Unapologetic Reviews

It's been fun! I first read Cress , which was a good book in the Lunar Chronicles series. Then I read a few Stargate SG-1 books. Especially liked  Sacrifice Moon , and if you like the series, then if you don't read anything else, read that.  The Barque of Heaven   was interesting, but not as good as the other one. After that I saw the Vampire Academy movie. At first I didn't want to watch it, but I saw a preview of it in Project Runway, and it looked fun. The books were a lot of fun, totally not Twilight. So I do recommend for vampire lovers the Vampire Academy series . I went on to read her second series in the universe, Bloodlines , but it just got too much, so I decided to read something else. Meanwhile, I also finished a Doctor Who book, Autonomy . It wasn't one of the better ones, sadly. Last, I started the Heroes of Olympus books after the last one came out. I actually started the last book tonight. T...

This was the book that made me glad that I waited for the series to end. The end of the previous book was a major cliffhanger, and if I had to wait for it, I would have been really agitated. The story branched off in two directions. One was the path that Annabeth an Percy took. I really liked the emotional side of it. The hardship, the fight to stay together, and the people they meet there. I could see real character development in them, growing up. Especially Percy. The rest of the group, who took the other route to the House of Hades, also did some growing up. Frank, I didn't pay much attention to before. However, in this book he came into his own. I loved Leo's story, and it was quite a surprise. I had forgotten about that part in the previous series. Hazel found new powers, and it was interesting how Piper and her could develop their own while working together. It was good to see that kind of cooperation between the two girls. Jason was more support in the story. He often w...

This book was actually quite frustrating. I was promised a trip to Rome. It took the majority of the book to actually reach Rome. Once there, it was fun to remember the places they were visiting, where I've also been. I actually wrote a short travel memoir of my trip there. This is the first time when the full cast comes together. It was interesting to see how they clashed with one another. The two groups kind of did remain, but that was understandable. I was happy to see Annabeth playing such an important role in the story. It's been a while since I read the first series, but I can't remember her being so prominent even in that. The love story with Percy continues, and they are quickly becoming one of my favourite couples. In this story, most people have coupled up. This would probably make other books too full of sap for me, but while the relationships were there, the quest, and the fate of the world was more important. Leo often felt like the odd one out, partly because...

This one was actually kind of epic. When I first started the book, I was thinking: "YAY PERCY!" And also: "YAY Roman Camp!" I loved getting to know this new environment. It was close to my heart, because the history of the Roman Empire is kind of a hobby of mine, among many others. I've also been to Rome, and while there I tried to imagine how it would have all looked whole. Imagining myself in New Rome was great. I also have to note that most of this book I listened to as an audiobook while running Xmas errands. I was so keen on the story, I had to put it on my phone and listen to it while walking around. The audiobook was quite good, but I think they said Geae wrong. Okay, I also don't like it spelled that way, Gaia is the more common spelling. Still, I have no clue why they would say Geae that way. Yes, this REALLY bugged me. If the person reading this review has read the previous book, then it comes as no surprise that Percy doesn't remember who he i...

At first, this one was a disappointment. I read the Percy Jackson series last year, and put off reading this one until the last book came out. I knew I would be frustrated to wait for the ending of the next adventure, so I read other stuff. When I started, I expected Percy and Annabeth. Groover. So I was asking: "Who is this Jason guy? Where is PERCY???" I got over my need for Percy quite fast. Though frankly, Jason is still not a favourite, but Leo was great. I also like Piper. I loved how they were the children of other gods, not the ones we've seen before. The adventure followed a familiar pattern. Meet, Camp, Quest across the country. What was different was that it felt more dangerous. There were many moments when I was wondering how the heroes could survive. The reason why I never really feel near Jason is that he's too perfect. Clean cut, great power, son of ..., handsome. Not that if he was my boyfriend I would throw him out, but he's just not the kind of c...

