Bright Fire (Bright Fire Series Book 1)

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

(Spoilers within)

I received a mobi file for this book that didn’t work and ad to read a PDF file instead(definitely not preferred). That should have been a bad sign from the beginning. If you send a book for someone to read, please make sure the file works.

This book is written in first person present tense, which right away made it a more difficult read. It’s very hard to do right, and I can’t say it’s used well here.

There are many other problems in the writing, too.

“…Am I staring at my locker without really seeing it.”

“What was that about?” my mother asks as I shut the car door. “I’m not sure.”

As you can see, it switches speakers without making a new paragraph and even puts words in the wrong order or leaves out words sometimes. It’s full of errors. The writing also didn’t invoke emotions. There was one time when it got close, but I’ll address that later.

The premise of this book has a difficult one to build on right away. It makes Hades the villain, which is an unfortunate problem with modern day literature. The book references “Hell” and “the Devil” many times, confusing Hades for someone like Satan when they couldn’t be more different.

Hades isn’t only far more reasonable and not very villainous, but he’s tame compared to the other Greek gods. Extremely tame. Just compare the things he does to what Zeus does, including the way he treats women/his wife. Kidnapping his wife is obviously bad, but the myth needs to be taken in context of the times and “kidnapping whoever you like” wasn’t exactly uncommon in any the myths. This is a culture where “ritual abduction” was a thing, so it wouldn’t be right to take it exactly the same as you would from a modern day viewpoint.

So, right from the start it lacks research because it confuses Hades for Satan. Hades is not Satan. He is nothing like Satan. As a friend told me, “Hades isn’t any more the devil than Zeus is the Christian God.”

When she goes to see Alec after her parents are murdered mysteriously and there’s obviously something supernatural involved she slaps him for suggesting something unusual. It was bizarre. She heard her dad’s voice in her head and everything that happened to her parents, then acts like Alec isn’t only weird but physically assaults him. I could understand disbelief, or even still having a hard time accepting it, but after she just told a bizarre story she gets offended when he gives her a bizarre answer.

The book informs us of many things instead of showing us.

“Is that so?” She looks at him like he is cow dung on her shoe. I can tell she’s the brains of the duo; that means the guy was the braun.

She hasn’t done anything to show this, nor does she ever show this. We’re just told it.

Then there is a huge problem setting them up as the ‘heroes’ of the story. They bump into a homeless guy who starts ranting at her. Alec breaks his hands. And then they leave.

When he’s mentioned not long after by her she says:

“Yeah, that’s it!” I jump up. “Oh! Do you think? But no that guy was just a homeless man.”

A homeless man with two broken hands. This is trying to set up Alec as being protective of Dell, but instead it makes him look like a madman and makes Dell look like a psychopath. She saw him break the hands of a harmless homeless man and that is her reaction to the event. He grabbed her shoulders, yes. They have the right to get the homeless man away from her, but he was not attacking her. How he even knew about ‘Bright Fire’ or anything is never explained. He simply existed to yell at her and then be attacked and tossed aside.

The man may very well have been mentally ill and Dell had no problem with him being left horribly injured on the streets. How is that man supposed to get help for his injuries? This is a case of protagonist centered morality at its worst. Because it’s Dell who matters in the story and the homeless man is a nameless McGuffin, it doesn’t matter what happens to him and the story and characters just move on. But this is a terrible way to set them up as the supposed good guys or show that Alec is protective.

Let’s just put it this way: Would you start off your story with Alec blowing up a busload of orphans because the bus ‘might have hurt’ Dell if he didn’t? If you do, you have to climb up a very steep mountain to convince me to root for the characters. This story started me off almost right away with “These characters are monsters” and expected me to forget about it.

Because the mobi file I received for this didn’t work, I had to read it on a PDF and couldn’t highlight and take notes the way I would have wanted. Instead, I was bookmarking pages where there was an issue and hoping that I could remember what the issue was. The problem is I ended up bookmarking almost every page.

The book takes place over probably less than a week, and in this week I’m expected to believe that the main character has formed tight bonds with brand new people. With Cass, it might have been a matter of hours before she happily accepted Cass as her foster mother and was making it out like they were extremely close.

Another example of the book informing us of things came later when Dell notes about Alec and Lyla (Dell’s best friend):

I’ve noticed recently that they both seem to have put aside their issues and get along. Even rely on each other.

At first I wondered, “What issues?” And then I remember back at the beginning of the book Lyla called him a freak for some reason. It’s not explained well and worked against how likeable she was. She didn’t know about the attack on the homeless man or anything. She only said that because she thought he was a weird high school boy. However, there was close to nothing about it for many chapters – so much so that I completely forgot that even happened by the time Dell says this. This whole thing also takes place in maybe a week, probably less, so it’s all strange to talk as if a lot of time has passed. I also don’t remember Alec and Lyla interacting much.

There was another part that did make me uncomfortable with Hermes:

“Four; Pan, Priapus, Autolycus, and I just had a beautiful little girl Angelica. Some texts say I had a child named Hermaphoditus. But come on seriously, I would never punish a child with that name.”

Aside from the fact that a Greek god is talking like a modern day teenager, and the errors (including the misspelling of “Hermaphroditus”), I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the name being a punishment because it’s long – which would seem out of place because many of their names are long – or because of the meaning. There’s also the possibility that he means it would be embarrassing because it’s two names combined, but I don’t feel like there is a ton of research in this book so I’m hesitant to believe that’s the reason.

