ajsterkel's reviews
812 reviews

This is a peculiar book. I was intrigued by the combination of fiction and vintage photographs, but it didn't work as well as I'd hoped. The writing is beautiful, and the photographs are beautiful, but they went together a little awkwardly. Some of the photographs seem like they were forced into the story. The story includes a few pointless details to accommodate the photographs. The plot is slightly convoluted because it has to explain the pictures. However, this is a very unique idea, and I will happily read the sequel. It took an amazing imagination to write this book.

The best part of the book is the imagery. There are some awesome scenes. My favorites are the peculiar children raising the dead and Jacob and Emma visiting the shipwreck for the first time. The monsters are also vividly described and creepy. I got a good sense of the island, its history, and its people. I liked that a lot.

Some elements of the plot are predictable. As soon as Jacob saw his first monster, I knew where the story was going, but I liked the ending. The identity of the monster was a surprise to me. The loops could have used more explanation. I don't think I totally understand how or why they work.

Unlike the peculiar children, Jacob is forgettable. He's bland and ordinary, which was probably intentional, but I like narrators with a little more personality. I finished the book yesterday, and I've already forgotten pretty much everything about him. The only thing that I remember clearly is his creepy relationship with Emma. Emma is 80-something-years-old. Jacob is 16. Emma dated Jacob's grandfather. Jacob is in love with her. Yuck. Just, yuck. (By the way, I had this exact same yuck problem with Twilight.) Age is much more than just how you look.

Aside from the romance, this book is unique, mysterious, and captivating. If you're looking for an out-of-the-box YA book, I'd recommend this one.

Battle Royale isn't literature. There's not much depth to it. A lot of the characters are underdeveloped. It could use some more world building. The violence is unrealistic. It's slightly predictable. It's the textbook definition of pulp fiction.

And it's awesome. I've wanted to read this book for years, ever since I heard that it was inspired in part by Stephen King's work. It didn't disappoint. This story has a familiar plot: a bunch of fifteen-year-olds are put on an island and told to kill each other, but it's different enough from other books with that plot to be interesting. My favorite element of the book was the POV switches. We get to learn about a lot of the characters and why they chose to participate or not participate in the game.

A lot of people have been comparing this book to The Hunger Games. Battle Royale has more gore and less politics. There are a lot of characters (over 50, I think), and the majority of them die. We get to see the bloody details of almost every death. A lot of gunshots, a few stabbings, a poisoning, some falls from high places, a hatchet in the face, that kind of thing. There is a lot of action, a lot of plot twists, and at least one death every few dozen pages.

If you have a strong stomach, time to read 600 pages, and a love of intense books, I'd recommend this one.

If I had to find things to complain about, the translation would be at the top of my list. I wish I could read Japanese. I have a feeling that this book is much better in its original language. There were a few times, especially at the end, where I had to reread to make sure that I understood what was happening.

Another thing that I would complain about would be the number of characters. There are a lot of them, and some of them have similar names (Yukie, Yuko, Yuka, Yukiko, Yumiko). It can be hard to remember who is doing what.

Finally, Kazuo's bulletproof vest annoyed me. Bulletproof vests aren't that bulletproof. The more you shoot them, the less effective they become. Kazuo got shot a ton of times and never seemed to be too bothered by it. Actually, both Kazuo and Shogo seemed unrealistically prepared for the game.

Even with the complaints, I enjoyed this book. I'm glad I finally got a chance to read it. 

Just when I thought that YA romances couldn't get any creepier, I find this book. Holy crap, yuck. I assume that everything works out at the end of the series, but it's still gross.

Aside from the romance, the book is okay. I'm not the biggest fan of paranormal romance/urban fantasy, but I've met a lot of people who love this series, so I thought I'd give it a try. Honestly, I don't see why this book is any better than the thousands of other fantasy books out there. It seems pretty average to me. Maybe I just don't know enough about the genre.

Jace is the most interesting part of the book. Some of his dialogue is very funny, though the constant sarcasm did start to get on my nerves. He also has slightly more personality than the other characters. He's a jerk, and I didn't like him, but he isn't as flat as Clary and some of the other characters.

The action scenes and plot twists are well done. I did predict a lot of the twists, but there are enough of them that I didn't predict them all. The fight scenes are entertaining.

I haven't read much fan fiction, but the writing does remind me a lot of fan fiction. I think it's mostly the random (and, in my opinion, unnecessary), point-of-view switches. I also didn't really understand the Simon/rat plot line. That could have been taken out of the book without changing anything. Maybe it will have a point later in the series.

I'm going to read the next book in the series, so I will get to find out.

Okay, I just Googled the author, and she did start out writing fan fiction. That's probably why the writing has a fan fiction feel to it.

I liked this book more than the first one in the series. It felt like there was more focus on the characters' individual personalities and less focus on trying to make everybody funny. The first book had constant sarcasm and joking from all of the characters. This book felt more balanced. All of the characters were angstier, and some of them were still underdeveloped, but their personalities seemed more distinct.

