The Bloody Chamber And Other Stories

A collection of fantasy retellings with a dark twist. Featuring little red riding hood, beauty and beast, puss-in-boots and other fairytale/ mythical characters.

I did not enjoy this at all. I expected intriguing dark and twisted fantasy retellings but the focus was on Carter's morose prose rather than plot building or progression.

She does have a way with words in that her writing flows like poetry at times. Unfortunately, that was lost on me and just bored me to tears.

Boring and uninspired.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium Trilogy)- Steig Larsson

A crime novel about a journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, who teams up with a mentally challenged genius to look into a 40 year old missing person case.

Not what I expected at all. I picked this up having found myself at the airport with no summer read in tow and a shitty selection of books to choose from. As a summer read, it was everything I hoped it would be, fast paced, intriguing and entertaining. However, it was nowhere near the literary genius that everyone makes it out to be.

First of all, the fact that it is a translated copy is already a point against it. Nothing wrong with translated books, Reg Keeland did a great job, but I find that they loose their essence in the process.

Second of all, while the mystery was interesting it wasn't an earth shattering, mind blowing, out of this world concept. It was a pretty standard crime thriller

Third of all, what was up with the characters?! Mikael has no personality to speak off. He could be anyone and do anything and I wouldn't question it since we really know nothing concrete about him or about the way he is. On the other hand, Steig tried really hard with Salamander's character (that's the only way I remember her name) by giving her the unnamed personality disorder. Whatever mental illness he had pictured her to have in his head, I didn't buy it. It's really tricky writing about mentally challenged characters, you really have to know your shit, otherwise this character won't be taken seriously. Throughout the novel, Salamander is shown as an anti-social genius who lacks empathy and right at the very end she behaves like a lovesick teenager. Completely at odds with the character we were exposed to.

I read that those books were purely written for Larsson's pleasure and he passed away before they were published, I guess he never got a chance to work with an editor and get a second opinion.

Harsh review aside, I did enjoy the book. If it wasn't hyped up so much and I didn't go into it expecting a life changing novel this review would have been much nicer. The book served it's purpose, it kept me entertained on the airplane and was a page turner. That's all anyone can ask for in a summer read.

Larissa Ione - Passion Unleashed (Demonica book # 3)

Finally!!! This was what I was waiting for. Don't give a damn about the rest of the series anymore. I've been soldiering on just to get to Wraith's story because i am a sucker for tortured souls. Ione promised and she delivered.
Both main characters were awesome and kick ass in this installment, no one got my nerves. The virgin thing was super cliché and an overused plot device but I will overlook that in lieu of the fact that this was THE book of the series.
The story line was fun as well and Wraith got to be his full on Epic self and move on from his tortured-ness.
Thank you Ione for not wasting my time and coming through!

A Memory of Light: Book 14 of The Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson

A Memory of Light marks the end of Robert Jordan's great Epic The Wheel of Time. In this final installment, the forces of Good and Evil finally clash in the long awaited Last Battle. Our heroes are busy fighting the Dark One's forces on various battlefront while Rand heads to Shayol Ghul for the final showdown.

Where do i even start. I've been sitting on this review for a month now, at a loss for words. It's impossible to express my feelings towards this series with mere letters, augh! how do I explain to you the Epicness of this series, the glory of Robert Jordan and subsequently Brandon Sanderson. How?!

When I was 13 a bookstore opened across the road from my house. It was a great moment in my life considering bookstores were few and far between where I grew up and that I was already insane about books. That was were i first discovered WOT. I remember that day  very clearly. Up until then, my exposure to fantasy had been through Y.A. novels (Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, Narnia, etc.) and I fancied myself a fantasy fan. Little did I know that there was a much bigger world out there. i don't know what drew me to the WOT books, but I do remember liking the covers and picking up a random one. I was so intrigued after reading the blurb and disappointed that they didn't seem to have the first book in the series. I eventually hunted it down and thus begin my WOT obsession.

13 years later, I found myself on a plane, finally reading the last few chapters of AMOL, after having read the previous books 3 times, bawling my eyes out over the most emotional and heart wrenching ending that has ever been written. Every paragraph felt like a stab to the heart, I still feel so moved every time I think of the final events.

I can't talk about this without having spoilers everywhere. All I'm going to say is this last book surpassed all my expectations, I could not have imagined a better ending, deaths and all. This has forever cemented WOT as my favorite fantasy and nothing will ever take it's place. Thank you Robert Jordan for leaving this beautiful legacy behind. I see myself re-reading it time and again and always being surprised by things I had missed in previous reads.

