Ricky Pine's Blog, page 103

Review: Wolf by Wolf

Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I think I've been hearing the name of Ryan Graudin for a while, but it took me just as much of a while to pick up one of her books - specifically, the first in this alternate-history series about an international motorcycle race in a 1956 where the Axis powers won World War II. (The implication, pretty significant to our time as well, is that this particular historical tide shifted because the US never broke its policy of isolationism, an...

Review: Rules of the Game

Rules of the Game by James J. Frey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

And thus endeth the Endgame series, on a surprisingly short but no less all-out action-packed note. Maybe a little too short - not unlike Marie Lu's Midnight Star, the barely-over-300-page length really doesn't do this could-have-been-a-touch-more-epic apocalyptic finale justice. Unlike Frey's previous 2016 series finale in Pittacus Lore's United As One, this book, while not at all slouching or slacking in its pace, is pretty jumble...

Review: Battle of the Ampere

Battle of the Ampere by Richard Paul Evans
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Though the Michael Vey books aren't outright bad, finishing the third book hasn't endeared me much to this series. By this point, I feel like Evans is piling up twists for the sake of twist-piling, not unlike James Patterson's chief fatal flaw with Maximum Ride, and the story not only brings next to nothing new to the table, it also doesn't seem to go anywhere. Well, it does, but it's a very strange little Peru Evans gives u...

Lorien Legacies Reborn: Generation One by Pittacus Lore

OH MY GOD.

They're doing a Lorien Legacies sequel series.



Forget all others - THIS is the 2017 release I'm looking forward to the most now.

Review: History Is All You Left Me

History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"A warning sign
I missed the good part, then I realized
I started looking and the bubble burst
I started looking for excuses..."
-Coldplay

Alternate universes. As a reader and writer frequently looking for worlds other than the real one, and dabbling in sci-fi and fantasy, I need them. And I often need to find them. Like, I need to find the alternate universe where The Amazing Spider-Man, with Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone both, w...

Review: Life in a Fishbowl

Life in a Fishbowl by Len Vlahos
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

The third Aimal Farooq rec in a row, the one I was actually looking forward to the most because of its promises of a highly offbeat nature...and I just couldn't finish it. The multiple POVs were too much to handle, and the story itself felt so detached from Jackie, ostensibly the protagonist struggling to understand why her father would sell his life on eBay (which I'm pretty sure isn't even legal, if I remember Unwind correctly), tha...

Review: Not If I See You First

Not If I See You First by Eric Lindstrom
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

My second Aimal Farooq rec in a row, unfortunately, didn't pan out for me the way If I Was Your Girl did. Sure, Not If I See You First boasts some funny moments (a couple of which came from me noticing that main character Parker's cousin is named Petey - gotta love any and all secret Spidey references, right?), the shipping goes in a few unexpected directions, and it's got an always-needed diversity factor going for it, being...

Review: If I Was Your Girl

If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This one is the first of three diverse contemporaries I'll be reading in a row thanks to Aimal Farooq's recommendations. It's also the first book I've read with a trans girl lead, by a trans woman author, and while Russo admits that she's taken artistic-license liberties with her depiction of Amanda, it doesn't make the book any less readable.

If I Was Your Girl reminds me a tad bit of Simon Vs. because of its Georgia setting, but...

Lunar New Year Book Tag

Where do I always go to find good book tags? Why, Joey's Thoughts and Afterthoughts blog, of course. Today's book tag comes in honor of the Lunar New Year celebration - The Year of the Rooster, the same sign under which I was born back in '93.



Without further ado, my friends, let's get started.

Hmm. Under the radar...underrated? I can think of a few, but perhaps none more so than the future bestsellers that are J.L. Pawley's Generation Icarus series. If, like me, you loved Maximu...

Review: A Book of Spirits and Thieves

A Book of Spirits and Thieves by Morgan Rhodes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Taking a break in between Books 4 and 5 of Falling Kingdoms (despite a weapons-grade cliffhanger), I decided it was time I took a look at this half-urban fantasy, half-time-travel Outlander-style spinoff from Morgan Rhodes.

Not unlike its parent series, A Book of Spirits and Thieves is a fun and fast read, if a little bit too loaded with multiple storylines for its own good. Believe it or not, the sections set in Mytica a...