The Rogue Book Reviewer

2/5 So I'm going to review an entire series in this post because it's a self- published series so it only took me about a week to read the lot of them.  The Powers that Be... for some reason the name and the cover of the first book made me think it would be some sort of fantsay/supernatural book but it's just the last name of all the boys. It's straight up romance smut, which is what I generally expect from self published books. Not always, by any means, but enough of the time.  Welp. This whole series played exactly into what you would expect. The guys are all muscled, tattooed, "sexy as hell" (which is literally the most commonly used descriptor in SP works), and have some sort of dark spot on their history. One has a child, one's ex died, etc; etc.  Every book is the same. And I found that the most annoying thing is that its an episode of Three's Company where there is some sort of misunderstanding that could easily be fixed by a quick conversat...

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Well let me start this off by saying I am not a Sophie Kinsella fan. I read the first two Shopaholic books and just absolutely abhorred Rebecca Bloomwood. I couldn’t get over how incredibly irresponsible she was so I just plumb gave up. When the movie came out, I actually physically snorted at the idea of paying money to put myself through that kind of torture. Which is why even I was surprised when the back blurb of My Not So Perfect Life caught my attention, enough for me to actually pay kobo to have it (yes, yes I know libraries will lend e-books but to this day I haven’t figured it out). Katie Brenner is so goddamn relatable to the point in my life that I am at, that there are no words. The aimless, praying (and working) for the job of your dreams, not being able to see how to get the life you want, soul crushing stress... yeah. I can get that. And looking at people who are living on the “other side” where the grass appears to be so much greener, without looking past the surf...

This week we have Deena, a dear friend and avid bibliophile, writing a guest review of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. It just seemed appropriate, given the current political clime in America and that's all the political discussion you're going to get from me! Enjoy, friends. If you aren't Canadian I should let you know, in Canada, so beloved a Canadian icon is Atwood that if you say anything against her works they take away your passport. (kidding of course) If you are Canadian you have more than likely read this book. If you haven't, then this review is for you. Written in the mid 80's as I recall, The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian novel (we are apparently now calling these "Speculative Fiction") set in and around America in 2005. Atwood, a strong feminist, was horrified at the various political, social and religious trends of the 80's and so wrote this book in response to what would happen if the USA took those philosop...

This was a harder one. Dense, difficult to maneuver, and fraught with mirrors for our society, W e Are Unprepared forces the reader to take a deep look at the unsustainable way we live, and the fragility of human relationships when faced with forces greater than humanity. Like I said, this book is dense and took a lot longer to read than 400 pages normally would. There is a lot of emoption, and it is entirely from the perspective of Ash, in the face of an incoming storm that will forever change the face of the planet and the face of his relationship with his wife Pia.  The book is hard to get through, because it makes you examine your own life and the unsustainable way we are living as a species. It takes place in a small Vermont town called Isole which brings the idea of a world-changing Superstorm home. It is what would happen when people need to come together, but lines are drawn because humans love to fight and tend to be disagreeable at their very core. By not setting it in...

4.5/5 Hello everyone, thanks for tuning in! Today I am reviewing Rules of the Game by James Frey and Nils Johnson-Shelton. This book is the third and final in the Endgame Series so there may be some spoilers from The Calling and Sky Key ahead for the sake of an "Endgame" primer, but probably not. The basic premise of Endgame is that there are twelve lines, and everyone on Earth is genetically connected to one of the twelve lines.  At some indeterminate time, the Players will be called to win Endgame for their line, with every other Player failing (or most likely being killed throughout the duration of the game), and their entire lines being destroyed. All of this has been orchestrated by a seven-fingered alien named kepler22b. I am not exaggerating when I say that most are killed. I won't give you a specific number but there are a very small number of Players left by the end of the series. Try not to get attached, it'll only end in tears. It is a relatively viol...

