Slam

Slam

review coming soon

Chalked Up

Chalked Up

Review coming soon

Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet

Anthem of a reluctant prophet

It has been a week since finishing this book. so forgive me if I struggle to give a direct punchy review, as its effect has worn off of me a little – in future I shall endevour to review titles I read as soon as I have read them.

Luke Hunter, the first person lead character of this title, can see how people are going to die. He’s young, he’s struggling to find his way in the world, yet this gift is a curse and he wishes to be no media whore to the baying masses that want association with his ‘God-like’ ability.

This book, carries along well to begin with, however by the middle of the book, I did start to lose faith in the power of the plot. I hoped it would include more and more visions of death and how Luke faces up to his gift, perhaps include more and more characters that try to take advantage of him etc. However, no. The book falls into line to deal with the young life and concerns that wouldn’t be out of place in any teen(ish) novel, dipping occasionally back to the ‘prophet of doom’ hook that made me pick up, buy and read in the first place.

Was this a good book? yes. Was it what I expected? not really. I’m happy to have read it – and will recommend it to friends, but warn them not to take the back cover too literally. I feel the marketing hype selected the punchiest aspects only to hook us into purchasing – the tale is more a young life with a twist than anything else.

I most state though, that this is a rich story. I could visualise it well and really would love it to be made into a film. Kind of ‘Dogma’ meets ‘The Wonder Years’ in a contemporary ‘emo’ 2008 lifestyle.

over 300 pages of reasonable font, average page, nothing special margins and quite normal kerning and lineheight. Great, great cover art and choice of font though – I was sold on it alone. 

Boy A

Boy A
This isn’t a well formatted book. Infact the only reason I bought it, is because its going to be aired on TV shortly and is loosely based on the story surrounding a famous case in the UK involving a couple of child killers. Boy A has shortish chapters and about 250 pages, but that’s all… everything else is standard. Loads of descriptive text with blocky paragraphs throughout… plus my ultimate pet hate, a small font. With a small font everything else is useless, the kerning and linespacing is irrelavant. For me this is a hard read and I know I’ll probably get distracted by something more spaciously laid out… however its saving grace is the tv series, ‘if’ I get to catch it…. I’m sure i’ll continue reading the book, just to keep up with it, otherwise, this book is probably doomed. Keep an eye out for the TV series, if you like it, buy the book.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The Perks of Being a Wallflower
This is one that i’ve been meaning to put up for a while now, even tho I’m not sure why. This is a book that’s been taunting me for ages…. I first heard about it years ago… then stumbled upon it in Waterstones one day. Its not normally appealing, the formating is very standard, apart from the diary form ‘chapters’. I recall narrow margins and pages of text, which makes it very unappealing. However the story of a nobody observing the world and school he exists in, reminds me a little of myself. I don’t know if I’ll ever read this… but its a grower for sure… this is probably one of my favourite books that I haven’t read yet.

oh I’ve just checked my phone: 200 pages, Good paper & font, cheap but bad kerning.

The Long Dry

The Long Dry
119 pages, big margins & paragraphs. Good linespacing, font and the paper was reasonable. Odd story, but a quick read. I’m not sure what caught my eye about this read, there was possibly a bunch of them together on the shelf which did it. Anyways… i sat and scanned the pages whilst making notes in my phone. It looked like it was all descriptive, but hidden within the blocks of paragraphs, there is dialogue, which is nice. Tho I’d rather it be sectioned off personally. This is a quick book, the story didn’t grab me at all, but it could be one of those life changing reads… if only we give it a chance. Seek it out, and give it a thumb.

The End Of Mr Y

The End Of Mr Y
This was a surprise find. Its big bold red spine grabbed my attention and was stunned to see the pages were all black (not the faces, but just the edges). I knew this would be a good one, cause anyone going to that length for presentation alone, deserves to be purchased. The cover is quirky, the back cover is equally as mysterious…. and even tho its states itself as being ‘a thrilling adventure of love, sex, death (ed: yawn) … and time-travel’ <– Ooo ello, this raises an eyebrow. Sooo… all this manages to get me to to open the pages and have a flick through… lovely big line-spacing, and a decent font, but other than that its pretty standard format, normal margins, lots of pages of unthrilling text and paragraphs that don’t really look much like paragraphs at all, cause the indents and gaps aren’t big enough. But either way, I sat for a bit and read the first few pages. Thankfully, its a contemporary tale, set in the ‘now’ which makes it much more palettable in my (pun) book, I’m gunna give this one a go anyway… I’ve bought it so I might as well.

