Review: All's Well That Ends Well

All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars




All's well that ends well? Is that so, William?

Helena is a young woman whose father has just died. Mourning and in love, she cures the King of France of a disease. In exchange, the King is going to let her marry with whomever she pleases. Thus, she chooses the man he loves, but he does not love her back. In fact, he says she's not going to be her wife unless she obtains his family ring and she carries his child.

The man Helena loves is not a good guy. After the King forces he to marry Helena, he quickly flees France and goes to war. While battling, he also gets fame of seducing virgins. This was the perfect moment for Helena to introduce herself and try to get Bertram to love her. She knows the man is not nice, yet she still loves him and she still tries to win his love.

Until now, I think this one is the most quotable of all Shakespeare's play. I've not even read half his plays, but this one was fairly entertaining and I found myself thinking that the man knew to write and that he seriously knew what to say and when to say it.

As for the ending, is it really true that when something ends well, everything is well? The ending in this play was supposed to be... happy. But is everything really well at the end? The thing is, it felt forced. Like, Helena lost her virginity by Bertram and she got his ring and so... he falls in love with her out of the blue and marries her just like that? I mean, at the beginning, he hated her, but he fell for her that easy?

I don't know if the ending feeling so unrealistic was part of Shakespeare's intention, but it certainly didn't feel as if everything was well at the end.

Shakespeare has not yet disappointed me. I found one of his plays to be infuriating, others ridiculous, but I've not disliked any single one of them. I hope this continues like this.

Review: Anna Dressed in Blood

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I think the last good YA book I read was The Monstrumologist, and I'm still not sure if that one is indeed a YA book, since it was way too gory for a typical teenager to like it and it was far too philosophical for, again, a typical teenager to like it. Why am I saying this? Because Anna Dressed in Blood was awesome.

I like it that the romance is not a central point on the story. Sure, it made me roll my eyes, but it was completely in the background. The story was there and it never fed on the romance to work out. And it was great that it was not a stupid insta-love, because trust me: If it had been an insta-love, I wouldn't have rated this book with 4.5 stars.

I didn't quite find this book scary as I thought it would be. The first 30% on the book was scary as hell, but then, the other part of the book was merely suspense, but well, I did give me very creepy surprises at many moments. And it was very very gory at times (and with a very beautiful writing).

Cas was a great narrator. He was brave, kick-ass, and also funny. What else could I ask from a narrator? Besides, he was a boy. In most YA novels, the narrator is a clumsy, mary-sue girl; I needed a change. You know, maybe this is a coincidence, but the last good YA novel I read, that is, The Monstrumologist, had a boy-narrator too, which I also loved, by the way.

But as much as I loved Cas, I don't think he was the best character in the book. The best one was the goddess of nightmares: Anna. Anna Korlov. Anna dressed in blood.

Cas had been accustomed to killing ghosts, but Anna is different. She has a God-all-mighty strength, she's intelligent and she knows she's dead. Her past and the way she died are both horrible, and something unknown gives her that supernatural strength. I felt really bad for her when I got to know how (and by whom) she was murdered.

Also, this is not a novel with a single plot. There were two big issues to solve in it. The first one is the obvious one: The hunt for Anna; and the second one is not that obvious. When you get to the 45% of the book, you can have a guess about what it was. I guessed it halfway through the book.

What a creepy beast! At first, it reminded me of the Anthropophagi because it ate human flesh, but then, when they told that it actually was an Obeahman, I felt more scared. You see, precisely this semester at the university, I (and my group) was assigned to investigate about african-caribbean alternative religions, and within them were Voodoo, Obeah, Revival and Pocomiah, so I knew something about it. Yikes.

Anyway, Anna Dressed in Blood was a pleasant surprise. I loved it and I will certainly read the sequel, Girl of Nightmares. Luckily enough, I'll enjoy it as much as I enjoyed this one.

Read it, please. You will not be disappointed.



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Review: This Is Not a Test

This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



This book blew my mind. And it made me feel empty.