It’s not explained at all why it would be a bad name, though, so it leaves it dangling in the air that it could be implying hermaphrodites/androgyny is a bad thing.

There are quotes in the wrong places all over.

“My stomach drops and I choke back the bile rising in my throat. I feel Alec squeeze my hand a little…

While it would be interesting if Dell was suddenly narrating her life aloud, that’s probably not what is happening.

At the beginning I mentioned there was a part in the book that almost brought some emotion into it. They fight three sirens and kill them, and after that she discovers the sirens had a child who was hiding nearby. That is a great moral dilemma to have and a good reason for the protagonist to second guess her actions. However, on the next page the conflict is resolved by simply explaining that sirens can’t feel grief so the kid was fine. It got so close to having something of substance and immediately washed it away so that the main character wouldn’t have to feel bad.

For a book that is supposed to have huge conflicts, it feels like there’s little that the main character has to go through. Her parents die, but somehow I never felt anything for that. We not only barely see them, but she had the worst foster parents ever. For some reason they didn’t tell her about the Greek gods or anything, leaving her vulnerable and ill-prepared to protect herself after they died. There doesn’t seem to be any reason they did this other than to let her be confused and traumatized (or, to create forced conflict for the main character).

Cass is kidnapped. I also felt nothing because they hardly knew her. Despite being immortal, she did stereotypical modern day mom stuff (example: getting freaked out because Alec and Dell slept in the same bed).

Then there’s the physical trials they go through, like when they go to the Underworld.

They go through the Chasm of Lost Souls, where what starts as a good idea is wasted. Each soul is trapped in a mound, and if someone steps on that mound the soul can pull them in and take their place, essentially. But, apparently if they get grabbed all they have to do is stab the soul with the dagger they have and that works just fine, so there was almost no danger.

The next trial they face they have to walk across a bridge, which would be apparently no problem if someone didn’t drop a soda in the river (seriously, that’s what happens. Why are they littering in the Underworld? I’d be mad if I was Hades.)

Like with the “dropping of the soda”, problems seem to occur because the main characters are incompetent. When they go to fight the sirens they supposedly discuss strategy at length. Yet, when they get there and meet the first siren, the male character is immediately lured away into her trap and Dell is knocked out cold. What strategy were they discussing?! This is the most obvious thing sirens do and they were completely and entirely unprepared for it (not to mention what a terrible idea it is to bring a male character for that in the first place).

Then there’s the romance. This is a case of “romance without the romance”. That is, instead of writing out romance the story goes with “it’s fate” or “they’re soulmates”. I never felt like they were close, I just felt like I was told it, especially since they barely knew each other.

So, the book didn’t work for me on many levels. The writing style, the relationships, the portrayal of characters (especially ones who were supposed to be immortal and old), the challenges… It all needs an editor to fix these issues.

There are some ideas that could be built on (killing the sirens and leaving a child behind, the Underworld looking like a nice place, etc), it just doesn’t do much with it right now. If the author gets the funds for it I would recommend looking for a good editor to go over this story with. It would probably have a lot more impact if Hades was portrayed as his original self as well, rather than just the big bad.

I give it a 3/10.

Ariella and the Blood Curse

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

(Spoilers within)

This particular book was written by a father and daughter team, so before getting to the book I would like to congratulate the daughter on writing. It’s good to see a father encouraging and helping his daughter out, and regardless of how the review turns out I do hope she keeps writing. What she writes at fourteen and what she writes at twenty-four will be very different, and skills can only be honed through practice.

That said, I will be reviewing the book as it stands on its own, because in the end no matter the age of one of the authors the product will be judged based on its quality. Its what you have to prepare for when you publish.

The basic story of this book isn’t too unfamiliar. It follows a young girl in a fantasy world as she joins a group of powerful fighters. I’ve seen a few books like this. Whereas most books like this spend half of the book just getting the main character into the group, Ariella joins her group relatively quickly in this one and the plot revolves more around a blood curse that is poisoning all of the crops.

I do think the book missed some opportunities. When Ariella first ended up in a “Knot” with Eleazar, I thought it would have been cute if she had said that growing up with her brothers had prepared her for it, especially since her brothers had been so over the top. Eleazar isn’t the first annoying boy that she’s dealt with.

I also would have liked her to react to Micah’s personality more. She thought he was cute, which was fine. She had a crush. But no matter what he did that didn’t seem to sway at all. He’s cute, and therefore it doesn’t matter what kind of personality he has. This happens in a lot of novels. I would have enjoyed it if she became disenchanted with him when she finally got to know him. It doesn’t matter how cute someone is, if they’re always frowning they aren’t going to be much fun to be around. I rarely see this done and it would have been nice, especially to acknowledge that personality matters in attraction, too. Plus, if she’s been daydreaming about him, it could really burst her bubble to see that he wasn’t anything like she had imagined.

It doesn’t even mean that she could never like him. She could grow to like him for who he really is, but that’s a lot different than the simple “He’s hot” route.

There was a part where Ariella first met Karlov and she woke up and told him to address her by her title. As it is it seems like the only purpose for this is to cause tension, and there’s no real explanation for it. Not long before she had been telling her captain how it was fine to call her “Ariella” because she wasn’t going to have the title anymore soon, so demanding that someone use her title not long after that seemed to contradict how she was previously. This could have been easily fixed, though. She had just been ‘drugged’ or whatever, and had just woken up. If she had done it because she forgot where she was or was groggy and out of it, that would easily explain why she was suddenly demanding him to use her title. Left as is there’s no real explanation for the sudden shift.

