Tag Archive: Reviews


Review: The Apocalypse Gene


The Apocalypse Gene
The Apocalypse Gene by Suki Michelle
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Disclaimer: This was a free Kindle book from BookRooster from quite a while ago, for an honest review.

So here goes. Um… I am so torn. There were parts I liked and others had me yawning. And I don’t think it’s the parts meant to be boring. I loved getting to know Olyvia and her mother and live with them through the dark and depressing life. I thought it adorable to get the little romance going. I could even get into the little computer icons, even though it seemed to take away from the problem at hand. Even still, I managed to shift gears and enjoy the cuteness.

War! What is it good for? I suppose in this case it is to cure cancer. Not a bad goal, I suppose, but really! During all the Micah parts and the war parts I got so bored that I had to let my text-to-speech yammer on while I read emails. I tuned in to learn how the story concluded. It was a nice ending.

Another thing I had a hard time with was the philosophy of the author thrown in quite obviously. The gods and demons and all that left me … meh?

Look, maybe it was just me. A lot of people have given high ranks to this book, so read it yourself and let me know what you think.

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The Scriptorium Daily.

Review: Man Made Man


Man Made Man
Man Made Man by Marjorie F. Baldwin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Disclosure: This was a copy given to me by the author for honest review. Thank you for the opportunity!

This was supposed to be my year of reading strictly strong fem main characters written by strong fem authors. As my constant attempts to re-read A Song of Ice and Fire prove, that goal is merely a guideline. My decision came about when I realized that most of my formative years I read mainly works by males. And teachers only recommended (required) books by and about males. I’ll admit to being a latebloomer. Now that I am retired, I realize I should catch up on fem reading.

This book only hits one of my goals. Friday (Marjorie F. Baldwin) is a strong fem writer. Even though the females in this story are not the main characters, I do find they are interesting. In fact, my favorite person in this series is Shayla. But, she isn’t even human. On the other hand, the main character, Raif is interesting, and human.

Another thing about this author is her ability to throw in subject matter that might cause discomfort, but isn’t that what true science fiction should do? For that, I am happy to know her and have the chance to read her books.

Even for an ARC as such, the errors got lost in the story. I think my biggest problem was I felt I have read this series inside out and backwards. The timeline in my head was making me dizzy. I feel jealous of those who will be able to read the series in order. Someday I will try to re-read these in order. I do look forward to more books by Friday. I’d especially love to see more about Shayla and her people.

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The Scriptorium Daily. Is out!!

Review: In The Beginning


In The Beginning
In The Beginning by Abby L. Vandiver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have been finished with this book for two days and still can’t figure out how to review it. It did hook me and I wanted to find out what would happen to the characters. But this angst of the main character, Justin, who I thought was a male in a committed relationship with husband, Mase, until I think the third chapter, was too much.

Look, I suppose there are scientists out there that can’t wrap their minds around a couple theories of the origins of mankind at once but I doubt if they were ‘believers’ or that they would have this kind of mental breakdown. Not a true scientist. But maybe that is my problem and not that of the book.

Most of the book is a bit like Indiana Jill but beliefs of God are dealt with lightly, after all they are looking for the lost scrolls or artifacts yet to be found. The end of the book, though, gets a bit God heavy. And the angst grew when I didn’t think it needed to be there. Still it was a very good read.

Thank you, Abby L. Vandiver, for giving me the free book for review.

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Good Kings Bad Kings
Good Kings Bad Kings by Susan Nussbaum
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow! Just Wow! This book was fantastic! Wait… And yet it was not.

Susan Nusabaum has presented us with a microcosm study in her fictional novel of the society of disabled youth in conventional nursing homes. Wow, again, that was a mouthful (keyboard full?)! Sadly, I don’t believe that the truth is far from this depiction.

The individual stories that create the novel outlines the hopeful actuation of each person dealing with their own demons, their own needs, their own striving for romance while being disabled in one way or another.

As many of you know, I read my books on Kindle with text-to-speech. This book has a character that is Puerto Rican but the author did a great job of capturing all accents and individual speaking quirks. These were so well done that my Kindle reader read them perfectly and even if I wasn’t looking at the printed e-pages I still knew who was talking.

The story starts and ends with a wheel-chair bound woman who lands a data-entry job with this nursing home. She is a strong woman who isn’t stuck in the nursing home, but sees what is going on. We see, through her eyes and the eyes of the other characters what it feels like to be collectively warehoused with others of differing disabilities.

This book is an eye-opener for all readers. Hopefully we all come out of the read with a better understanding for our all our fellow citizens. Whoever recommended this book to me, thank you! I now have it on my Amazon wishlist and hope someday to have the Audible version as well. This is well worth a few rereads. I see that there may be a movie of this book. I bet it will be equally wonderful! Kudos Ms. Nusabaum!

