Thought Train to Pusan

Gillian Flynn’s Dark Places indeed deals with some dark issues, all centered on a character, Libby, who comes across as abrasive and unlikeable, yet she is still understandable and I was able to develop some empathy for her throughout the novel. I also personally enjoyed how the story was told as a series of present-day versus past event chapters, that alternated with one another to reveal different information from the viewpoint of different characters in a more staggered manner. This made the pacing interesting but not too straight-forward, and let me try and come up with my own theories along the way before the ultimate conclusion. Though at some points, I would get so interested in the past events of a chapter that I wouldn’t want to switch back to Libby in the present day just at that moment.  Dark Places focuses on the life of Libby Day, 25 years after her brother, Ben, was charged with the murder of Libby’s mother and two older sisters when they we...

Let’s be real, I had no idea what this book was about before I started reading it. I wasn’t even aware that it was the beginning of a series! I just noticed the title when I was at the used book store, picking up some mysteries for my mum. And then I took a peek at the cover and thought, “why not!?” It looked like a medieval-ish adventure tale, and that is exactly what I got! And it was slightly confusing at times, perhaps due to the main character being just as out-of-the-loop and trying to figure things out as the reader is, but I still enjoyed the pace it clipped along at, with varying degrees of action and more stand-still or explanatory sections regarding this new fantasy world that the Abhorsen series presents. Sabriel is a young woman, in the latter half of her teenage years, attending a private school in what I assume is our normal world, yet still being taught a variety of different courses in Charter magic, as she and a number of other students are Charter Mages. Or, ...

I have this problem. The problem is that I always want to get into more comic books but never know where to start (bruh, you know people who can probably help you with this). But I saw that this edition of Daredevil said “Volume 1” on it so thought that hey, maybe that would be a good place to start. What I realize is that this was the first run of Frank Miller at the helm for the character (the first half of the volume being predominantly in the drawing, the second half with more of Miller’s writing). From what I understand, many believe that the character of Daredevil really came into his own when Miller began working with him, so at this point of me jumping into the series, Matt Murdock was already established as Daredevil and had some history that required me to fill in some blanks along the way with what I already knew about Daredevil (from the show, other conversations, etc), or to try and come to other conclusions regarding his relationships with certain characters based on t...

Another one from the pile my friend handed to me when I asked for book recommendations! And a pretty enjoyable read, too, given how much I like werewolves these days (*cough* Teen Wolf). But I once again fall into this problem that I’ve been having lately in regards to protagonists: they just aren’t connecting with me. That is not to say that I like nothing about Elena, the main character in Bitten . But, she just seems to flip flop a bit to the point where I’m not sure if certain things are in fact out of character or if I just don’t truly understand her in some ways and am therefore seeing them as such. That’s my problem, though, and I don’t think everyone would feel the same as me. Bitten is about a woman named Elena, who is the only female werewolf in the world (special snowflake sirens screech in the distance!! she’s a hot commodity, y’all!). But let’s not get caught up in what initially made me roll my eyes. Elena has been living a pretty decent human life as a wolf witho...

A joint review of: - Christian Theology: an Introduction to its Tasks and Traditions by Peter C. Hodgson and Robert H. King, and the companion book of assorted readings, Readings in Christian Theology I am currently undertaking an introductory course in Christian Theology, as a part of my school program of choice. And I made the mistake of doing it by correspondence after a few course cancellations, scheduling issues, etc. I am way in over my head, and I recognize that. That being said, I thought that these introductory texts would help me get truly immersed in the subject, but as it is, I find them difficult to read, as I don’t have much of a religious background to understand some of the concepts. It is very in-depth as to a number of the major Christian doctrines and what is essential to the faith, but at times I felt like I needed a dictionary on standby to be truly able to digest the type of language used. I will say, however, that many of the readings in the acc...

After reading another Cannonballer’s review of Modern Romance , I decided I had to take a look and see what it’s all about! A look at the modern dating scene from a sociological perspective mixed with personal memories, and coming from the hilarious Aziz Ansari? That sounds like it was made for me! This book was in fact quite interesting, very easy to zip through while on a couple of long car-rides, and had a light and funny voice to it overall. But there were a couple of things that has made it fall into the 3-star category for me: for one, while the whole thing has a nice overview of facts, issues, and new things to consider in the modern dating scene (largely, technology and changing social culture, etc), I’m not really sure where the whole thing was trying to go. Is it just a research summary? Intended to help people in their dating life? Not sure how helpful it will be for me, I still feel pretty clueless, so I don’t know. The other issue that I had was that a lot of the ...

I asked my friend for some recommendations of books, and found these two thrust into my hands. Apparently there is actually another book that comes in between them in the series ( Valiant ), but that it is about other characters whereas Ironside is more like a direct sequel to Tithe . But anyways, that’s a bit of a side note. I will start this off by saying that as a kid growing up, I love love LOVED anything to do with Faeries and other little magical creatures like that. So I was intrigued, seeing as how I haven’t actually read any young adult novels based around those types of creatures (which is kind of surprising to me). And these two books were pretty interesting to hear all about these faery worlds and creatures and customs, despite the fact that the plot followed that sort of typical YA, “you’re different from everyone else” pattern. What do we call it? The special snowflake thing? Anyways. The only problem was with the main character, Kaye… There was something about her....