I was waiting for awhile for Ariella to comment on Eugenie’s lack of manners. Being a noble isn’t simply a matter of always doing whatever you want. Imagine for a moment if Ariella’s mother acted like Eugenie did. She wouldn’t be very well respected or liked. Nobility could be considered like medieval politicians, and there are those who are clever and charming and those who greatly fail at being either. The thing is, in a place where being a poor noble could get you assassinated, your reputation would be pretty important. Being a princess, Ariella would be well aware of that and is in the best position to comment on it, and it would make sense for her to mention that Eugenie was lacking in the etiquette expected of nobles.

One last thing I had hoped for was when Ariella decided to spy on her mother and the other monarchs during their meeting. I had hoped that she would bring her mother in on it.

There were a lot of errors in this book. Missing periods, capitalization problems, commas and periods used in the wrong places, wrong words, extra spaces… It does need a serious edit because the errors were all over.

All of that said, it was a pretty fun book. The characters were mostly enjoyable. Though there are ten in their Knot the story mostly follows a few of them, which is a good thing. When a book isn’t very long there’s not enough time to develop a ton of characters. I didn’t find myself getting annoyed with Ariella much, and thankfully even though the story starts with her crush on Micah it isn’t the focus of the story. It barely gets mentioned throughout most of the book, which was a relief. Too many books like this have the protagonist obsess over a guy she likes. There was a hint of, “Why doesn’t her opinion of him fluctuate at all?”, but it’s not brought up enough to ruin the reading experience.

The plot was interesting and it didn’t waste too long getting into it. As I mentioned before, most books like this spend a good portion of the time moving their protagonist into the new group, and then they have to start up the plot after their character finally gets there. Because Ariella pretty much goes straight there the plot is able to start up right away. The soil and crops are being fill with blood and all of the food is withering, putting the country in a state of peril as they run low on food. A situation like this would be devastating pretty quickly, so the stakes are high.

Each of the characters get a chance to do something, which is good. There’s never a feeling that one character is standing around doing nothing or letting everyone else think of everything. This is a problem in a lot of books, especially books with female protagonists, where they’ll wait for everyone else to make the decisions. It didn’t feel like the extreme opposite, either, where Ariella was the only one capable of doing anything. It struck a good balance.

The book also did another good thing. Though it’s a series, it didn’t just stop in the middle of the plot. It wrapped up the plot for that book and carried onto the next thing. Too many authors these days think writing a series means writing one story, chopping it up and then selling it separately. To me that’s like chopping up a single fruit and calling it a fruit salad.

Each book should have a satisfying conclusion for that book and there should be a good reason for it to be separate from the rest. This book had a comfortable beginning, middle and end even though there’s clearly more to wrap up in the future.

I would be interested in seeing what happens in the next book in the series. I hope the problems in the first book get cleaned up.

I give it a 7/10.

Deep In The Bin Of Bob

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

(Spoilers within)

To say that “Deep In The Bin Of Bob” is a strange story would be an understatement. The story starts from one bizarre scenario and rapidly switches to new outlandish scenarios. In the beginning, “Deep”, the main character, follows a woman into her home, which is completely dark and lit by glowworms. There’s a bottomless pit in the middle of her kitchen, and she has things like a hippopotamus skin stuffed inside of a bear skin. It just gets stranger from there as Deep goes through the building working his way towards the roof, where a hot air balloon has crashed into it and he’s convinced someone needs help.

If I were to describe what the story was like, I think I’d pick “Jacob’s Ladder” as something similar. It’s kind of like reading a fever dream.

Like the main character, this book tries very hard to be deep, and in a lot of spots it works. There’s a lot of parts that will make you think. The writing is very stylistic, spending a lot of time describing scenes in detail and using a lot of metaphors. The author is good at painting strange, surreal scenes in a way that can be pictured. There’s even the odd morbid but entertaining thought:

He would sit the owner down, and tell them how sorry he was, but their dog had been murdered by gravity.

Deep minded the sinkhole, he minded the sinkhole very much.

However, the book does get majorly bogged down by its own need to follow that style and be overly lengthy. One of the first issues I ran into was metaphors that make no sense.

His muscles felt heavy, like he was walking on toothpaste.

Walking on toothpaste could be a good description for the floor, but how does it relate to how heavy his muscles are?

His voice was thin and curly.

Thin I could maybe equate to weak, but curly? You can say that someone’s hair feels like a poodle’s fur – that brings up a very specific image and feel. You can say something smells like grass. People know what grass smells like. But if you say something was like flying the way poodles do or sounded like grass screaming it doesn’t add anything because it’s meaningless gibberish. Poodles don’t fly, grass doesn’t scream, putting those words into a sentence just pads it out with confusing chatter. It feels more like metaphors being shoved into a sentence because there’s a metaphor quota rather than something that adds to the description, and they take away from the time of more meaningful things.

Then, there are parts where things are shoved into paragraphs that have nothing to do with anything. In one part it’s talking about giants, caves and the smell of the air, and then there’s this:

Deep imagined Christmas day being a war between those who wanted to celebrate, and those who wanted to get it over with.

And then it’s back to describing the size of the cutlery the giant is using. What did that sentence have to do with what was being described? Why is it there? It didn’t add to the situation at all, had nothing to do with what was being talked about, and is never mentioned again. It’s a random thought barfed into the middle of a scene. There’s also many times the stories repeats things.