Reinoryokusha Odagiri Kyoko no Uso (Spiritual Teacher, Kyoko Odagiri) wasn't the drama I first thought it was going to be. I thought it would have a lot of fake psychic stuff, pretending to do magic, and would be kind of annoying. Why I really started to watch was Ishihara Satomi, who I've seen in a few things, and that dress. Oh my, that is so gorgeous, I kind of want it. What I got was a detective series, actually. The cases seem to be supernatural at first glance, but of course they're not. I was happy that it was a detective series, because I'm growing to really love Japanese detective stories. Unlike most Western ones, the difference is that most "culprits" aren't really evil, and not doing things out of malicious intentions. Their motivation is often to help someone, or to save people. Therefore when the resolution comes, it's usually done in a kind way. The mysteries themselves are interesting, but not impossible to solve. I did figure s...

The ratings on this one are pretty bad, but I thought it looked good, so I wanted to see for myself what this movie was like. I'm kind of on the fence about it, because it wasn't that bad, not even boring. The story was very predictable, though the precise way of how Vlad became Dracula was something that I haven't seen before. Even though I knew what was going to happen, I wanted to see it. What actually did impress me about the movie was precisely that, the imagery. The colours, or rather the lack of them was great. In the beginning you still have some warm tones, the grass is green, the candle gives a warm yellow light. By the end, everything is grey and muted, just the red of the armour stands out. Among all the darkness the one bright spot is Mirena, the wife. Her beauty is so great, I often just stared at her on the screen, not being able to take my eyes off. Her white dress towards the end with the red lining displays her innocence, and how she is the one pure ...

I actually found this addition to the series more interesting than the previous one. That was because of several things. On the one hand there is a lot more magic than before, which was interesting and exciting. I also love little Hopper. How cute is that? I also loved how much Adrian was in this book. He had been my favourite character since he was introduced, and I'm still hoping for a second movie just to have someone cast as him. I also loved how we got to know more about the inner workings of the Alchemists. BTW, Sydney's father is still awful. Worse than my own. Sydney changed a lot since the first book. Part of it is because she had to do things in order to survive and to save the people she cares about. She also learned to care for people, and to just see them as people. I felt like she's becoming a new person, but someone whom she had in her all this time, but was forced to the sidelines by indoctrination. The process is basically breaking out of a cult. She no lon...

I find it somehow hard to write a review for this book. Though generally it is a lot easier to write for books that I either loved a lot, or hated. This edition of the series goes along the lines it has been for a while, since if we look at the whole universe, this is the 8th book. By now, the writing has become an old friend, though quite predictable. I've noticed the formula a few books back. Still, I find myself reading on, wanting to know what else is in this universe. The good thing about this book is that while we do have some things we know about the surroundings, we discover new things as well, new groups, new ways of magic, and new things about old groups. Like I have previously mentioned, Sydney is a lot like me. It was funny to see her dating, because it reminded me of some of my troubles with dating. The guy was even like some of the people I've dated, though none so smart. How Sydney is not like me is that she has some serious hang-ups about certain things, all und...

My Saturday night movies are starting to develop a bad pattern. I seem to pick boring movies. This was supposed to be an action, crime, thriller. Well, the action was mostly at the end, there was a crime, and it didn't thrill me very much. It starts out as one of those gritty dramas. Or at least tries to. The colours are muted, mostly greys, and we quickly establish that the "good people" are a couple down on their luck. They have money troubles, fertility problems, so you can really feel that these people are just in a hole. Now this is where the predictability starts to happen. Generally bad things don't seem to happen to the good people who are well-off and happy. From then on, it feels like a generic thriller. It has the drugs, the single mum, the ageing cop with a personal beef against the evil guys. It was almost like watching one of those genre comedies, like it should be titled "Thriller Movie".  It's not the cast, really....

I'm pretty late watching this movie, but that's because I didn't want to pay for it. Reason #1, the science is bogus. The whole 10% thing had been refuted a while ago. I remember when it was all the rage, I think it was the late 80s, or early 90s, at least where I am from. I was a kid, and we were talking about it during a break at school with my friends. Not really a topic for 10-year-olds, but I was weird like that. What I can't remember is when I knew it was stupid. We now do know, there is no part of the brain going unused, or not up to its potential. I'm not going to go into details here, let's just say that when I saw the trailer of this movie, I found it weird how they could use something so archaic. The reason why I did watch it was the reviews. They were pretty good, and promised excitement, good acting. I didn't really get either. The story is quite simplistic. Much of it is taken up by Morgan Freeman narrating. Now I like his voice as much as ...

