Ricky Pine's Blog, page 101

Review: Hunt for Jade Dragon

Hunt for Jade Dragon by Richard Paul Evans
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This fourth Michael Vey book, which I know now to be the middle entry in a seven-part series, improves a bit on its predecessor by weaving a somewhat more complex - and yet, comprehensible - web of story. While I was a little unhappy about the previous three books consistently sprinkling in side sections of the story that I felt detracted from the overall experience, here, the side trips finally feel necessary, because some...

Review: Queen of Shadows

Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

At first, I was a bit worried that the length of this book would make it too daunting a task to really enjoy. Luckily, like with a good Harry Potter or Song of Ice and Fire book (or Cassie Clare's epic-sized City of Heavenly Fire), this book delivered lots of high action over its considerable length. Even though I'm not at all happy with some of the character development (Aelin being quite an epic jackass compared to the previous boo...

Review: Good Behavior

Good Behavior by Blake Crouch
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thanks to my friend Speedy, I got into Good Behavior last fall and soon found myself addicted. I mean, it's based on Blake Crouch's work, so of course it's addictive. But now I get to see, at last, the source material - three novellas, each one following Letty Dobesh on another heist-y misadventure, some more suspenseful than others. The first of these formed the basis for the series pilot (mostly), while the second and third, aside from...

Review: Heir of Fire

Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Huh...so I thought I'd rated this one four stars the first time I read this, but turns out it was five. Well, now that I've re-read it, I'm bringing it down to four for sure. Don't get me wrong, Celaena's story - and rediscovery of her true self as Aelin - makes for some pretty fascinating reading, but it takes up a huge, huge chunk of a huge, huge book at the expense of Chaol's story. For Chaol, it's a shame that much of what we get is...

Review: Crystal Storm

Crystal Storm by Morgan Rhodes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Finally, the fifth - and, unless I'm much mistaken, penultimate - book in Rhodes' Falling Kingdoms series. After the events of its predecessor, here we get some really unlikely team-ups going on, with just about all the original cast forced to clench their teeth and unite against the bigger threats the whole land of Mytica now faces. Those bigger threats, of course, being the various flavors of Kindred and also Amara.

It's great to see J...

Review: Crown of Midnight

Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I remember it used to be that I preferred the even-numbered entries in the Throne of Glass series to the odd-numbered ones, because I tended to feel like (except for the first, of course), the odd-numbered ones are loaded with filler (HoF and EoS especially are guilty of this.) But after rereading Crown of Midnight for the third time - I actually sort of gave up the first time, then really enjoyed it on the second read - I realize t...

Review: Windwitch

Windwitch by Susan Dennard
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I've found over the last year or so that while the YA Cool Kids' Table (the likes of Schwab, Bracken, Aveyard, Maas, Silvera, etc.) all can't stop raving about Susan Dennard and her Witchlands, the average reader has a harder time buying into the hype. I enjoyed Truthwitch well enough, but unfortunately, Windwitch is a come-down, a case of Sophomore Slump.

That's not to say the book is entirely a write-off. Far from it, because like its pred...

Review: Take the Key and Lock Her Up

Take the Key and Lock Her Up by Ally Carter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

For the final time, back to Malta...sorry, Adria. (No, seriously, you can't tell me Adria isn't an alternate Malta, not when the capital is a walled city named Valancia and it's been fought over by so many world powers over the years.)

I'll admit, this book started on a bit of a sour note for me because the first fifty pages or so were quite jumbled and chaotic and I was worried that perhaps Carter had taken the series a lit...

Review: Wayfarer

Wayfarer by Alexandra Bracken
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Not unlike with Bracken's Darkest Minds trilogy, I feel that her Passenger duology improves considerably going into the finale, with a lot less dead air and a lot more action. Sure, Wayfarer is quite a long book, so it's not entirely devoid of such staticky spots, but when the action and alternate history ideas come in, they come in fast, fast, fast. It's also got a certain unpredictability factor, given how many times and places in hist...

Review: City of Fallen Angels

City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I wouldn't have minded if Clare had initially kept her promise and stuck to writing the "new" Mortal Instruments trilogy about Simon only. But after reading this one, I am very glad she kept the stories going for the others, especially because it improved the story by making it considerably more complex than anything she'd written up to this point, even before one takes into account the number of characters introduced in this...