There are entire scenes in this book that could be removed without losing anything from the story, and parts that feel shoved in there. For example, there’s a scene where Deep ends up in a room with Truman, Churchill and Hitler, and it’s about how dropping atomic bombs is a bad thing and how people fight wars and such in the name of God. The scene revolves around Truman and Churchill’s guilt, essentially, and them being in a match to see who’ll take the ‘blame’, sort of. This scene didn’t really have anything to do with anything else going on and could have been completely taken out, but with it in there I couldn’t help but keep thinking how someone very, very important was missing from this scene if it was trying to make a point about what happens in war.

What about the Emperor of the very country that was being talked about? He’s not even mentioned. So the whole scene plays out like it’s touching on the most obvious – atomic bombs are bad – and sweeping by anything deep about it. On top of that, it’s just sort of there and interrupts the flow of what was happening (Deep chasing “Loony Jikininki” to get his pig back).

To be honest, I had to force myself through a good portion of the book. These sort of odd, random scenarios constantly happening just made it seem like Deep was walking from one random scene to another with little rhyme or reason. Many times I’m not even sure how he got into a scene. There was a part in the middle where everything turned into ‘words’ and the book started talking about what the reader on the Kindle was thinking (I actually don’t have a Kindle to begin with) that didn’t work for me at all because of this. It tried to set up a scenario with a dog dying and the reader not wanting the dog to die, but I was impatiently waiting for that part to end so that something could happen. Because the story meandered about I was just waiting for it to go somewhere. I actually still don’t see a need for that part even after finishing the story. It’s like a movie that’s sitting on a landscape shot for too long.

I liked Richard the best as a character I think. Most characters in this book couldn’t really be considered a character. It was more like Deep walked in on them somewhere and they started monologuing about stuff. Richard was probably the only one who stuck around and had her own thoughts about different events. Deep could be a character, and Beena at the end could be a character, but everyone else is a monologue. They don’t really act or talk like people. It suits the story well enough but it means there’s a limit to how much anyone can be related to.

That said, after getting through all of that the ending itself was pretty good. Not necessarily the parts with Hitler, but the parts that actually had to do with Deep and what was happening in his life. I liked his talk with Beena, and I liked his realization of who some people had been previously. I thought that part was particularly well done after painting Beena out to be almost like she was someone perfect before.

The ending was good. Not necessarily “good” in the happy sense, but it suited the book. It was enough that I was glad I read the book, even if at times I had to keep pushing myself forward. I do think this is probably a book that someone could read twice and look into what happened earlier after they know the ending.

If things like child molestation, gory imagery or suicide are something that you want to avoid, then you probably shouldn’t read this book.

I give it a 6/10, because even though I thought the ending was good I have to remember how hard it was to push myself through some of the chapters.

Law of the Land (The Scofflaw Series Book 2)

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

(Spoilers within)

I fell ill when I started reading this book, so it took me longer to get through than it normally would and might have affected might perceptions. Regardless, these are my thoughts.

Right away I knew this book would have a major problem with characters. At the beginning of the book there is a list of characters with short snippets about who they are. This is a very short book, so having that many characters listed meant there wouldn’t be enough time to develop them all. I understood who a few of the characters were, but there were definitely many who were little more than names to me.

There were quite a few errors littering the text. I always knew what the author meant to say, but there was plenty like this:

“Salvage,” Cazmeran corrected., “Are you…

…the creature growled and pointed up the mountain with he spear.

These sorts of errors were common.

The story also just sort of ends.There’s no real conclusions, nothing is pulled together. It’s more like we got the first chapters of a story. Now, I understand this is a series, but stories still have a beginning, middle and end.

Consider television for a second. There may be an overarching plot for a season or entire series, but each episode will feel complete in and of itself. This is becoming pretty common as more people write series where books will just ‘stop’ without anything having been solved, and you’re expected to buy the next book. Instead of feeling like a series it feels more like a single book that was chopped up and sold in parts. There’s no particular reason for these chapters to be separated from the rest.

That said, it was a fairly fun book. It was easy to read and had a fast pace. I wouldn’t mind reading more into the story. I enjoyed some of the conversations Taelyn and Cazmeran had. I didn’t have a problem following along with the story save for some of the motivations/plans of the gods (mostly because there are so many and not a lot of time to show them). There was one particular chapter that opened up describing Sarith that I thought was done particularly well. I wish that sort of time had been devoted to more of the characters, because I really got a feel for who he was in that chapter.

It isn’t a bad book to pick up if you’re interested in reading a book revolving around the politics between gods and a boy chosen to go on an adventure. Just be aware that it does have a lot of errors and you won’t get any sort of conclusion.

Also, people who are sensitive to rape may not want to read this book. There isn’t anything particularly graphic about that subject, but it is brought up a lot.

I give it about a 6/10.

The Gertrude Threshold: A Novella

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

(Spoilers within)

The Gertrude Threshold is about the life of one family at the end of the world and what they’re doing at the end. Each chapter focuses on a character and the trial they’re going through, what they’re choosing to do and their thoughts on it.

Sometimes I got lost because it bounces back and forth between times and I would start reading a section not knowing if it was what was happening ‘now’ or if it happened ten years ago. It was also very verbose, which some may like but isn’t my personal preference in writing styles. It could completely lose me at times.

