Review: Lips Touch: Three Times

Lips Touch: Three Times by Laini Taylor

My rating:

5 of 5 stars

This book was a beautiful surprise. Everything was beautiful in it. Writing, characters, plot... everything. All three stories—Goblin Fruit, Spicy Little Curses Such As These and Hatchling—in this pretty book were wonderful. I'm in love with it.

The three stories involved a kiss—hence the title—that would mean something important (in a soul level) to the kisser.

The first one—Goblin Fruit—is the shortest of the three. It's about how Goblin lure young girls. A long time ago, they did it by offering the girls tasteful fruits, but now, what are their new “fruits”? And is Kizzy (the heroine in this story) going to yield?

Spicy Little Curses Such As These revolves around a girl with a curse—her voice kills anyone who listens to it. Matters get complicated when she falls in love and her lover wants her to speak. This one had a fairy-tale feel into it. Of all the stories, this one was the one I enjoyed the less... but calm down, I really liked, believe it or not.

And the last one, and also the longest one,—Hatchling—starts when a girl's left eye changes from brown to pale blue just like that. Her mother is worried about her and she feels something is wrong. What is it and is she in danger? This one was my favorite.

Even the artwork in this book is beautiful! It's filled with many amazing illustrations that not only are they good companions to the stories but also great works of art. And do you know who did them? It was Laini's husband. What a team, isn't it?

The writing is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. I think I've overused that word in just one review, but who cares?

And now, before finishing, let me rant about something. But first, let's look at the blurb for this book: In the style of Stephenie Meyer, three tales of supernatural love that all hinge on a life-changing kiss.

Listen, I read Twilight last year, and in my opinion, there are no books more opposite than these two. No, just no. If you fear this is a Twilight fanfiction, then stop your worries. They are not similar at all. And please, don't ever compare a work of art with such an atrocity as Twilight is. Please and thank you. You think you're attracting readers? No. You repel them.

I may not have liked Daughter of Smoke And Bone a lot, but I fell in love with this book. You wish to read a book in which you can clearly see that the author put a lot of his/herself in it? Then read this. You will surely enjoy it. My only complaint is that it was too short and it all ended too fast.

Now, excuse me while I kiss this book and wait for the atrocious consequence that follows.

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Review: Daughter of Smoke & Bone

Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor

My rating:

3.5 of 5 stars

"Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love. It did not end well."

I went to this book with ridiculously high expectations. Everyone I follow seems to love this book. There are few exceptions of people who didn't like this book, so of course I felt interested in seeing if I would like it.

You see, I did like it, though not as much as I wanted to. Perhaps the problem is that my expectations were very high, or that I'm not a fan of neither romance nor fantasy. In any way, I was disappointed.

Karou has two lives. One of them we would call “normal,” that is, she goes to classes, studies, etc.; in the other one, she runs errands for demons,—or rather, chimaera—yet she doesn't know why she does it. She feels lonely and has ever wondered if she belongs where she is.

Things get bad when a mysterious guy appears and after that, handprints start to appear, the doorway to Elsewhere gets burned and she has more questions as to why that happened.

"Once upon a time, a little girl was raised by monsters. But angels burned the doorways to their world, and she was all alone."

Even when I didn't like this book as much as my friends did, there was a thing that I truly loved. If you've read the series, or if you've heard the blurb, then you might have an idea about as to what it is. What I loved was the writing. It was beautiful. You could feel as if you were walking in Prague with Karou. It was vivid and poetical and I really loved it, especially the once-upon-a-time bits.

As to the characters, I didn't particularly connect with them. I really liked Karou, because I could relate to her and I liked her personality.

Most people say Akiva is really sexy and blah, blah, but again, I don't feel the same as most people did. I never liked him. Not as a love interest, not as a plain man, not as anything. He felt too much Jekyll/Hyde for me and unrealistic.

The other characters were interesting as well. Zuzana was amazing and she added a little fun to the book. Brimstone was simply brilliant and I loved him. Issa was also intriguing with all her snakes and whatnot. Just Akiva was the problem.

"Once upon a time, an angel lay dying in the mist. And a devil knelt over him and smiled."

And then, the thing that bothered me the most... Insta-love. I knew this series had a lot of romance, and I knew who the couple was before reading this, but when I started it, based on Karou's behaviour, I would have never thought she would fall like that.



I like characters to be developed more before introducing some kind of romance in there. I know it is somewhat justified, but still... Sigh, you know how I feel about that.

