Tag: 3 stars

Book Review: Soulmates by Holly Bourne

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16099393Soulmates by Holly Bourne

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance

Publishing Info: 2013 by Usbourne (kindle edition)

Pages: 548

Star Rating: 3/5

Back Cover Summary:

Every so often, two people are born who are the perfect match for each other. Soulmates. But while the odds of this happening are about as likely as being struck by lightning, when these people do meet and fall in love, thunderstorms, lightning strikes and lashings of rain are only the beginning of their problems. After a chance meeting at a local band night, Poppy and Noah find themselves swept up in a whirlwind romance unlike anything they’ve ever experienced before. But with a secret international agency preparing to separate them and a trail of destruction rumbling in their wake, they are left with an impossible choice between the end of the world, or a life without love…

 

This book takes the popular cliché of soulmates and puts an interesting spin on it. It was interesting to see a different side to the idea, but although the concept was good, the story was a little weak. One thing I did like was that it was set in the UK, as most YA books are set in the US. This made a nice change for me since I’m from the UK.

It was very slow in places and fairly predictable. There were points where I found myself getting bored but decided to persist to find out what would happen in the end. Some scenes dragged too much. A lot of the book was orientated towards building the characters and showing their relationships to each other, which was done well, but there was just too much of it. The characters were likeable and well rounded, but the lack of plot and conflict dragged the book down.

The last quarter picked up the pace but then it lost me again with such long explanations about the science behind soulmates. It wasn’t that it was overly scientific, Bourne did a good job of explaining it, but it was just too drawn out for me and my interest dwindled. The emotions were written very well in the last section of the book, and it was heart wrenching to read at times. The ending was one of the strongest parts for me. It didn’t fall into the formula of typical endings and provided a sad, but more realistic, ending than many books.

I didn’t dislike it, but it’s just one of those books that isn’t very memorable.

Book Review: The Female Man by Joanna Russ

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The Female Man by Joanna Russ

Genre: Science Fiction

Publishing Info: 2010 by Gollancz (first published 1975)

Pages: 207

Star Rating: 3/5

Back Cover Summary:

Living in an altered past that never saw the end of the Great Depression, Jeannine, a librarian, is waiting to be married. Joanna lives in a different version of reality: she’s a 1970s feminist trying to succeed in a man’s world. Janet is from Whileaway, a utopian earth where only women exist. And Jael is a warrior with steel teeth and catlike retractable claws, from an earth with separate-and warring-female and male societies. When these four women meet, the results are startling, outrageous, and subversive.

The idea for this book is brilliant, but I was too confused all the way through to be able to really enjoy it. I liked the concept of exploring the restricted lives of women through parallel universes. What’s amazing to me is that this book was published in 1975, and some of the issues women face in the book are still around today.

It’s very imaginative and the parallel worlds are unique and captured my attention. The world building is creative for the two parallel worlds that are vastly different from Earth. Whileaway is clear, but the two worlds that are very similar to our Earth were a bit confusing. I wasn’t really sure at all times exactly which version of Earth they were on. There are some really vivid images throughout the book, so that I could imagine these unusual alternative universes.

From the start I was confused. I couldn’t figure out who the first person narrator was. At some points I thought it might have changed to another character but I didn’t really have a clue. It also doesn’t help that all four characters have names beginning with J, though that is because they are parallel versions of the same person, it just added to the confusion.

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Film Review: Passengers

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Film Review: Passengers

Release Date: 21st December 2016

Director: Morten Tyldum

Starring: Chris Pratt, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Sheen

Runtime: 116 minutes

Genre: Science-Fiction, Romance, Drama

Watched in: 2D

Rating: 3/5 stars

On a long journey to another planet, everyone on board is in stasis. Jim and Aurora wake up 90 years early, without the ability to contact anyone for help or return to sleep. They’re stuck with nowhere to go and only each other for company – besides the android barman played by Michael Sheen.

It wasn’t what I was expecting. Not in the good way as in it surprised me. As in, it was advertised in a way that made it seem like a different kind of film to what it actually was. The trailer and description makes it sound like a sci-fi action thriller flick with romance. When in fact it’s a romantic drama in a science-fiction setting, with a dash of action at the end. I liked the concept – two passengers wake up 90 years too early on a spaceship destined for a new planet. This is the base of the film and has a lot of potential as an idea. However, I wasn’t sure about the direction in which they took the film.

The digital effects are great with a creative design for the ship. Although the story is limited to this one space, and there were very few characters. The acting was good and Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence gel really well together. I liked that the film dealt with the psychological effects of being isolated on the ship, especially in the beginning of the film.

