Sandra C. Lopez's Blog, page 338

Review: THE TWO-NIGHT ONE-NIGHT STAND by Ryan Ringbloom

A blind date. A horrible mix-up. One wild, unforgettable night.

Holly never expected to meet a hot, sexy guy when she agreed to a blind date with her best friend’s brother. The thing was that she mistakenly assumed the wrong guy. But, for Matthew, it was Happy HallowPEEN, as he met an incredibly, hot nurse that night. But should he be honest and tell her he was not who she was supposed to meet? Well, she ended up finding out the morning after…you know…after the wild, passionate sex. But can the two get past this one-night stand that ends up happening twice?
You can’t help but love these two awkward and nerdy characters. A funny Halloween love story. Another fun one by Ryan Ringbloom.
 
My rating: 4 stars

Review: THE ACCIDENTAL PROPHETESS by Michelle Lam

Natalie has been recently fired and...kidnapped! What a way to start the story. Loved it!
These strange men take her to an underground hole, where lies an organized group that believes her to be a prophetes. WTF!?
Apparently, this secret society secretly works to prevent world disaster. Okay, got it.
What can one say really? Well, they do have her under lock and key, not to mention underground! Okay, so she'll go along with it, if just to figure out how to escape these loonies.
But then they make her an offer she can't refuse. They'll pay her to be their prophet. Money for visions? Okay! But what if she doesn't have any? Oy, tough job!
But, still there really is something to those wacky dreams of hers. In fact, the one about the doughnuts ended up saving lives. Cool!
Of course, things are never as easy as they seem, because, apparently, someone from this organization is plotting to kill Natalie. But, with the help of her friend, Carla--an awesome Latina from the streets and a big lotto savings--she must figure out how to save herself and save the world from a deadly virus. Humor and mystery envelope this story as Natalie tries to figure out who she can trust.
Snarky, witty, and fun! Well-written and fast-paced, I couldn't get enough of this clever novel!

My rating: 5 stars

Review: NOTE TO SELF: CHANGE THE LOCKS by Heather Balog

Lizzie is neurotic, witty, and keeps it real. Her ex is this snooty British bastard that did something bad to her, which is the whole reason they got divorced. What kind of guy begs an ex-wife to crash at her place for a while? Well, he literally had no place to go, I guess.
Living with an ex again? Oh, Lord! Note to self: Change the locks. :D
Now she has no job, she’s living with her ex, and she’s not even getting any writing done. She’s compulsive about her sticky and mental notes, which is the whole basis of “notes to self.”
It was unbelievable how Lizzie gets into these jams, which make her story so funny. What was the incident that resulted in Lizzie’s divorce and unemployment? In the end, she tells you and that just changes your whole attitude about the whole thing. As the story progresses, Lizzie daydreams on the memories she had about Simon (her ex), which distracts from her relationship with her current boyfriend. Maybe she’s not entirely over her ex?
This was a good story, relatable and full of humor; however, I could not get past the errors throughout the book. I can overlook a few here and there, but this one had a lot. That’s really what brought my rating down to a 4, otherwise, this would’ve been a 5.


My rating: 4 stars

Review: PEPPED UP by Ali Dean

Pepper Jones loves to run and gets a high from it. Know the feeling!
Her life revolves around running and not high school drama or Jace Wilder, the hottie senior.
"On the one hand, it looks like I'm pining after the guy I can't have, but, on the other, I know he's my oldest friend and I know he cares about me. I know where I stand and I accept it. Most of the time." (11)
Pepper is stuck in the "friend zone." He sees her like a sister. Ouch!
Pepper is relatable in the sense that she's plain in her flat, athletic body and feels inadequate with the other girls, especially since they get all of Jace's attention.
A new boy, Ryan, seems to make Pepper forget all about Jace. Almost. I actually liked these two together since they both share a love for running and understand each other. Still, she can't shake off her feelings for the guy she's been pining over, and it seems this is just what it takes to get Jace to notice her. Now, on top of competing for state nationals, Pepper is caught between two guys. How can she ever let go of Jace, especially when he looks like he's gotten himself into trouble? And Pepper might be the only one who can get through to him.
I really liked this book. It's a quirky, fun novel! Although I could've done well without all this talk about competitive racing. I mean, I like running, but it's not my life. Guess Pepper would disagree.

My rating: 4 stars

Review: DREAMS OF A BROKEN MAN by Roger Bray

While living out his days in a jail cell, Alex battles with restless nights and dreams.  The bulk of this is mostly on court procedures and the political red tape of Alex’s case, which we have no idea how he managed to get a case in the first place. What did he do? Oh, yes, he’s convicted for the murder of his wife. Obviously, it takes a while to arrive at this notion.

Needless to say, the court jargon and legal procedures were kind of dull.

Reading through this, I sometimes wondered what this was really about. Was this a man recalling a past once lived? Or was this a man living only in his dreams? What was his ultimate goal—to be released from the penitentiary or the prison of his own mind? I mean, where was this all going? I didn’t quite understand, and you certainly have to weed through a long and bushy plot to be able to see somewhat.

The story was certainly well-versed, but it lacked clarity and interest.

 
My rating: 2 stars

Review: THE SECRET OF ALL SECRETS by Douglas Wells

Zane is a struggling musician going nowhere. Then, one night, he finds a USB flash drive on the bridge. As soon as he takes it home and inserts it into his laptop, something strange happens. Apparently, it knows him and brings up a message:

You have been entrusted to learn The Secrets of All Secrets. Once you know them, you will know everything. This will require you to embark on a journey that will be fraught with danger and mystery, but there will be exhilaration from which you will get the ultimate buzz.

