Ignore the creepy cover art
359281
Every now and again in life you find something that genuinely blows your socks off.

If you've ever considered real estate as an investment, or are even buying a house just to live in, you must read this book.

The first half of the book provides an in depth history illustrating the real estate cycle.

I love history, so ate this up, but if you're not a history buff or have trouble getting into this part please persist.

It is vital you follow this portion to verify what you'll read in the second half of the book.

Just ignore the slightly creepy cover art; you need this book.

Read for: Definitive info on real estate cycles. http://www.unassumingreader.com
4824655
The "title" of this book claims that it is "beautifully illustrated" - it's not.  And I don't mean that in the sense that art is personal taste and maybe I just don't like it.  Nope, with a couple of exceptions, it's simply not very well-drawn.  The title also says it's "funny" but unless the author means that in the sense of being highly strange, then nope to that as well.

Starting with a good, basic story concept, this "book" has clearly not been edited at all.  It's full of typos that actually DO make the book a bit funny - like when the brother thinks of his sister as a "sacredly cat" (should be scaredy cat?).  At one point, we learn that she's "not a coward ad Ted thought" and "Amy's shoulder's shaking" ("oh he had to comfort her he thought") is par for the course in a book where punctuation is sprinkled around like pepper, perhaps in the hope that it will land in the right places (for the most part, it hasn't).

The cover of the book - really just a picture to which the author has crudely added the name of the book - implies that the children will be outdoors with all sorts of scary critters.  In reality, they never leave the house and the scariest thing that happens (spoiler alert!) is that they bump into their own family dog.

So if you're looking for that sort of book (which my kids love!) look elsewhere - just one more example of what this book is NOT.

I wish the writer had put more time and attention into this book, which might have succeeded if she had.  But I suspect that the entire purpose of this "book" is to direct readers to the author's so-called "personal blog," which seems to be a dummy site designed to collect email addresses to receive Kindle freebie spam.  Clever marketing tactic?  Maybe... just don't call it a children's book.
4447143
The cover makes you think it's a good book.

I could have sworn a man wrote this phallically oriented dreck.  The thing I remember the most about this story is the Doctor Who reference and that embarassingly bad section about the "greptusian(whatever the heck those aliens were called) handshake," a term the author invented to describe oral intercourse.  Ick.
1750267
We found disturbing the game's reference to the historical characters as "receptacles."  Board game character or not, human persons are NOT receptacles. That word is usually only used to refer to trash receptacles, and human beings are definitely NOT that.
We found the plot line and the images (character images as well as images on many cards) of the base game "Asylum" to be very disturbing.
We didn't realize this when we bought the game, as most people don't want to post or read "spoilers", but now regret it. Be warned that if you are sensitive to horror movies or the like, this game is NOT for you.  If you wouldn't read a horror novel or watch a scary movie, then pick a different game.
1217442
Creepshows: The Illustrated Stephen King Movie Guide got off on the wrong foot quick by crediting (On the lower back cover) the Berni Wrightson cover illustration to the woman who DESIGNED the cover layout. Very sloppy, especially considering Wrightson's rendition of "The Creep" is world-famous.....
 The book covers all of the films that have sprung, however tenuous the connection may be (Children of the Corn 666), from Mr. King's stories. Stephen Jones does an interesting job of digging up little-known bits of trivia; I'm a King fanatic, and there were quite a few things here that were new to me. The irritating thing is the division of space in the book: A gem like The Green Mile gets the same amount of space as Children of the Corn. Jones devotes too much space to films that have nothing to do with King at all, such as the awful "House", covered because the main character is a King wannabe. The book is an American reprint of a British book, published in the UK by Titan Books, and the fact that Watson-Guptill couldn't even be bothered to Americanise the Brit spellings gets annoying after 100+ pages of "Favourite" and "Colour". Jones also seems to love the word "Eponymous"- He uses it on almost every page, and one would hope that someone has since bought him a Thesaurous. There's a brief King interview at the end, and the book is heavily illustrated with stills and poster reproductions. King fans will probably enjoy Creepshows a lot, but it could have been better....
2652836
At no point in the blurb for this book or its authors do they tell you that this is a Christian book. But it absolutely is. Now, writing Christian YA fiction is fine. Doesn't interest me but that's ok. But what I don't understand is why they're being so sneaky about it? Why hide it in the marketing materials, like they want to push some sort of shameful subliminal message? That's not only creepy, but also really dishonest.
3079376
This book has monsters that are very scary, but in a certain way... created, icky, scatological, repulsive, calling forth the human horror of the disgusting.  Example:  the creature (spoiler) is a sort of combinatorial of multiple animals encountered, with a wolf's head and other animal parts and many legs - somewhat like one of the creatures in Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson, but made horrible.  Also made nonsensical, sadly.

