Welcome to a new segment I am introducing to try and help keep me up to date with my reviews, even if I don’t have much to say about them. This segment is going to be called Mini Mondays. In these posts I will be reviewing about 3 books in a couple of paragraphs. Because of the size and nature of these reviews, they will generally only be 1-3 stars. I might as well get on with it now.
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Author: Lauren Kate
Genre: Young Adult, Supernatural, Romance
Length: 420
Rating: 2 Star
Series Reviews: 1, 2, 3, 3.5, 4
Review – MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
As some of you who have been following me for quite awhile, over two years ago I started reviewing the Fallen series by Lauren Kate. I reviewed Fallen and Torment and then the reviews stopped. This was for only one reason that up until I decided I would allow myself to do these mini reviews, I could not get past. I hated this book, and when I reviewing these books they were re-reads. I could not bring myself to read it for the third time (I read it twice because I forgot how much I hated it between its release and Raptures). I found this book to be completely pointless, and brought nothing to the story. There are only certain sections of this book that you actually need to read to know what on earth is happening in the last book. The story drags and just repeats itself over and over again. Part of me wants to let this detail go because Luce and Daniel’s story is very repetitive, but that doesn’t mean we needed to be reading about them at all. We got the idea of it when it was explained to us in the first 2 books.
So I am going to do something a little sacrilegious in the book community and basically suggest that you just skim read this book and avoid most of it. If it were not for those few moments on goodness or needed information, I would say just skip it. The Daniel chapters in the first half you can avoid all together.
Author: Lauren Kate
Genre: Young Adult, Supernatural, Romance
Length: 201
Rating: 2 Star
Series Reviews: 1, 2, 3, 3.5, 4
Review – MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
I feel a bit cheesy saying this but I will anyway, I did not fall in love with this book. We were given a number of stories to read about in the world of Fallen, which In theory could be really interesting. There are a wide variety of characters in this book and we do not know a lot of their backstories, which could be extensive when dealing with the lives of the angels on Earth. However, I found that I in general did not like the stories being told. The book in the Fallen series that I liked the least was the third book Passion, as you can see in my review above, and I found these stories were just more of the same rubbish we got in that book. The only story I liked in this book was the third story because we finally got Arianne backstory on how she got the scares that were such a big mystery in the main story but never got answered. I also found this one to be the best written. In the others I felt like the characters had lost their depth and were not acting like themselves, but with Arianne I didn’t have this issue.
If you liked the main series, and were driven crazy about what on earth happened to Arianne like I was, I would suggest picking up this book purely to read that story. I would even suggest skipping the other ones if they are not seeming too wonderful, since you will not be missing anything by not reading them.
Author: Oscar Wilde
Genre: Classic, Gothic
Length: 214
Rating: 3 Star
Review – MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Looking back on the comments I made about the book and the rating I gave it on goodreads, I am really surprised. In my head all I remember is totally hating this book and thinking it was one of the most boring books I have read with just horrible characters that just didn’t have any redeeming qualities.
When I actually stop to think about it though, I suppose it was not as bad as it came out to be in my mind. It did have series flaws that refrained me from putting it up anymore stars. In a style that I generally find in classics, certain parts of it just dragged on and on, and were painfully boring. Parts of the story held no purpose to the overall plot and were in there just as word filler. I remember hating Henry(?) and coming to hate Dorian, but I don’t think I had any issues with the rest of the characters.
I think if the book had of just focussed more on Dorian and his picture, and the fact he was struggling to stay beautiful on the inside while his picture made him beautiful on the outside. I would have loved more of a look at the fantasy element and the overall idea of what makes beauty and what we should seek in life. But those pointless and long bits just ruined the story for me.
Since my memory of the story was clouded by the bits I did not like, I cannot really say if anyone should read this book. I am most certainly not going to give it another try to find out.