This is the apocalypse and six teenagers manage to survive the zombie plague that seems to be overcoming the world. They barricade themselves in their high school while trying to figure out how stay alive. However, not all of those six teenagers are grateful of being alive. There's Sloane Price, a girl who has had her own apocalypse not long since and cannot wait for the dead to feed on her.

When I started this book, I thought it was going to be a slaughter of humans and zombies...but it was not. And don't get me wrong, I'm not disappointed. If anything, I only liked it better. This is a story about survival. But then again, it is not only about surviving from the zombies. They also have to survive to themselves.

You would think that after they manage to secure the school, everything is perfect and the only thing that is left for them to do is to finding out how to kill all the zombies and get back to their normal lives, nonetheless, you wouldn't even think about the conflicts existing between the characters, because, you know, we live in a perfectly harmonious world in which everyone agrees with everyone. But that is not the case in this book.

We get to see how complicated it really is to survive...and that surviving does not only mean to be alive. What does it matter that you're alive if you have nothing left for you to want to live? That is a question analyzed in this book. And that is the inner conflict Sloane is trying to get through. She fights to find the answer to that question...and she fights for her to find her own reason to survive, because that's what everyone seems to be trying to do.

The set of character in this book is one of the most interesting and realistic I have read about. First, we have Sloane, the narrator, which I said to be a conflicted girl with no reason to live. Her life was already torn apart when the zombies came, so this apocalypse really didn't worsened anything. I could understand her and I felt bad for her. Sometimes, I have to confess, I feel just like she did, so I could sympathize with her. The other teenagers trapped with her have also their struggles and their own reasons to live, and her discovering those reasons made me feel very sad, too.

I loved the writing. It was stunning. And sad. The writing is impregnated with a sad tone throughout the story. But it was a great writing. Everything felt so vivid I could almost say I was with them. If a book has a slightly boring plot but has an amazing writing, I would be glued to it just because of the writing. This book kept me glued all the time, both because of the writing and what has happening.

This book was beautiful, raw, depressing and soul-crushing. And I loved it. I hope it doesn't tell bad things from me the fact that my favorite books are the soul-destroying type of books, but that's the truth and I can't deny it. This book ripped me and builded me again. I don't think a book had done this to me since I finished The Final Descent, which was also pessimistic in tone and everything. A point in your favor, Ms. Summers.

This was my first Courtney Summers' book, and after readingThis Is Not a Test I can say for sure that I will continue reading her books. I hope she doesn't disappoint me and that all of her books are as good or better than this one. I'll be craving for your books, Ms. Summers, did you hear that?

Please read this, you will not regret it. And remember, this is not a test, though this book certainly felt like a test to my mind...

Review: The 5th Wave

The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

My rating:

3.5 of 5 stars

In some way, I thank myself for reading this, otherwise, I wouldn't have read my favorite series (not joking), The Monstrumologist.

The 5th Wave is a really good book that you wouldn't regret reading it in any way, but it is not the best book by Rick Yancey, in my opinion. Yes, the writing is amazing, the character development is done really good, the plot, while not original, is developed in the way it makes it sound amusing; but I still don't think it's the best thing ever. My favorite work by Mr. Yancey isThe Monstrumologist. Nothing will ever replace that series from the special place in my heart (and if you knew me, you would know that I don't usually say those kind of things).

Cassie's a survivor of 4 waves of alien attacks. She's just been separated from her family, and now she's on a task of rescuing her little brother. Everything is fine until she's wounded by someone, and when she wakes, she's with a mysterious guy who may or may not be one of the aliens passing for a human.

On the other hand, we have Zombie (it's a nickname, people), who's being trained with other teenagers and kids for the army to fight the aliens. He doesn't trust people easily, and at some point he starts to doubt if indeed the people with who he shares his time are people he can trust, or if they are just liars.

As I said, the writing is really good. Sometimes, although the writing was simple, it was difficult for me to follow what was happening because it suddenly changed POVs without a warning. After a while , I got accustomed, but in first place I was confused. This is not a complaint, just something I thought worth to mention.

