybe some people would have said ‘Oh, this reminds me of…’ versus, ‘I don’t see how this is connected to…’. But making the connection to the book helps to boost shows, even if it’s only loosely connected to it.

Visually it was stunning.
I think the visuals and the way that it was filmed was so good though. It was atmospheric and the lighting really kept you in the mood of this spooky situation. The weather was also used to add to the scare factor. The entire show was filmed in this grey/black/dark green-ish kind of color and many of the situations occurred during the night, or if it was day, it was a grey day.

Quite a few jump scares – good stuff!
The show overall wasn’t terrifying in the way that movies can be, but each episode had it’s own moment that made you jump a little. The music was the key to tell you that something was coming, but more than once it still made me jump. I really enjoyed that because, to me, TV shows sometimes give tension but not the scare. So I did like that touch, but if you don’t like those kind of things then this might not be the show for you. Although it’s perfect for Halloween-season.

Psychological issues or real ghosts?
You did have this constant question going on if the situation was all in the families head and that the family was nuts, or if there was actually something going on. There were references to the psychological situation where you make up a monster to compartmentalize and deal with a scary or traumatizing situation. What added to this was that one of the siblings never saw anything in the house. You knew that there was something going but you didn’t really know how much.

Please no season 2.
While I really did enjoy this season, I do hope that they just finish it and don’t make a second season. If they do, it had better play on the house but with a different story line. They really milked this story for all it is worth. Each episode was 1 hour long and sometimes it really did drag and I just wanted the episode to be over. Admittedly I was binging it, but I skipped through a few parts where it was just senseless conversation that didn’t add to the story at all.

In summation, I enjoyed the show as a show. But as a show related to the book, I felt like it was kind of a reach to connect it to that book, honestly. Do I recommend it? Yes, I do. I think the show is definitely worth a watch. But if you are a fan of the book and think that it will be like that, then prepare to be slightly disappointed.

I give this show 4 out of 5 teacups!

4 Teacups

Happy Watching!

Riven by Jane Alvey Harris (My Myth Trilogy Book 1)

 in Book Reviews / Books / Older Readers / Otherworldly / Younger Readers by

riven by jane alvey harrisSummary

“Which Reality Would YOU Choose? Seventeen year-old Emily’s dad is in prison for securities fraud and her mom’s strung-out on pain meds, leaving Emily to parent herself and her younger brothers and sister. She’s got things mostly under control until a couple weeks before Dad’s release, when voices start whispering in her head, and Gabe, the hot lifeguard at the pool, notices the strange brands engraved on her arm…the ones she’s trying desperately to hide. Emily doesn’t know how the symbols got there or what they mean. They appeared overnight and now they’re infected and bleeding. She’s pretty sure she’s losing her mind. Stress, insomnia, and her wounded egos drive Emily to self-medicate, which has to be why the nightmares from her childhood have resurfaced, why they’re commandeering her conscious even when she’s awake. It has to be why the fairytale creatures she created as a little girl insist they need her help. Triggered by the return of her childhood abuser and unable to cope with reality, Emily slips completely inside her elaborate fantasy world. She’s powerful in the First Realm, maybe even more powerful than her attacker. It would be so easy to stay there, to lose herself in enchantment…to lose herself in love. But something sinister lurks in the forest shadows. Emily soon discovers her demons have followed her inside her fairytale. They’re hunting her. With the help of the Fae, she frantically searches for the weapons she needs to defeat her greatest fears and escape back to reality before the man who tortured her can prey on her younger brothers and sister, too. Time is running out…”

-From Amazon.com

Review

I have to say that this was quite a unique book – nothing like I expected at all. I received a copy from the Publicist, Paula Margulies, (thank you for that!) after I was asked if I’d host a book spotlight. Paula was generous enough to send me a hard copy of the book (which I always loveeee receiving) and I flew through the book! Well…flew through it in university free time standards.

