Ricky Pine's Blog, page 74
March 25, 2018
Review: Purple Hearts
Purple Hearts by Michael GrantMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
It's hard to put into words the impact of this, the final book in Michael Grant's Front Lines trilogy. I expected Purple Hearts to be the most harrowing book in the series just from the title alone, and on that front my expectations were met. Over the course of yet another expansive 500-plus-page book, Grant takes us and his soldier girl cast through 1944 and beyond. As battle-hardened as Rio, Frangie, Rainy, Jenou, et al. have become i...
March 22, 2018
Review: Black Panther: The Young Prince
Black Panther: The Young Prince by Ronald L. SmithMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
It took a little longer than I hoped for me to get ahold of this book from the library after I found out it existed, but I'm thinking Black Panther: The Young Prince was pretty well worth the wait. It's not as big a story as the current smash-hit Marvel movie, but that's to be expected when it's a kid-sized adventure showcasing T'Challa as a barely-adolescent prince with his whole future of awesome ahead of him. T'Ch...
March 21, 2018
Review: Ace of Shades
Ace of Shades by Amanda FoodyMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Another ARC I've managed to acquire in the course of my duties as a bookseller, so here's my honest review.
I...wasn't terribly impressed with this one, not unlike Foody's debut, Daughter of the Burning City. Here we have a similarly middling book, not at all outright bad, but certainly a bit overhyped. I think part of the problem with this one was its slow start (though the pace does pick up a hell of a lot around the 100-150 page mark o...
March 20, 2018
Review: Sightwitch
Sightwitch by Susan DennardMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This time last year, I was expecting we'd get Bloodwitch, but instead, Dennard's pushed that one ahead to 2019 and given us, instead, the novella Sightwitch to tide us fans over. And...honestly, I'm not sure what to make of this one. I mean, it's not a bad little story, and it's a pretty nice change of pace after Windwitch proved disappointing due to its bloated character sheet. While Sightwitch has a smaller character sheet by necessity,...
March 17, 2018
Review: The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza
The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza by Shaun David HutchinsonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
"We're bobbin' along in our barrel
Some of us tip right over the edge
But there's one thing really mystifyin'
Got me laughin', now it's got me cryin'
All my life I will be testifyin'
Till I know..."
-Andy Partridge, "I Wonder Why The Wonderfalls"
Seriously, I still find it very hard to believe Shaun David Hutchinson never saw Wonderfalls, not after he wrote this book that feels like the closest thing to a YA equivale...
March 14, 2018
Review: The Final Six
The Final Six by Alexandra MonirMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
It's only been a few weeks since I heard about this book, and the hype built up for it pretty quickly, especially given that it's #ownvoices for having an Iranian-American main character. Well, one main character is Iranian-American. The other is Italian. Both Leo and Naomi, however, are uniquely awesome and awesomely unique. As for the storyline, it reminded me a hell of a lot of Nyxia - a sort of Hunger Games and Divergent meets Ill...
March 12, 2018
Review: Restore Me
Restore Me by Tahereh MafiMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
It's a new Shatter Me novel, starting a new trilogy, no less.
Like Iron Gold, Restore Me - the latest in one of my favorite trends in YA and SFF and combinations thereof, the continuation of a series that reached its logical conclusion some years back - is more of a 4.5, but I'll round it up to a 5. Like with Iron Gold, Restore Me experiments with more POVs than any of the main novels of the original series - though Mafi only gives us two PO...
March 11, 2018
Review: Nexus
Nexus by Scott WesterfeldMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Westerfeld, Lanagan, and Biancotti bring the Zeroes trilogy to a pretty action-packed conclusion in Nexus - not quite on the same one-year cycle as the first two books, more like almost a year and a half after Swarm. Which, given the second book's massive cliffhanger, was a pretty aggravatingly long wait.
Sure, at times, Nexus moves a little too fast for its own good, and adds a few too many characters for its own good - some of whom are, del...
March 7, 2018
Review: Sandman Slim
Sandman Slim by Richard KadreyMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I first tried reading this book a few years ago, and for whatever reason, I couldn't get into it at all at the time. Looking at the dates, I think it might've been some kind of lingering reading slump after reading Jasper Fforde's Shades of Grey, for which I'm still dying for the sequel...but I digress.
More recently, my friend Harry at work put an official Staff Pick tag on Sandman Slim and he convinced me I should give this one another...
March 6, 2018
Review: City of Endless Night
City of Endless Night by Douglas PrestonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Okay, so perhaps this book doesn't quite reach the heights of a few of the more recent Pendergast thrillers, but it's more on a level with The Obsidian Chamber - not exactly perfect, and a little slow at times. But at least it dispenses with some of Obsidian's more outlandish and silly plot elements in favor of a more straightforward mystery closer to the vein of White Fire. Not really as world-class as that book was, but it's...
