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Book Review: The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake (The Atlas, #1)

Book Review: The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake (The Atlas, #1)

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The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

Rating: 2 out of 5

Published: 3rd March 2022 (Tor)

What would you do if someone offered you knowledge? Power? The potential to be part of a secret society tasked with looking after the hidden (not lost) Library of Alexandria? I know what you’d say, because’s precisely the reason I picked up the book. Power, I could take or leave, but the books? Those I could never resist. And it is a good hook. Except… everything was promised and nothing delivered.

…

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Book Review: The Fell Sword (The Traitor Son Cycle, #2) by Miles Cameron

Book Review: The Fell Sword (The Traitor Son Cycle, #2) by Miles Cameron

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I have a Booktube channel now! Subscribe here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRjh…

Cover Illustration by: Kerem Beyit

The Fell Sword by Miles Cameron

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Series: The Traitor Son Cycle (Book #2 of 5)

Genre: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy

Pages: 717 pages (UK paperback)

Published: 30th January 2014 by Gollancz (UK) & 11th March 2014 by Orbit (US)

Now that I’ve finished Fell Sword, it is with heartache that I’m going to admit that this series isn’t for me. …

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Book Review: Wanderers by Chuck Wendig

Book Review: Wanderers by Chuck Wendig

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Wanderers by Chuck Wendig
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I really want to like this book. I tried so hard. But I just ended up actively disliking it, which makes me sad.

Wendig bit off something really vast with this novel, and he actually executed it very well. It’s been billed as an epic saga, and that’s a fair description. Wanderers is as large in scope as the novel it is most commonly compared to, Stephen King’s The Stand, and mirrors the novel in other ways, specifically in its inclusion of an apocalyptic epidemic, its varied cast of characters, and its cross country journey on foot. However, Wanderers was far more hopeless, to the point of nihilism. The elements that should have been hopeful ended up being among the darkest and most disturbing. Don’t get me wrong; there were moments of loveliness. But overall it ended up leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth. I also deeply hated the ending, and that further impacted my view of the book. …

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The Monster of Elendhaven

The Monster of Elendhaven

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ARC provided by the publisher—Tor.com—in exchange for an honest review.

The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Giesbrecht
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This starts out promising but overall it’s really just not for me.

The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Giesbrecht is a debut that I’ve heard great things about. It’s been advertised as a compelling dark fantasy about revenge, murder, and magician. For what its worth, it did started out that way; strongly atmospheric and dark. However, once the romance started, I found that the twisted relationship and unrealistic progression in their romance (though, maybe that’s kinda the point of the relationship) that constantly hangs in a weird status throughout the book became more of the main focus than everything else. …

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The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time, #4)

The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time, #4)

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The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I give up. Here’s where I say goodbye to The Wheel of Time.

The Shadow Rising is the fourth book in The Wheel of Time series, it’s been claimed by many fans of the series that installment is one of the better books—some even said it’s THE best–written by Robert Jordan before Brandon Sanderson takes over. I personally found this book to be the worst in the series so far.

Just like the extremely repetitive nature of the series, the only way I can explain why I found myself incredibly disappointed is, again, by repeating the cons that I’ve mentioned in my review of the previous three books. What I mean by this is that the story starts awesome, became extremely boring, and then a great conclusion again. Seriously, I read through the first 25% in a day, then it took me six days—with skimming Perrin’s story—to finish the remaining content. I won’t lie that a ridiculous amount of determination was self-forced on me in order for me to able to finish this. …

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Rosemary’s Baby

Rosemary’s Baby

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Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Thanks, Mr. Levin. I hate it.

I had so many problems with this book. Because I feel the need to vent about said problems, there will be an abundance of spoilers in the review below. I’ll try to keep things as vague as possible, but yeah. Spoilers. If you’re unfamiliar with the story and have any desire to read it without prior knowledge, please skip reading this review.

You have been warned. …

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A Hero Born (Legends of the Condors Heroes, #1)

A Hero Born (Legends of the Condors Heroes, #1)

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ARC provided by the publisher—St. Martin’s Press—in exchange for an honest review.

A Hero Born by Jin Yong
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A Hero Born is the start to Jin Yong’s highly praised classic series but a lot of the promising quality of the book seems to get lost in translation.

I’m genuinely sad with my ratings for this one, but I have to be honest that I have mixed feelings towards this novel. When I was around 5 years old, I used to watch The Legends of the Condor Heroes a lot with my parents. When I missed an episode, my parents would tell me the story in detail; teaching me the meaning behind the actions of each character. This series, even though I’ve never read it until now, has a spot of nostalgia for me. That being said, it’s been more than 20 years and I honestly remember extremely little about it. What I do remember is that the story eventually grew significantly larger in scope and complexity than the coming-of-age tale we have in A Hero Born. I’ll divide this review strictly into what worked and what didn’t; let’s start with the parts that worked first. …

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A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, #5)

A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire, #5)

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A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A Dance with Disappointments.

I really thought A Feast for Crows would’ve been the lowest point of the main series. I was wrong because this book didn’t show any sign of improvement. In fact, I thought this was even worse due to the boring setting and unnecessary length of this tome. If it weren’t obvious before, this book displayed Martin’s struggle with writing his main series even more. Realistically speaking, due to the direction of the story in this book, I’m quite confident that A Song of Ice and Fire most likely will never be completed.

“Winter is coming, Jon reflected. And soon, too soon. He wondered if they would ever see a spring.”

Me too, Jon Snow. Me too. I do believe that we’ll get The Winds of Winter eventually, but the planned final book of the series, A Dream of Spring, is indeed a dream. …

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Beren and Luthien

Beren and Luthien

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Beren and Luthien by J.R.R. Tolkien
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Unlike The Children of Hurin, unless you’re a lover of poetry or you’re a diehard Tolkien fans, I doubt the overall content of this book will be enjoyable to read.

The Children of Hurin has a novel format with a standalone story. The novel begins with a preface from Christopher Tolkien, then the story starts and continues until the end without break in prose form. It’s pretty much a standard standalone fantasy novel format with a self-contained story that can be read and enjoyed by anyone who loves fantasy novel. Beren and Luthien isn’t like The Children of Hurin. Although I’m super happy that I approached The Children of Hurin without knowing anything about it and ended up loving it, I wish I have known about the overall content of Beren and Luthien before I bought it; because I wouldn’t have bought it. …

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Two Serpents Rise (Craft Sequence, #2)

Two Serpents Rise (Craft Sequence, #2)

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Two Serpents Rise by Max Gladstone
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Two Serpents Rise was a huge downgrade from Three Parts Dead.

Two Serpents Rise is the second book in Max Gladstone’s Craft Sequence series but chronologically, this takes place before the event of the first book; look at the number in the title of each book, that’s the chronological order of the story line. Because Craft Sequence is a standalone series, almost every book featured different main characters and story in a different locale. …

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