Chef  is a fun movie about food, life, and fatherhood. While I'm giving it only 3 stars, I still liked it a lot. However, it wasn't a great masterpiece, or terribly exciting. My reason for watching it twice is that it gives me a warm feeling every time I watch it. The movie is a lot of fun. It has a fast talking chef, Carl Casper, who swears a lot, like most chefs I've seen on TV, and that's always great to watch. There are some good jokes, and the cop played by Russell Peters was a memorable comic character. It's also about food, and being a chef. Today the trend in food is good, local ingredients, and an ever changing menu that adapts to the environment. The changing menu allows the chef a creative freedom, and also gives a chance to people to try out new things. In the movie, the opposite of this style is a menu that is always the same, which is portrayed as being stuck in the past. As someone who loves to discover new food, I like the progressive approa...

At the acknowledgements Richelle Mead wrote that it was hard starting a new series, even in a familiar setting. Actually, it was kind of hard for me to start reading it. I enjoyed the Vampire Academy series a lot, and wasn't sure if I would like this one. It did help that I already liked Sydney, the star of this series, and I read that Adrian would be in it too. I did end up liking it. The story starts out slowly. There are new characters, and some familiar faces from the sidelines of the previous books that take centre stage here. We also see Rose briefly, and get a small update on Lissa. It was weird seeing Rose from the outside. There are a couple of mysteries that slowly unfold. Most of them I could guess easily, there were enough clues, but one big one didn't have a lot of hints, so I didn't guess it. The slow start accounts for the building of the new environment, and also getting to know the characters. It's also Mead's style that she peppers information abou...

Frankly, I didn't know what to expect when I decided to go to this movie. I have seen that some of the people I follow for book reviews have read it, and it got mixed reviews. However, sometimes even bad books can be made into good movies or TV shows. Recently The 100 comes into mind. Not a very good book based on the reviews, but I'm hooked on the show. It probably also occurred to me, because it has similar themes. Teens trying to survive in a world they don't know much of after an apocalypse. This movie is very action packed. Probably the book is a lot slower, but the movie is two hours even like this, so they really didn't need to put more in it. The pacing is good for the most part, however, the ending was a bit abrupt. As if they were shooting, looked at what they had, and realised that they spent too much time on the stuff so far, so they had to finish it already. The story itself isn't typical current YA. Mercifully, no romance! There could be in t...

The Hundred-Foot Journey  is a delightful story about food, love, learning to cope with differences, and accepting other people. It's also about finding what is actually important in life. The movie feels a bit long, even though two hours in not that long by today's standards. However, a lot of things happen in it. I actually didn't watch the trailer, just knew that it had food in it, and I generally love movie about food. However, while food played an important part in the story, it was more of a vehicle to illustrate culture. The story starts out with an Indian family losing their restaurant, and something more in a riot. They decide to come to Europe, but they want to find some place where there are good ingredients, and start a restaurant there. They come upon a village in France, where they decide to settle down, but on the opposite side of a French restaurant. From then on the story describes how the two cultures get along. I was impressed by the turn of events ...

I wasn't very keen on watching this movie, but as is apparent from my previous reviews, I tend to keep an open mind. There were other movies I wasn't very excited about, and I liked them. The reason why I watched this movie? Alex Skarsgard. Yeah, he's beautiful, and I love his voice, so I decided to check this one out. I also saw that a lot of my online book friends loved the book version. Well, let me just say that I hope the book is better. I can use one word to describe this movie. Simplistic. The book came out in 1993, before the hype of The Hunger Games , and other dystopian YA books, so in a way it's a forerunner of its time. However, while watching the movie it did remind me of a few things I saw or read that were made before 1993, so let's start the dystopian cliché list, that is now so familiar to us all. City surrounded by some sort of a barrier that people can't cross. Two things come to mind, and remember, I haven't seen and read all dystop...

