Week ? / 2017 - The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

So I just finished reading Catching Fire. I know it has taken me a while, but honestly im not a big reader, and sometimes it takes me a little while to finish books. Honestly its not the fault of Catching Fire for taking me so long to read it, it just falls under the same problems sequels always do they slow down. The first book had you hooked from the beginning. Everything from experiencing all these new "wonders" that Katniss discovers when she goes to the capital for the first time, to the intensity of her surviving in her first hunger games. It made for a pretty easy read for me (if you dont trust me, just go read my review). Unfortunately the second book starts off pretty slow, and we dont even get to the hunger games portion until the last chapters of the book.

  I have been thinking a lot about how to write these reviews. Mostly its been about how to review the book without giving too much detail away, or spoiling any of the big moments in the book. I thought that maybe deciding on some categories and using those categories to rate the book.

1 - Story:
The story is what you would expect from a young-adult book. Plenty of action and plenty of romance combine for a very interesting story. A lot of people like to compare the Hunger Games and the Divergent series, but to be honest they are nothing alike. The only thing they have in common is the young adult genre (that and a strong female lead character). I would say if you have not read this book or the series, then to definitely give them a read. They can be read relatively quickly (if you are not lazy), and the stories are generally pretty good. Definitely will not be dissapointed here.

2 - Characters:
Another strong point of the series is its characters. I dont think I have come across a character that I do not like in this series of books, besides any of the antagonists. As you read you learn new things about each characters personality and the way they think, and that is something I really enjoy that about this book series. You definitely get a deeper connection to the characters especially after the announcement of the quarter quell. You get to meet a few new faces, such as; Finnick Odair, Johanna Mason, Beete and Wiress, and Plutarch Havensbee just to name a few.

3 - Readability:
This is something that I take very seriously when it comes to books. I find that if a book is hard to read, no matter the story, it makes it unpleasant and I just dont want to read it. The beginning was a little hard to get through, but after I made it over the hump I really started to enjoy the story. I think that knowing at least somewhat what happens from watching the movies makes these earlier books a little more difficult to read, but still enjoy all the extra detail you get with the books. Overall I would say that just get through the first 10 chapters before deciding whether or not you want to continue reading.

4 - Action:
This series is most definitely know for is action. From killer fog, to trident throwing, to Katnisss' killer shot, there is plenty of action to go around. Seriously though, the beginning doesnt have a whole lot (beisdes a whipping), but the second half of the book will quench your action thirst.

Welp thats about all I could think of on categories. As an overall, I enjoyed the book but I probably wont ever read it again. I just unfortunately did not like the beginning of the book, even though the second half and end were really good. Give it a read and see if you like it.

As always,
Andrew

The 100 - CW Exclusive (Seaons 1 - 4)

What can I say about The 100. It was an amazing television show. It had drama, suspense, and some crazy math and engineering skills (best example is the Season 4 Finale). I had an absolute blast watching this TV show, so kick back and relax while I tell you about why you should watch it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*****POTENTIAL SPOILERS*******

  The show is simple in the beginning, it starts out with you on a space station with what most people consider the last of Humanity. This is what is called the Ark (it is also referenced as such in later episodes). Unfortunately the Ark is dying, so the council members decide to send 100 kids (prisoners) to the ground to see if it is inhabitable. After realizing that they can use the stations (12 of them connected to the Ark) they launch themselves to the ground. I dont want to go much further so I don't spoil the whole show for you.

  The show focuses on a main cast of characters (some supporting have big roles) throught the whole show. First we have your Natural Born leader and proclaimed Wanheada, or commander of death (she gets this title later in the show), Clarke. She tries to do what is best for her people, and throughout the show this leads her to some very tough decisions. I believe Clarke to be about 19-21 years old. Her mom is a Doctor aboard the Ark, and therefore Clarke has quite a bit of medical knowledge herself, becoming a sort of Doctor for the 100 sent to the ground.

  Next we have Bellamy, your fun loving, throw caution to the wind type character. Initially he is seen as the antagonist against Clarke in the beginning, but later you begin to understand why he is the way he is. He simply wants to protect his sister, sometimes at ALL costs.

  Next up we have his sister Octavia. She is shy and was kept hidden from the Ark due to the fact that she is the second born child to her mother, which it was forbidden to have 2 children on the Ark, and her mother was Floated (sent into space) for it. She comes out of her shell after meeting Lincoln who is a grounder that falls in love with Octavia when the 100 first make it to the ground. ****Spoiler Alert***** she later saves most of Skaikru and the other 12 Clans by winning a conclave. **spoiler Alert Over**. She has a very up and down character climb into the 4th season, but besides Clarke she may be my second favorite character. She doesn't give a fuck and loves the grounder way of living. I believe she is the only member of Skaikru besides Clarke to learn the Grounder Language fully.

