38 / 50 (76.0%)

The Prince and the Pauper (Puffin Classics)

Just about everyone who asked me what I was currently reading, upon my reply of this book said, dismissively, "Oh, I’ve read that." I think it shows great restraint on my part that I never said, "Well, kiss my ass, I haven’t!" as I wanted to.

It’s a classic so I don’t really have much to say. Very un-Mark Twain but that was sort of the point when he wrote it and it was a funny and cute story.

The Alchemyst (Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel)

I am never really sure how to review a book like this. I didn’t hate this book and I will probably read the sequel since this book is not a complete book and ends in the middle of the story (continued, presumably in the sequel.) The problem is, however, that this book is not very good. In fact, it’s pretty terrible. The book switches focus so many times that you never get any real sense of the characters so after hundreds of pages, you don’t know anymore about the characters then you did at the start so it’s very hard to care about them. This book has a very large cast of characters and, by the end, and they are a little more then cardboard cut outs. Perhaps the author could have tried developing a few characters instead of creating hundreds of bland people we never get a sense of? The author is also so concerned with being "hip" that the pop culture references are so peppered as to be both annoying and distracting to the story. I appreciate that the author has a lot of knowledge about the mythology that he wants to showcase, but, with the exception of one battle scene towards the end that I enjoyed, the rest of the book is slow and, frankly, boring, like when the most boring teacher in school tries to be hip and it just falls flat. I also think that, as a reader, it was unfair to make the first book end with no resolution. Thus I am now forced to read a second lackluster book from this author just to see if the story that he was telling was worth it. There are millions of series in the world and then others at least give some resolution at the end of each part, if not a resolution to the entire thing. As I said, I am willing to give him a second chance with the second book since, though boring and poorly written, I didn’t hate this book, but, so far, this series isn’t anything to get excited about.

36 / 50 (72.0%)

Find Me

I am going to write a full review of this book later and post it as a comment to this post once I do, I just don’t have the time today.