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Book Review – The First Pillar

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Title: The First Pillar [Everville 1]

Author: Roy Huff

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Length: 230

Rating: 1 Star

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Description/Synopsis:

Owen Sage is the emblematic college freshman at Easton Falls University. With all the worries about his first year in college, he was not prepared for what would happen next. His way of life was flipped upside down when he mysteriously crossed into another dimension, into the beautiful land of Everville. His excitement was abruptly halted when he discovered that there was a darkness forged against both the natural world, which he knew well, and the new land which he discovered, Everville. He must devise a plan to save both worlds while joining forces with the race of Fron and The Keepers, whom both harbor hidden secrets he must learn in order to gain power over the evil that dwells in The Other In Between. With a race against time to save both worlds, his short time at Easton Falls did not quite prepare him for the evil, dark forces he must fight in order to conquer The Other In Between.

Review – MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

I received this book from the author in exchanged for an honest review.

I had hopes for this, the idea sounded pretty interesting. I’m sad to say that I barely remember a thing that happened in this book after I read it, the only reason why there is really a review to read is I was making notes in my kindle along the way.

The names of people or places ranged from simple to a bit complicated, however I did like a few of them. The idea of a place called “The Other In Between” is very cool. The writing was also kind of poetic and had a dream like feeling that I enjoyed. But the overall presentation of the plot fell flat.

We get thrown into the story with very little context to what is happening, or who our main guy was. When our main character discovers this new land and starts telling people about it, he makes a comment about hoping he is doing the right thing, however there is no context or thought process as to why he has suddenly started to tell people when he didn’t at the start and he believed the place was real and he wasn’t crazy.

There isn’t much emotion within the story. Things get spoken of dramatically but the characters are rather flat and emotionless and don’t develop throughout the story.

So overall I thought the story lacked depth despite a good concept and I could not connect to the characters at all. I won’t be picking up the next book.

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Comic Review – Freakangels

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Title: Freakangels [Complete series]

Author: Warren Ellis

Genre: Post-Apocalyptic, Fantasy, Comic Series

Length: 144

Rating: 1 Star

Description/Synopsis:

Six years ago, twelve psychic children accidentally used their powers to flood the world. Now they attempt to rebuild society and defend London’s Whitechapel survivors from one of their own.Twenty-three years ago, twelve strange children were born in England at exactly the same moment. Six years ago, the world ended. Today, eleven strange 23-year-olds live in and defend Whitechapel, maybe the last real settlement in flooded London. When a dazed, gun-toting girl appears on the outskirts with a deadly grudge against the self-proclaimed Freakangels, the kids realize that an old enemy is still alive beyond the safety of their borders… a twelfth psychic child, evil and exiled, who can program human minds to hate, and send his private, pirate armies into Whitechapel for revenge. The first chapter in award-winning author Warren Ellis’ post-apocalyptic web comic series!

Review – MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Gah… just… gah.

I went into this with such high hopes, and every single one of them was shattered. I read other reviews and I am pretty convinced that I must have read it wrong. Out of everyone I know who read it (it was part of a comic book club which I will not be attending due to so much hatred I don’t see the point in travelling so far for it), and out of pretty much all of the reviews I read, I am the only one who hated it. I actually got angry while I was reading.

It had its good points, the art was beautiful, the whole idea of the story was great, the writing that was there was also good, and the characters had sooo much potential, it just all fell short because the just the structure of the story was horrible. I felt like someone had gone through and ripped out pages and completely disrupted the whole story.

You would be reading along and then the story would suddenly be somewhere else without finishing what it was talking about in the first place and then never ever mentioned or completed again. This doesnt just happen in the back story, if anything I was more happy with that becaus eyou can do those kind of things to back stories. But it also happened to things that were happening in the present. You can’t do that with things that are currently happening, how on earth are you supposed to follow or understand or even LIKE the story when that is happening.

As I said, Im the only one I know of that felt this strongly about it. If I have in fact read it wrong someone how please, pleeeaaasseee tell me because I really wanted to like this. If you would like to read it as well you can read it for free online on the Freakangles website.

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Book Review – Sexton and the Reaper

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Title: Sexton and the Reaper

Author: Corey Feldman

Genre: Paranormal Romance

Length: 41

Rating: 1 Star

Description/Synopsis:

The Sexton and the Reaper is a novelette labeled as Paranormal Romance but it is not scary and it is not erotic by any stretch of the imagination. It’s really a good old fashion love story with Ghosts, Soul Collectors, Angels, Jewish & Christian Mysticism, and of course fantasy. I don’t love the category especially in the wake of 50 Shades of Grey. If I could name my own category, I would call it a Mystical Love Story. By the way, it will tie in to my Alex Kagan novel whenever I finish that! Reading this will in no way be necessary to follow my first Alex Kagan book, but their should be some fun Easter Eggs in there for you.

Review – MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

I grabbed this book thinking that it was going to be a really cute story about ghost love or something along those lines. That wasn’t really got. Sure the wife coming to visit her husband everyday for their little beyond the dead dates was kinda cute, specially when he gives her little air kisses on her cheek. The friendship between the Angle and the main guy could almost be cute. The writing its was kinda good too. That is until anyone started talking.