So the book covered some interesting themes from child abuse to managing depression. This kind of theme is generally glossed over in books now as children don’t like to read it, parents don’t like their children to read it and authors don’t write it because they know it will not sell. However, this is an incredibly important topic to cover in book, especially in a way that children will understand. Childhood depression, child abuse, and struggling for children is a common thing that they encounter and if they don’t understand what they are facing, they won’t know how to deal with it or how to properly address it. So that is one reason I really did like the book. The book ended with a reminder of who to contact if you, or someone you know, was struggling with abuse.

Now the story itself was a little confusing to me, but I did still enjoy it. It kept mixing between this fantasy world which Emily created to escape reality and reality. As the book progressed, you started to understand that there was a clear parallel between the fantasy world and the world which Emily was living in with the boys she started to like, her family and her father (being the bad guy). There wasn’t tons of character development until the end when the protagonist realized what she needed to do and the fact that she wasn’t alone and could do this. However, it wasn’t a completely neat ending as there are three more books to be in the series. I don’t know how the series will go, and I may check up on it in the future to see what the other two books will cover, however one book would have be sufficient in my opinion.

I don’t know if I will be picking up the other books in the series, as it’s not really my kind of story, however I do recommend checking this kind of book out because it was just so unique and beautifully covered the struggle which children can face. It also wasn’t a difficult read so it won’t take too long to get through.

I give this one 4 out of 5 tea cups! Go check it out!

rating four tea cups mlcwo

Happy Reading

Gol (The Legends of Ansu) by J.W. Webb

 in Adventure / Book Events / Book Reviews / Books / Fantasy / Older Readers / Otherworldly / Young Adult by

Gol Book CoverSummary

“An island beset by the Sea God’s wrath. Once a mighty kingdom, now six provinces torn apart by treacherous barons. In one province, two young lovers strive to stay together when all else prises them apart.

Lissane and Erun must survive to guide their people through the coming storm. The odds are stacked against them. Erun, dreamer and fool, is chosen for a dark path, whilst Lissane is given away by her father the baron to wed the brutal son of a rival ruler. Meanwhile, at the far side of the world, a sorcerer has freed the fire demon, Ashmali, setting off a chain of events that could ultimately bring about Gol’s long foretold ruin.

Caught between rising seas, civil war, and approaching fire, the continent’s time is fast running out. Gol is book one in the forthcoming Legends of Ansu series. Within lies an epic tale of love, hatred, vengeance and destruction. In Gol, the high courage of a few individuals is all that stands against the will of fickle gods and the treachery of men.”

–From Amazon.com

Review

This was a fantastic book! I probably never would have found this book had it not been for the Books & The Bear book tour. I never really got into the Lord of the Rings series and was never really into that kind of story line where there were tons of characters and epic quests. I don’t know, I always found them kind of cliche. However, this book was really really good and overall was highly enjoyable.

First thing I will mention is that it had a LOT of characters all from different provinces and kingdoms and such. I wasn’t aware of this, but at the end of the book (I read the ebook as that’s what’s emailed for book tours and such), was the list of characters which I wish I knew about before I started the book because it would have helped keep track of who was who a little bit more. I would sometimes read and think I was reading about one character and something drastic would happen and I’d be like ‘no, he would never do that’ and then I’d realize that it was a completely different character than who I thought it was. That wasn’t a massive problem but it meant I would sometimes need to go back to see what I had just read again or take a few minutes to straighten out who was who exactly.

With all of these characters, there was a lot of character development as well. Sometimes it was for the better and sometimes it wasn’t. Which was definitely nice because it wasn’t a  fairy-tale ending. That helped to make it more realistic and kept you on your toes a lot more.

The next thing I wanted to mention is the age group which this book is for. I would definitely recommend this book for older readers due to the fact that there was sex, language and a lot of violence.

The sex was not exactly graphic, but there was a fair amount of it and it was quite….I guess the word would be violent. In the world, as well as times, that the book was set, women weren’t necessarily, well usually, were not married to men whom they loved. So with Lissanes love life, her sex scenes were generally a little more along the lines of rape, as that is kind of what it was like (think Game of Thrones for those of you who watch it). Also a lot of the men were pig and so they would just have sex with women left, right and center without caring about what they did. So in that aspect it was kind of graphic but it was true to what it would be like though.