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Review: Ann Angel’s Freedom


Ann Angel's Freedom
Ann Angel’s Freedom by Katharina Gerlach
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Disclosure: This was a free ebook, from the author, for honest review.

If Little House on the Prairie was set in Germany during the time of Napoleon Bonaparte, and the main character was in her early teens, it might be this book. I liked the characters. The author did a good job bringing this person, Anna Angel, to life. I know I will think on this book often in the future.

What I found hard to deal with, and this is due to my needing to use text-to-speech, were the use of the closing single quote for an apostrophe. The author used a lot of contractions so I had to get used to hearing the words broken up. I don’t know if that was due to rules of writing in German or what. The other thing was the use of German words where I think an English word would have worked. I’ve taken a couple semesters of German and enjoyed a bit of it. Those long combination nouns are fun to interpret.

I wish I would have known of the Glossary at the back of the book. I know it would include a lot of extra work to make links to the words so that one could click on the word, find out the definition or history to that work and then allow the back arrow to carry one back to where they left off in the story. But that is just a minor wish on my part.

At about 60% into the book, the action picked up enough that I had to stay awake until I finished the book. I do wish to know more about Angel that the quick blurb at the end of the book. Maybe a story to include the facts mentioned there? One can only hope. Danke schön, Katharina Gerlach, for letting me read your novel.

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In reply:

Initial post: Sep 21, 2013 9:39:02 AM PDT
I’m sorry for the interruption in the text-to-speech feature. I will go through the eBook again and see if it is feasible to swap the quotes for apostrophes. I didn’t even know this could cause trouble (actually I didn’t even know there was a difference 😉 ).

I tried to link the words in the glossary to the words in the text but that didn’t work out because some were used more than once.

I’m glad you liked the story. Thank you for your review.

Review: Under the Dome


Under the Dome
Under the Dome by Stephen King
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Being an Under the Dome TV series addict, I knew I had to read the book.

 

 

I have only read one other Stephen King book and that was On Writing, which I loved.

Cover of "On Writing:  A Memoir of the Cr...

Cover of On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

 

 

 

I have avoided SK because I don’t do horror. I get nightmares. But since I loved this so much I may have to read his other, less scary books. I already have The Stand in my personal library, but I would rather have Large Print or Kindle version and the Audible version to help me along.

Cover of "The Stand"

Cover of The Stand

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The narrator, Raul Esparza, was amazing! He is the first male narrator that did believable women and children voices without sounding fake in my experience. He had many accents to throw in for good measure. What I felt the most unreal was there were few Maine accents and many southern types. But it didn’t make the story less interesting, it did help keep the population of Chester’s Mill individualized.

A warning, outside of the same main characters and a couple incidences, this book is not like the television series. Still, I can’t wait to see what gets thrown into the mix.

It is nice to know that the man who wrote a book on writing writes a heck of a book!

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Review: Unmasked Alloy


Unmasked Alloy
Unmasked Alloy by Becca J. Campbell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow! Was this part of the same series as Not the Norm (A Sub-Normal short story by Becca J. Campbell?

I fell into like, um, I really cared about the characters, in the first book. It was that caring that drove me to read book two. That’s a good thing! This part of the story hit the ground running. If there were mistakes in the grammar or spelling I didn’t notice for trying to keep up with the action.

In a world of super-humans, being either sub-norm or just human can be down-right dangerous. Hence the name of the name of the series (Sub-normal). Though you see this in the first book, this second book throws it in your face.

My only problem with this book was that I was left LONGING for part three. I have tried to think through, as a writer, how I would handle this. Would it be better as one larger book broken into sections? Then I had to think about the author. Would her larger book make as much as three (or more) short stories? I, for one, was looking for something fast when I picked up book one, and then book two. But the waiting for the next installment, then trying to remember where we left off… I guess this is why a lot of people wait until they’ve gathered all the parts before reading it as a whole. I am sure this is a quandary for serial writers everywhere. Point is, I can’t wait to read the next in this series!

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Review: Not the Norm


Not the Norm
Not the Norm by Becca J. Campbell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The story-line and characters were interesting. The world was appropriately, futuristically, scary.

This is a very quick read. I suggest everyone read it as it is fun. Scary, but fun.

My only caveat with the writing were the body parts that take on lives of their own long before the part where it was supposed to happen. This happens at the beginning of the book and I had a hard time taking the story seriously. The hardest one to deal with was the vomiting of powers.

Sorry, I wanted to like it more.

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