The World of Alice D.

Read in 2012  (from October 10, 2011 to March 11, 2012)

I would have to agree with myself as a person who read King's Cell that King is a completely mediocre writer. The fact that he's appreciated by the reading community so much makes all of this even more ridiculous. I assume that his kind of writing is only acceptable to children who are still afraid of ghosts and ghouls.

Fiction is art. And a difficult art indeed. And every horror book writer should know that fear is a very complex feeling and it's degrading for the fear itself to be portrayed in such a simple manner through vampires. 

The writer should know that fear comes from inside and that fear as such should be described from the perspective of a mind twisted with fear. Clearly describe to the reader the mental instability that fear causes, no matter what causes the fear itself. But if the fear is caused by supernatural beings, I believe that they should be described deeply. And for God's sake, don't use the word 'indescribable'.

Anyway, I believe that only Edgar Allan Poe knew how to present fear to the reader and that is why I consider him an inviolable master of the genre.

Read in 2011  (form August 29 to October 7)

This was one good vampire novel. Pleasantly surprised, I found that it is easy to read and yet not superficial trash. While the sheer fantasy usually deals only with action and invest everything in one goal, to interest the reader, this novel cuts deep into the very nature of beings it  deals with and consider their complex thoughts and feelings. I understood it as metaphorical novel because, completely unrelated to the Vampires, Anne Rice describes a new state of consciousness and a different perspective. Suppose a revelation of some kind.
Due to changes in his condition, the main character perceives beauty he had not perceived before, thinks in a different way as if his new state encourages new and dark thoughts. After all, he still tends to be with ones similar to him and is torn between what he once was or what he had become.
There really wonderful thoughts and quotes in the book.
There is movie for this book which, more inclined to Hollywood, didn't depict the points of the book.

Read in 2011  (from August 8 to 22)

It's kinda hard to rate this book. I liked it when I read it for the firs time but there are a lot of flaws in contrast to the nice message the book sends. The message is religious, it calls for belief in God but it is also a little pathetic and cheesy.

The story tells you about a man's suffering due to loss of his daughter which caused his loss of faith. I consider the idea to be decent, useful and maybe even interesting, but it could have been shown in a different way and a lot better. Young introduced too much fantasy for the book to be very good.

Anyway, the main character goes to the shack where his daughter was murdered and meets God (who send him a written message to go there). God is and old African woman making pancakes, the Holy Ghost is an Asian woman etc. I assume this was arranged in order to break religious stereotypes which many have.

As the man spends his time in the shack, he regains his faith, which gradually leads the reader to reconsider his attitude towards religion and look at things in the way the writer does. 

That is one of the good points in this book but also one of he worse, because it thinks instead of the reader. These are simply some things that an intelligent person should already understand. 

I really don't like those type of books. It's the same reason I dislike Coelho so much. But unlike Coelho, Young does have something to say.

Read in 2011 (August 2nd)

An interesting and frightening story. 

A very good book telling how children  can be evil, deviant and sadistic, especially those who are forced to live in an orphanage, without the love and care of their parents.

Read in 2012  (from July 24 to 27)

I rarely find a good fiction novel because I have a few demands on reading fiction. First of all it should convince the reader in it's verity. It should be interesting, intelligent and have wisdom laced through it. Of course, any book should have these items, but it's much harder to combine them with fiction.

Anyway, this book is an example of good fiction. It's unpredictable, very creative and occupies your attention. There are marvelous descriptions of time bending and different dimensions where the writer shows his extraordinary imagination. Lots of amazing ides about physics and math which contribute to the truthfulness of the story.

Read in 2012  (from August 15 to 18)

It took me a while to see if I liked the book or not. I did not initially liked the writing style. He seemed arid and vulgar. On the other hand, I see a lot of truth in it. Bukowski describes 'his' life as it is, without false embellishment.

He skillfully mixes humor into tragedy and creates enjoyment for the reader. He plants his wisdom on every page so many of his book are life lessons. He finds beauty in people from the margins drunks, whores etc. and describes them with a tender emotion.

The aesthetics of ugliness...

Read in 2011  ( from August 25 to 28)

First of all, this has nothing to do with The Sex And The City. It's a completely average teenage novel. I suppose they are trying to milk Sex And The City as much as possible and therefore writing these sequels. 

Fans of Sex And The City, mostly mature girls and woman, may find the book immature. It's certainly not what a  Sex And The City fan would expect. I did watch the series and found it entertaining but nothing more. Anyway, to get back to the book. The story is completely ordinary, you probably read a number of them that are much of a muchness:  teenage girl has trouble with boys, friends and school. She struggles through high school, discovering herself on the way and alas arriving to New York.

You can probably read it for entertainment unrelated to Sex And The City, but it left me totally indifferent.

