Friday, July 28, 2017

Book Review: The Last Flag by Wren Cavanagh

The Last FlagThe Last Flag by Wren Cavanagh
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I read The Last Flag a few months back (thank you to the author for sending it my way). I waited a while to post the review because I wasn't sure how many stars I wanted to give it. The premise of the book is fine. It's about a zombie infested town that they fence off and then they host a game show where people race through the town trying to avoid zombies and collect flags. I read that and thought to myself, ok this could be interesting. I have to say I wasn't really impressed...

The plot was ok. There wasn't a ton of back story on the zombies, the characters weren't developed real well, and the flow of the story was just kind of all over the place. These were a few of the writing elements that I didn't like, but then there were the typos and grammar issues...holy cow. Every other page had some sort of typo or grammatical error. I checked to see if I had received an ARC and I hadn't so needless to say, that was painful to get through. Normally I'm alright if there are a few errors, but this was crazy.

The author has set it up for another book, but I'm not going to be continuing on with this series. The plot didn't pull me in enough. I couldn't find a connection with any of the characters and I'm just not interested in where the story is going to go from here.

As I said, I'm very appreciative of the author sending it to me, but I couldn't find it in myself to give this book more than 2 stars.

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Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Book Review: Ignite by Danielle Rogland

IgniteIgnite by Danielle Rogland
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm a big fan of dystopian sci-fi books and Ignite didn't disappoint. I was impressed with the writing style, character development, and the world building. I'm not going to hash out much of the plot because you can get that in the summary of the book. I like to talk more about the thing's I've listed above.

It took me a while to get used to the way the chapters read. Each chapter is from the point of view of a different character, which I've read before, but for some reason I had to keep reminding myself who was talking in the first 5 or 6 chapters. After you get into the book you don't really have to try to hard to remember the transitions and it's wonderfully written.

The plot of this book is amazing. I'm a sucker for rebel groups fighting the "bad guys" and this book didn't disappoint. Every time I thought I knew where it was going there was a plot twist that took it in another direction. There were a few times that I had an idea of where it was going, but I didn't have the full grasp of the twist or the implications that it would have for the rest of the book. I also enjoyed the inner struggle that some of the characters had. I have a psychology degree, so I like seeing those things in writing and it was very well done in this book. I felt like I was struggling right along with the characters.

The world building in this book is great. I could picture myself in the burned out and ruined streets of London. I could see myself in the HQ of the flames and the factories that they moved in and out of. I could picture the homemade tech devices they used in the book. It was all so vivid in my mind and that is a result of the amazing writing in this book.

Character development was very good as well. Those of you that have read my reviews for any amount of time know that that is a big deal for me. I enjoyed getting to know the characters individually through their unique chapters and then seeing how they join together part way through the book.

This book is a wonderful read for people that like: sci-fi, dystopian, action/adventure, and fans of just plain old good writing. I would highly recommend this book to anyone that asks.

I give this book 5/5 stars.

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Saturday, January 7, 2017

Book Review: Mostly Human by D.I. Jolly

Mostly Human is a very well written book. It moves along quickly, which I love in a book. Many times books about werewolves are boring to me because there are so many of them out there, but not so with this book by Mr. Jolly. 

The plot is well thought out and well written. There are a lot of POV changes, so if you aren't into that you may want to think before picking up this one, but it wasn't an issue for me. I like books with lots of different POV throughout. 

The characters are well rounded and well developed, but not overdone in any way. 

If you're looking for a new book to pick up, I would consider Mostly Human. It wasn't one that would have jumped out at me on a bookshelf, but I'm glad I had the opportunity to give it a read.