I kinda liked Cassie. She's not the Mary Sue kind of girl. She's strong, sarcastic and has learned to survive in the hard way. Her family was ripped from her in a most terrible way and she doesn't trust people easily, not even the hot guy that rescued her. Well, at least when they first met. *rolls eyes*

I didn't like Evan Walker. Don't judge me prematurely for saying that, but I simply didn't like him. He's too predictable for my taste (I knew he was an alien right from the beginning. Mr. Yancey doesn't make a big effort in trying to hide this.).

As for Zombie... I did like him. Protective, strong and somewhat funny. Zombie catched my attention since he mentioned where he was and what he was doing. The storyline in which he was the protagonist was the most interesting, in my opinion. The other characters were likable too, with Ringer being my favorite. She reminded me of Rita, from Edge of Tomorrow (if you haven't watched that movie, look for it, I'm not going to describe her). What a kickass female.

The plot twists were not unexpected, but they were done in a good way, so I didn't care. Also, the ending is a damned cliff-hanger, and that left me wanting to read more.

Nonetheless, this was not a perfect book. There were some parts that I really liked (the beginning, for example), but there were many other things that bothered the hell out of me. One of them was the romance. I felt it was forced and too insta-lovey. Evan was a too cliched love interest, and up to the point when Cassie and he met, she was more likable. After that, it got too cheesy for my taste. It surprises me that Rick Yancey would write something like that.

Also, I don't think I fully bought the fact that Cassie's father let Sammy go just like that. I mean, (and I think I read something similar to this in another review) they were still an almost complete family, so why did he do that? The rule after the 4th wave was never to trust anyone, wasn't it? So why did he have to trust that people for taking care of his 5-year-old son?

But even when all those things annoyed me, I still think this is a good book. It's better than most YA out there. It's not the best thing I've read, but it was enjoyable all the same. I know I've said this like a billion times now, but Rick Yancey at his best is inThe Monstrumologist. However, don't commit the mistake of not reading anything by Mr. Yancey because he truly is a great writer. If you don't think you'd like this, you can read The Monstrumologist, which is perfect much better in every sense.

So, I recommend this to everyone. If you don't read it for enjoyment, at least do it for the message the book leaves, which I rather liked. You will undoubtedly enjoy it.

P.S.: I get bored with aliens, but I was intrigued by these ones. Great job, Mr. Yancey!

Review: The Final Descent

The Final Descent by Rick Yancey

My rating:

5 of 5 stars

Once upon a time, there was a little boy who lost his parents in a fire. The boy had no one else in his life after this tragedy. Luckily (or unfortunately), the boy's dad was assistant to a great man called Pellinore Warthrop. This Warthrop—better known as “the doctor”, or “the monstrumologist”—decided that it was a good idea to take the orphan boy as his new assistant as a tribute to his former (and now dead) assistant, without knowing that the boy was doomed the moment Warthrop “adopted” him.

After many years of monster hunting (whether it be man-eating creatures, or wicked people), the boy was not anymore innocent. His soul had blackened, and the monsters he and the doctor hunted had gotten inside his skin and had turned to be part of him. Now, he's an old man whose dark past is such a great burden to him that he cannot resist it for any longer. Thus, he wrote some journals in which he explained his life from the moment he was cursed until the moment he became the man with the past too dark to bear.

Some people say this book was a disappointment, but I don't think so. They say it maybe because the end didn't please them, but for me, it was the best-fitting finale. What can you expect from a book about monsters "written" by a man that was exposed to them since his childhood? Would you really think he would be sane (or at least not perturbed)? Can you expect a happily ever after at the end? In my opinion, the ending is just as it should have been. It is certainly the most probable thing to happen if the things narrated had actually taken place at some time.

The writing is just as marvelous as in the previous books, if not better: It is dark, poetic, powerful and beautiful. I could almost say that the color black is not even dark enough to describe how somber the writing (and the book in general) is. Oh, and did I mention that it is also filled with a lot of philosophy? Well, if I hadn't, now I have.

