My Book Reviews

Being Extraordinary: How to Live Life on Purpose by Ian Lock
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Let me start off by saying that I love reading self-help books. Not because I need help, but more so because I'm always looking for more ways to improve my life. I bought Ian's book with the hope that it would add to that knowledge.

However, I was disappointed. A huge part of that was due to the amount of punctuation errors in the book. There were some passages I had to re-read because I couldn't understand it the first time. Reading the book also felt like reading someone else's blogpost, rather than a book about 'how to live life on purpose'.

Many times in the book when Ian asks to state our 'purpose' or our 'impact', for example, he gives readers examples by extensively writing about his purpose or impact. While that is good to some to serve as an example, it was not my cup of tea. In my honest opinion, people buy self-help books to be taught to think and explore their unique, different ideas, rather than be told how it should look like.

Then again, I may be wrong too, but that's just me putting my two cents in. If I had the choice, I wouldn't have bought this book. In the beginning, I tried scanning the barcode using Goodreads' app, and it couldn't detect the barcode or ISBN no matter how many times I scanned it. I even typed the title and author manually to no result. It was when I started throwing random keywords from the title that I even managed to come across this.

Anyhow, I have never given a book a one-star rating before, I think, but ah well... First for everything I guess, eh?

Seriously...I'm Kidding by Ellen DeGeneres

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Let me start off by saying that I LOVE Ellen. I love her show and the way she exudes positivity and everything you could wish to be. To be honest, I didn't know she had 2 other books before Seriously... I'm Kidding. Heh. So shoot me. =p

Truth be told I kinda expected this to be some sort of inspirational book about her life and journey and whatnot. And it was far from it. The book turns out to be just random stuff that popped into her head (probably), laced with the humour she's so famous for. The first few pages already had me chuckling.

To be brutally honest, I was a liiiiiiiittle bit disappointed with it. If I was re-presented with the decision whether to buy the book or not, I probably wouldn't. No offense at all, but while I still would have wanted to read it, I'd have rather borrowed it from a library or something rather than purchase it.

Claws of the Macra by Trevor Baxendale

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Yes, believe it or not; I'm done. (And I DID say it was light reading, did I not? ;) )
Though I admit I just followed where my choices led me in the story, when I would have normally read through all possible choices.

Also, there was supposed to be an online interactive thing as well that goes together with the book, but when I went to the url, it said that the Decide Your Destiny part has been discontinued, so that's a bummer.

But yeah, I found that this was a children's book anyway too, so no surprises that I finished it in record time.

The choices didn't go forward in the book as most decide-your-own-stories do; this one goes back and forth, which can be a wee bit tiresome after a while. Either way though, like I said, this makes for decent light reading.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I'm finally finished with it!

I must say, I've heard much about this book, but to be brutally honest, it hadn't really met my expectations. I still prefer Jane Eyre by far, to be honest.

As with most such books, I find myself having a bit of a difficulty in understanding it at the beginning, but then improved as I got along. The only thing that kept me going was my OCD habit in which I had to finish reading what I started, and the fact that I rather liked stories from that period of time.

There were so many deaths in this book that the only other book I've read that gave this a run for their money is the Harry Potter series.

I admit that I pitied Heathcliff in the beginning, but then grew to dislike him more and more. I was quite surprised at how it ended, too.

The Poetical Works of Robert Burns with Life, Notes &c by Robert Burns

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



There's nothing much I can say about this book that you wouldn't already have guessed. It is an 1888 first edition, and more than anything, it has a personal immense sentimental value for me.

But yes, it is basically a collection of all of Robert Burns' works, with little citations and notes explaining certain terms that non-Scots speaking people might be unfamiliar with. There's also backstories about certain works, which is nice as well.

Sanctum by Madeleine Roux
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ok, so I was partially right in my review of Madeleine's first book in the series (Asylum).

Sanctum is more fast-paced, and by far creepier than the first book, which I liked. Before I read it, I couldn't see how you could possibly connect what happened in Brookline to a carnival. But yeah, I was proved wrong, and in this case, I'm glad I was.

Dan, Abby and Jordan are back at New Hampton to resolve what had happened at Brookline, because it affected them greatly to an extent. There's also some back story about Felix and what had happened to him since the events of the last book. This time, the finale got my pulse racing, and the scene with Professor Reyes and Micah left my eyes wide.

It was a good ending, but with a place like that, you can't really help but to wonder if it is all really over, finally, or if there is still some missing piece that the trio had overlooked.

Asylum by Madeleine Roux
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The book was nice, I'll give you that. Sure, it has its 'OMG!' moments, but this book makes for almost a light read. I was surprised at myself that I took this quick to finish this book.

The adventures of the protagonists didn't go as deep as I thought it would, and Brookline's history was not completely revealed either (intentionally or not, I'm not sure). There were a lot of loose ends still surrounding the mystery of the sanitarium that Madeleine has also not covered in this book.

Also, the climax of the story wasn't really... well, climax-y. It ended a bit too easily and quick if you ask me. However at the end of the book, Madeleine proves that there will be more to come.

Let's hope that all loose ties will finally come together in her sequel, Sanctum.

How Life Works by Andrew Matthews

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I would definitely recommend this to anyone who's depressed, not feeling too happy about themselves, or just needs a confidence boost.
Actually, I recommend this to EVERYBODY. I was actually going through a depression 'relapse' (if you could call it that), and this book really helped me cross over to the bright side again (no, I'm not exaggerating). Something about the way Andrew pens his book just makes things seem more... hopeful, I think is the word? Plus it's humorous as well, which is a plus.

Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Shakespeare

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



What can I say? If you love Shakespeare, you're definitely gonna love this one.

All his Sonnets in one book, along with detailed explanation notes to help with the meanings of each sonnet. Loved it!

A Girl Walks into a Bar: Choose Your Own Erotic Destiny by Helena S. Paige

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This has GOT to be a record for me at finishing a book. xD Ahaha.

It's one of those 'choose your own destiny' kinda stories, so I guess you can't really expect much, but it was alright for me. The stories were at perfect length; not too long and not too short. Some of the intimate scenes were descriptive (though not too much so), and I swear I hadn't realized it was a semi-erotic novel when I picked this book up. Hahah. I had thought it was your average 'choose your own destiny' book, bar-based.

Nothing much to say about it though.

A Ghost A Day: 365 True Tales Of The Spectral, Supernatural, And Just Plain Scary! by Maureen Wood
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I'm FINALLY finished with this book and I can say I couldn't be more glad.

Sorry to the authors, but I felt like this book, to me, was a big disappointment. It also goes to show that one should not, literally, 'judge a book by it's cover'. I picked up this book because of the way the cover drew me in, promising '365 True Tales of the Spectral, Supernatural, and... Just Plain Scary!'. However, I can say that the 'scary' and 'interesting' stories were such a select few, I could count them on one hand. (Or maybe two hands. Maybe. I can't really remember, to be honest.)

I had been hoping to give myself a good scare, but it had been mediocre at best. And that, coming from me, should definitely be saying something; coming from a person who has sworn off zombie movies (and practically any horror movie, to be honest) after watching 28 Days Later in the cinema.

From a personal opinion, it may be because almost all the stories involve speculation, and not personal experiences (there was only one story in which author Maureen Wood personally experienced, but even that was not given a detailed account). All of the stories involve mere hearsay, and though I don't doubt that some of them just may be true, it's just not enough to pique my interest. I daresay that the only reason I even finished it was because I don't like reading books and abandoning them halfway through.

On the bright side though, if you're someone who's looking for some not-so-scary ghost stories, this just may be the book for you.