Here is a quote:  "Meat from many species of animal all crushed together, the bones jutting slantwise... elements of fish, of serpents --- the head of a wolf hung off one side; its eyes had been sucked out and added to the muscat bunch that stared woodenly from the thing's chest."

That is a partial description of the horrible beastie.  If that scares you or creeps you out, this book is for you.  If that is jejune "horror" then skip.

The plot is non-sensible.  A group of mercenaries on a mission stumble into the horror that encompasses a small town... a troop of heroes against the horror.  They have titles...

The book covers the town of Little Heaven during different eras, as this thing creeps in the background.  There are "shootists". This all feels phony.  Things go "thump".  The writer literally has things go thump.

At a certain point, the horror slows down so that a creepy sense of the brooding "Black Rock" can affect the towns people....

This reads like a 9th grade creative writing project.
1683381
The publisher did a dis-service to this book with this cheesey cover. The font and mention of princes imply a fairy tale instead of the kick-butt urban fantasy this book really is.  John Charming is a competent, savy monster killer in the style of Jane Yellowrock or Kate Daniels.  He is a former Knight Templar but wields a katana not the generic sword on the covers.  He has great fighting moves, common sense and a wealth of knowledge about obscure creatures of all types.  John is enigmatic and sarcastic and he describes his love interest Sig as "Vampire Hunter Barbie" in the first book and "the human version of a Swiss Army knife" in this one.  These books are funny and fast paced but like the Kate Daniels and Jane Yellowrock books they are dark at tmes with nasty creatures and "human" monsters.
3738563
I dislike the violent imagery. I will not be reading this to my grandchildren. In fact, it is going in the trash as opposed to passing it on via goodwill or other method, because I don't think it would be good for children.  The example I will give is one of the children in the story tripping her brother on the stairs with a picture of him falling down the stairs and her glaring at him.  Yes, and then it was about how he dealt with that among other things. But why put that out there? Sigh.
218328
Totally nonsensical cover art. The music is straight ahead - Also part of Elmo Hope SO NICE expanded CD. But the sequencing is better here with the 2 trio tracks mixed in with the quintet tracks and Move separated from Chasin' The Bird.
3744371
The story isn't bad - moves along nice and well written.  But the art in this comic is just plain horrible.  It's done by the same guy that did the cover - the cover kind of stinks as well, but take that art style and put into smaller boxes for each page and it really shines at how bad it is.  I can only thing the guy was a first year art student.
666602
A beautiful cover is quite deceptive when it comes to this volume. A prelude to the video game (clearly a bad sign), this is a five-issue storyline that is targeted to ADD children who are unfamiliar with the villains of the Batman universe. This volume is a waste of time for anyone older. The artwork by Carlos D'Anda is over-stylized in the manner that has oddly afflicted the comics industry in recent years. It's all very polished, of course, I just don't like the look.

I usually like stories where Batman narrates his detective work to the reader. But since this book is carefully written as a Prelude, nothing happens to anyone, there's no point to it whatsoever. Then why buy it? You've been forewarned.

Putting this book in hardcover was overkill. "The Lead-in to the highly anticipated video game!" is on the cover, and should have stopped me there. Go buy something like the Arkham City calendar if you want something beyond the video game.  If you want to see something recent and interesting from the Batman library, get "The Bat and the Beast" or "Streets of Gotham Hush Money". (I give this book an extra star for the pretty dust cover.)
1132334
It took me many months to finally commit to reading this story, mostly because the cover is a turn-off. Why is Dracula on the cover posing as Mr. Darcy?