Carve the Mark - Veronica Roth Well that was just awesome.  For anyone that knows me personally, they know that I am a huge fan of the Divergent series, also by Veronica Roth, but sometimes a second series isn't as good as the first. I was afraid that this was going to be the case. Divergent was rich with interesting, brave, complex characters and that was what drew me in and keeps me coming back to it.  I have to say, I was not at all disappointed with Carve the Mark.  Cyra is just as complicated a heroine as Tris, but her story is much darker and more pain filled than Tris ever was.  Carve the Mark is full blown fantasy. It is not dystopian, it is not futuristic. It is literally set in a different galaxy which made it a more interesting world for Ms. Roth to create. As usual, she pulls you in with an idea that is just different enough to make you wondering how it is going to work: the currentgift. Each person on the planet has one, and no two are alike. Cyra's...

I read it very quickly, while on vacation. It was really good. So. Thriller... Absolutely. Bit of a mind bender, I figured out how Emma died about two chapters before the book tells you, but I still wasn´t completely sure. Delaney works really hard to make it so you think it´s someone else, but to me it felt like a point trying too hard which made the misdirection fail. It felt like it just made it more clear that the obvious killer was not actually the killer. So once we found out who the actual killer is, it seemed like a moot point. So, that kind of makes it clear that the actual killer is not the plot twist, so I will leave that to your reading pleasure. What I was impressed with was the authors ability to build up a creepy sensation of being watched. To the point where I actually got up to lock the door, even though I clearly am not currently stationed at One Folgate Street. The creepiest thing is..  youre not being watched by a person... Anyways. I recommend. I´m not sur...

Hey everyone! As promised, I am working through American Gods,  while simultaneously   listening to Jim Butcher's Storm Front. In the meantime, I thought you may like to know a bit more about me.  I am a lifetime book lover, which I'm sure is unsurprising, given the fact that I'm working on a book blog.  I'm a big fan of young adult novels, historical fiction and romance, fiction, sci fi and fantasy and I have just started getting into memoirs. These will be the most common genres featured on the blog. You will notice some of the stuff I review is quite old (case in point, American Gods ) but I have never read them, so you'll be getting my take.  I chose to be the Rogue Reviewer because I very often disagree with reviews- I will adore books that people hate, and hate books that win literary awards. It happens. The same is true of movies I review.  I will also occasionally have some featured reviews from some of my favourite readers, especially those tha...

Well now. I can't help but feel like Mr. Gaiman is capitalizing on the success of Marvel's Avengers, but at the same time... this is NEIL GAIMAN, PEOPLE. Norse Mythology is going to be so accurate and detailed that I can't wait.  Interestingly enough, I've never actually read a Gaiman book, but his reputation (and work on Doctor Who) precedes him. I'm a fan without ever having cracked a novel. His rep is THAT incredible. I bought American Gods and plan to read it this month so I can stop sounding so silly raving about a book that's not even out yet, by an author I've never read. I know it's cliche to pick American Gods as your first Gaiman, but it just looks so good! I swear, there's no paid advertising in this post...

This was my first attempt at reading a Carolina Slade mystery by C. Hope Clark and I honestly was not sure what I was walking into as it is also outside of my usual genre.  The result? Clark has given credence to the saying “You never know if you’ll like it until you try it.” I absolutely loved it. I am very good at judging the end of books and up until I was reading the black marks on the white page I was not sure of how it would play out and even now I’m sitting here thinking “Wow… that person did it?!” And it made perfect sense.  Clark writes engaging characters who are absolutely believable as real people. They are nuanced, flawed and react to situations as any normal person would. Relationships are built, maintained, created, broken down and fixed in such a way as to make the reader think that this is how they would handle the same situation.  Her attention to detail is fantastic without being over the top so you get lost in the minutiae. It is easy to see Slades hou...