I went in expecting an action science-fiction thriller, which isn’t what I got. So it was disappointing from that point of view because I spent a lot of the film confused about how it could have been advertised as being so different to what it was. As a romantic drama set in space, it was good. There were some twists and turns. It was good and I enjoyed it but it had a lot of potential to be better. It’s a film that doesn’t know what it’s trying to be – it’s stuck between being a thought-provoking drama about serious moral issues, a romance, and a science-fiction action film.

Book Review: Infected by Tara Ellis

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Infected by Tara Ellis  

Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction

Publishing Info: Self-published May 2016 (first published 2013)

Pages: 241

Star Rating: 3/5

Back Cover Summary:

An alien plague. A sixteen-year-old girl. A fight to save the world.

When a rare meteor shower unleashes a mind-altering infection, the people Alex loves begin to change. They’re smarter, faster, emotionless, and they have a plan. One that doesn’t include her.

Guided by cryptic clues left behind by her deceased father, Alex follows a trail of increasingly shocking discoveries. Earth’s history isn’t what she learned in school, and a new hive mind threatens to rewrite the future.

Alex is a fighter, but pursued by both friends and an unknown enemy, it will take everything she has to fulfill her destiny. Desperate to save her little brother, she flees to the mountains surrounding her home, where the only chance for humanity has lain hidden for thousands of years

Infected, The Shiners is book one in the Forgotten Origins Trilogy.

I read this as part of a book club. Although I wasn’t sure about it at the beginning, it got much better as it went on. The start has far too much info dumping about Alex’s past which took me out of the present story and made me lose interest. I got pretty bored of all the recap about her life. If it hadn’t been for the book club, that really would have put me off and I might not have carried on reading. Fortunately, I did carry on and things picked up. The first half was quite slow but I was intrigued, especially when it started getting creepy. The latter half of the book is much faster and I finished it quite quickly once I got to that point as the pace was full on. Although I like that it got really intense and fast paced, I think the first half could have been paced better so there wasn’t such a dramatic shift.

There’s not much I can say about the plot without giving away spoilers! It reminded me of a strange mix of The Host, National Treasure and Indiana Jones. I liked the mystery and adventure element – I do love a good hidden clue. There isn’t really an explanation for the infection and how or why it came to Earth in a meteor shower, but I’m guessing that’s something that will be dealt with more in the next books in the series. The middle section was particularly creepy once people started changing as a result of the infection, and the author did this suspenseful aspect really well.

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Book Review: The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

M.T.Wilson @ The Last Book on the Left5 Comments

The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance, Retellings

Publishing Info: April 2016 by G. P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers (first published May 2015)

Pages: 416

Star Rating: 3/5

Back Cover Summary:

One Life to One Dawn.

In a land ruled by a murderous boy-king, each dawn brings heartache to a new family. Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, is a monster. Each night he takes a new bride only to have a silk cord wrapped around her throat come morning. When sixteen-year-old Shahrzad’s dearest friend falls victim to Khalid, Shahrzad vows vengeance and volunteers to be his next bride. Shahrzad is determined not only to stay alive, but to end the caliph’s reign of terror once and for all.

Night after night, Shahrzad beguiles Khalid, weaving stories that enchant, ensuring her survival, though she knows each dawn could be her last. But something she never expected begins to happen: Khalid is nothing like what she’d imagined him to be. This monster is a boy with a tormented heart. Incredibly, Shahrzad finds herself falling in love. How is this possible? It’s an unforgivable betrayal. Still, Shahrzad has come to understand all is not as it seems in this palace of marble and stone. She resolves to uncover whatever secrets lurk and, despite her love, be ready to take Khalid’s life as retribution for the many lives he’s stolen. Can their love survive this world of stories and secrets?

Inspired by A Thousand and One Nights, The Wrath and the Dawn is a sumptuous and enthralling read from beginning to end.

At the start, I wasn’t very keen on this book. I had problems with it in the first few pages. As it went on and I got to know the characters it grew on me. Although I wasn’t completely gripped, I did want to know what was going to happen. By the end I liked it, but didn’t love it.

At the beginning of the book it feels like being dumped in the middle of the story. I guess I liked that it got straight to the point and didn’t dawdle with stretched out set-up, but this also meant that I didn’t get a chance to know the characters before they were thrown in at the deep end. The first time we see Shazi is in the palace, and there are hardly any thoughts and emotions from her for the reader to be able to get to know her before things get going. All the characters felt bland in the first couple of chapters. I didn’t care about any of them, and maybe that’s because the reader isn’t given a chance to get to know them before stuff starts happening.