But don't get me wrong. This is a good book. It leaves in shame many YA books, it's just that I didn't particularly love it. The world building and the take the story took on angels and demons was something else I really liked. It didn't go for the normal turn it takes in other books, and I appreciated that. Laini Taylor certainly has talent.

I will read book 2, but I no longer have high expectations. I've heard it's better, so let's see.



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Review: Finale

Finale by Becca Fitzpatrick

My rating: 1 of 5 stars





I know I am a masochist, don't blame me.

If you ask me why I decided to even continue the series, I would answer you that I don't know, because it's true.

This book was just as painful as the previous ones... well, perhaps not as painful as the second one, but it was still trash.

First, the characters. I hate Nora and Patch with all my soul. Nora, it seems, has no brain. She certainly grew a little, but she. Still. Is. Stupid.

Patch. Damned guy. How I hated him! He exasperated me. He's supposed to gain our pity after all he went through, but guess what? VANESSA HAS NO HEART AND SHE DOESN'T CARE!!

Then, I couldn't care less about what was going to happen in the end. It was boring and predictable. Tell me, what do you think was the ending. If your answer is: Happily ever after with some "tense" situations that were going to make you worried (but didn't work for me); then you're right.

And the writing... ADAKJALDJGHKJHGHEIHL! So. Effing. Bad.

Okay, I'll try to calm down.

I. Hated. This. I still cannot understand why I have this mania of continuing series I hate. I promise I'll try to stop that.

Oh, and one more thing, what kind of anti-climactic name is that?

Ugh.

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Review: Cymbeline

Cymbeline by William Shakespeare

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Imogen is the daughter of the king Cymbeline. She wants to marry a guy (Posthumus Leonatus), but her father wants her to marry another one. She secretly marries Posthumus, but Cymbeline banishes him. In his exile, he starts bragging about how chaste his wife is. This calls some men's attention. Well, to make a long story short, I'm just going to say that there are some lies, jealousy, mistakes and that in the end, there's a huge conflict to solve.

When I started this book, I thought it was going to be something like King Lear. I thought there was going to be a king who couldn't control his feelings or whatever, but the truth is that this is not about Cymbeline. I would call this play “Much Ado about Imogen,” because really, all the things that happened had to do with her in both a direct and indirect sense. Yes, there's a war and an evil Queen with evil plans that wants to ruin Cymbeline, but the story is never about him. It's all about his daughter.

The writing is as flawless as ever. I know I've said this like a million times, but Shakespeare really knew how to write. The language is decorated and beautiful, and I really love it.

While I didn't think this play was particularly great, I still liked it. Needless to say, that this is a must-read for everyone, but I truly recommend it.



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Review: The Strange Case of Finley Jayne

The Strange Case of Finley Jayne by Kady Cross

My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars



I don't normally read novellas. I don't think I've read more than five of them, but I decided to try this one because it was said it is better than the series. And it was true.

This less than a hundred pages novella was much more fun than the series. In first place, Finley is better developed... in less than a hundred pages. In the series, she's boring, while in this book, she's more kick-ass, which is what I wanted from the series.

In second place, this is much more fast-paced. Yes, I know, it's a novella. It had to go right to the point, but in the series nothing happened. It was completely boring, while this one was very funny. Really enjoyable, actually.

But even when I enjoyed this book, I cannot rate it more than 2.5 stars. It's not bad, it's that I had many issues with it, and those things always ruin my experience while reading. You see, there are very few books I consider utterly perfect. I've rated some books five stars, but I have complaints (even if they're small) for most of them.

Let's start with the bad things, then...

· The references to classic books aka references to Frankenstein. Really, Ms. Cross, you could have gone to Wikipedia to get the right summary for that book.

· It felt silly at some points. Like, some unnecessary things happened and they felt laughable.

Those are my two major complaints. They are not so big, but they bothered me a lot, especially the first one. Still, I enjoyed this book. It was a lot of fun. This one I recommend. The series I don't.



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Review: The Diabolical Miss Hyde

The Diabolical Miss Hyde by Viola Carr

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“In London, we've got murderers by the dozen. Rampsmen, garroters, wife beaters and baby farmers, poisoners and pie makers and folk who’ll crack you over the noddle with a ha’penny cosh for the sake of your flashy watch chain and leave your meat for the rats. Never mind what you read in them penny dreadfuls: there ain’t no romance in murder.

But every now and again, we gets us an artist.”

If you've read my pre-review, you'd know that I was really excited for this book (see below of you haven't). And not only was I excited, but I also had high expectations. When those two things get combined, the odds of being disappointed are high. Good thing I am not disappointed, because I got all I wanted.