There was also a time when a man hunted down Ellen and I was just wondering why and how. How did he know where to find her when she’d been somewhere completely unexpected for over an hour, and then was wandering around? How did this man who is starving to death have so much energy to even do this? This is a time when everyone could be dying in an hour or two, they’ve been starving for a long time and are weak and covered in burns and such. I just felt weird that he tracked her down in a place where so many got lost during this whole story, and he didn’t know her or where she stayed exactly.

I’ll also admit I was confused on the setup of their place. I get that they were underground, but I had a hard time picturing exactly where she stayed in comparison to people like the thug. It sounded like they were separated – and the enforcer yells at her asking why she’s in the same area as him and such – but then it didn’t feel like it with him going down the same path she did when she was on her way home.

The voice for the child characters also fluctuated between sounding too juvenile to too adult. (Ky (5) thinking, “The boom-booms had gone away”, which sounds more like a toddler. On the other hand, a girl about a year older than him saying, “The whole universe was breaking in two”, which sounds a bit old for her.)

The overall writing was good and the formatting of the book was fine. The worldbuilding, besides having confusion about things like placement, was solid. I knew exactly what was happening to the world and what kind of conditions the people were living in.

Oddly, I think the character I liked the most is Brandon. In the beginning he says he hates his five year old grandson, Ky. But at the same time he’s the only one there with Ky throughout this entire book. His mom has left to go to ‘Church’, and after that she wanders around and goes other places. His dad left to talk with a ‘client’ he has a crush on, and then does some drugs and stuff. You can understand why they’re having issues considering the world is ending, but the cranky old grandpa is the one who stays with him, and despite his assertions that he didn’t like him it feels like he still has standards. When the earthquake and such are happening, and his weakened body is being broken even more, he holds onto Ky, despite wanting to let go and just die.

The Gertrude Threshold is probably more realistic about what an apocalypse would look like than most books. People weren’t able to fashion out enough space underground for everyone. Only a few had ‘compartments’. People are starving to death, even those who had come from wealthy origins. People are covered in sunburns, ash, and supplies are just about out for everyone. From the start I got the sense that the characters were going to die and there wasn’t anything they could do to magically fix it. It was just a matter of how many hours they had left and what would get them first. This might be too depressing for some, but if it’s the type of book that grabs you then this is a good book to check out.

I give it a 7/10.

Families

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

(Spoilers within)

I’m honestly not sure what to say about this one. I’m very confused by it. The book was presented to me as an interview with a candidate for the President of the United States. However, I doubt “Citizen N” is a real person. There was very little information about this book. Even trying to look it up I couldn’t find more. I considered e-mailing the author to ask for clarification about what I was reading but I decided against it. This is what is put out there, and this is the information other readers would have.

So, here’s the information:

“The book is an interview with Citizen N, a candidate for President of the United States. In this short interview, he discusses the family structure and how it relates to our social problems here and around the world.”

My first feeling is that this book is just a way for the author to right their opinions by creating a fake interview. I’m not positive, though. It could be based on a real interview somewhere. And that’s all the book is. It’s a transcript of an interview, which probably isn’t real. I don’t really know what to say about that. I disagreed with some things, agreed with others, but I didn’t feel like anything was said in the book that struck me. When I read I usually don’t try to judge other people’s opinions or anything like that, but this felt more like rambling with an occasional point.

Some spots I felt were misinformed, like saying that people would only play games on things like the iPad instead of reading, so it’s not a good way to get kids to read and only buy them print books. The e-book market is huge because people are reading on devices a lot. I like print books, but I will admit I’ve read a huge number of books on an iPad compared to the few I read in print, and this is quickly becoming the trend. It’s just more convenient and cheaper to use a device (if you don’t take into account the price of the device, that is, and even then if I had as many print books as I did e-books the price of the books and the shipping would add up to a lot). Like this, some of the opinions felt dated, like someone who was out of touch with the current generation and technology.

There were also some errors.

I think my overall issue with this book is that I don’t understand why it exists. I don’t know what the author was going for exactly, or even if I’m correct in my assessment that it’s just some way for the author to write down their opinions. It’s short and it wasn’t awful, although it did ramble sometimes like I mentioned. I just don’t know why it was made or who it’s meant for. I could barely even find mentions of this book anywhere, Goodreads or otherwise. The author really needs to elaborate on what this is about. The author has a responsibility to present their book in a clear way.

I give it about a 5/10.

The Return (Second Coming Book 1)

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

(Spoilers within)

I’m just going to say it right off: This book didn’t work for me.

I’ve read some other reviews and I agree with some of the things they said and disagree with others. First, I agree that there are no characters in this book. I can summarize everything about a character in one line.

Sarah: She donates to charity and such and is horribly rich.
Peter: He runs a big shipping company place and is horribly rich.
Regina: She serves some guy and wears very impractical clothing. Also, as a woman who is sexual, she’s of course pure evil and loves torturing and killing people.

This is honestly about as much as I can tell you about any of these characters. They’re cardboard cutouts with names attached.

This book also desperately needs editing. It’s not one or two errors. There are errors everywhere.

You’re dad would be proud.

Thankfully, it was so expense that is was sold only in small jars.

The tenses will change, quotations marks are often missing, words will be missing and sometimes I’m not even sure who is talking. There’s even at least one spot where it suddenly switches to first person POV, and doesn’t have italics or anything to mark it off as thoughts. At another point a character thinks about doing something, and in the next two paragraphs announces that she’s done it when she hasn’t even left her spot yet.