I’ll probably add more this once I’m done, or mid way at least. Worth checking out I think. 4 stars for the black edged paper alone, how often do you see that??

the average american male

the average american male
Wow, this is a good’un. A cool front cover, not that many pages (250ish), tiny chapters (the first is called ‘Christmas with Mom and Dad’ and the word count is 3 ‘Same old bullshit’) perfect. It gets better. Apparently it sparked a youtube storm… which is probably a load of bollocks as I haven’t had chance to check it out yet… but the story is about a guy thats young enough to know what he wants in life (sex) and old enough to know what he doesn’t want in life (commitment… and a partner with a fat ass). This book is absolutely incredible, I only bought it today and have read half of it already and I don’t want it to ever end. If this was a blog or a channel on youtube, I’d check it out every day for years. Women need to read this to know how we (men) think… and men need to read this to laugh at how fucking ridiculous we are and confirm that we’re not alone. Oh and the paper is average, loads of dialogue (makes for quick reading), smallish font (boo!) … standard margins… nothing special on the formating front but the subject matter is worth it.

A full 5 stars awarded. If you don’t buy this book, you are an arse.

Edit: a youtube frenzy? uhh no. However the clips are funny:

Atomised

Atomised
This grabbed my attention probably because of the ‘3 for 2′ sticker on the front and a black n white blonde in panties. Its a meaty read for me at well over 350 pages of not particularly good paper, however the linespacing is ok, and the margins are decent. There doesn’t appear to be a lot of dialogue in the read, which makes for lots of paragraphs of unappealing chunky text. ergh. I read the back cover (a rarity for me) and found the storyline interesting, plus its been/being made into a ‘major film’ so the sticker on the front cover tells me… and with that sticker comes lots and lots of quotes from influencial sources, further convincing me that it’ll be worth me time purchasing. Fair enough … however I swear the girl in panties did more for me than anything else. I might read this if I ever have enough time on my hands, or catch a terminal illness. Better still, I might buy the DVD and tell everyone I’ve read it.

The Turning

The Turning
Not read this yet, but glanced at a few chapters… and messaged the author… I’ll repost my words here:

Quote:

well guess what? I found myself sat in Starbucks hugging a hot chocolate and flicking through the pages of a little black paperback offered up at the counter. I had time to kill so, what the hell etc. I speed-read through a few chapters and got the jist of it, enough to slow down at all the right points of course And its there that I got a ‘moment of clarity’ as I like to call it. (I get these ‘moc’s from time to time… its my little metophorical ‘lightbulb above my head’ if you will)

It stemmed from reading the way that you wrote ‘fiction’ crammed with ‘faction’. Those little sentences of natural logic and similars, made me think a bit. Y’see I’ve been collecting brain spillage for a number of years, and amassed a fair clumpage fit for no-one cept me and that odd guy in the corner of the pub on a tuesday evening when everyone else has far better things to do etc. It was good to read, and I’m not much of a reader, so thats quite a compliment I think…. oh, or is it? bugger… I’ll carry regardless…

Sooo… anyway… I’m thinking that i’ve been inspired, but in what way I’m not entirely sure… cause its not to write, as I’ve been thinking that for days… and its not from subject matter, cause that would be plagiarism (and Dan Browns already covered that one)… I think its inspiration for a use for all those years of random dribble and theories of me, collected from too many £2.79 bottles of screw top cheap red wine and lying on my back in the middle of the night trying to spot Satellites without my glasses on.

Anyways… I’m losing it I think… either way, I’ve not read the book yet, but wanted to say that I’ll probably buy it and read some more. I find it… refreshing? yeah, thats a good word for it.

End Quote

So there you have it. I bought it, the last one on amazon.co.uk I believe. You can still buy it second hand there I believe. Its not arrived yet, when it has, I’ll fill out all the formatting tags.