  Next we have Monty. Hes your typical token asian character. Is very smart, and was studying engineering when he was on the Ark. He sneaks onto the Ark so that he can be with his best friend Jasper. Unfortunately there isnt much to say on Monty's character. He's the typical underdog nerd that manages to make it through the whole ordeal.

  As far as other characters go there are quite a lot of other characters on the show. Some are only with us for a brief moment, and others play big supporting roles on the show as the sidekicks of Skaikru (as the latter come to be called by the Grounders). There is a lot of depth and sad moments (happy sad) later in the show. I would definitely say that the show gets better as you watch it, and it will definitely throw you some curveballs on your way to watching all 4 seasons of it (which are all on Netflix right now). I would probably rate the show a solid 5/7, with terrific acting by many of the main characters, terrific story writing, and great character backgrounds. The show is amazing at getting the viewer to feel and understand why a character made the choice they made and the consequences of that action.

  I feel that if I have not grabbed your attention for this show at this point in time, then maybe it just isnt for you. If you are like me though and are looking for a good Sci-Fi tv show and want something new and original I would definitely give "The 100" a try. Give it until the end of season 1 before you make your decision on it.

--Yours Truly
ANDREW

Week 5 / 2017 - Harry Potter 4: The Goblet of Fire

Hey everyone and welcome to my first official review of the year. I actually read The Goblet of Fire before I had decided to start my book challenge this year. I always seem to have a lot of fun reading this particular book in the series even though it happens to be one of my least favorite movies from the series. Now one thing that I can definitely say about Rowling is that she seems to write some pretty interesting stories. I always find that I never seem to get bored of what I am reading. I know it sounds like I'm nerding out, but the worlds that are created through the tales of the Harry Potter books always seem to be so interesting.

Goblet of fire takes place during Harry's 4th year at Hogwarts and it just so happens that this year the Tri-Wizard Tournament is being held at ole' Hogwarts. Unfortunately the bad guys are up to their old hijinks again, and this time they have a fool proof plan to bring their lord and savior, Voldemort, back from the dead. Did none of the death eaters ever bother to just find a more powerful wizard and make him their leader? Seems like if would have taken less time. Anyways, some stuff happens, and bada bing bada boom before you know it Harry is seeing right before his very eye's lord Voldemort rising from the ashes. Some more stuff happens. Then there are some ghosts flying out of wands, and then you find out it was all Barty Crouch ..... Jr's fault. Yep you guessed it, not as if there were not enough hints to whom it was during the story (I mean the whole pensive section gave it away pretty easily). Never the less our hero lives to fight another day in the great land of Hogwarts, well except for Cedric.... He's Dead.

Im Participating 2017 / Beginning of the year Update

Hey guys, so I'm pretty late on the I'm participating challenge this year but hey better Lat than never. I unfortunately did not manage to read all the books that I had wanted to last year, but I read more than I had in a long time. I was actually really enjoying the challenge until I hit a wall by reading stardust. Don't get me wrong the story is really good but it's just not my kind of book.

This year I plan to try to at least read more books than I did last year. I managed across a really good deal for an iPad 2 which I have found to be a really good way to read books. It has a nice sized screen and is still pretty snappy for an older tablet. I am planning on reading the girl with the dragon tatto, and Catching Fire in the upcoming weeks as my first books of the year (I will have to read some extra books to cover up January's books.

Finally, I will be updating the HTML code that I have been using to show what books I have already read, and the links to the reviews.

Week 32 / 2016 - Cursed Child Review

Welcome everyone. I sort of gave up on the book challenge on week 7. For some reason stardust
sapped whatever drive I had to finish the book challenge. It isnt that it was a bad story, but one that just seemed to put me off of reading books for a little while. But I just recently read the new Harry Potter book and figured I would do a review for it in my 2016 book challenge.

Today we will be looking at the newly released Harry Potter and The Cursed Child book. Some people might argue that it isn’t actually a book and while it is technically a play, it is still an amazing story. It is so close to being an actual book that if it didn’t tell you it was a play you might not even know that it is one.

One of the first things that I would like to talk about I’d the general perception of this story. It seems that the fan base or Harry Potter is pretty split on this story. I have seen some people say that they love the story, while others state their dislike for it. I can understand why they dislike it. For one thing it seems like nothing more than a simple cash grab for fans expecting a long story full of crazy plot twists like in the original 7 books. Unfortunately you don’t get a long story here (most people forget that it is still a play and would be shorter than a novel). What you do get though is an amazing story , and a great entry into the “modern” era of Harry Potter. I only hope that this will cause JK Rowling to start writing more books again.