Onto the plot. Geoff accidentally stumbles onto a Templar book while on vacation. For some reason this becomes the obsession of his life. Luckily, like all characters, he is ridiculously wealthy and can travel anywhere on a whim to research whatever he wants. Besides the fact that it doesn’t establish why Geoff cares so much about discovering the secrets of the Templars, it also doesn’t explain how he does a lot. For example, he goes to “library after library” and pours over books and manuscripts. Then we’re immediately told that the pieces “were starting to fall into place”. What pieces? I have no idea. We’re just told he’s discovering this stuff and figuring things out somehow. We don’t know what he read in the books, how he read between the lines and came to conclusions he did or what people on the street tell him. We’re just told he looked at books/talked to people and now he knows stuff.

At one point he’s at Oxford University and leaving the library. He notices someone else is there and immediately thinks he’s being followed. Like so many things in this book, I immediately ask, “Why does he think that?” There are plenty of people who go to that university, and lots of people stay late on campuses. I’ve even seen people sleep in random places like lounges or libraries. It’s not that weird to see a person there.

One of the things I disagree with other reviewers on is that the book needs to be longer. While I understand their opinion and why they would say that, I would say that there is a ton of useless text that can be taken out and replaced, like one point where the bad guys deal with a crooked taxi driver which has no bearing on the plot. The majority of the book reads like a list of events.

When Peter and Sarah go out on a date, we’re told things like what time Peter went to the hotel, what they ate, and a list of places they visited. We’re even told:

They seemed to have endless things to say to each other.

But we don’t see any of their conversations and we’re not even told what they’re talking about. The book tells us they have a lot in common, but I couldn’t tell you what any of those things were. Then there’s needless explanations, such as saying “It was obvious they had missed each other very much.” after they hugged. We shouldn’t have to be told that. It should be obvious when reading it, but it’s not because the writing lacks any impact. There are no emotional connections to any characters.

Which is why I disagree that the book needs to be longer. Instead of telling the reader a list of places they went, the author could have focused on one place and shown and actual scene with them, talking and getting to know each other. It could replace the needless text with something that shows us who the characters are as people.

The roles Sarah and Regina play might be upsetting to some. Sarah basically exists to have a baby. On the other hand, Regina basically exists to be sexy and evil. I don’t recall seeing any other female characters in the book, or, if there were, they were very brief. Whether they’re good or evil is summed up quickly. “Sarah donates to charity, therefor she’s good”. “Regina likes kinky sex, therefor she’s evil”. It would be so easy to do more than the cliche with these characters. Maybe Sarah donates for shallow reasons or for basic good publicity, but isn’t necessarily more generous than anyone else. Maybe Regina could have taken in “pets” who had been abused in their lives and she watches out for them. So much more could be done with them without making them flat characters, but it doesn’t happen in this book.

Sarah is part of a long line of women who will supposedly give birth to the savior at some point, yet her mother doesn’t bother to tell her anything until she’s dying. Sarah takes it surprisingly well. Everyone takes everything surprisingly well.

Even parts of the story are flat like this. For example, in Chapter 97, “Pilot’s Seat”, I could have summed up the entire chapter in a sentence and skipped it. I already knew exactly what was going to happen. Follow along and see if you can guess:

Peter, not long before this, studied how to fly a plane. For part of a month. They’re in the middle of an air fight. Suddenly, the plane he’s in starts diving. He knocks on the door to ask if the pilot and co-pilot are okay. No one answers. Can you write out what happens for the rest of the chapter? I bet you could and you’d probably be 99.9% accurate.

Then there are some major questions in what makes sense. For one, when it’s discovered that Sarah is going to have a boy, the doctor makes a note that the Davidson family had a pre-disposition for having girls. I don’t understand why he would make this note, though, because it’s the sperm that determines the gender of a child and the doctor would know that. Basically, Peter’s side of the family would be the one that would be looked at, not Sarah’s. The only reason the doctor makes this note is for plot convenience.

Later, they tie a man up to a bed and poison him to death. They then simply declare that when the police find him they’ll think he died of a heart attack during sex. Why would they think that? There wouldn’t be any signs of him having sex. Just taking his trunks off doesn’t mean everyone will conclude he was having sex.

Other times the good guys don’t take advantage of obvious situations. An attempt is made on Sarah’s life, but they don’t do anything to make it appear that the attempt was successful, so the bad guys find out right away that she didn’t actually die and continue trying to kill her.

There was also one particular uncomfortable moment for me:

He had also deceived quie a number of gullible, so-called, “intelligent” people into believing in global warming…

Regardless of my thoughts on the subject, when I read that line it felt like a jab at readers who believe in global warming. And:

It was not a place for the average pedophile priest or lesbian nun.

In my personal experience, the priests and nuns I know probably would not put those two things on the same level.

Even after all that there was still another major problem. The good guys were ridiculously overpowered. At one point I made this note:

Below deck, the Argo was outfitted to house 300 Templars with eating and sleeping accommodations.
Versus Regina.

Yes. 300 Templars, and on the bad guy side we’re shown Regina. I really didn’t feel like the good guys had much to contend with.

It finally sets it up towards the end that the bad guy has access to millions of people but it doesn’t feel like it throughout the story. It’s constantly Regina versus everyone. Not only that, but it readily sets up the Templars are being better trained. The Templars have more information, boundless resources, and another organization helping them. For the vast majority of the book the bad guys felt like the underdogs, not the good guys.

The books also feature protagonist-centered morality that can make the good guys seem monstrous by accident.

