Ricky Pine's Blog, page 146

Review: Alert

Alert by James Patterson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This latest Michael Bennett book is, as its dust-jacket blurb promises, the most explosive and action-packed entry yet in the series. Full-tilt and intensely messed-up, the book depicts an escalating string of terrorist attacks against New York which owe a lot to the Dark Knight Saga, particularly when a brazen broad-daylight assassination is pulled off. Seriously, this book is just begging for Chris Nolan to write and direct the movie yester...

Review: I Am Number Four: The Lost Files: Rebel Allies

I Am Number Four: The Lost Files: Rebel Allies by Pittacus Lore
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Finally, some much-needed answers after The Revenge of Seven and Hidden Enemy! Chief among them - who is GUARD? The answer is, thankfully, revealed in the first novella of this collection, while the remaining two are devoted to GUARD's backstory. And what a backstory it is. Move over, Marina, Nine, Six, Sam...I've got a new favorite character in this series, and if GUARD doesn't show up in The Fate of Te...

Review: The Martian

The Martian by Andy Weir
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm sure I'm not the only one who picked this book up just because it's soon to be turned into a star-studded movie directed by Ridley Scott. At least I had an idea of what to expect - survival, action, sci-fi, and bizarrely funny dialogue. This book has those in spades - but especially the last one. My uncle, who read this one before I did, warned me and my dad that Mark Watney's sense of humor was particularly juvenile. He wasn't kidding ("...

Review: Go Set a Watchman

Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Compared to the prize-winning story that made Harper Lee a household name, this one isn't quite as good. It's good on its own, but To Kill A Mockingbird sets the bar way too high for this book to ever reach. However, it's very thought-provoking, nevertheless, especially in the way it handles discussion on the Civil Rights Movement. Scout (I can't bring myself to call her "Jean Louise") is very much modern, having been raised to respect...

Review: Positive: A Novel

Positive: A Novel by David Wellington
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was surprised when I first went into the GR page for this book (I'd picked it up blindly at the library) and found it being compared to Justin Cronin. Um...no. Cronin's acclaimed novel The Passage is a long, sprawling novel which I found very, very overrated. The comparison to Guillermo Del Toro was much more on the mark for this epic piece of postapocalypse. From the get-go, Positive is dark, dangerous, and visceral. Between t...

Review: Truth or Die

Truth or Die by James Patterson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've read a few good Patterson standalones that really deserve to be the first in a series, and this one is no exception. However, I would much prefer to read a whole series of Truth or Die books if it focused not on its protagonist and narrator, Trevor Mann, but instead on Owen Lewis. Outside of his YA series, Owen is the Patterson character I've connected to best, mostly because I found it very shockingly easy to identify with him. Sur...

Review: Rosehead

Rosehead by Ksenia Anske
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Really, why isn't this a bloody movie yet? When it does become a movie, they'll be hard-pressed to prevent it from being rated R just for the freaky bloodiness alone. Alice in Wonderland has nothing on this masterpiece of European oddity. It's cool enough that there's a talking dog and an adventuresome young lady in the lead roles, but then the monster, one of the most original monsters you'll ever see (and who makes it easier to take Petal P...