Tag: Magic

Books

Book 181: The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus #3) – Rick Riordan

Geoff W

I can’t wait for the next in this series to come out!

When it does, I’m going to re-read the first three all over again because there were so many details I only vaguely recalled AND their just fun reads! (Although this might not happen as The House of Hades‘ scheduled publication is August 2013, but I hope to get the chance!)

From what I do recall from the first two books, this is definitely more action packed and definitely not lacking. However, in the end it was just as much a tease as the others. For the entire book I held out hope that some of the major plot lines of the series would be wrapped up, but only one of them was (which was definitely nice). I was, however, very glad that the seven demigods from the prophecy were finally together and the teen angst in the book definitely added to the plot (although I’ve yet to read an author who does teen angst as well as J.K. Rowling).

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ARC, Books

Book 173: The Reluctant Assassin (W.A.R.P. #1) – Eoin Colfer

Geoff W

What a great way to start a new series!

I received a digital galley of The Reluctant Assassin from NetGalley and this is my honest review and I received no form of compensation. (Clearly, who would pay for my ramblings, but thank you to whoever approved it, I’m not sure I should have been approved because of the reader preferences on the publisher’s page!)

Although the story starts off slow, I feel this is a great beginning to a new series! I didn’t have an issue with the slowness in this story, but it was the one detraction. As with any first novel introducing new characters and concepts, there will be some pacing difficulties. How much action should there be? How much back story do you reveal? There were a few times where it seemed Colfer struggled, but it wasn’t enough to deter me, because the story is sound and engaging and the cast of characters are definitely interesting and keep you on your toes!

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Books

Book 161: The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien

Geoff W

[Check out my 2014 updated review when I re-read it as part of my 30×30 project.]

What is there to say about this wonderful book that hasn’t already been said in some way or some form? Not much honestly, so this isn’t much of a review. It’s more a response/regurgitation of my immediate thoughts having finished reading it Wednesday evening.

I’m glad I squeezed in a re-read of The Hobbit this year for a couple of reasons: it’s the 75th anniversary of its original publication; I haven’t re-read it since high school; the first of the films comes out this year; and there was an awesome panel at the 2012 Boston Book Festival about the book, the movie, the previous adaptations and the associated artwork.

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2012 Challenges, Books, The Classics Club

Book 155: The House of the Seven Gables – Nathaniel Hawthorne

Geoff W

Very long review short: I didn’t like this book. At only 158 pages it still took me a full week to read this book and for me that’s AGES. However, this book is my next-to-last book of my 2012 Mount TBR Reading Challenge (24 of 25) and my 14th book for The Classics Club! So at least it wasn’t a total waste. Plus, one quirky thing is they spelled clue ‘clew’ apparently. So strange.

So why, you ask, did I not like this book? First off I fell asleep every time I started to read it. Seriously. I nodded off on the bus, on the subway and even started to nod off during lunch one day, but the big wake-up point (pun intended) was when I started to nod off making dinner one night in a rather uncomfortable kitchen chair and lots of noise around me. So that should REALLY tell you something. However, the worst thing is, is that it’s not a bad book. The story has a lot of potential and the characters were pretty memorable, but the writing was just a bit too detailed or down-trodden or something.

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Books

Book 150: The Enchantress – Michael Scott

Geoff W

[Check out my 2016 re-read here.]

Now THIS is how you end a series. Although I’m definitely sad about quite a few things, it took until the final ten pages for me to find out what was going to happen. And when I realized I scared the dogs because I yelled out ‘NO WAY!’ in excitement and wonder and then jumped up and paced while I read the last few pages.

After the lackluster ending to the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer, I wasn’t sure I wanted to read the last book of Michael Scott’s The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, but I am glad I did. Although I didn’t appreciate it as much as I should have (it’s been over a year since I read book 5), it was definitely an awesome ending! I think I’m going to have to purchase copies of the series and re-read them next year. Good thing work got me a $100 gift certificate to a local book store and I recently purchased to Groupons/Google Local coupons for a total of $50 (I only paid $25) for two local used book stores 😀

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