At one point, while people are trying to kill his pregnant wife, Peter is contacted by a business partner who tells him that there’s some trouble with him being accused of wrongdoing in Panama City. For some reason Peter decides he should go deal with this, even though they’re being pursued by people who want to kill his wife and it would be easy to locate him if he went to meet a regular business contact. Also, he and his wife have access to any amount of money they could possibly desire, so he doesn’t even need to do it.

But he goes anyway and of course gets himself and a Templar caught. Then they’re held hostage on a ship. The Templar, Hodgeson, is tortured while Peter can hear him from another room. He knows that Hodgeson is tied up in the other room. Suddenly a storm hits, and it conveniently breaks down the door so he can escape! So our hero goes to try and help Hodgeson, right?

Nope. The ship is sinking, he knows Hodgeson is tied up and has been enduring torture, and he knows he can hear him from where he was and had seen the room that Hodgeson was in, but he didn’t even think about trying to save the other man. He doesn’t even try. He hops right off the ship and leaves the torture victim tied up to sink with it, barely sparing him a passing though. Hodgeson is barely mentioned after that. Keep in mind that the only reason that Hodgeson is even there is because Peter decided to stupidly go do regular business in the middle of a life or death situation (not to mention he didn’t consider that they might spot him meeting with his business partner and then follow him back to Sarah).

This is exactly why the book has so many problems. Imagine, for a second, if we changed that scenario a bit. He goes to save Hodgeson, but the door is not just locked, it’s also strong and heavy. He tries to find a way to get him out but eventually has to come to terms with the fact that he’s unable and he has to save himself. Devastated, he leaves the man behind and blames himself for not being able to save him. Wouldn’t that have some more impact than him bounding off the ship and barely even remembered Hodgeson later?

And on top of that, he’s rescued by a fishing village later. These people are obviously poor. They don’t even have a telephone. So, after he’s gotten back to where he belongs and again has access to ridiculous amounts of money, does he ever think about these people again? Poor people who saved him, provided him with food, gave him a place to rest and even gave him transportation to where he needed to go? Nope. He got what he needed from them so they’re long forgotten.

This is protagonist-centered morality. People besides the protagonists are fodder – so much so that even the protagonist themselves don’t think much of them, and it can make them look unintentionally like horrible people. He knows someone is tied up and tortured on a boat but he only thinks of rescuing himself. He’s a super rich man taking things from very poor people and it doesn’t even cross his mind to repay them.

The plot of the bad guys was to take over the world, mainly by “stopping the prophecy” and putting in their own Pope. Now, Christianity is a major, major religion, no doubt. There are 2.2 billion Christians, out of 7.2 billion people. But if you look at that from the other side, right off the bat that means that 5 billion people don’t even follow the religion you’re taking over. Then, keep in mind, not all Christians are Catholics. So, remove half of the Christians and you’re down to 1.1 billion. Now, keep in mind: how many of them can be described as “devout”, and how many mostly go about their lives and don’t really pay much attention to the Church?

So, now you’ve nominated your own Pope. That’s nothing to shake a stick at but it’s hardly “ruling the world”. If the new Pope ordered Christians to kill people I doubt there would be very many who would listen. They’re still people with their own minds. In some places Christians have been greatly dropping in numbers these days because people have decided they don’t agree with the Church. If the Church started doing weird things that people didn’t like you can be sure that the number of followers would drop even quicker. It felt like this plan wouldn’t be quite as great as it might first appear.

In my opinion, the book needs a giant edit. It reads like a series of events, none having any particular emotional impact. “They went here, then they went there, then they…” Trying to think of something good to say about it, all I can come up with is that the general formatting was fine and the cover is nice. I give it a 2/10.

From An Alien Perspective

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

(Spoilers within)

The first story revolves around Iadog, from a sort of insect-like race. He spent time on Earth and learned about the culture, but he goes back home to his own planet where they’re extremely strict. Not following their traditions can quickly get one killed. Then his old classmate, Finnley, suddenly shows up. The race that is terrified of change doesn’t welcome him, and they demand Iadog find out why he came.

At first, I don’t know if I misread something, but I was very confused about the android and thought that Finnley had been captured WITH an android. It made a lot more sense when I realized an android had gone in place of him.

The story was very enjoyable. I liked Iadog, and even got to liking Finnley. The world is set up well and it’s easy to see why Iadog would be afraid for his well-being when Finnley pops up. It’s oppressive to the extent that he’s even spied on, and then the one in charge of him will ask about things he did when he thought he was in private.

The story is supposed to be a question whether it’s okay to change another culture. While I enjoyed the story itself a lot, ‘culture’ itself is rather low on my list of what’s important. Finnley is upset at the end that they deceived them in order to force them to change, but at the same time the previous culture was full of deceit, too. And culture is is ever-changing. What’s to say the new culture is somehow less important than the old culture? Is the culture in America in 2015 the same as America was in 1950? Would we want it to be? I sure wouldn’t.

Culture is constantly growing and changing and trying to force it to stay the same isn’t any less intrusive than forcing it to change. Anyway, those are a few of my thoughts on the topic, but it does go to show that the story brings up some interesting questions. It’s enjoyable to watch how Iadog changes and his people change. But, even with my feelings on culture, I do feel bad for Iadog. It’s likely he’s not meant to be a leader, and clear that after he makes a wonderful start he’s not necessarily happy in the role. He does a lot of great things to help his people, but it’s clear it will take a toll on him, and I can understand why his friend, Finnley, would be upset by that. (On the other hand, Iadog probably would have just died otherwise).