 
To learn the secrets of all, including the meaning of life? What the heck does that mean? Sounds very Moses.
 
This then begins the complex and weird journey for the meaning of life. Sounded pretty lame to me. Unfortunately, as we dive deeper into the story, it doesn’t get much better. It was kind of hard to keep up and hold any kind of interest in the characters, especially Zane, who struck me as this lazy doofus just looking for an easy way out. Plus, all the messages on the USB were very cryptic and confusing, which only enhanced my annoyance.

 
Was this really about God? God, I hoped not. At first, this sounded like an interesting travel mystery, but it fell really flat, which was what I’d kept hoping would happen to Zane. 

 
My rating: 1 star

Review: TYPO SQUAD by Stephen Lomer

A book dedicated to all the proofreaders and copy editors of the world was one that I, as a writer and reader, needed to check out.

This is the story of Dick, who is living in a world where typos can kill people. That is, everyone except Dick, who found out as a kid that he was immune to typos. Now a grown up, Dick is approached by Thea Saurus of the Typo Squad. Oh, how cleverly cheesy! =D
At first, Dick refuses to re-join the Typo Squad because of what happened 5 years ago. What could be so bad? After all, he did take down a bunch of errorists. (I’m so bustin’ here.) But, eventually, he goes back to Los Palabras, where, suddenly, he finds himself commanding his team against a black-masked villain twisting impressionable kids to put out typos. He vows to drown the world in typos… And his name was Anton Nym (still bustin’ here!) The Typo Squad is surely on the case.
Well-written and witty, Typo Squad is practically a parody of Men in Black, which I love btw. I mean, we have a team of secret agents, saving the word (oops, sorry, world – still quite fitting, huh?) from lethal typographical errors. The team are snarky and humorous, each with a little Will Smith and Tommy Lee in them. What a great team!
The only thing that might’ve slowed it down was the “Double-O7” type execution. So official. So militant. So stifling. Man, they were hell-bent on catching those typos.

A wacky, comic-style, mission-driven, action story full of clever word puns that you’ll just get a kick out of. It’s cheesy, but it’s a riot.

 
My rating: 3.5 stars

Review: UNDAD by Shane W. Smith

This is a fun graphic novel about a dad zombie—an UNDAD.
Stories are separated into a series of chapters or “episodes.” It certainly didn’t feel like one story and you can tell as you’re reading through it. Each one was rendered by a different author/artist.

In the first chapter, the illustrations felt a little stiff—almost robotic and lifeless. Perhaps it was the 3D-style, which is normally pretty cool, but I just don’t think it worked very well in this story. I don’t think this was hand-drawn; this looks like it was computer-generated. The facial expressions were a little freaky and there weren’t enough active gestures. I mean, this is a comic about zombies. This should allow for a multitude of actions and wild gestures. Even when he gets hit by the truck, it was stiff and bland.

 
In Chapter 2, the style was much better—definitely more in the style of a comic book. And the story delves more into the life after death. It had almost a religious aspect.

Chapter 3 had more expressive rendering. It was simple, but the gestures gave the story more action. It was funny how he couldn’t “perform” with the wife. This was definitely the more hilarious one. The best one of the bunch!

 
Chapter 4 had the same style as Chapter 1—stiff and lame.

 
The overall stories were okay. Some were better than others. This is okay if you like zombie stories.

 
My rating: 3 stars

Review: DRIFTING, FALLING: DIARY OF A CALL GIRL SUICIDE by A.J. Ullman

Note to self: Suicide isn’t only for the depressed. It’s an option when your other options aren’t viable.

This is the diary of a 21-year old call girl. Although she goes by several names because of her profession, her real name—one she hardly ever goes by— is Ripley Luna.

 
“My personal Tarot card would have to be the Joker arrayed upside down. That signifies ill-advised risks, foolishness, rash choices, impulsiveness, and instability.” (21)

 
Story is a well-written account of a girl’s emotional tolls and detachments. Witty and insightful, it briefly encapsulates her childhood, her dreams, her clients, and her therapy sessions, examining the root for why she turned out the way she did.
 
“I am, in this state of complete undress, not even makeup applied, a tabula rasa, a blank slate, a plastic girl capable of being molded into whatever whim or fancy a man may have.” (66)
 
One thing that was unsettling was the shift to the doctor’s POV in the third person. Why would we need to get his story when this was supposed to be about the call girl? Plus, it didn’t really go well with the writing flow of a diary format, which encompasses the bulk of the story. There were also a lot of references to mythology and other rambling notions, some of which was nonsensical in some ways but was somewhat fitting in others. Sometimes it seemed that Ripley was just making various innocuous observations, which felt like her way of questioning her life and her very existence. She was very pensive indeed.

 
Ripley’s story was wisely candid and full of dark retrospect. I found some of her philosophical views to be interesting, but, at times, she’d often veered into lengthy non-sequiturs, which was rather daunting.

 
Overall, this was a fairly good read, one that can make you think and that you might be able to enjoy.

 
My rating: 3.5 stars

Review: CHILLS: A SHORT STORY COLLECTION by Sahar Sabati

One woman sees double. Another woman recognizes evil from a mug shot. And a pharmacist in love with a married woman wonders if he could “mistakenly” swap out her husband’s medication.

Although this collection of short horror stories doesn’t necessarily send chills, they do carry a sense of irony. But they’re mostly plain and average—not that bad, but not that great either. The writing was pretty good.

These tales were quick and okay.

 
My rating: 3 stars