Loved it.  This book was one of those books I picked up in the bargain section and thought, ooh! Pretty cover! Read the flap and bought it.  Fast forward to a year (if not more) later. I looked at my ever-growing pile of "books I bought to read but haven't read yet" pile and the cover caught my eye again. Okay, lets go. I absolutely loved it. I was hooked, and read the whole thing in about six hours. I'm a fast reader but even I was impressed. Then I got sad because I didn't have the second one but the next day, I went to my pile to find something else to read and BAM! Dreamless.  I loved the characters, I loved the story line, I loved the recommendations at the back (I'm currently reading The Goddess Test by Aimee Carter and really enjoying it). I don't have a single bad thing to say about any of the books in the series, aside from the fact that I discovered them too late so Goddess had to be ordered in and I had to wait for it. Definitely a new fan for M...

I have to say I wasn't a fan. The book relied heavily on Russian folklore which I found interesting as I have no background knowledge in it, but I felt that there was very little in terms of plot, character, or relationship development. It seemed very... Clear cut, obvious? Drudgery is the word that comes to mind more than anything. It's a lot of the drudgery tasks that come along with being a witch and a lot of waiting. You could pick any character aside from Maks and Lissa and lift them out of the book without actually having any impact on the book itself. Rafe seems like a romantic foil that was thrown in to allow Lissa to grow as a person but he just seems too easy and kind of boring. There's a lot of unnecessary plot with him and the church ladies as well. You could take any plot line out and again, have no impact on the story as a whole. I guess I just expect more from fantasy novels and there isn't really any explanation of what "kin" is. It reads lik...

I am very sad to report this: 5/10. I have been looking forward to this for ages. I read it in about two hours and I am very bummed that I didn't enjoy it as much as I was hoping to.  Maybe it's coming off of Anna Kendrick's Scrappy Little Nobody which was full of personal anecdotes, Lauren Graham feels more like a slightly more detailed resume. There is very little about her personally, and every anecdote is tied into something she has done as an actor or a writer.  That being said, Lauren Graham is notoriously closed off about her personal life but if you're not going to throw in some other details then why write a bio? Memoir? What's the right term for this? I should learn that before I become an editor. Either way. I'm super disappointed. I was expecting a lot more related to Gilmore girls. Anecdotes from the set (there is one chapter devoted to her thoughts on each season which is very short, and one chapter devoted to A Year In The Life which is equally sh...

Highly recommend. It's funny, insightful, relatable. It's 1am and I just powered through. I still feel strongly that if Anna Kendrick and Hey-Hey the rooster from Moana had a baby, that baby would be my (admittedly fucking weird) spirit animal. I love it. She's hilarious. 5/5.  I think my favourite thing about Anna Kendrick's book is that if you take the tone in her tweets, it completely translates to her book. She's got that element of self - deprecating, not-quite-an-adult-even-in-her-late-twenties thing down and her tone makes you feel like your BFF is telling you all about the stuff you missed while she was away trying to make it as an actor.  I also love that nothing is off limits. She very easily flows from childhood, to adolescence, to early adulthood, spinning a tale of a growing girl who doesn't know what the hell to do with boys, to her first encounter with sex, to the tiny apartment she still had after winning her first Oscar.  Seriously, the most ...

Well. I finished it.  I sense an impending trilogy, though we already know that Adelaide is Moth from The Virgin Cure.  It is one of those things that I felt that it could have been done in 200 pages, instead of five. I ended up skipping over quite a few of the newspaper outtakes, or rather skimming them for pertinent information but I found them more distracting than anything.  I felt that there was very little character development for anyone other than Beatrice, and  even that wasn't so much development as watching her learn something we already knew she was very interested in. I'm sure the next book will be about Mr.Palsham and maybe Sophie which may be more interesting but I feel like this one sets you up for what is coming, rather than the current goings-on. It shows the relationships between the women and Brody, without giving much more than cursory backstory. A set up book shouldn't be 500 pages. I'm not sure that I will read the next one. Maybe if I'd star...