There were many frightening scenes, although they are not like the ones in the previous books, that is, they're not necessarily gory. Don't expect this book to be like the preceding installments, because it is not. Rick Yancey said in the acknowledgements: 

“The Monstrumologist was conceived as one thing and evolved into something quite different. (...) Man-eating monsters running amok is a simple enough concept, the impenetrable dark in us, not so much.”

And he's not fooling you. The Monstrumologist was originally about Will and Warthrop's adventures defeating monsters, nonetheless, with each book that passed, the way the series lead started to turn to another path, a darker one, that resembled more an exploration on humanity:

“It occurred to me, (...) that aberrance is a wholly human construct. There were no such things as monsters outside the human mind. We are vain and arrogant, evolution's highest achievement and most dismal failure, prisoners of our self-awareness and the illusion that we stand in the center, that there is us and then there is everything else but us. But we do not stand apart from or above or in the middle of anything. There is nothing apart, nothing above, and the middle is everywhere—and nowhere. We are no more beautiful and essential or magnificent than an earthworm. In fact (...) you could say the worm is more beautiful, because it is innocent and we are not. (...), and so who are the monsters and which species shall we call aberrant?”

In this final installment, we get to see more development in the character of Will Henry. There are two of them. One, a sixteen-year-old teenager who's trying to fight the demons inside him and is still under the monstrumologist's service; and a mature Will Henry that has just come back to Warthrop after a long period of being away from him. Each one is different: The first one is troubled and resembles Jack Kearns a lot, and the last one has already his eyes completely open to the cruel reality of the world.

This book broke me. It's not a book that manipulates your feelings—don't get me wrong. It's just that you come to love everything about this series so much, you love the characters as if they were part of yourself and you think there's still hope for everyone that when everything ends, it does it in a way that makes you feel as if you've been... betrayed, and after everything, you feel dead inside. But that's good, because I think that was Mr. Yancey's intention: That you never forget about the series and that you let it live inside you.

You're going to feel angry (specially at Will Henry), sad, betrayed and empty—all at the same time. You're going to be left with more questions than answers, but again, that was fine for me. Now the ghost of this series is living inside me, haunting me, pursuing me, without letting me alone—not even for a day.

And finally, I really hope this series wins popularity one day, because I feel I'm the only person on Earth that has read it. As I said on a previous review, people don't know what they are missing with not reading this series. To tell you something else, this series is part of the slim list of books that changed my way of seeing things in life, and I'm not joking about this. It's like these books are my new glasses without which I only see blurred shadows and lights.

Snap to, readers! Give a chance to this series, let the shadow live within you too. You will not regret reading it.

“Yes, my dear child, monsters are real.”

P.S.: If the series itself didn't broke my heart, then this broke it. I knew about this conflict (and thinking about it depresses me), but I read this post until now. It makes me feel so sad to see that this masterpiece had its life threatened. It's a good thing, though, that even when this series is only appreciated by a very small group of people, we fierce in our love for it.

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Review: The Isle of Blood

The Isle of Blood by Rick Yancey

My rating:

5 of 5 stars

The Monstrumologist series is one of those few that quickly became one of my favorites, and The Isle of Blood is, in my opinion, the best book in the series. I cannot put into words how truly amazing this book was, so if you find my review difficult to understand, it might be because of my confused feelings.

Mr. Yancey outstanded himself with this book. I thought the series couldn't get any better, but then Yancey comes up with The Isle of Blood and surprises me. The word "perfect" is not even enough to describe this book. Very few authors can do that. I don't even remember examples of any book that can be listed in that case.

In this case, Dr. Warthrop is sent a nidus that is supposed to be made by the Holy Grail of Monstrumology--the magnificum. No one has seen one--neither dead nor alive--, so this arouses Warthrop's curiosity and he goes to hunt this creature.

However, this book is not only about this. This book is also about being human, what makes us human, what differentiates us from monsters. This installment, as well as the previous ones, explores the lines between monster/human and good/evil, but it does it in a much more profound way.

I love the writing style. I know I've said this like a million times, but I really love it. It's so poetical, so dark, so beautiful. It fits the time in which the diaries were written. Also, it makes you feel closer to the characters.

