The Ability – is Harry Potter on crack

4 of 5 Better-Than-Harry-Potter Stars – The Ability by M.M. Vaughan.

Such a fun and entertaining book. Great characters, with interesting development. I wouldn’t really call this a Young Adult book. It’s more of a children’s book. Even so, it’s awesome.

I mean, I’m an adult, I think. I may have the mental capacity of a stupid 5 year old, but at least I don’t poop my pants very often. Even as a retarded 5 year old, I found this book somewhat fascinating. It’s the story of our hero Chris Lane, a 12 year old fuck-up, who’s been given the opportunity to attend London’s most interesting school. It’s a school where kids are trained to use abilities like telepathy, telekinesis, and other such superpowers.

But of course our retarded hero, Chris, tells this special school to go fuck itself, because he’d rather take care of his sick mom, and get beat up by fat fucks at school. Because, you know… Plot or something.

So, it’s pretty much a Harry Potter book. But, instead of witchcraft, it’s more about science fiction. Frankly, I found this book more interesting than Harry Potter. Harry never really gets to be a hero. But Chris is definitely a hero by the end of this book. I mean, his life still sucks, but at least it’s worth living.

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Specials – aren’t very special

3 of 5 Short-Bus Stars – Specials by Scott Westerfeld.

This is a fun book, full of adventure. But it’s still just as predictable as Pretties. So, Tally is Special now. What do you think is going to be the plot of this book? Since the plot of the last book was to cure Pretties, the plot of this book is (of course) to cure Specials. Big fucking surprise.

One of the things that confuses me about this series, is Tally and her allegiance, if she does in fact have any allegiance at all. Because, in the first book, she betrays the Smokies. In the 2nd book, she tries to help the Smokies. Then, in this book, shes a Special who hunts Smokies as a profession. What the bloody fuck?

Then, there’s Tally’s best friend Shay. Or, wait a minute, I mean her most hated enemy Shay. Oh wait, they’re friends again. I don’t fucking know. Nobody knows if these chicks hate each other or just totally want to get it on. I’m pretty sure they’re hot for each other.

But, I digress. This is still a great book. I’d highly recommend it to people who like the whole Young Adult scene. But, make sure to start with the Uglies book, or you will have no idea what the fuck is going on in this book.

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Better Than Life – is a pretty sucky life

3 of 5 Virtual Stars – Better Than Life by Grant Naylor.

The first third of this book is fucking awesome. The Better Than Life bit. It’s amazing. That’s why I wanted to read this book. I saw that episode of Red Dwarf, and it was so good, I just had to read the book. And, that part of the book was great, but after that, it turns to complete horseshit.

Better Than Life is the most addictive game ever developed. It’s a completely immersive virtual reality game, that allows you to create your own perfect world. Where Lister is living the perfect family life, in a small town, with the his lifelong love obsession Kristine. Where Rimmer is rich as balls, with all the hot bitches, and the biggest penis on the planet. Seriously, Rimmer goes to his Personal Body Tailor, because his current body had gotten a bit wrinkled. The tailor asked Rimmer how he likes his new body. “The penis could be a bit bigger,” Rimmer says. “Sir, any bigger and it would be dragging on the ground,” the tailor responds.

All this is great stuff. But, then they finally get out of the game, and the story turns to trying to rescue their spaceship from colliding with a rogue planet. Oh noes! Who the fuck cares? Then, Lister gets stranded on a garbage planet, and makes friends with 9 foot long cockroaches. Okay, that’s a bit weird. But again, who the fuck cares?

So, here’s some advice, if you want to read this book. Stop reading when they get out of Better Than Life. Because after that, you’ll just want to kill yourself.

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Locked Doors – should stay locked

3 of 5 Killer Stars – Locked Doors by Blake Crouch.

The problem with this book, is it’s just the same shit all over again, in different settings. Luther Kite and Orson go around doing their serial killer thing, while Andrew scratches his head and tries to figure it out. Then, Andrew gets captured by one of the killers and oh noes, they’re gonna kill him this time, right? No such luck. It’s the same story in all these books.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a pretty good book, if you’re into the whole serial killer thing, which I am. But come on Blakey boy, throw me some curve balls for fuck’s sake. Would it kill you to surprise the reader every once in a while? Because all these fucking books are way too predictable.

There’s really no point to reading ’em, except to fast forward to the killing and torturing. But at least, once you get to those good parts, they’re pretty good. Then, I have to stop masturbating when Andy inevitably escapes. Really pisses me off.

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We Are All Completely Fine – or are we?

3 of 5 Confused Stars – We Are All Completely Fine by Daryl Gregory.

I don’t understand this writer. His style drove me nuts. In the narrative, he kept using we like a first person book would use I. It drove me insane. Like he was narrating the story in first person, but he wasn’t.

I kept looking for who the first person might be. I waited until the end… No demon or anyone stood up and said “Gotcha! It was me all along.” Which was kind of what I was expecting. But no. So, I’m still left confused.

Other than that, it was a great book. A compelling read, with vibrant characters and a disturbing story. It centers around a therapy group of fucked up rejects who all have some supernatural element in common. They reveal their stories one by one until they finally learn what must be done. And no, it’s not group suicide. Good guess, though.

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The School for Good and Evil – is my kind of school

5 of 5 Charming Stars – The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani.

