Ricky Pine's Blog, page 141

Review: Black Widow: Forever Red

Black Widow: Forever Red by Margaret Stohl
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

***SPOILER ALERT***

This book is just the beginning of what promises to be a super-duper amazing new world of Marvel YA. Not only do we have this new series from Stohl in the works, but a number of other books, likely interconnected with this one. I'm especially looking forward to Eoin Colfer's planned Iron Man book. And my new dream is to one day put my fanfic skills to good use and join this team of writers and put out an exc...

Review: Project Sparta

Project Sparta by BB Gallagher
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Boy Nobody...move aside.

Wattpad is where I found this full-tilt YA spy piece, and you can read it there for free. I guarantee, you'll have no trouble gobbling this story up. I mean, you should see the way I ran through the last ten chapters or so when they were uploaded pretty much all at once. Between the Arrow-style anachronic storytelling, and the high-stakes spy action a la Mission: Impossible or Sigma Force, this little book is tai...

Review: Depraved Heart

Depraved Heart by Patricia Cornwell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have to wonder - did Cornwell read Gone Girl before writing this book? Because the vibe I'm getting from the dreadfully detestable antagonist of this book is that she fancies herself the next Amazing Amy. She's not quite as loathsome as Gillian Flynn's creation, but she comes very close to it. Maybe it's because Carrie dishes out a little more physical abuse than Amy does, as opposed to working largely on the psychological-abuse...

Review: After Alice

After Alice by Gregory Maguire
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Splintered this was not. What a disappointment this book was - I only got through about 100 meandering pages or so (with almost no mention of Alice - I mean, seriously?), about as much as I did for another dreadful Carroll retelling (Alice In Zombieland) before giving up on this exercise in time-wastage.

And then, having clicked on this book's GR page for the first time to leave this review, I've discovered that it has an abysmally low a...

Review: Playing with Fire

Playing with Fire by Tess Gerritsen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Gerritsen does something a little different for this one, seemingly taking cues from Schindler's List and The Shining, not to mention M.J. Rose's Reincarnationist books (though thankfully minus the ridiculous, cloying use of the perfume motif that pervaded Rose's books starting with the fourth in the series). Instead, Gerritsen uses a particularly creepy piece of music to set up the thrills and chills in this book - a piece which y...

Review: Zom-B Fugitive

Zom-B Fugitive by Darren Shan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

For the penultimate Zom-B book, Darren Shan went and saved what might very well be the most shocking plot twist this series has yet, and probably will ever have. No, I won't spoil it here, but it's the biggest game-changer by far in this series. Every single word of Chapter 12 - all three of them - will have you doing spit-takes, or losing food from your mouth, or perhaps losing air from your lungs if you're especially unlucky.

You've bee...

Review: The Murder of an Angel

The Murder of an Angel by James Patterson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was expecting a wild and insane finale for the Confessions series. Maybe it didn't exactly fit the bill, but other than the surprisingly limited action, this fourth and last book was a satisfying conclusion, if only because it finally brings the Angel family drama full circle. The sci-fi elements popping up in books 2 and 3 are toned down somewhat (even though those were what I most enjoyed about those books, it's okay that...

Review: Six of Crows

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There's a reason why this book comes with Michael Dante DiMartino's seal of approval - it's a lot like Leend of Korra in a few ways, with its primary settings being two different cities in an alternate world. One, Ketterdam, being a sort of early 20th century steampunk city. And the other, an icy city in the northern wastelands of Fjerda.

It's also got a lot of Ocean's Eleven in its DNA, being a heist story as opposed to the magical war t...

Review: The Sword of Summer

The Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The last line of the blurb for this book automatically made me think of one of my all-time favorite shows, Dead Like Me, and a key scene detailing the (spoiler) death of its main character. You can witness that scene for yourself here. (you might wanna turn up the volume 'cause the sound sucks)

As wonderfully well-imagined as Dead Like Me was, though, I'm a little more inclined to believe in Valhalla as depicted by Rick Riordan. And...

Review: The Tattooed Heart

The Tattooed Heart by Michael Grant
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Here we have a book that continues its predecessor's use of weaponized fear and divine punishment, neither for pleasure nor profit. However, while the recipients of these divine punishments so very much deserve them (I'm really looking at Trent and Nicolet, some of the most nasty characters Michael Grant came up with who weren't the Gaiaphage or Drake), redemption is the more important theme of The Tattooed Heart. Everyone deserves...