But, of course, this series wasn't written to please the majority of the YA audience. My main reason to say that is because it has no romance, it is very philosophical and it is slightly hard to understand what the author means. Also, because of the content of the book, it can be classified as a book meant for adults (excessive violence and gore). However, the protagonist is a boy, and that would mean it is either a children's book or a YA's book, and it is obviously the latter.

The characters are amazing. You can see how they develop throughout the series. Will Henry is not anymore the innocent boy we met in The Monstrumologist. He has grown up and is more independent; also, I really love his loyalty towards Warthrop, I don't think someone could be more loyal to someone than him. There's something that puzzles me about him, and that is that he claims to hate Warthrop, yet he's more faithful than a dog to him. Part of it it's because he's the only one he has, but what of the other aspects to consider?

We get to see some more of Warthrop's weakest side, meaning, we see him a little more human: He shows Will Henry that he cares for him, and sometimes, we see him fighting to keep his humanity.

“Please, do not leave me, Will Henry. I would not survive it. You were nearly right. What Mr. Kendall was, I am always on the brink of becoming. And you - I do not pretend to know how or even why - but you pull me back from the precipice. You are the one... You are the one thing that keeps me Human.”

Also, I love how Mr. Yancey says human beings are just a depraved species that the only thing they do--I mean, we do--is to fight one another, and that there are no monsters, only men:

“What of men? I can't think of anything more banal. I have no doubt — no doubt whatsoever — that once it has obtained the means to do so, the species will wipe itself off the face of the earth. There is no mystery to it; it is our nature. Oh, one might delve into the particulars, but really, what can we say about the species that invented murder? What can we say?”

While the previous installments focused more in the hunt for monster, this one was more about the search for the monster inside us than the hunting for aberrant creatures.

“You are the nest. You are the hatchling. You are the chrysalis. You are the progeny. You are the rot that falls from stars. You may not understand what I mean.

You will.”

And certainly you will understand it. At that time I didn't, but in the end, you will, and it will blow your mind. Or at least my mind because I totally didn't see it coming. I honestly expected something else, but I liked better what I got - it's more powerful.

I don't get why people don't appreciate the great literary master piece that is this series. As I already said, I find it difficult to put into words how fantastic this book was, but I hope people realize what they are missing with not reading this series, because they are the best work ever made in the YA gender (or not necessarilly YA because by now I'm not even sure if this series' directed audience are indeed YA readers).

Anyway, I really loved this book and the series. I recommend it to everyone. It is worth all your time. And please, read it. After all this time, I still feel I'm the sole person on Earth who has read this. I feel like my head is going to explode if I don't talk to anyone about this.

"We are hunters all. We are, all of us, monstrumologists."

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Review: Gone

Gone by Michael Grant

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



DNF at 10%


And I failed. Again.

I've tried twice to read this book, but both times I haven't managed to do it. It's just simply not for me. The concept is interesting, really, but I'm not intrigued by it anymore.

When I read what this was about, I was really excited, I remember, but that excitement faded away quickly with time, until one day I could no longer remember that I had been planning to read this.

That's when some reviews about this book started to appear.

If you were wondering if this was what aroused my curiosity for a second time, then you're right: When positive reviews about this book (series) started to pop out, I felt again that thrill, and I decided to give it a try. But I couldn't get past page ten.

Page ten, my dear friends. I couldn't get past page ten!! I found it boring, and all my curiosity had already died by that point. So that was a did-not-finish for me.

But again, some time later (like a year after), another wave of positive reviews started to appear, and again, my curiosity was awakened. And to make a long story short, I tried to give it a second chance and read it... but I failed again.

I found it more boring than the first time, just now I was not only bored but annoyed by the main characters. They all felt unrealistic and dull. Sorry if you don't agree with me, but I just didn't like any single of them.

At some point, things started to get better, however, by that point, I no longer wanted to read the book and I found myself skimming. This was when I made my final decision to leave this book unfinished.

No more tries for this one. Sorry, not sorry. Maybe it'll do for you, but for me, it didn't.



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