Eliza Jekyll is a crime scene investigator. She has helped to capture many murderers and now she has a most interesting and gruesome case—the case of “the Chopper.” All the victims he killed have many things in common. Let's say, he leaves his signature in all of their bodies. In all the corpses were traces of an electrical weapon of some sorts, all were drugged before being murdered... and all of them are missing limbs.

But Eliza Jekyll is not only that. She's also the daughter of the famous Henry Jekyll. You know him, don't you? He's the man who split himself in two halves—one good, one bad—and tried to get rid of his bad half—Edward Hyde. Just as him, Eliza has a bad half, and her name is Lizzie Hyde. Both of them are completely different.

First, there's Eliza. She's what one would call a “proper woman,” in the Victorian standards. She's intelligent, witty, observant, calm and she takes meticulous care of her reputation, because she doesn't want to end like her father. She's a little shy and she's afraid of showing the world what she really is and what she thinks.

And then, there's Lizzie. If you've read The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, you can probably guess how she is, but if you haven't, then I'll tell you: She's impulsive, reckless, uncontainable, seductive and selfish. Not only that, but she also doesn't give a damn about what people think of her.

The book is not just a mystery novel. It's also about the struggles of a girl fighting her inner demons and her struggles in trying to be a respectable physician and detective in a time in which women were not taken seriously for this things. It was by no means a perfect book, but it was cleverly done.

The writing is also good. I had some complaints about it (oh, my), but I let them pass. It follows two formats: One is in an omniscient way, and that one is present whenever Eliza is present; the other one is in first person and is narrated by Lizzie. Both feel different, but I liked them. There's plenty use of slang (mostly Lizzie's) and scientific terms, but that didn't make it less enjoyable. If anything, it made me like it better.

You have to pay attention to all details if you want to figure out who the murderer is before the answer is revealed because there are plenty of suspects and there are more details than grains of sand.

Needless to say, I liked all the characters. Neither of them were perfect. They all had their flaws, and that made me like them even more. Perfect characters can be boring, and these ones were far from that. Besides, they were all really intriguing and they all had interesting backstories.

Twist after twist after another twist, this books managed to be liked by me. I'm hard to please, so that should tell you something. It's thrilling, dark at some points, it had two—no, three—kick-ass women, it's a crime novel... Completely enjoyable for me.

Oh, and one more thing: THIS IS NOT A PARANORMAL ROMANCE MASQUERADING AS A CRIME/MYSTERY BOOK! There, I've said it. With just that (and all of the above), you know that this is highly recommended. I'll most certainly read the sequel if this is indeed a series and not a stand-alone.

Pre-review:

Whoa, whoa, whoa...

Reasons why I want to read this book:

1. A Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde retelling: Why not? I love that book. It's dark, and really interesting. One of my favorite books of all time.

2. "In an electric-powered Victorian London (...)": Victorian London is given for dark and mysterious tales.

3. "Dr. Eliza Jekyll is a crime scene investigator, hunting killers with inventive new technological gadgets (...)": You tell me what part of that doesn't sound amazing. Crime scene investigator? Yes, please. And also, she's a chick. The odds of her being kick-ass are high.

4. DA COVERRRR: C'mon, you can't deny it's awesome.

In summary,

I AM EXCITE!



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Review: Batman: The Killing Joke

Batman: The Killing Joke by Alan Moore

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Batman has always been my favorite superhero, and this particular book has been said to be the best one, so of course I had to read it. I'm not a big fan of graphic novels (if I'm not wrong, I think this is the first one I read), but I'm glad I decided to give it a try.

The star of the show is not Batman but no other than the Joker. I liked that he was given a compelling backstory. Of course that doesn't justify his actions but it helps to get to know the “villain” a little and to understand his actions.

Something that I'll never understand is why Batman always lets the Joker go. I mean, it's not like he lets him escape; it's that in this particular case, the Joker did something that really pissed me off (Barbara Gordon!), and if I had been Batman, I would've ripped his head with my bare hands, but I guess that if he had indeed done that, the Joker's point might have proved right and he would've been the winner. Oh, why do I have to take books so seriously?

The graphics were good. At times they were a little creepy, but they did justice to the story, and really, it was a dark one, so they fitted it. No complaints about them.

It's totally worth reading this. I'll most definitely continue reading more of Batman. I mean, please, it's Batman. He's one of my (many) fictional crushes.

100% recommended.



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