The Wheel of Time is an Epic like no other.

A Good Family- Erik Fassnacht

Reviewing an advance copy received from NetGalley.
This was a good first try. Well written and edited, which goes a long way with me. A Good Family is a story about the Brunsons, a highly dysfunctional family. Henry, the Father, has pretty much abandoned them to fast cars, a nice condo and younger girls. Julie, the mother, is depressed and barely hanging on to life by downing her Zolofts. Their first born son Charlie, had some sort of early life crisis and dumped everything to join the army. Which leaves us with the youngest, Barkley, who's actually the only normal one and just wants to become a teacher. We follow the lives of each of them as they deal with their shit and move on with life.

I enjoyed reading Barkley's and Julie's arcs. I cared about the characters and could clearly see their development and understood how it happened. With Charlie and Henry this wasn't the case. I didn't buy Charlie's guilt over what happened in Afghanistan, it felt forced and cliché. The way he got rid of the guilt wasn't convincing either, how do you fixate on something for so long and then just suddenly let go, just like that? It didn't make sense and I didn't feel like it was given the importance and time that it needed. There is something deeply disturbing about Henry, he's clearly totally fucked up in the head. Is it justifiable though? I mean psychologically justifiable to be this fucked up due to that event in his childhood? More pages were spent talking us through his day to day life than on examining his psyche, which bored me and didn't sell his story very well.

Bottom line, this was a decent first book, albeit unoriginal, that shows potential.

Desire Unchained (Demonica # 2)- Larissa Ione

Runa wakes up in a dungeon Spade, and ex-boyfriend who cheated on her and turned to be a Seminus demon (type of incubus). Spade, plagued by a curse that does not allow him to fall in love, is blown away by Runa's new found ballsy character. Throw in a crazy person that wants them both dead and you have a whole lot of Drama.

Meh, did not like this one. I never cared for Spade in the first book and I continued not caring for him in this one too. Runa was just as bad. I hated how Ione portrayed her as this spineless pathetic girl that Spade totally trashed and then she came back a year later with a whole new personality and he was just blown away. It sickened me.
The weird shit with the S n M soul cleansing thing didn't make sense to me either, it was just bizarre.
A very weak installment that just about turned me off from the books. However, I still really like the brothers interactions and I really want to get to Wraith's story cause he's my favorite.

Pleasure Unbound (Demonica #1) - Larissa Ione

What is it about?

In a nutshell- Tayla Mancuso, a Demon slayer, lands at a Demon hospital after being beaten half to death by some Demon. Eidolon, an Incubus Demon, fixes her up and duh is attracted to her. Thus begins the classic enemies that want to fuck each other's brain out story and of course some exciting action occurs on the way.

I can sense that this series is going to become my guilty pleasure.

With a name like "Pleasure Unbound" one would expect this to be a sex-centric novel, but I hoped the name was just an eye-catching scheme and that the book would have a solid story. I was both satisfied and disappointed.

I was satisfied because the "main" story line was good. A demon hunter lands in a Demon run hospital and learns that everything she's ever known about Demons is wrong and that some of them are actually good or strive to be good. It was interesting learning about the different demon species and their version of creation. Some very good ideas there. The action plot was good, someone is kidnapping Demons and selling off their parts on the black market, interesting, want to know more...

On the other hand, I was disappointed because what was supposed to be the primary story line, really wasn't and just felt like a side dish or an appetizer for the sex plot (because there has to be one with a book called Pleasure Unbound) which was quite ridiculous to be honest. I can't take a book seriously when a conflict that takes up half the book is the fact that the main female character can't cum and the main male character who is a Seminus Demon ( A type of Incubus) makes it his mission throughout the book to bring her to Orgasm
[ The main female character can't cum and the main male character who is a Seminist Demon ( A type of Incubus) makes it his mission throughout the book to bring her to Orgasm (hide spoiler)



And the reason the conflict occurred in the first place along with the resolution... oh my god no! Psychologists are crying everywhere in the world.

Hence why this is going to be a guilty pleasure. Cause, who are we kidding? If those books are about Incubi, they're going to be about sex. Fullstop.

She did end with an unresolved "main plot " (the actual good one) which made me download the second book ASAP. Also, I really liked the relationship between Eidolon (Incubus Demon) and his brothers. It was a respite from the " I'm a Seminist demon, I'm horny all the time" trope.

All in all, good effort, entertaining book, looking forward to the rest of the crew's romantic shenanigans.