I do wish that I understood the magic system better. For example, there were portals in the first book that allowed the characters to travel anywhere in an instant. I guess that the portals were rare because there were only two of them in New York, but why can't more be created? Why couldn't a portal be created to bring more Shadowhunters to New York to fight Valentine?

Also, the creepy relationships in this series keep multiplying. The book dropped some very obvious hints that the incestuous relationship won't turn out to be incest, but that wasn't the relationship that creeped me out the most this time.

Spoiler

I always get weirded out when a mortal teenager dates an immortal who isn't a teenager. I found Twilight creepy because of this; I found Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children creepy because of this; I found this book creepy because of this. Age is more than just how you look. Age is life experience and how many years you've been on the planet.

Alec is a teenager. Magnus is 300 years old. Wouldn't a relationship between them be illegal? And what could they possibly have in common that would make them want to date in the first place? The worst part was that when Alec started to tell his parents about the relationship, Magnus knocked him unconscious with magic and then told his parents that he was delusional from demon venom. I actually stared at the book in horror for a minute. What kind of screwed up serial killer behavior is that? Why are none of the other characters concerned about this relationship?

Other than the horrifying relationships, this book was very entertaining. There were twists that I didn't see coming. A lot of action. Some of the more minor characters, like Simon and Alec, became slightly more interesting. I'm looking forward to finding out what happens in the next book.

So much angst could have been prevented with a trip to the Maury Povich Show for a paternity test. . .

The first 215ish pages were pretty much just angst, but once it got going, it really got going. The action was great. It felt like it took forever to get through the first part of the book, and then I flew through the rest of it. The ending with the angel and the lake was awesome. I really liked how the villain was defeated. That was probably the only thing in the book that surprised me. 

This was probably the most predictable of the books in the series so far. I accurately predicted almost every plot twist long before it happened, but that didn't bother me too much because the action was enough to keep me reading. The only plot element that bothered me was the Mirror. It was immediately and blatantly obvious what the Mirror was. How could 1000 years of Shadowhunters have missed that? I also wondered why the Lightwoods bothered bringing their under-18 children to Idris. The kids seemed to spend the first part of the book sitting in a room staring at each other.

There were a few other things that bothered me. I disliked all of the characters, especially Clary. She was whiny, selfish, and ungrateful. I don't know why Jace likes her so much. I still don't understand what Alec and Magnus see in each other. The death of one of the characters was unnecessary and glossed over. The other characters didn't even seem to be that sad about it. I think this series would be awesome if there was more character development. I don't feel anything for any of the characters other than dislike.

The other thing that's starting to bother me is the writing. It didn't bother me too much in the first books, but now that I've read three of them in a row, it's starting to get on my nerves. In all of the books, similes are overused, and they're not used effectively most of the time. There are many, many descriptions of the characters' hair. Also, everybody always seems to be shivering. They all need warmer coats.

Despite the minor annoyances, I'm curious about what the author does with the rest of the series. I have some predictions, and I want to find out if I'm right.

I was excited when I heard that this book was mostly about Simon. I thought that Simon was one of the more interesting characters in the series, and I wanted to know how he would adjust to being a vampire.

Unfortunately, I had a very difficult time staying interested in this book. The parts that were about Simon were interesting, but there wasn't a lot going on in the story. I think this series should have probably stayed a trilogy. It felt like the author wanted to write a fourth book but didn't have enough ideas to fill the pages. This book was missing the action that made the other books entertaining. There wasn't much of a plot. The book was mostly fluff, angst, (fluffy angst?), and rehashing conversations that took place in previous books. It didn't feel like anything new happened.

I don't really understand the point of this book. The series made a perfectly good trilogy. These last two books were fluff. It felt like the author wanted to continue the series but didn't have enough ideas to keep it going. This book did have a lot of funny dialogue, and there was more action in this book than in the previous one, but there wasn't much of a plot. It felt like the book was mostly relationship angst and fade-to-black sex scenes. It got too repetitive. The constant physical descriptions of the characters (especially their hair and eyes) started to get on my nerves. Jordan and Maia's relationship creeped me out because he attacked her and ruined her life, and she forgave him and took him back. That bothered me a lot. Clary also bothered me. I was never a huge fan of her, but she was interesting enough in the other books. In this book, she was unbelievably stupid. For example, she decided that it would be a good idea to get high in the presence of her evil brother and possessed boyfriend. How could that possibly end well?

I didn't dislike this book (it was entertaining enough that I read the whole thing), and I didn't dislike this series (it was entertaining enough that I read this far), but I've decided that this series just isn't my thing. I probably won't be reading the next book.

This is the best book that I've read in a long time. It's possibly the best book that I've read so far this year. There are a lot of great poems in this collection, but my favorite was probably "Ambiguity Over The Confederate Flag." I kept coming back to that one because it was so attention-grabbing.

These forty-nine poems explore the 1963 murder of civil-rights activist Medgar Evers. This is the type of book that you keep thinking about long after you've finished it. The poems are beautiful, powerful, and disturbing. What impressed me most was the author's ability to get inside the heads of real people and make it sound so authentic. The poems are told from the points-of-view of Evers's wife and brother as well as his murderer and his murderer's ex-wives. Each poem explores some element of Evers's life and death.

