Showing posts with label book bloggers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book bloggers. Show all posts

Tuesday, 12 April 2016

BOOK REVIEW: The Last Girl by Joe Hart


2.5/5 Stars

Blurb:

A mysterious worldwide epidemic reduces the birthrate of female infants from 50 percent to less than 1 percent. Medical science and governments around the world scramble in an effort to solve the problem, but twenty-five years later there is no cure, and an entire generation grows up with a population of fewer than a thousand women.

Zoey and some of the surviving young women are housed in a scientific research compound dedicated to determining the cause. For two decades, she’s been isolated from her family, treated as a test subject, and locked away—told only that the virus has wiped out the rest of the world’s population.

Captivity is the only life Zoey has ever known, and escaping her heavily armed captors is no easy task, but she’s determined to leave before she is subjected to the next round of tests…a program that no other woman has ever returned from. Even if she’s successful, Zoey has no idea what she’ll encounter in the strange new world beyond the facility’s walls. Winning her freedom will take brutality she never imagined she possessed, as well as all her strength and cunning—but Zoey is ready for war.

Review:

'The Last Girl' is set in the future, where some unknown development means girls stopped being born. Thus, the end of the world as we know it. No women means no procreation, and one organisation, NOA, is out to change this, whether the girls have a choice or not.

Zoey, 20, has been in the facility most of her life. The girls there don't have a surname, they're told when to eat, what to do, and once they're 21, they're taken away for what they think is to reunite with their parents. Zoey, however, doesn't always play to their rules, and it finds her in a world of trouble. Once Zoey finds the secrets of the organisation and breaks out, she must find a way to save the other girls, before it's too late.

I downloaded this book from Kindle Unlimited because the blurb had me intrigued. A world where girls stopped being born? How interesting. The beginning of the book I really liked. I loved the imaginings of this facility that had been created in an effort to save the population, and I felt for Zoey and the other girls. However, as time went on, my interest lowered.

I found myself really intrigued during parts of the book, but utterly bored with others. I think the action scenes of the book just weren't to my liking because of personal preference. That being said, I can imagine it making a good film. There were some other aspects of the book that made me question Zoey's female decisions and feelings, and then of course I realised the author was male. No disrespect, but sometimes it can just be quite telling. 

Overall, I didn't hate the book. I appreciated the story and the imagining behind it, but as a personal preference, I found myself quite bored during parts. I've since found out that it is a series, and unfortunately, I won't be reading the rest. 






Sunday, 27 December 2015

BOOK REVIEW: Thinner by Richard Bachman (Stephen King)




2/5 Stars

Blurb:

Billy Halleck, good husband and loving father, is both beneficiary and victim of the American good life: He has an expensive home, a nice family, and a rewarding career as a lawyer...but he is also fifty pounds overweight and edging into heart attack country.

Review:

I didn't even finish this book, because quite frankly, it was boring me, and there were more interesting things to spend my time reading. 

Stephen King is regarded as one of the greatest horror writers of all time. I don't doubt that he has an excellent imagination, but I have something to say that will probably be considered controversial. I don't think I enjoy Stephen King books. He is great at ideas, yes, but the actual reading of his books bores me and I think I've just thought of why. 

I don't relate to any of his characters. They haven't done anything for me to care about them or root for them. I didn't sit there reading thinner thinking 'aww I hope Billy Halleck doesn't die, I love him' or anything to that sentiment. I'm reading because I'm curious about the gypsy curse and if it's real and if it is, whether it will kill him. 

If he does die, fair enough. I don't care enough about him to be devastated about it, and I think that's a sign of a bad book. Readers are supposed to care about the characters and I just don't. At this point someone just telling me the ending in bullet points would satisfy me, hence why I closed it and decided to read something else. 

BOOK REVIEW: Twirling Naked in the Streets and No One Noticed: Growing Up With Undiagnosed Autism by Jeannie Davide-Rivera






5/5 Stars

Blurb: 

Jeannie grew up with autism, but no one around her knew it. Twirling Naked in the Streets will take you on a journey into the mind of a child on the autism spectrum; a child who grows into an adolescent, an adult, and becomes a wife, mother, student, and writer with autism. 

This is a gripping memoir of a quirky, weird, but gifted child who grows up never quite finding her niche. It took 38 years to discover that all the issues, problems, and weirdness she experienced were because she had Asperger's Syndrome (AS), a form of high-functioning autism.

Review: 


I read this book in a day and a half. I don't think I've ever read a book so quickly in my life! While I suppose it could be partly due to having a new Kindle, it is also definitely the book itself. 

I have worked with people with Autism in my professional life, and so I wasn't completely unaware of the classic symptoms and traits. However, to see these come to life from a perspective of somebody with Autism, it was insightful. 

Jeannie grew up not knowing about Autism. It was a time when it wasn't widely known or diagnosed and she was seen, even by her own parents, as naughty, or spoilt, or a 'princess'. They didn't understand her stimming behaviours, the need to smell her food before she ate it, or why she was so choosy about which materials her clothes were made out of. 

Even when she was an adult, Jeannie was misdiagnosed with depression and anxiety, even Bipolar, before they came to the conclusion that she in fact, has Asperger's Syndrome. She was failed by society and her parents as a child, and then failed by her doctors as an adult. 

I can't imagine how difficult life must have been for Jeannie not understanding her own behaviours and finding the world confusing with no answers. I teared up toward the end of the book when she finally got her diagnosis, because finally she had some answers. 

I loved this book, because it's one thing to know about Autism but it's another to see it from the eyes of an Autistic person. Insight is useful to us all. 

Sunday, 12 July 2015

Exploring Goodreads and Seeking Reviews

I joined Goodreads a while ago but I never really explored what you can do on there. I didn't realise there are all sorts of different groups you can join on there, all with their own forums. It's been great to explore and make new connections.

This week I've been focusing on reviews, and a few lovely people have agreed to read and review Synergy, as well as be a Beta reader for part 2. It's pretty scary, putting yourself out there, but you have to, right? You'll never get anywhere if you don't try.

I'm on holiday from work for 2 weeks after today so I'm looking forward to grafting on part 3. I took to pen and paper a few nights ago to plan it out - something I've never done! I even got the highlighters out for key words and made a mind map. Hopefully the chapters will start to flow soon and I'll have a semi-solid plan.

I do find that I write better when I don't plan it out 100% but I still need some sort of structure, so I know exactly where I'm going with it.

I've just finished work so I think I'll have a lazy Sunday with what's left of it, then get to it tomorrow.

 - Georgia