Sandra C. Lopez's Blog, page 294

Review: JUNIOR PARANORMAL INVESTIGATORS: THE HAUNTING OF ROOM 909 by Michael James

“A boarded up, abandoned house—the perfect place to find a ghost!” (3)
11-year old Hannah and her brother, Ben, loved exploring with their dad, who was a paranormal investigator—a professional ghost hunter. He’s been a ghost hunter ever since their mother’s strange and unsolved disappearance. 
But what happens when the kids take the ghostly mystery into their own hands?
It a nice mystery story for middle grade audiences. The investigative language might’ve been a little too technical and scientific. Still, the story carried witty dialogue and an adventurous spirit.  It was simple but not overly enticing.
My rating: 3 stars

Review: SUBURBAN LUCHADOR: MEMOIRS FROM SUBURBIA by Philip Rivera

These are the quirky tales of a Latino father as he navigates life, marriage, and family.
It was interesting how the author correlated life’s debacles with the adventurous tales of a superhero (in this case, El Luchador.) He almost makes it out to be like a comic book, like when he relays his “crew” consisting of “Lieutenant Commander Yarei, Weapons Master Elias (my then four-year-old and heir to my throne), Chief Morale Officer Selah (my then two-year-old) and Private Pampers (Analise, my then one-month-old on her maiden voyage).” Another story compares bathing his young children to a naval attack. This style was off-beat, but it carried its infantile silliness with a warm sentiment. I mean, this is what a good father does—he plays the “hero” to his family. This guy literally made every household task an adventure. Yes, they were exaggerated in a comical fashion, which was somewhat entertaining, but the whole concept of “life is fun and games” struck me as naïve and impractical.  I kind of wished that there would’ve been more depth, something witty or profound that the reader could’ve obtained through these tales.
My rating: 3 stars

Review: DREAMLAND by Nick Clausen

"Louie had always had life-like dreams, but he'd never had a dream continuing over several nights, like chapters in a book―not until he visited Dreamland." (8)
After a few visits, Louie learns that the man in his dreams was his father, who only died in the real world but lived on in Dreamland. The first half of the story mostly deals with Louie going back and forth to Dreamland as he tries to figure out the planets and the stars. It was a bit slow. It kept on going on and on like this. As Louie stated, "Not much [going on], actually. It's mostly just Dad and me, talking." (64) There's not much going on.
I thought this would be an interesting read, but nothing really happens. In fact, it kind of puts me in DREAMLAND.
My rating: 2 stars

Review: THE SHAMEFUL ACCUSER by Rachel Woods

A night of passion. A gruesome murder. And the question remains: who could’ve wanted Harold Otty dead?


Leo and Vivian, a team of journalists, certainly questioned the mysterious tipster. If he wasn’t Harold Otty, then who was he? And what did it have to do with a money-laundering scheme?


The duo dives into the cold-blooded case, asking intelligent questions and digging deep into the inconsistencies. Was the murder a crime of passion? Or was it a means to keep the whistle-blower from exposing company secrets?


Quick and easy, the mystery was pretty captivating and well-informed. The possibilities were endless and it was easy to get lost in all these theories. I did think that there were too many characters, which opened up to even more fruitless possibilities, but, fortunately, it did not deter the focus from the case, which was deeply involved and multifaceted. I thought it was much too speculative at times, and, honestly, I was more interested in the murder than the money-laundering. It’s still a pretty good read though.  


All in all, it was great investigative journalism and a hunt for the story of the century.


My rating: 3.5 stars

Review: THE MEMORY GAME by Sharon Sant

Story is told from the POV of David, a kid who died recently and now exists as a ghost. He strolls around town, watching the people live on without him, and, just like when he was alive, he has the same flippant, insensitive attitude, especially with Bethany, who is the only one that see him.

With time, Bethany and David form a bond with mundane and rudimentary dialogue. The bulk of the book was mainly a ghost having endless talks with Invisible Girl. It was somewhat endearing.
The story had a slow start for me, and sometimes I didn’t understand the British slang, but I liked that David was there for Bethany, especially with the other kids harassing her. But the question remained: Why? Why was David there? Why was she the only one that can see him? What was this “unfinished” business? Was it because of this “memory game?” Apparently, the longer David was a ghost, the more he forgot about living, so Bethany was there to remind him (i.e. describing a PB&J and the snow.)
Ultimately, this is a story of friendship and love. An okay read.

