Ricky Pine's Blog, page 35

Review: Gilded

Gilded by Marissa Meyer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I dunno about you, but I'm sad to say that Marissa Meyer, in recent years, seems to have been losing her touch. Don't get me wrong, this latest book of hers, a welcome return to her fantasy and fairytale roots (after her strange turn toward contemporary-with-a-touch-of-magic in last year's Instant Karma), is as compulsively readable as ever - and, not unlike years past with the likes of Winter or Renegades, I spent a lot of ti...

Review: Daughter of the Deep

Daughter of the Deep by Rick Riordan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Rick Riordan may have taken a bit of a break from the world of Camp Half-Blood (though he'll be back with Mark Oshiro on the long awaited Nico di Angelo and Will Solace spinoff, of course), but now it looks like he's gone off and started a whole new series that works pretty well in the style to which his fans have grown accustomed. This time, it's also got its roots in the old "fantasy/fairytale retelling" trend t...

Review: Firekeeper's Daughter

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'll admit, I made the mistake of thinking this one was a fantasy novel at first due in part to the style of its cover art (that the title is written in a near-identical font to the one used by Leigh Bardugo on Six of Crows, from the same publisher no less, doesn't help), as well as its title (to which I kept mentally adding "The" at the start when it's not actually there). But this Reese Witherspoon-approved...

Eternals: Ignore The Anti-Hype, Please.

**NO SPOILERS FOR ETERNALS, BUT SPOILERS FOR PREVIOUS MCU MOVIES APPEAR WITHIN. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.**

For the third time this calendar year, Marvel gifts us with a long-delayed movie, and this time, it's rather unusual this time in that we also have the first officially "Rotten" MCU movie on Rotten Tomatoes, earning only 48% at the time of this writing. Well, I'm here to tell you that in a world where the likes of Thor: The Dark World exist, and where Amazing Spider-Man 2 is also rated "Rotten," ...

Review: The Hellion

The Hellion by S.A. Hunt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I do feel bad that S.A. Hunt's series seems to have stalled out due to the bugbears of low sales and difficulties in her life (she'll occasionally vent about those on Twitter), and even more so that it took me this long to finally read her third novel. That said, though, I did get the feeling that this one may have been affected by the troubles in Hunt's personal life, coming off a little wheel-spinny with an aimless narrativ...

Review: A Patriot's Tale

A Patriot's Tale by Nicole Pierman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Nicole Pierman gives us a new historical look at the Revolutionary War, one that naturally calls to mind a lot of previous fictional dramatizations on that segment of American history. Most notably, the Southern setting of The Patriot and the subtle machinations of Turn, with an engaging young woman protagonist who takes on a man's persona to finagle her way into the ranks of the army, the sort of Joan of Arc the Re...

Review: Mouth Full of Ashes

Mouth Full of Ashes by Briana Morgan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As a Bay Area boy, I unfortunately was never lucky enough to get to visit Santa Cruz. Except in movies like Us, and movies with fictional counterparts to NorCal's most famous beach town. Santa Carla in The Lost Boys, Sunnydale on Buffy...and now, with particular inspiration from the former, Briana Morgan's new novella and its setting of Neap Bay. Blessed with a beautiful cover art and a haunting story that packs a...

Review: Ashfall Legacy

Ashfall Legacy by Pittacus Lore
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A lot of the reviews I see here seem more disappointed in the audio version of this book, so I'm glad I didn't go for that one. Pittacus Lore may be the most infamous ghostwriter in all the loopy-loo YA biz, but I'll be damned if he doesn't pen a good story, and this latest look at a decidedly different kind of alien space opera is no exception. Doing a damn finer job of exploring worlds beyond this than even I Am Numb...

Review: The Bronzed Beasts

The Bronzed Beasts by Roshani Chokshi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Since Roshani Chokshi isn't ending the Pandava series from Rick Riordan Presents with four books as was the original plan, this now marks the first time I'm completing one of her series, and it's a pretty wild ride all the way to the end in this one. Perhaps a little too wild, because then the ending feels surprisingly anticlimactic in a few ways. But given the ways the first two books ended, I'd say we who've st...

Review: Steelstriker

Steelstriker by Marie Lu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Not unlike Warcross and Wildcard before it, Skyhunter and Steelstriker exist to prove that as much as I typically find something irksome about the trend of YA duologies that's gone on for years and years, Marie Lu is damn good at actually justifying the two-part story - and this one, a blistering anti-imperialist (and anti-conservative, like the nightmarish scene where the Karensa Federation's map now covers the whole land in...