Ricky Pine's Blog, page 132

Review: Lady Midnight

Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare
My rating: 5 of 5 stars



It's finally here.

OFFICIAL LADY MIDNIGHT PLAYLIST:

"You're the only friend I need
Sharing beds like little kids
Laughing till our ribs get tough
But that will never be enough..."
-Lorde

"When I counted up my demons
Saw there was one for every day
With the good ones on my shoulders
I drove the other ones away..."
-Coldplay, "Everything's Not Lost"

"These words are knives and often leave scars."
-Panic! At The Disco, "This Is Gospel"

"It's the lightni...

Review: The Passenger

The Passenger by Lisa Lutz
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I only wanted to read this one because Lisa Lutz's name was attached to it, and I've spent the last couple of years or so in serious Spellman withdrawal. (The new Rae Spellman spinoff cannot come soon enough!) So I tried to push past the dust jacket's built-in Gone Girl comparison - normally an automatic deal-breaker for me, 'cause I hated that book so much. Thankfully, The Passenger proves to have very little in common with Gillian Flynn's...

Review: Riders

Riders by Veronica Rossi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I remember being so disappointed with Rossi's previous work, the Under the Never Sky trilogy, because it felt like there just wasn't enough in that series (particularly its sequels, although I remember I liked the first book) to set it apart from the dystopian pack. So when I first heard of this book, I was scared to even attempt to read it...but hey, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse? I hadn't seen a decent YA take on this particular mythology...

We The People Will Save This Country

Oh my God, why is my country actually trying to drop-kick itself into the deepest pits of Hell?

Today started out as a good day, as days tend to do, normally. But then this evening, across the country from me...this happened. The governor of North Carolina went and signed a law that prevents transgender people from using public single-sex bathrooms. In the words of one of my favorite authors:

One step forward....a hundred steps back. #transrights— Uncle Zac (@unclezacbrewer) March 24, 2016

I ho...

Review: A Gathering of Shadows

A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In the last year or so, this series has become the most-hyped Schwab creation by far, according to the internet. While the Archived series remains my favorite, this series is becoming my second-favorite for its unending inventiveness. After all, it's not every day you read a book where people from four alternative Londons mix together with sometimes less-than-pretty results.

Kell, Rhy, and Lila are still as cool to have around as...

Review: The Druid of Shannara

The Druid of Shannara by Terry Brooks
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Maybe I'm just getting a little burnt-out on the Shannara books, 'cause I've been reading so many of them now that the show's come out (and I'm still praying that MTV renews it for a second season, 'cause it's a hell of about time they have something worth watching other than Teen Wolf.) But I feel like every Shannara book I read now ends up being a bit more of the same. Case in point with this book, which repeats a storytelling...

Review: Once Upon a Time: Red's Untold Tale

Once Upon a Time: Red's Untold Tale by Wendy Toliver
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I thought, given that this was based on one of the best shows on TV right now, that this would be a good piece of supplementary material. Not really. It could've functioned as an okay story on its own, but its connection to Once Upon A Time raised my expectations too much for a book that proved quite mediocre, actually. It just felt a little too been-there-done-that at points, and the writing itself was quite distr...

10 Cloverfield Lane: No Spoilers

One of my most recent reads was the wild and crazy dystopian thriller Alive, which came with a special request from author Scott Sigler:

NO SPOILERS.

Because of certain similarities between Alive and my most recent movie-theater visit, 10 Cloverfield Lane, I'm going into this review with a similar policy:

NO SPOILERS.

When the original Cloverfield came out in 2008, I somehow managed to not see it for three years or so afterwards, and also somehow managed to not get spoiled for...

Review: Remnants of the Damned

Remnants of the Damned by Gavin Hetherington
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One of Wattpad's best undiscovered gems, this one, like Malus Domestica, owes a huge debt to the old master of horror himself, Stephen King - as well as to Twin Peaks and its many other spiritual successors about small towns with dark, dark secrets. Here we follow five young people, all with a shocking connection to some past horror in this dreadfully disturbing town, and now their past is really coming back to haunt them...

Review: Alive

Alive by Scott Sigler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

NO SPOILERS.

That's the rule for this book, so decreed by Scott Sigler himself. (And after the recent rash of Wattpad readers getting spoiled while reading Red Rain, I might have to put a similar request onto my own books...but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.)

So far, of all the books I've read this year, this one is one of the best, third (so far) only to Morning Star (and take the recommendation for Alive from Pierce Brown seriously -...