Now that I've read it, I'm spent. In fact, I was exhausted half way through. By the end of the book, I didn't care whether our couple would make it. From beginning to end, there was high (exaggerated) drama, plenty of scheming, and longing. It's all just too much. Too much! I'm removing this book from my device so that I don't have to lay eyes on this exceedingly unhandsome Darcy every time I open my Kindle app.
2312738
Rarely do I buy a book because of its cover, but I have to say that this Goth cover suckered me in and parted me from $15 of my hard earned money. I want the marketing department of The Resurrectionist: The Lost Works of Spencer Black to know that I forgive them.

If you are seeking out bone structure illustrations of mythical creatures (And who among us is not?), this is the book for you. Open wallet, extract $15 and enjoy. On the other hand, if you want a good Gothic story about a mad resurrector who finds mythical creatures and reanimates them--which is what this book should have been about to match the illustration--you are out of luck (and $15 bucks). This is two books sandwiched into one. The first part is a drawn out short story with poor character generation and stilted dialogue. The back half contains the fore-mentioned illustrations.

I give The Resurrectionist two stars as a result.
594538
I already reviewed this book, but I forgot to say something important.  Buy the His Dark Materials books, but make sure you buy them in hardcover!  The cover pictures of the hardcovers, with art by Eric Rohmann, are  gorgeous, and the font used on the inside is beautiful too.  Philip Pullman  himself said in an interview that of all the cover art of his books, the  His Dark Materials hardcover ones by Eric Rohmann are by far his favorites.  Meanwhile, the paperbacks have boring cover pictures with many faults.  For example, on the Book 1 cover the Northern Lights don't look right;  Cittagazze looks more like London; Lyra is wearing pants, has no daemon,  and looks much too big compared to Iorek; and the alethiometer looks  nothing like I had pictured it.  The Subtle Knife paperback cover is  simply hideous, and besides Will doesn't look like Will is described in the  book (Eric Rohmann's depiction of him is perfect IMO), the knife looks  NOTHING like it is described (the swirling colors are not at all subtle),  and the golden monkey is much too ugly and doesn't look like a proper  golden monkey, more like a demon (no pun intended).  Besides, with the  paperback editions you don't get the beautiful fonts and good quality  paper.  I know this is picky and trivial and all that but the His Dark  Materials trilogy is so good that if you're going to buy these books you'll  want to own the best copies you can.  It's worth the extra money, believe  me.  And I still gave it five stars because it's still a good book, it's  just the paperback covers I have a problem with.  IMHO, Zohariel
2543045
I would have given this five stars, but I fault Fantagraphics for doing some artsy-fartsy production on the various "Humbug" cover reproductions by also reproducing the various tears, wrinkles and missing pieces from the covers to make them look old. While the book goes on and on about how meticulously they rescanned and recreated missing artwork (for which this is worth a 5), they fall far short with these travesties posing as covers. It's like intentionally putting in scratches on a digitally remastered film. If I want a crappy copy of "Humbug", I certainly can pick one up at a show or on Ebay.

As far as material goes, this is very good, but not excellent Kurtzman material as other reviewers have said. Best is the parody of "Around the World in 80 Days" which is possibly why it is touted on the slipcase, but the other stuff doesn't hold up as strongly, despite great artwork.

BTW, I am currently at work about the history of "Cracked" magazine and although this book doesn't state it, Jaffee, Elder and Davis all bailed out to "Cracked" for a short time before eventually returning to "Mad" (in Jaffee and Davis' case) and "Playboy" (in Elder's case).

As for Kurtzman, I have always considered "Trump", "Help!" and especially "Mad" to be far superior to this. Overall, it looks good, but it leaves you kind of limp. Fantagraphic's lousy issue cover reproductions kind of imply this as well.

It's worth buying the deluxe limited edition for the original autographs of Jaffee, Davis and Roth.
2209205
The eyes are almost clear. Which is great to see out of but is creepy. It takes away from the whimsy of these beloved PVZ characters