The language wasn’t excessive but with certain characters, to highlight the fact that they were rude and uncivilized, they may use more foul language than others. So there were moments when words were used that definitely were not appropriate for younger audiences.

For the violence, there was a lot of that. Whether it be from torture scenes to just general fighting. It generally wasn’t terribly graphic, but there was lots of threats of removing the male member from people, as well as various torture scenes that weren’t that vivid but if you’re like me who reads and really gets into the book, your mind makes up wonderful images, so in that sense it was kind of brutal.

I personally didn’t mind the sex, language and violence as it added character to the book. In my opinion it stayed quite true to what the medial sort of times would have been like with rivaling kingdoms and magical kinds of creatures.

And that’s another thing. There was magic and sorcery and demons but it wasn’t something that took up the entire book. It was a theme that kept appearing and it wasn’t really a massive thing until book two (the book was split into two books). Then Erun went on an epic quest to find his love. That kind of reminded me of The Princess Bride, in a few aspects now that I look back on it while I write this review.

But overall, I really enjoyed this book. It was about 550 pages so it took me a little while to read, but I finished it and thought it was pretty creative and a nice change from all of the other stuff out there.

I highly do recommend it. But a warning. Prepare yourself for a fantastical journey. You may just encounter fire demon along the way.

Happy reading!!!

Click here to purchase the book.

Lucifer (2015- )

 in Interesting / Otherworldly / TV by

lucifer

Season 1

Starring

Tom Ellis – Lucifer Morningstar
Lauren German – Chloe Decker
D.B. Woodside – Amenadiel
Lesley-Ann Brandt – Mazikeen

Charming. Charismatic. Devil-ish

Summary

When Lucifer decides that he wants to take a break from being the Devil, what better place to reinvent himself than in Los Angeles. But upon meeting Detective Decker, his life takes an interesting turn and he finds some intriguing things about himself…and others.

Review

I absolutely love this show! It’s one of the few shows that I actually have been religiously following and wanting to watch. I never really commit to a show and make time during my busy week to sit down and watch but this is actually one of them. The last time I did this was Season 1 of Hawaii Five-0.

If you have seen Castle, then this is kind of similar to that kind of set up. With the detective work, playful banter and awkward kind of romance-ish stuff going on that you’re not sure if they’re flirting or just messing around. It covers all the bases from action to detective work to biblical stuff and more. It’s definitely the most creative interpretation of Lucifer that I have seen so far and I’m definitely curious to see where it will go…AS IT HAS BEEN SIGNED FOR A SECOND SEASON! Thank god.

The acting isn’t superb as I have seen better acting but for a TV show it’s pretty good and the story line is interesting as well. It’s got a similar feel to all of these crime shows where each episode kind of stands alone but there is some intricate story going on beneath the entire season. This has that going on between Lucifer, Amenadiel and Mazikeen as two of them are from the underworld and Amanadiel is from heaven sent to get Lucifer to go back to hell where he belongs.

I do like the locations in which this is filmed though. Lucifer owns a bar and the bar is incredible and I’d love to go and visit a place like that but of course they are VIP places. It’s always got this kind of dark feel which pulls upon the demonic qualities of Lucifer so everything has this dark feel to it.

I’m extremely curious as to what season 2 is going to hold, especially after that season finale. Like good god. And also what music they’ll put into the episodes because the music is fantastic as well!

I’d definitely recommend watching this show if you’re looking for a new show to follow as this one is fantastic. It isn’t as supernatural as the shows Supernatural but there are definitely otherworldly things going on. If supernatural qualities turn you off from a show, it shouldn’t really effect you for this show because they aren’t a massive quality but they are there to spice it up a little bit.

Otherwise check it out!

And let me know what you think!

Happy Watching!