More Words About Books – Page 7 – We don't know when to quit

January 8, 2024

The Hunger Games: Better Than Expected

NATE THE GREAT After reading Battle Royale last year, I decided that we should compare it to the thing that most readily appears to imitate it. Unfortunately, Fortnite isn’t a book so we’re going with the next best thing: The Hunger Games I read this when I was a wee lad at the tender age of 22 years. Those were...

Reviews Comments: 0

January 6, 2024

Ben Reviews – The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games #1) by Suzanne Collins

I’m a late comer to The Hunger Games. When it came out I was a little older than the target demographic. I saw the movie once, a long time ago, and I didn’t really care for it. I never investigated much beyond that. I was finally convinced to give it a try, and surprisingly, I thought it was pretty good....

More Words/Reviews Comments: 0

December 28, 2023

The Expanse: James Holden Sucks Worse (Part 2)

The World is Your Oyster Last time I talked about James Holden from Leviathan’s Wake in painful drawn-out detail. I talked about how he looked really good on paper but just didn’t translate when he started indirectly causing the deaths of millions of people and driving another man to a mental breakdown. He was a villain who the world treated...

More Words Comments: 2

December 28, 2023

The Expanse: James Holden’s Character Fails

The Coverage So Far… We’ve talked a lot on this podcast about The Expanse. Five episodes so far with a sixth on the way in January of 2024. We liked the first book so much that we read the second book. We liked the second one far less. I think that’s really interesting and prompts the question: why? Why did...

More Words Comments: 0

December 17, 2023

Ben Reviews – Later On We’ll Conspire by Kortney Keisel

I almost feel bad reviewing this. I was never meant to read Later On We’ll Conspire. This was not written with me in mind. Before I read this, I didn’t even know there was such a thing as “Clean, Closed-Door Romance.” I have a friend who enjoys using his book club picks to specifically annoy me, and so here we...

More Words/Reviews Comments: 0

December 17, 2023

Ben Reviews – The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore

When I was a teenager I read a lot of Christopher Moore books. I liked them quite a bit, but upon revisiting A Dirty Job this year I was honestly shocked by how lame, unfunny, and desperate I found a lot of the jokes. I’m pleased to say that I didn’t have that experience with The Stupidest Angel. Though, I...

More Words/Reviews Comments: 0

November 26, 2023

Ben Reviews – Garth Marenghi’s TerrorTome by Garth Marenghi

Garth Marenghi’s Terror Tome is a book spin-off of a character created by Matthew Holness. As near as I can tell, the character was created for the sitcom Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place, which ran for only 6 episodes but garnered a cult following. The show was co-written and directed by Richard Ayoade. It was a parody of 80s paranormal soap...

More Words/Reviews Comments: 0

November 26, 2023

Ben Reviews – Halo Cryptum by Greg Bear

I’m not much of a Halo fan. This is not something I would have read by choice and I won’t bore you with the details of how I was made to read it. The point is, I don’t care about Halo and I read this book, so my perspective is going to be a bit weird. To me, Master Chief...

More Words/Reviews Comments: 0

November 26, 2023

Ben Reviews – Goosebumps: Night of the Living Dummy by R.L. Stine

I have a lot of nostalgia for the Goosebumps series. As a kid who was into horror, but whose parents weren’t entirely irresponsible, my choices were somewhat limited. I’m genuinely glad that R.L. Stine achieved the success that he did. It’s a fine line to walk creating horror stories that aren’t too scary or explicit to be read by kids....

Reviews Comments: 0

November 7, 2023

Ben Reviews: The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker

It’s hard to talk about this novella without talking about Hellraiser, and that’s really its biggest weakness. Most people picking up this book will know that it is the story that the original Hellraiser film was based on. While the plot is very close to the plot of the movie, its also very obvious that Clive Barker put a lot...

Reviews Comments: 0

Ben's books

The President Is Missing

by Bill Clinton

Where to start with this book? Should I talk about how I don't believe that either James Patterson or Bill Clinton actually did much of the writing? Should I talk about how Bill Clinton is spending his retirement creating Bill Clinton fa...

A Court of Mist and Fury

by Sarah J. Maas

I thought this was pretty ok. I'm team Night Court. I really enjoy that Feyre is getting to have a hipster phase with the cool kids in a fancy Bohemian city. I dont even mind that she has all the super powers, I thought that would bug me...

The Infernal City

by Greg Keyes

I don't often do this, but I'm going to engage in a controversial DNF review. I'm fairly confident that being forced to read every word of the rest of it would only lower my score. I made it about half way through Part 1 of the audio boo...

Beowulf: A New Translation for Oral Delivery (Hackett Classics) by Dick Ringler (1-Oct-2007) Paperback

Beowulf: A New Translation for Oral Delivery (Hackett Classics) by Dick Ringler (1-Oct-2007) Paperback

by Unknown Author

I've read a few translations of Beowulf, and the only thing that's really missing from this one is the original language text. Ringler does a pretty good job of the translation itself. He includes very solid explanation and context as well.

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

by Rebecca Wells

I'm neither a mother nor a daughter so take this with a grain of salt, I guess. Siddalee is a famous stage director who stages a hit play. She's interviewed for a New York Times article. When asked about her childhood she accidentally pr...

book reviewsbook club