The story focuses on the children of our 3 main protagonists from the first 7 books. You have our two protagonists Albus Potter, son of Harry and Ginny, and Scorpius, son of Draco and Astoria. They first meet on the Howards express and from there our amazing adventure begins. Though out the story people constantly have high expectations of Albus simply because he Is the son of Harry Potter, and this drives him to be your typical moody teenager who rebels against their parents. I found it interesting that they decided to make Scorpius and Albus best friends in the book when their fathers hate each other so much, but it was something I came to really like about the style of the story as I progressed further into the book.

If I had to explain the story quickly to someone, I would tell them imagine the first Harry Potter book, but better. I simply loved the idea of time travel, and the consequences that it might bring. I found that it brought something original to an already great series. The story will definitely not disappoint Harry Potter fans looking for some new material. Overall it is a pretty good read, and at less than 300 pages it should be pretty quick to get through (although the first part of the book is boring it gets better near the end).

Week 7 / 2016 - Stardust Review

I have to say that I regret reading Stardust.

*Now Tuesday*
Unfortunately I had to choose between doing work and writing my review, so here I am on Tuesday now writing my review.

One of the things that stardust has going for it is that it is a pretty typical fantasy genre story. It is not hard to follow once you take out all of the over explaining and break it down into sections. Its a pretty easy read (my ebook was only 142 pages), and the audio book is no more than a little over 5 hours long.

The beginning of the story starts with a little backstory. Here you meet Dunstan Thorn, our main characters father. He currently has feelings for a girl in the village, but when the market comes to town he meets a faerie girl with whom he later sleeps with one time. She births a child named Tristran and sends it to Dunstan which is where our story begins.

Tristran's story is not unlike his fathers. Tristran has feelings for a girl in the village named Victoria Forester. Unfortunately she does not feel the same way about Tristran (although he does not know that). One night they are walking together and they both see a star fall from the sky. Tristran says that if he retrieves the star that Victoria will give him whatever he desires, and she agrees. Then Tristran sets out to retrieve the star.

This is where you meet Yvaine, the fallen star. She is the other main character in the story. In the beginning she does not like Tristran, and plans to make their trip as hard as possible. But over time, she begins to develop feelings for him (they are traveling for a long time together to get back the the wall that separates Tristrans village from Faerie). Once Tristran returns to Wall with the star Yvaine, he finds out the truth from Victoria. He then realizes that he actually has feelings for Yvaine and wants to be with her. Even though Yvaine cannot pass the wall out of the land of Faerie, they live happily ever after.

One of the things that I like in a story is a good love arch. Luckily for me Stardust definitely delivered on the one. Although it doesn't start out seeming like Yvaine and Tristran should be together, over time you just begin to root for these two to get together in the end. They are both very kind and I really enjoyed that they did get together in the end.

Overall I would recommend this book to others looking for a quick fantasy read. For those that are fans of the book, you should probably give it a read again. I will say that for some reason it felt like I had already read this book at some point, but oh well cant hurt to read it again.
those that over explain or describe things. One such book that I put in this category is the Hobbit. Outside of that, that book was not too long and was a pretty quick read. (I didn't have time to start reading until Thursday).

Week 6 / 2016 - Divergent Series: Insurgent Review

This week I read Insurgent (the second book in the Divergent Series). I feel that I have burned myself

Much like other things in our lives all good things must come to an end. I felt that Insurgent was no where near as good as Divergent. I don't fault the Author on this one mainly because the story just doesn't seem as interesting as the first one. The story suffers from falling flat at certain points. It definitely has a lot of action, but the story seems to stumble in locations making it tough to get through parts of the book.

Outside of those parts of the book it is pretty good. Fans of the series probably enjoyed it more than I did. I feel like I was hoping that the book was going to be more than it was. I hate some of the decisions or thinking that the characters use in the book (Common sense does not seem to exist). Sometimes I don't understand why characters make the choices that they do, but then I remember if it fits the plot ;).

The book starts where the first book left off, and details the struggle against the Erudite Faction and Dauntless Traitors. The remaining loyal Dauntless elect new leaders (happens latter in the book) and Align with the Factionless to take on the Erudite and Dauntless traitors.

The love story arch between Tris and Tobias felt really bland in this book. I'm not sure what it was about them, but their arch just felt a bit repetitive. The same situations would crop up over and over again with both of them not trusting the other and then they would make up after something happened. Overall it wasn't as good as it was in Divergent.

Overall it wasn't a bad book, but it just seemed to lose the charm that Divergent had. It definitely got a lot more dark than the first book, and there was a definite shift towards the story being much more serious. I feel that this impacted my want to read more of the book. I don't have much more to say on the book other than if you enjoyed Divergent you will find much more of the same thing in Insurgent.
out on young-adult series books for the moment.