The second story was essentially about a little ball from another dimension coming to destroy the people of our world. By chance, a farmer accidentally captures him. She then talks to the Sphere that is hellbent on her destruction for awhile and, as it turns out, the life cycle for it is only about a day. As time passes it quickly goes from a young warrior to a senile, old creature. This tale was pretty funny, with the old Sphere still insisting on how dangerous it was as it became weaker and weaker. It was also a bit sad, and understandable why she felt bad for the creature even though it spent the entire time essentially threatening her.

The third might have been the weakest. A farmer has hired a prostitute, or ‘helper’, who has lived with him for two years. Then he goes bankrupt and she gets repossessed. When he sees her again he decides that he’s in love with her, and goes as far as to murder the man who currently has a contract with her. It’s all right, and I like the way it ends. The ending makes sense after his insane actions, and I actually really liked her. She was in a tough spot and trying to survive, but she wasn’t falling in love with the people who paid for her. She probably didn’t even like them, and it makes sense for her not to.

There were some errors in this book, and in the copy I had the formatting was messed up.

Iadog looked both ways down the corridor to ensure that no one had heard the use an English word…

…and Iadog had mad a sincere effort.

The stories are very enjoyable but they do need editing. I’m rating more on how much I liked it despite the errors. So I give it a 9/10. It’s a fun book, check it out if you like science fiction.

Einstein’s Beach House

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

(Spoilers within)

This short collection of stories is a lot darker than it sounds in the summary. Though the overall setups can be on the ridiculous side, they were really more morbid than funny. For example, one of the setups is that a girl is visiting hospitals with her dad, and the people he’s ‘treating’ are dying shortly after. Another has a woman with a pet hedgehog who becomes obsessed with caring for the hedgehog, driving her lover over the edge as she screams at him for every perceived slight against the hedgehog (for example, when they discover light might be upsetting the hedgehog, she screams at him when he opened the refridgerator because it has a light inside of it). While the basic setps of “depressed hedgehog” or “a custody dispute over a turtle” sound ludicrous, they’re played straight with exes holding onto pets just for petty revenge or someone having a mental breakdown. Some people might find this material uncomfortable because a lot of it involves the breakdown of someone’s life, sometimes losing everything they have.

Another story involves a girl whose stepfather killed her mother, and shows her growing up with very obvious problems until finally, in the end, she’s she’s grown and obviously still suffering. She’s taken advantage of and sexually exploited from the time she’s young. If this is something that would be a sensitive topic for you, then you shouldn’t read this book. I would say the stories are far more on the heartbreaking side than hilarious side, despite how they sound summarized.

With that said, the author is pretty good at setting up a scenario in a short amount of time. The stories usually focus on two people and sets up a conflict quickly – for example, a couple of them revolve around someone having a pet, and one partner is far more interested in the welfare of the pet than the other.

The writing is pretty good and it’s easy to get into the stories.

There were a few parts that needed some corrections.

Lizzie bargained mutely with a god she didn’t actually believe in, offering up all aspects of model citizenship if the sex offender didn’t open the door…
…Yet, a second later, Lizzie’s prayers were answered by a chorus of multiple deadbolts unlocking.

It read funny to me because that would be her prayers not getting answered. Perhaps the story was being sarcastic, but it didn’t come through for me when I read it. I immediately looked back up to the previous sentence to make sure I had read it right.

She seems less chatty than unusual…

There weren’t a lot of spots like that, just a couple. The stories had pretty good starts and middles, but a few felt like they didn’t have an end. They just sort of stopped. Almost like the author had an idea, but then didn’t know how to tie it up. The first two I thought were suddenly over when I was expecting more.

I felt like “The Rod of Asclepius” was one of the most solid overall. “Paracosmos” definitely had me wondering what was true or not, though I had a feeling that the mother shared the same illness as the daughter.

Some of these ideas could have been expanded pretty easily, and a few felt like they should have been. But, my main complaints were that I wanted more from some and a few didn’t have solid endings. Other than that, I see a lot of talent in this author. Descriptions were good, it was easy enough to get into the stories, and most of the situations were understandable even when they were extreme. If some quick glimpses into the lives of people as they’re pushed to their limits sounds interesting to you, then take a look at it.

I give it an 8/10.

Almost Lost Hope: From Struggles to Triumph

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

(Spoilers within)

I’m perplexed why this book was given to me to review, since I said I don’t intend to review religious literature. It’s an autobiography, but very much focused on God and constantly talks about his religious beliefs.

That’s not to say I have anything against religious people. If you were to ask me if I could trust someone based on only knowing their occupation, something like “nun” or “monk” would be at the top of my list. But the author comes to conclusions that I don’t necessarily agree with, and it’s definitely a book that preaches.

As far as reading it, it flowed pretty quickly and was easy to read but it felt like English might not have been the author’s first language.

“One very day…”

Even her family took sides with her and forced at me.

There were odd word choices as well as some misspellings, and times where the author spelled something one way on one page and another way on the next.

I do have a feeling that other people would give very different accounts of some of the times he described. However, I’m not really here to judge or argue so much, just to talk about whether a book was enjoyable or not. It was all right. It’s not the type of book I would seek out – I’m still confused why this was sent to me. It was very quick, it’s not a long book. It wasn’t difficult to read despite oddly chosen words and such.

If ‘inspirational stories’ are something that you’re interested in, I’d say “it’s okay”. It’s not something that left an impression on me, but I’m far from the target audience.

I’d give it about a 5/10.