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Book Review: Winter Rose by Patricia A. McKillip

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Winter Rose by Patricia A. McKillip

Genre: Fantasy

Publishing Info: November 2002 by Time Warner Books UK (first published 1996)

Pages: 264

Star Rating: 3/5

Back Cover Summary:

Rois is obsessed with Corbett Lynn. His pale green eyes fill her thoughts and her dreams are consumed by tales of his family’s dark past. Of son’s murdering fathers, of homes fallen to ruin, and of a curse that, as winter draws in, is crawling from the frozen forest to engulf them all.

Winter Rose is a retelling of the Scottish Tam Lin legend/ballad by my favourite author, Patricia A. McKillip. I didn’t know anything about this origin before I begun reading, but afterwards did some research and the book retells the story but with some major differences to the original story. Well, wouldn’t be any point in retelling it the same would it? Fairy tale retellings seem to be quite popular at the moment.

As usual, McKillip’s poetic prose is enchanting. Her use of language and descriptions always captivate me and capture my imagination. At times though, things were too vague and ambiguous, leaving me confused in places and reading passages again to make sure I’d understood what was happening.

The plot is good but dragged on. I wasn’t hooked. I think the book would have been better if it were shorter as, really, only a few things happen. If it had been more condensed it would have pulled me in more to keep me reading as there was too much dilly dallying to keep my interest. There were some unexpected twists and turns which surprised me though, and some aspects went against my expectation, so it was refreshing to see something different for the ‘romance’ element of the book. However, things are alluded to (well, more than alluded, more like stated as fact) which will happen, as if the narrator is looking back on these events, but then that doesn’t happen, and I found that frustrating and confusing. I’m being rather vague because this issue revolves around a large plot point which I don’t want to spoil.

The characters were good and well fleshed out and I liked the small village setting. It made it feel like they were isolated from everything else, which tied in well with the fantastical goings-on.

It was a good book, but nothing remarkable, and not as good as the other books my McKillip I have read. I’m certainly looking forward to reading more of her books, there’s a long queue of them on my shelf waiting to be read.

Film Review: Me Before You

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Film Review: Me Before You

Release date: 3rd June 2016

Director: Thea Sharrock

Starring: Emilia Clarke, Sam Claflin, Janet McTeer, Charles Dance, Matthew Lewis, Jenna Coleman

Runtime: 110 minutes

Genre: Drama, Romance

Watched in: 2D

Rating: 3/5 stars

Me Before You, adapted from Jojo Moyes bestselling novel, follows Louisa ‘Lou’ Clark as, desperate for a job, she takes on the role of carer for the paraplegic Will. It’s a romantic drama, with some comedic moments and some teary-eyed-tissue-grabbing moments. I haven’t read the book, but the script was adapted from the book by Jojo herself and would suggest the film is similar to the book (but not necessarily). There has been some controversy over the representation of disability and assisted suicide in the film. I’m not going to dwell on this too much and focus on what I thought of the film and don’t want to spoil what happens through talking about it, but it is a very important discussion. I do feel it could have dealt with the issue with disability better, having a more balanced view about disabled life and assisted suicide, which may have given the film more depth and substance. I can understand why many people are angry with how it is portrayed in the film.

It was an okay film. That really is the perfect word to describe it, and why I gave it a three star rating. It wasn’t exactly bad, but it wasn’t great either. To start it was quite slow and afterwards looking back at it, not much happened really.

The acting was great. There wasn’t a weak performance from any of the main cast. Emilia was excellent as the bubbly and eccentric Lou and I found the character incredibly likeable. They did a very good job with what they had to work with. This could have been a really great film if what they’d had to work with had been better.

There were plenty of people laughing and crying during the film. I found myself genuinely laughing at some very amusing moments, and also crying a little at the end (but I cry at lots of films so that’s not much of an indicator of its tear-inducing capabilities). There is some issue with bringing a serious and sensitive topic like this and putting it into the setting of a rom-com.

I will return to the word I used earlier: okay. I’m glad I went to see it, but I won’t be rushing out to buy the DVD. It has been surrounded by controversy about its representations of disability, but perhaps this will mean people will be more aware about the sensitivities of the topic and the importance of how these topics are portrayed.

Book Review: The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi

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The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi

Genre: General Fiction, Contemporary

Publishing Info: January 2009 by Faber and Faber (first published 1990)

Pages: 288

Star Rating: 3/5

Back Cover Summary:

The hero of Hanif Kureishi’s first novel is Karim, a dreamy teenager, desperate to escape suburban South London and experience the forbidden fruits which the 1970s seem to offer. When the unlikely opportunity of a life in the theatre announces itself, Karim starts to win the sort of attention he has been craving – albeit with some rude and raucous results.

The Buddha of Suburbia is one of those books I neither love nor hate, hence the middling three star rating. It was an easy read that explores themes of identity, gender, belonging and racism. It didn’t take me long to finish it as it is a short book. It isn’t slow and doesn’t drag too much which probably makes it more palatable.