The dialogue in this book was just so, so painful. I was about 11% through and I wanted to put the book down and never pick it up ever again as long as I shall live. I always find it just mind blowing when I coming across dialogue like this. Its like the authors haven’t ever spoken to another human being, which of course is just hog wash. Do any of them actually talk like this? The dialogue seemed forced the entire way through and asks pointless questions and its quite often put in giant paragraphs.

Some of the names also seemed a tad silly. My recommendation would be to avoid this book unless you just must have something to fill a 40 minute time slot. But of course, this is just my opinion. It received two 3+ stars before I read it on Goodreads and on amazon is got 11 that were 4 and up.

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Book Review – Nerissa The Forgotten Siren

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Title: Nerissa The Forgotten Siren

Author: Lainy Lane

Genre: Mythology

Length: 39

Rating: 1 Star

Description/Synopsis:

Legends are unable to go very far if there are no survivors to carry the stories.
You’ve heard of mythology before, but not like this.
The Untold Myths series tells the side of mythology that no one has dared to tell before.
Sirens, the songs that lead sailors to their watery graves. Ships sink at the hands of the people that steer them. Once the song has left a sirens mouth you are doomed. You may know the story of the three original sirens, but did you know there were actually four? Nerissa is the forgotten siren. Her story has never been told, until now…

Review – MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Such a shame. I always have such high hopes when it comes to stories about mermaids and this one just destroyed all of them.

The book pretty much was set in my bad books when it started off in the perspective of the Greek God Aphrodite. As someone who believes in these kinds of Gods, not necessarily these Gods but they are all along the same lines anyway and I have great respect for them all, I people are going to change things, add things, and make them their own when they bring them into their stories and when they do it well I really enjoy it, so don’t take my opinion against it as some religious disagreement. The portrayal of Aphrodite and all the other Gods was just horrible. Aphrodite, the god of love, was portrayed as someone who didn’t believe in it and hated it. Thats just stupid in my books. I can see someone changing it so that she ‘loves’ in the sense that she sleeps around all the time, but she can’t not believe in the very thing that makes her who she is. Her and all the other Gods were portrayed as over the top dramatic children. All they did was complain, and bitch and wallow in self pity. Not very Godly at all. Zeus was portrayed by Aphrodite as someone who got off on others pain. I mean come on now… Self pity runs strong in the main character as well.

I could have almost liked the ending how she becomes a human because Aphrodite sacrificed her ability to see her daughter so she could live happily ever after, but the whole love things that Nerissa was altering her life for happened way to quickly, there were a number of grammatically flawed sections, and just sections of the writing was horrid, excluding all the stupid nonsense of Gods being bitchy little cry babies.

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Book Review – The Poison Garden

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Title: The Poison Garden

Author: Sarah Singleton

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Length: 283

Rating: 1 Star

Description/Synopsis:

It is the 1850’s, and a young boy, Thomas, leaves his family to be apprenticed to a pharmacist, at the behest of his dead grandmother. He also inherits a magical box from her, which provides him entry into a mysterious garden. But while visiting it, he sees a ghostly vision of his grandmother, who tells him she was poisoned, and warns him that he must find the person responsible, and save her precious garden. For she was one of five members of an arcane guild, each of whom cultivated an individual garden, mastering the art of poison, perfume and medicine. The guild members jostle for power as, one by one, they are murdered …

Can Thomas solve the mystery, before he in turn is threatened?

Review – MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

My opinion of this book is not great. Within the first couple of pages I was getting annoyed with the style of writing and found myself drifting off while reading and thinking about other things, and it took me far longer to read because I kept putting it down and trying to find something else to distract myself so I didn’t have to keep reading. But, I hate to leave a book unfinished and I committed to trying to post a review each day, so I pushed myself through it.

The contents of the book is described in way to much pointless detail that you dont get to form your own opinion or idea, and it happens way to fast for me. You get have barely started reading before major stuff starts happening, and though this can often work in some books it is not the case here. I felt as if I was being rushed through because the author themselves was already bored and was trying to get to the end of the book. Because of this rushed feeling you don’t get to connect to any of the characters. When bad things happen you don’t care because why should you? You haven’t gotten to feel any warmth or connection to them, you have just been told “This is this guy,” and then they just remain some random you know of but don’t give a damn about.

This feeling of disconnectedness could also be contributed to the pore dialogue. The conversations feel forced the entire way through, and for me they sealed the deal when it came to not caring about the characters. Towards the end I started to feel something, my head was focussed on the story I was being told and I wasn’t looking to see how many pages where left, but then some forced dialogue reared its ugly head and I was pushed outside of the book again. Things are danced around in a too obvious way, or they are just too plainly laid out for all the world to see. Conversations don’t seem natural (or feelings or reactions for that matter), and I felt as though I was reading school students running through a scripted play for the first time.

That being said however I did love the idea behind the book and feel it has so much untapped potential which makes the failings stand out that much more for me. Gardens which are all connect but all apart, which shape to your imagination and inner most ideals, and are boundless to restrictions of simply ‘good’ or ‘evil’ magic/abilities sounds like a fantastic concept that should have been looked at it more detail. I so desperately wanted to know more about each garden, to spend more that 10-30 pages I was given exploring each garden world.

This one book could easily have been an awesome series if it wasn’t so rushed.
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