Ricky Pine's Blog, page 126

Review: Let the Wind Rise

Let the Wind Rise by Shannon Messenger
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It's been a painfully long wait for the conclusion to this trilogy which does for sylphs and other assorted wind spirits what Rick Riordan did for various classical pantheons.

It was very much worth the wait.

Vane and Audra take the fight to Raiden in this final adventure of theirs, and it's a long, intense fight, with everyone involved getting battered and shredded by their weaponized winds (and those of their enemies, of course....

Review: The Last Star

The Last Star by Rick Yancey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I went into this book with very low expectations because of my considerable disappointment in The Infinite Sea. After reading this book, I've concluded that this series would have been better off as a duology. The trilogy we got is two reasonably good books (hyped way too much, I think, but not bad at all) sandwiching a choppy, unfocused mess in the middle.

The good thing about The Last Star is that it's something of a return to form, focu...

Review: The Last Full Measure

The Last Full Measure by Trent Reedy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It seems that with each new book in this series, the US is getting dangerously closer and closer to fulfilling Reedy's prophecy - one that I really hope never comes to pass. It may not even be the same privacy-rights issue over federal IDs the way this trilogy presented the initial cause of its Second Civil War. It may be something else, like LGBT+ rights (an issue that went surprisingly untouched throughout this trilogy - and on th...

Review: American Assassin

American Assassin by Vince Flynn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've been meaning to try out Vince Flynn's books for a while, especially since his name is often mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Lee Child or James Rollins. It wasn't until they announced some casting choices for the planned movie adaptation of this book - namely, Michael Keaton as the elderly mentor-type, and Dylan O'Brien as the American Assassin himself - that I finally had the motivation to read this. Then I went and...

Review: Daughter of Smoke & Bone

Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I first tried reading this book maybe three years ago, and for whatever, found myself completely unable to get beyond page 20 or so. At the time, I put it down to the dynamic between Karou and Kaz - I somehow got it into my head that he was supposed to be the main love interest for this book, and let me tell you, I thought he was an absolute tool. As for Karou, I thought she seemed pretty bland as a character, especially given...

Review: The Inquisition

The Inquisition by Taran Matharu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"Well, it would've been, could've been, worse than you would ever know..."
-Modest Mouse, "Dashboard"

I'm sorry to go there right off the bat, but that title is just begging for this point to be made:



And as for that cliffhanger Matharu left us with last time, along with the one he gave us this time, I hereby present my idea of what must be going on in his head:



So...The Inquisition. Mercifully, the title group only really appears during th...

Review: Demigods & Magicians: Percy and Annabeth Meet the Kanes

Demigods & Magicians: Percy and Annabeth Meet the Kanes by Rick Riordan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I haven't been able to read these stories with the rest of the world because, as usually happens when an author puts out bonus e-book novellas, I'm forced to wait for a print compilation because I have no e-reader. It's worked out well for me on, say, The Bane Chronicles, or I Am Number Four: The Lost Files.

For some reason, I was never as big a fan of The Kane Chronicles as I was of Percy Jackson...

Review: Once a Crooked Man

Once a Crooked Man by David McCallum
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

As Jethro Gibbs might say, "Don't quit your day job, Duck."

I probably wouldn't have picked up this book at all if not for the fact that its author stars on one of my favorite TV shows. Reading it, I found it to be a fairly enjoyable read, with the same sort of mix of crime and humor that I've come to expect from James Patterson, particularly in his NYPD Red series. However, this book was also strongly impacted, negatively, by its...

Review: The Last Mile

The Last Mile by David Baldacci
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recently, my dad told me about a true-crime book by John Grisham he'd recently started reading, about a black man in Texas (I think) who'd been falsely accused of killing a white girl and found guilty. In between all his descriptions of the case and how the guy eventually got on track to getting justice, I kept interjecting increasingly salty, increasingly foul-mouthed comments to the effect of "because it's Texas, and there's a legacy...

Review: The Outsiders

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"Yes, I'm feeling a little bit nervous
Yes, I'm feeling nervous and I cannot relax
How come they're out to get us?
How come they're out when they don't know the facts?"
-Coldplay, "Hurts Like Heaven"

Glory hallelujah. Why didn't I read this one sooner?

Like a lot of teenagers, I tended to hate the books I had to read in high school English classes. One of the ones I hated the most was Catcher in the Rye, because it was just so hard to see what ma...