This book could have the power to leave the reader feeling hopeless, but the author handles the subject so skillfully that it doesn't. The book perfectly captures the complexity of human nature. It shows humans' capacity for love and hate, despair and forgiveness.

If you are interested in poetry or American history, I'd highly recommend this book.

I've decided that it's impossible for me to review this book without giving away the plot.

This novel is about a teenager, Jules, who gets pregnant. She gives birth to a perfect baby girl, Zoe. However, Jules's mother and friends can not see Zoe and do not believe that she is real.

I have seriously conflicted feelings about this book. It's one of those books that took my brain a long time to process. I did enjoy it. The plot is quickly paced. The characters are easy for the reader to sympathize with. The story is thought-provoking enough that I read it in a few hours. I liked Jules, and I so, so badly wanted her baby, Zoe, to be real. It would have been interesting to read a story about a good teenage parent. I think there's a stereotype in our society today (possibly perpetuated by the Teen Mom shows) that teenagers make horrible parents. I don't believe that. In the majority of cases, it's not ideal for teenagers to have babies, but it happens, and teens can be successful parents. I really wanted Zoe to be real and Jules to be a successful parent. Only a very good book could make me want something so badly for a character.

The main problem for me was that I never believed that Zoe was real. I believed that Jules was pregnant. I believed that she had an ectopic pregnancy. I didn't believe that the baby was born because I stopped trusting Jules after her visit to the doctor. Her belief that the baby was waiting to make sure that it was welcome before moving into the womb was so bizarre that I immediately knew that Jules was an unreliable narrator. I trusted the mother and friends (who couldn't see Zoe) more than I trusted Jules. 

My next problem was Jules's psychological reasons for inventing Zoe. Jules was molested/raped. When I read that, I felt my heart sink, and I went, "Oh, it's another one of those books." Molestation/rape seems to be a very common reason that characters are mentally ill in young adult fiction. It's starting to bother me. A lot. Not everybody who was molested/raped has a mental illness. Not everybody who has a mental illness was molested/raped. I'd like to see YA authors be a little more creative with their mentally ill characters. 

I did like that Jules wasn't cured of her mental illness at the end of the book, but she did make a lot of progress in very few pages. Her sudden leap toward getting better felt unrealistic.

That probably sounds like a lot of criticism, but this isn't a bad book. It's a compelling, captivating, and intense book. I couldn't put it down; I needed to find out what happened to Jules. Even with its problems, this book is worth reading.

Don't do drugs, kids. They'll turn you in to a lesbian for, like, half a day. Then you'll become a prostitute. Then your "dopy doper" friends will ruin your reputation so that nobody will ever want to marry you. Then you'll be put in a mental hospital. Then you'll die. Really, really, really!

You have to be on drugs to believe that this is a real teenager's diary.

This book is insulting to the intelligence of the reader. I promised myself that I wouldn't write 1-star reviews on here, but this book made me roll my eyes so many times that I have eye strain. I finished reading it yesterday, and I'm still laughing. If you're looking for a book with a strong anti-drug message, there are plenty of better options that are more realistic and less heavy-handed than this one. In fact, calling this book heavy-handed is probably an understatement. It clobbers you over the head with its anti-drug message until you're cross eyed and attempting to count how many pages you have left before it's over.

This book is supposedly the diary of a teenager that was written between 1968 and 1970. The narrator is a good girl (for the most part) who unknowingly takes illegal drugs at a friend's party. After that, she becomes a drug addict, starts ironing her hair, wears vests with fringe, uses slang words, disobeys her daddy, and "attracts the wrong crowd." Then, every bad thing that could possibly happen to her happens to her. She even becomes a lesbian for about a fourth of a page. When she stops using drugs, bad (and unrealistic) things continue to happen because the author really has to drive home the message. If you do drugs (even once, even unknowingly) your life is ruined forever. It's so ruined that God, your boyfriend, and your parents might not forgive you (especially if you're a poor, undeveloped secondary character). 

The unnamed narrator of this book has no personality. She's a drug addict and nothing else. Almost all of the characters are drug addicts and nothing else. They have no redeeming qualities. They are caricatures that the author manipulated  in order to deliver a message. Even the way that the narrator writes feels heavily manipulated. When she's not on drugs, she writes in an unrealistically formal way. When she's on drugs, she's casual and uses a lot of slang and cuss words. She's so drug-addled that she doesn't know the date, but she's somehow not too drug-addled to write diary entries about how drug-addled she is.

I acknowledge that I am not this book's target audience. It was meant for young teenagers in the early 1970s. I'm not a teenager, and I wasn't alive in the 1970s. The book might have had more meaning for its target audience. I also acknowledge that teenagers need books with a strong anti-drug message. I have no problem with anti-drug books. However, this book is agenda-driven, poorly researched, poorly written, alarmist, and just plain silly.