samiism's reviews
1196 reviews

After watching each of their future selves post birth, they decide to go for a drink. One expectant mother said, "Sod the baby....I need a double vodka. " What? This short story just didn't do it for me. If anything, it seemed like it had an agenda against no pain relief, the name Melchior, and playing Mozart. I just didn't get the point of it.

I learned nothing. This book's design is horrible, and the presentation is painful to my eyes.

My boyfriend and I were watching The Following and he mentioned that The Tell-Tale Heart is his favorite Poe short story. I thought it seemed familiar so I hopped online and read a copy real quick.

Turns out I read this piece in high school. The ending is creepy and haunting; it stuck with me all these years. I couldn't remember the premise then, and I realized it was because I tend to speed read through most of Poe's works.

And is it just me or does the guy in this version's cover look a bit like Bill Nye the Science Guy?

This is the first Goosebumps I read in over 10 years, and I am reminded of how one-dimensional the characters and how cringe-worthy the dialogues are.

Wendy and Elliot talk their parents into letting them ride in the trailer during a ride to camp, and somehow the trailer becomes unhitched. They roll down a hill and land by Camp Jellyjam where instead of being panicked and checking for injuries or trauma and making sure to contact their parents and the authorities, the kids immediately join sports events.

Whut.

If the vehicle I rode in fell into a ditch, the last thing I would want to do is go for a leisurely dip in a pool.

And the destruction of the King Jellyjam was an anticlimactic letdown. I read so fast that I had to backtrack and make sure that that was it.

Rose confused me. There were times when I liked her, and times when I was annoyed of her. She is bossy, meddling, and hypocritical. She looks down upon feeders and dhampirs women who let Moroi men drink from them, calling them "blood whores". She is one to talk, since she enjoys the times when Lissa feeds off of her. She also got pissed when she heard of news that two Guardians were quitting so they could get married. She normally likes rebelling against the system, but not when the rebels are against HER beliefs. Wow. Rose is also quite full of herself and very proud of her looks.

Lissa is bland. There is just no other word to describe her. Bland. Very little personality. Christian seems like an Edward Cullen. And Dimitri? Meh. Although I did like it when he threw shade at Rose's "slutty" behavior.

This book isn't badly written. But it's not spectacular either.

I did not have the (dis?)pleasure of reading this book when I was a child. All I had was Goosebumps. So I review this book as the 25-year-old that I am.

The jump stories had me in stitches. The stories all had promising premises, but the endings were ridiculous for someone my age. Example: at the last word, you are instructed to scream or pounce at your friends. I already know that even as a child, I would simply snort at the directions.

The ghost stories and all the others afterwards are much scarier. Some even seemed like Let's Not Meet territory (such as High Beams). It was a nice change but I wish the jump stories weren't put up front where it would discourage readers from going further. I would've tagged this as DNF after a couple of jump stories.

Very beautiful and poetic. I find myself almost singing this in my head because the words just flow so melodically.

Like Annabel Lee, The Raven flows just as melodically. However, I got bored of it three-quarters of the way in.

OOOOOH MY GOD!

I started this book thinking it wouldn't keep me hooked for too long. The first dozen chapters read more like summaries or quick recaps of a missed show. But the pacing picked up, and in under 12 hours, I finished the whole thing.

The Game is not too wordy. It does not get caught up in too much useless detail. I liked that. It is what kept me reading almost non-stop...to the point where I soiled my jeans with Mac & Cheese because I was too busy keeping my eyes on my table than on my lunch.

The characters were the kind that I didn't end up hating or loving. Again, I liked that. Zack/Trew didn't seem annoying or overly heroic and Alex/Danielle wasn't a Mary Sue. I actually liked all the characters...even Carl.

Great job, Mr. Schott. You've earned yourself a fan. This is the only other book series this year that has me scrambling to read the next one; the first being Divergent back in January. And now I'm off to read Digital Heretic because that cliffhanger was so not the business.

I'm not going to pretend that I've read all of Shakespeare's plays because I'm not really into his kind of prose. I have, however, read this because it was a part of the English class in my sophomore year in high school.

What's funny to me is how many ignorant "lovers" liken themselves to Romeo and Juliet, which makes it clear that they don't really know the full story. They are aware that R&J are star-crossed lovers, but they aren't fully aware of the tragedy of the tale.

Juliet is 13, Romeo is a bit older. They come from warring families. They fall in love at first sight and marry in secret. Romeo accidentally kills Juliet's cousin, resulting in his banishment from Verona. Juliet is forced to marry Paris, so with the help of Friar Lawrence, she fakes her death. Poor Romeo doesn't get the memo, and believes Juliet to be truly dead. So he kills himself with poison next to her "corpse". Juliet wakes up and realizes that her true love has offed himself, so she daggers herself in order to join him in the afterlife.

Romantic? I don't think so.

This piece of literature is wonderfully poetic, but I wouldn't say I admire the characters Romeo and Juliet. They were just tragic from the get go. Romeo is deathly passionate--he kills Tybalt and Paris out of anger, and himself out of "love". That's scary. Juliet, though, barely a teenager is actually more mature and braver than Romeo.