The characters are painted quite vividly, which is one of the best aspects of the novel. I found I had a clear picture of the appearances and personalities of Karim’s family and friends as we pick them up along the course of the novel. This is a coming-of-age story in which Karim takes a path to find what he wants to do with his life. He spends a lot of time floating around between the houses of his family, sleeping here and there, but not seeming grounded. Is he grounded by the end of the novel? I’m not sure. It seems that at the end he is on the way to this place, but maybe hasn’t quite reached it.

The book is supposedly a comedy. The cover is littered with quotes by authors and newspapers saying how funny it is. But obviously I just didn’t get it. There were some slightly amusing moments, hardly able to even lift a humoured smile to my face, and I certainly wasn’t laughing. Maybe I just didn’t get this kind of humour. It was at times rather odd. There are some strange people and some strange goings-on in this book. Maybe I didn’t get the 70’s references?

Overall, the word to sum it up is average. I didn’t think it was anything particularly amazing but it wasn’t exactly bad either.

Book Review: The Death Cure by James Dashner

M.T.Wilson @ The Last Book on the Left1 Comment

The Death Cure by James Dashner

Genre: Young Adult, Dystopia, Science-Fiction

Publishing Info: 2013 by Chicken House (first published 2011)

Pages: 327

Star Rating: 3/5

Back Cover Summary:

Thomas knows that Wicked can’t be trusted, but they say the time for lies is over, that they’ve collected all they can from the Trials and now must rely on the Gladers, with full memories restored, to help them with their ultimate mission. It’s up to the Gladers to complete the blueprint for the cure to the Flare with a final voluntary test.

What Wicked doesn’t know is that something’s happened that no Trial or Variable could have foreseen. Thomas has remembered far more than they think. And he knows that he can’t believe a word of what Wicked says.

The time for lies is over. But the truth is more dangerous than Thomas could ever imagine.
Will anyone survive the Death Cure?

The Death Cure is the third and final book in the Maze Runner series. Although I persevered with the series, it has never really blown me away or done anything particularly different or interesting. At times the plot and purpose of the books seems to make little sense. Most of what kept me motivated to keep on reading was hoping to find an explanation for everything. Thankfully, most things were explained in this final book, but in some ways I was still left feeling confused.

I found myself caring for the characters more in this book, which is an improvement. It’s taken three books for Dashner to properly flesh out his characters and actually make me like and care about them. There weren’t many new characters in this book, but the ones that were new were nothing interesting or different.

The plot was okay but I found myself a bit bored in the first half of the book, wanting them to just get on with things. In the second book the Gladers went out into one aspect of the real world – the Scorch – but in this book they go to one of the remaining cities which was interesting to see. It provided a different setting and finally showed me what the situation in the real world was like, something which we didn’t have much conception of in the first and second books.

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Film Review: Spectre

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Release date: 26th October 2015

Director: Sam Mendes

Starring: Daniel Craig, Ralph Fiennes, Christoph Waltz, Lea Seydoux, Ben Whishaw, Naomi Harris

Runtime: 148 minutes

Genre: Action

Watched in: 2D

Rating: 3/5 stars

Usually at the beginning of my film reviews I provide a quick synopsis of what the film is about. In this case, I’m not really sure what to say. It’s your typical Bond affair really.

For all the hype surrounding this film I found it disappointing. The opening sequence in Mexico was the best bit, but it went downhill from there. I was expecting the tension/suspense and excitement to build but the whole thing just stayed very flat. I’m not saying this was a bad film, it was good, but I didn’t exactly come out saying ‘oh wow that was great!’.

I’m not a fan of the theme for this film – Sam Smith’s ‘Writings on the Wall’. It lacked the same oomph and impact a James Bond theme usually does. It wasn’t exactly a stand out tune and not at all memorable.

The plot was okay but nothing new, just the same old stuff really. The one thing I did very much like about the plot is how they tied it to the previous Daniel Craig films, linking them all together. I thought that was clever and liked that aspect of it. There were a lot of allusions and nods to older Bond films which was a nice touch. There were also moments of greatness glimmering through and moments of humour that were good.

Some of the acting was better than others. Ben Whishaw as Q was great and Lea Seydoux was also quite good. I’ve not been the biggest fan of Daniel Craig as James Bond so maybe that didn’t help my impressions of the film. The writing wasn’t as strong as it could be. It felt like the script needed more work before they started filming.

Overall for me it just fell short and I’m not sure why. It just didn’t have the same ‘wow’ factor or impact that Skyfall had. It’s almost like they were trying too hard to make it better than Skyfall and it didn’t come off as well, at least in my opinion anyway. I didn’t feel excited, I wasn’t on the edge of my seat. This one just didn’t come together for me I’m afraid.