Saturday, 30 July 2016

Book Review: I Kill by Giorgio Faletti

I KillI Kill by Giorgio Faletti
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So I bought this a while back in a second hand book shop, with no real expectations.

This isn't the kind of book that I would ordinarily read, but I felt like mixing things up a bit and trying something different. I have to say I was surprised to find that I quite enjoyed this book. I struggled with the first couple of chapters as it felt like a bunch of things were happening and yet they didn't seem to relate to each other, but I decided to stick with it and give it a chance.

This had a very interesting plot line, that was very well and cleverly written. There was a good cast of characters that worked well together with their own backstories, that were bought up and explained when necessary and in a way that didn't detract from the story that you were reading.

If you like a rather gruesome murder story then this one is definitely for you.

A very good book.

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Tuesday, 5 July 2016

Behind The Curtain

Hello!!! Yes, I am still alive. I've been really busy working away on all the Tomb Buddies stuff (very exciting)

The good news is the end is in sight. I'm nearly ready to open; the store looks amazing and I can't wait for everyone to see what has been going on in the Tomb.

To keep up to date with everything don't forget to follow Tomb Buddies on TwitterInstagram , Facebook (yes, this is new) or you can join the mailing list  and be the fist to know when we are open, when any awesome sales are on and get discount codes! On the other hand you could create a Tictail account. You can them follow our store and all of the thousands of other amazing brands that are on there, Seriously there are so many awesome things in the Marketplace!!

Click here to see a sneak peak of something that you will be able to get in store.(Video didn't look so good in the blog post, sorry for the redirect)

Okay now back to work so we an get this store open!!

Feel free to leave questions and comments at the bottom, or send them via Unicorn, Carrier Pigeon, Flying Monkey, Magic Carpet or any other weird mode of transport you can think of!


Saturday, 2 July 2016

Book Review: Adept ; Ex Machina by Robert Finn

Adept ; Ex Machina Adept ; Ex Machina by Robert Finn
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Okay so this was books one and two sandwiched in one cover.

Adept (book 1)

So from reading the back of this book I though that this could be a really good story as there appeared to be potential for this to have a really unique story line and be really gripping. However I don't feel that things went that way, hence me only giving this two stars.

The book was a bit slow at getting started. I got nearly 200 pages in and as much as I could see where the story was heading, I didn't get the point of it all. In hindsight that should of told me how little I was going to enjoy the rest of this book.

Sometimes descriptions are a bit overdone - like when you're at school and the teacher tells you to add more descriptive words and you end up abusing description by writing any big fancy sounding word you can think of; it got tedious and sounded like the writer was trying to hard. So points for effort, but not for execution.

Even after finishing Adept, I don't care about the characters. If they had all died I wouldn't be all that bothered by it. It was obvious who the good guys and the bad guys where, but I didn't find myself rooting for either side. We know that Susan is American and blonde, but aside from this we don't really know anything about who she is as a person. Why does she do what she does? Why did she decide to move to England to work? Ultimately we don't really know (or in my opinion we don't) why she was in the place she was at to become a player in this story. We also know little about David. What is David's history? What's with the martial arts? How'd he get into what he does as a job? I get the impression that it's not what he wants to be doing, nor does it seem like something that he enjoys. So what motivates him? I found this lack of back story on the characters made it hard to connect with them.

So by the point of basically being half way through Adept, the story could have been wrapped up quite nicely (and to be honest I was stating to run out of patients with the book)But I still had another 250 odd pages to go before I reached the next book. I kept reading. I thought 'Hey maybe there is going to be some nifty plot twist that I didn't see coming!' There wasn't (feel free to disagree with me). By the time that I reached the end I felt like it was all being dragged out way too much, and it had become a chore to finish.

Some of the reviews on the back of the book are throwing around words and phrases like "Fast paced", "Witty", "Carefully plotted", "Humour" . Personally I would disagree; except maybe on the "carefully plotted" part. It is carefully plotted; perhaps to a fault.


Ex Machina

If this hadn't have been in the same book I wouldn't have even picked it up after reading Adept. For some odd reason though I made an attempt at reading it. I say attempt because I didn't finish it. For the first time in I don't know how long, I gave up on a book.

This is the first fiction book that I have read that has foot notes. Yes, you read that correctly FOOT NOTES. The character who's perspective this is from is irritating. It feels like a she is constantly whining about something and then goes off to the pub to drown her sorrows with many glasses of wine and various other alcoholic beverages.

It became a chore to finish Adept and I have run out of patients to even want to try and finish Ex Machina.

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