Tag: Action & Adventure

Books

Book 458: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany and Jack Thorne

Geoff W

I’m glad I waited until after a lot of the hype died down and that I didn’t come across any spoilers, in the time that it took me to get to read this one. I also haven’t read any other reviews so I’m not sure what other people think about it. (I have plenty stored on my reader though.)

It’s fairly simple for me though, it was pretty much just a meh for me. I’ll read it again because I loved having the opportunity to dive back into Harry Potter’s world, but if I’m honest there are better works on Pottermore.

I think a large part of this has to do with this being a script and not a novel. The other part of it is that I think there might have been too many “cooks in the kitchen.”

Continue reading “Book 458: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany and Jack Thorne” →

Books

Book 454: The Book of Life (All Souls Trilogy #3) – Deborah Harkness

Geoff W

Where do I begin with this?

It’s very rare that a series starts off and continues to pick up steam the entire way through. In my previous experience, there is usually a middle-book slump. In the case of Deborah Harkness’ All Souls Trilogy the middle book of the trilogy, Shadow of Night, was the stand out, followed closely by The Book of Life and in a distant third, the trilogy opener A Discovery of Witches.

This could be because the entire series takes place over about a year (give or take a few months because of time travel), but more than likely I think it has to do with the amount of action continuously increasing as the series moved forward. This wasn’t necessarily a good thing as I’ll talk about below, but that’s my conjecture. Continue reading “Book 454: The Book of Life (All Souls Trilogy #3) – Deborah Harkness” →

Books

Book 453: Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy #2) – Deborah Harkness

Geoff W

Picking up where A Discovery of Witches leaves off we are right back in the story of Diana and Matthew! It’s hard to hide spoilers, especially the one at the end of the first book because it sets up the entire second book, so if you plan on reading the series skip my response!

I shouldn’t be as surprised as I am, but I am a little surprised at how much I enjoyed book two of the All Souls Trilogy. For everything that was missing in book one, Harkness made a great effort to bring it back to this book. She reined in the over descriptions, she brought a little more sass to her characters, and she wrote 16th century Europe wonderfully. Continue reading “Book 453: Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy #2) – Deborah Harkness” →

Books

Book 447: The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #6) – Michael Scott

Geoff W

As with The Warlock, I wish I had as much enthusiasm and glowing things to say about this book as I did the first time I read The Enchantress in 2012. I picked up this copy way back in 2013 and it’s sat on my shelf since then. I’m glad I’ve re-read them so I can clear up the shelf space now. (I didn’t even technically read it this time as I checked out digital copies from the library to take to China to save space :-D)

It is still a great read and an amazing conclusion to the series, but it’s just not as full of impact or as powerful as I remember it being. This is because of the big reveals in The Warlock that I wrote about at the end and how that reveal is then discussed and explained (and even sort of thrown away) in this book. For me, it’s the reveal I talk about in the next paragraph that made the re-read so hard. It’s one of those things, similar to an unreliable narrator, that is just a major turn off for me when it comes to a book.

Continue reading “Book 447: The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #6) – Michael Scott” →

Books

Book 446: The Warlock (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #5) – Michael Scott

Geoff W

Now that we’re to the final two books in the series, I have something to refer back to. As I mentioned when I responded to The Alchemyst, I’ve previously responded to The Warlock and The Enchantress. The Warlock was Book 49! That’s almost 400 books ago in the life of this blog. WHOA.

All I have to say, upon re-reading my response, is wow what naivety! What youth! What excitement! I’m clearly a bit more jaded on this re-read and I did NOT re-read every book again before each book was released, but I do still agree with the fact that the books were a bit thin on subject matter even though they took place over only a matter of days. There’s things missing that I think would’ve been great to include and there are things included (multiple times in some cases) that I was not interested in.

Continue reading “Book 446: The Warlock (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #5) – Michael Scott” →