The Rogue Book Reviewer

Anyone that read my review of Brave by Rose McGowan knows that I do not typically give a number rating for memoirs, because how can you reasonably rate someone else's life experiences? That doesn't mean that I don't hold Brave up as the standard of the awful memoir. I found myself consistently comparing Demi Moore's consistent reflection on what had happened in relation to herself with McGowan's constant blaming of everyone and everything around her for status as a victim.  This book is incredible.  I have always been a fan of Demi Moore, but didn't realize how few of her movies I had actually seen until I read the book. I had heard of her in a lot of them but I have seen her in relatively few movies. I know her, specifically, from G.I. Jane . I was barely nine years old when G.I. Jane came out and it was, and still is, one of my favourite movies. I was nine so I couldn't relate to her on an adult level but I watched a strong woman fight to overcome ...

2.5/5 As most of you know, I am not a connoisseur of horror.   I am a huge chicken. I don’t watch horror movies or shows, and I don’t read horror books. I’ve read The Talisman and Desperation by Stephen King and enjoyed both but while they are “horror” they are more creepy to me than actually scary. Those of you that follow me on Facebook are well aware that while reading this book I was super freaked out because I made the mistake of reading the book, at night, alone. Terrible decision, really. The book is about four people who go to the Belasco House, or “Hell House” commonly referred to as the Everest of haunted houses. In the 1920s the owner of the house, Emeric Belasco, would invite guests to come and live in excess. The best food, drink, and carnal pleasures, which eventually descended into utter chaos up to, and including, murder and cannibalism. A group of people went to cleanse the house two times prior to the current expedition which occurs in 1970. The four peopl...

5/5 I just powered through What She Found in the Woods by Josephine Angelini. I went through it so fast and neglected just about everything else so I could get through it.  It is unexpected, and fractured much like Lena, who is a schizophrenic fresh out of an institution. The book is very unlike anything Josephine Angelini has written in the past - I've read all of her books and they rank very high on my favourites list.  The chapters are interspersed with italics which are recollections of the horrific thing Lena did back home in New York which ultimately caused her institutionalization. The present portions of the book happen in the woods far away from New York where her grandparents live.  The whole book is a roller coaster which leads you to the ultimate conclusion and I have to admit, I was really far in before I finally figured out who the murderer was. It was interesting, fast paced and a great read. The author makes you doubt everything you've read through Le...

1/5 How can I possibly describe the travesty that is After by Anna Todd...? I haven’t hated anything this much in... maybe ever? Needless to say, this post is going to be full of spoilers because there are just so many examples of why this book is awful. I originally picked the book up because it started popping up everywhere. Chapters had a huge display, a movie came out, it has over 1 BILLION reads on Wattpad, and it seemed like something that was right up my alley in terms of what I like to read. It’s based on One Direction fan fiction which threw me a bit but Fifty Shades of Grey started life as Twilight fan fiction so who am I to judge? This whole book boils down to three things: 1.        Tessa, the virginal “good girl” experiencing her sexual awakening with 2.        Hardin, the emotionally abusive “bad boy” with daddy issues, and 3.        A bet. There you go. That’s it. ...

You will note the missing numeric review. How can you review someone's experiences? I've reviewed Memoirs before but nothing like Brave . This book is 246 pages of cathartic verbal diarrhea for her. I don't mean that in a bad way, but you can clearly see the suffering, the frustration, the anger, the pain. There is literally no good experience that lasts more than a couple of paragraphs in the entire book. How she is still standing and functioning as a person is beyond me. It's a testament to the person she's shaped herself to be. So... #triggerwarning That being said, I feel like the book was very repetitive. The man shoves us down, girls stand up. I didn't matter because I was just a girl. She didn't matter because she was just a girl. I realize that this is legitimately how Hollywood operates. I realize that toxic masculinity is incredibly, brutally pervasive, but Rose's experiences go far beyond what most celebrities who achieve her level of fame mu...

The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman 5/5 This is the first book I've been excited for its’ release in a while and it did not disappoint. This is the fictional biography of Franny and Jet Owens, the aunts from the 90s movie Practical Magic. I found Hoffman to be so very subtle in her story weaving. She put in just enough eccentric details to immerse you in the landscape of the story and completely overtake you by the life of the Owens witches. The characters are vibrant, stubborn, and completely real for the reader. I can picture each and every one of them in my head, and understand the personality associated with them. I enjoyed every moment of the book, but what I found most wonderful was the emotions that Hoffman is able to evoke in her readers. I had to work not to actually physically cry at death, and found myself laughing out loud several times, regardless of where I was in my actual life. The sense of passing time is very real, and I found it was easy to follow the girls thro...

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...