This book is so awesome! It had me hooked from the very first sentence: “Sophie had waited all her life to be kidnapped.” Absolutely amazing story. Couldn’t get enough of it.

A beautiful girl and an ugly goth type girl are somehow best friends. They are whisked away to a fairy tale land, The School for Good and Evil. In a strange twist of fate, the pretty one lands in the evil school and the ugly girl finds herself in the pretty school for good. Hilarity ensues.

From the very beginning, I thought, these girls are totally going to end up in bed together. I won’t tell you if they do in fact end up banging, because that would probably spoil the fun. But I can tell you one thing: goth girls are almost always lesbians. There, I said it.

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Pretties – is just not pretty enough

3 of 5 Girly Stars – Pretties by Scott Westerfeld.

This is pretty much the same story as the Uglies book. But reversed. This time, she starts out Pretty, and begins the journey to becoming ugly once again.

Part way through, she escapes the city that is harshing her groove, along with some of her friends (just as she did in the Uglies book). The only difference is, this time she’s not going to betray anyone! But maybe someone else will? Ya think? No way. Couldn’t be.

This book is still more interesting, albeit slightly, than the first book in the series. Mostly because this book creates just a tad more character and depth.

And, oh boy! Now, Tally gets to be Special. Whooptie-freaking-doo. I’m so excited for the next book. See my face? This is my grumpy cat face. My I really don’t give a flying fuck face.

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All Our Yesterdays – is way too many yesterdays

2 of 5 Bogus Stars – All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill

The beginning of this book was amazing. Full of all kinds of time-travel paradoxes. Okay, that makes it sounds fancy. It wasn’t fancy time-travel theory or anything. It was Bill & Ted’s hide the documents theory. You know, you think of something that you should do in the past, and woah, there’s the keys behind that bush!

So, Em hides the documents from herself. The documents that will change the world, because they include the secret tech to build a vast time machine. Once the time-travel fun concludes after a few chapters, we fall into a slump of “Where’s the documents?” or “Who hid the documents?” or “OMG I found the documents.”

Seriously, that’s the whole middle of this book. Like 200 pages of looking for, or hiding, or finding these documents.

Then, in the last few chapters, the Bill & Ted time-travel bits come back into play. OMG there’s another you, dude. No way?! Totally! So the evil Bill tries to kill the good Bill, and the evil Ted gets hold of the documents and… Woah man. It’s like totally bogus, dude.

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Want – makes me want nothing

3 of 5 Confused Stars – Want by Magus Tor.

This is an interesting novella. The first third of the story went along fine, introductions were made all around. How are you? I’m fine. Lets have dinner. How about coffee? Sure. Great. Who the fuck cares? I don’t read books for the detailed descriptions of everyday life. I don’t care what you had for dinner, lunch, what kind of fucking coffee this character likes, etc.

I care about the story, and the relationships. The first third of this story establishes the relationships, but does absolutely nothing to further the story. The second act didn’t do much to further the story either. In fact, the second bit just made me want to take a fucking nap.

It was really a bit of drudgery to get to the third act, which finally did pick up the pace a little, and got heavy into the meat of the story. It’s about a political conflict, set in a society that has been built on the moon. A large part of the moon’s population are clones, which serve as slaves to the rich and powerful.

These slaves WANT their rights, goddamnit. They’re just as human as anyone else. This last third of the book is actually quite good. I really wish I had just started reading at the 70% mark. I would have been much happier with the story.

Then, of course, the last 10% of this novella goes to shit again, and gets convoluted as all hell. The author busts out like 3 crazy plot twists in the end, which is good, I guess. I mean, it did make the story more interesting.

But then, yet another plot twist is thrown in at the last second that didn’t make any fucking sense. I was like, seriously dude? Come on, man. You were doing just fine, then you had to skull fuck it with this garbage. It would have been a much better ending if it was just the first few twists. Those were fucking awesome. They actually made the story make sense.

In the end, I still liked this little novella. I’ll probably even continue with the next book in the series. I mean, how much worse can it get? Oh who am I kidding. It can get much much worse.

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In The After – surprised the hell out of me

5 of 5 Alien Stars – In The After by Demitria Lunetta.

This book was excellent. I started reading it one night, after the power went out. I lost track of time, as I sat there, reading by candlelight. Hours ticked by, and finally, the power came back on. I was about 2/3 through this book, when I went back to whatever I was doing before the power went out. But, I couldn’t shake this book. So, I went back to it, and finished it that night. I just couldn’t put it down.

It’s the story of an alien invasion. A young girl named Amy is stranded, after her parents were killed. She bunkers down in her house, which was quite fortified, because her parents were crazy hippy survivalist nuts. The house even had an electric fence that surrounded it, which actually help keep the aliens out.

She watches as the invaders tear through town, feasting on sweet human flesh. She stays quiet, because she learns that the aliens have extra sensitive hearing. She finds a girl in a supermarket who is only a couple years old, but somehow she had survived the attack. The toddler tries to talk, but Amy keeps her quiet, and even teaches her sign language, from a book her parents had in their library.

While I was getting near the end of this book, I was worried. I kept thinking of ways the author could screw up the ending. But I was pleasantly surprised. The ending was just as good as the rest of the book, if not better. It was just fucking amazing.

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