Read in 2013  (from January 31 to February 13)

Well described characters, especially Dr. Lecter. Although, I would not be so thrilled by him just based on the book. I had Anthony Hopkins in my head while reading this to my complete my experience. Hannibal from the book and Hannibal form the film together make up one Hannibal which I consider perfect. I would say that the character of Clarice Starling is not strong enough and hardly felt in the book. In essence, the story is good, though predictable and lacking tension. It's too easy to read. I was expecting the complexity and  breathtaking psychology. There was some, but not enough.

Read in 2011

This book was really good. It's adventurous, entertaining and heartbreaking with a developed and fully described main character. 

The story describes a life of a young woman, form childhood when she was raped, forced to sell her body to the moment she experienced true happiness and hardly achieved freedom in the arms of a beloved man and the moment she lost him.

She is a strong and courageous character who fights fiercely through life. But no matter, how strongly she fought for herself, life continues to beat her down. Her tragical life is what gives severity to this novel and makes it as good as it is.

Read in 2012  (from August 30 to September 4)

I heard many positive opinions on Nikolas Sparks and his books so I wanted to check it out. I ended up thoroughly disappointed. Reading this book I finally realized that New York Times' bestseller books are actually really really bad. Their every bestseller I've read ended up being literary garbage. I guess those books were only written to be sold and make profit to certain people.

Anyway, The Choice's story is boring and predictable. All you want is the story to finish already. The characters are very shallow and undeveloped. The main female character who is an MD shows rather prominent signs of stupidity.

There are two parts of the book. The first part is a complete failure, while the second is not as bad as the first, but rather uninteresting.

Disgusted by this book, I am sure to never read anything from Sparks again.

Read in 2012

from March 16 to 18

I think Potter is the only writer I despise more than Sophie Kinsella. I could eat a bowl of alphabet soup and throw up a better book than any of Potter's. Never mind that, the book was absolutely horrible. The main character Lucy is a complete idiot. She's  childish, reckless, basically someone you would like to punch in the face if you ever met them. 

In Alexandra Potter's books you can't find any point whatsoever. Even Kinsella introduces some poor and meager points. As if the book was not already bad, Potter introduces magic and fantasy factors.

I really can't make myself talk about the plot. If you're interested, you can read the synpsis of the book on Goodreads 

Read in 2011

This book is one of my favorites. It has fantastic morbid illustrations and and incredible story marvelously depicting a slow decomposition of a human mind. It grabs your attention like a hand would grab you to pull you underwater. It's in a form of a comic book thus read quickly. I had a feeling it was too short so I read it once again immediately after reading it for the first time.

Humorous, morbid, consuming, beautiful.

Thank God, I’ve come to an end of my Sophie Kinsella books. I’ve read 4 in total, when I was young and ignorant. 

In all 4 of her book that I’ve read, I found nothing but different variations of one big idiotic theme. In The Undomestic Goddess, she stays faithful to her cliche motivational themes, this one being something like STOP AND LOOK.

Although I agree with this particular cliche motivational sentence, I assure you it can be written much more intelligently and non-mainstream. 

This particular story is about a young female, who worked as a lawyer, screwed something up and ended up employed as a maid in some rich people’s place. The only thing I liked about this book is that the main character learns the joys of a simple life. It is a good theme but…

I really hate it when bad writers try to show a particular good theme and fail, resulting the theme being dull and idiotic.

Nevertheless, Kinsella can do much worse, like in The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic, which is her worst book. ( I’ll be writing a review on that later on). So, comparingThe Undomestic Goddess to that one, I’m giving it one and a half stars. (I put two because I couldn’t find a half a star).

Anyway, there are some people who enjoy these kind of books, and although I’m all for reading, I do hope that they will one day be introduced to real literature. Everybody reads trash literature sometimes, but come on people, evolve spiritually.

Read in 2011

As much as I hate cheap cliche writing, I must admit that this was not complete rubbish, Sophie can do so much worse. Her books are all basically the same, cheap n' light, with no point. Meaningless in general. But this one actually has some kind of point, although expressed with very poor skills. But than again, she can't do any better.

Now, the story is about a normal girl with physical flaws, insecurities etc. who wakes up from a coma in which she had been for 3 years and doesn't remember a thing, thinking she's still the girl from 3 years ago. She is now super hot, successful, rich, has a hot husband etc. By learning about her new life, she becomes resentful of it. 

Her new life is described as stuffy, full of fake people, suffocating and kind of plastic in general, so the average read can resent it also. She can't be herself in this new life, so Kinsella took an average tumblr post and turned it to a book. It's screaming JUST BE YOURSELF. For people who need this kind of encouragement, it can be very inspiring. And for you who like me, feel infuriated having to listen to such well know facts, I suggest you avoid it.