My rating: 3 stars

Review: THE LAST YEAR by Cara Krause

Through sporadic glances outside her window, Lillian managed to get a couple of drug addicts evicted. A therapist and a mother to a 20-year old, "she was a woman with an established career, a dead husband, and...not much else," which provoked her drinking habit. (37) Then she soon gets a new view outside her window...a tall, brooding stranger, whom she can't stop looking at. "He was scholastically weird, nerdy, mysterious, and so very...sexy." (46)
Ever since then, all Lillian could think of was Felix―his touch, his taste, his feel. Too bad her daughter got to him first. Regardless, Lillian falls into a fixated and neurotic relationship with Felix. That is, if you call watching his every move a relationship. For being a therapist, she sure needed therapy herself.  
Writing was okay. It could've used more proofreading (there were too many spelling and grammatical errors to ignore.) For example, "He then climbed on top of her, kissing her as his tongue slipped down her throat." There's absolutely no way you can do all that at the same time.
I get that this was supposed to be a story of a dysfunctional woman entering a depraved world of sin and pleasure. Although it sounded enticing, story did not really impress me so much. It was kind of long and boring. Perhaps it was the superfluous details that steered it away from where it should've been. I just couldn't stay with it. 
My rating: 2 stars

Review: MEMOIR FROM HELL by Stephen Ross

First off, what a creepy cover! It just had that spooky eeriness that gives off that foreboding feeling―like this is going to be one hell of a ride. And the man on the cover looks like Hugh Jackman from his Van Helsing days. It just added to the darkness of this tale.
"I’d just turned four when the terror started. That’s my first memory of the horror that run through my life—until I become a man and stopped it. Maybe it started before, and my screwball mind erased it. I don’t know. But what I do know. I survived it. I made it." (8)
Jake Malloy was a young man that suffered an abusive childhood, which planted the root of hate inside him. It all started from his early days in Hellridge, South Dakota, where hell began.
The whole story is a narrative told by the main character as he speaks to a tape recorder. The way he speaks is the way the story reads―he jumps around, talking about events that are not necessarily in order. It's like he talks about whatever pops into his head. There's no flow to it. For example, one minute he's talking about Dorothy stopping by for a visit, how he doesn't remember the bus ride home, and that the doctors say she might get better one day; then he quickly segues to how his parents met.
Story is fairly slow as it mainly dictates the emotional and physical trauma of his childhood. The scenes often felt repetitive and they weren't really pushing the plot forward. There was just a lot of drunkenness, a lot of crying, a lot of beatings. The entire thing was just a slow and uninteresting summary.
My rating: 2 stars

Review: PAGE BY PAIGE by Laura Lee Gulledge

Rule #1: No more excuses! Buy a sketchbook and draw.


Meet Paige, an artist living in NYC. Lost, she feels like she’s surrounded by 2-dimensional people. I love the drawings!


Her story is a collection of drawings, dictating the struggles of an artist. What to draw? What to write? Then she realizes that drawing is her therapy, because she gets to throw what she feels out on paper.


New year, New city, New Paige.


A girl trying to find her way. “It’s up to me to grow my own beanstalk if I want to climb anywhere.”


Witty and relatable.
My rating: 4 stars

Review: DIARY OF A CONFUSED HARRY POTTER: THE COWARDLY WIZARD by Alex Pan

This is the story of Harry Potter—no, not that Harry Potter.


Harry’s been sent to a magic prison called Hogwartz. He’s good with a yo-yo, but he’s not a talented wizard.


The dialogue was open and honest, and I think it was actually better than the real Harry Potter books, although the kid did talk a little too much. The whole thing was written in a language that you could actually understand and relate to much better than the Harry Potter books.


Of course, there was far too much wizardry stuff for my liking, but the kid was fairly smart and witty. I also liked the drawings. 

My rating: 3 stars

Review: NUTSI WANTS TO CATCH THE MOON by Emma Paidge

Nutsi, the squirrel, likes to look at the moon. He has a terrible secret: he’s afraid of the dark. VERY afraid. So, along with his friend, he goes in search of a way to catch the moon.
Nutsi doesn’t really look like a squirrel. Instead, he was kind of a cross between the mushroom on Super Mario and the Southpark characters. Although they were cute, the illustrations were child-like. They were kind of stiff and lifeless, and the text could’ve engaged more with the pictures to create more vitality.
Story itself was okay, but I just think it could’ve been more entertaining with a better layout and nicer art.
My rating: 2 stars