This book took me a little over two weeks to read, but it felt longer. I didn't enjoy it much. It wasn't completely terrible, but I found it a bit boring. The story takes place in 2013, actually, so it's a bit strange in that way, since it was written in 2009. You only realise how many things can happen in 4 years when reading something like this. It happens in a super-mall, which actually didn't sound so bad. It's an environment that I know well, since I work above a mall, and spend a lot of time there, sometimes just to get out of the office. However, the story itself just didn't entertain me so much. It was obvious what was going on at about 10% into the story, so that took the mystery out. Then it was all just people dashing about, some minor characters getting killed, and I just wanted to get to the end already. It was just too simplistic. I also missed the Doctor having someone to properly explain things to. This takes place at the point of his life when h...

I took some time after reading this book to write the actual review. It's difficult to write about a book that is the ending to a sequence that was six books long. I feel that I invested into the series a piece of myself as well. The story itself was exciting. I actually didn't guess all of the ending, just a few pages before it was actually revealed. In a way, I thought that it was a bit mad, but it's not something I find wanting to argue about. The most important thing about closing a series like this is that you tie up all the lose ends. They did all come together in a neat little bow, and the one that didn't got its own series, so that's fine. If anyone is interested, I am going to read that one as well. The title did throw me a little, and I'm still not sure exactly why this is it. There was an intent for sacrifice several times in the story, but none of them felt like a last or final one. It could have been given for dramatic effect maybe. Rose has come so...

I've been anticipating this movie for some time. From the previews it looked fun, sci-fi, action, the good stuff. I'm happy to report that it was real sci-fi, had a lot of funny moments, and the action was great. The story isn't huge. It kinda reminded me of Star Wars with the face on the big screen partly veiled as the big evil guy, then him having an evil front man who does all the actual stuff. Then there was the usual personal tragedy bits, etc. I didn't expect the movie to invent the wheel though. The story itself was entertaining enough to keep me interested until the end. In fact, there was an episode I wasn't expecting, and the whole bit with the escape was really great. However, the "out in space" scene was very awkward and forced. It came out of left field, and felt like a clumsy solution to a problem in the story. I watched it in IMAX, so the 3D came in wonderfully. I enjoyed the different worlds and environments we got to see. By the ...

Besides superhero movies, the latest trend seems to be fairy tale retelling. Maleficent  tells the story of Sleeping Beauty from the evil fairy's perspective. Even just reading that, it's obvious that she's not as evil here as she was in the original story. I like these sorts of retellings. The "evil" characters become three dimensional, instead of just the two dimensions that we used to get. Most of the time in real life people have their reasons for doing what they do. Also, sometimes the real villain is not the one you would first pick out to be. Without spoiling too much, I liked her reasons for doing what she did, and I also liked the way they resolved it. Angelina Jolie was of course great in her role as the title character. She could be great in her fury, and in her soft moments. I didn't expect anything less of her. Elle Fanning I haven't seen in many things before. Looking at her list of appearances, I saw a lot of shows that I watch, but ...

A lot of things happened in this book, and I'm kind of at a loss trying to gather it all in my head. The end of the previous book made some of the events in this one obvious. What I wasn't prepared for was what happened in the middle, and towards the end. In a way, this could be called a "bridge book" in the series. It's not very focused, because it has the events that take the reader from the previous book, to what happens in the last book. I often see this in book series with 6 books. They are really two trilogies, with the first three books having one story, and the second three having the sequel story. Therefore, this book felt a bit incomplete, and I had to move onto the next one right away. Good thing they are all out. At this point in the series, there aren't really many new characters, it's mostly the old ones doing more things. However, we do see some new minor ones that push the story along, though their appearance is in part sought out, and at o...

I started watching this drama not sure if it would be work, romance or comedy. It's a bit all three of them, but most of it is actually a comedy. The breast jokes would be a bit too much if it wasn't. The story itself revolves around a "Kabe Onna" (Wall Woman). She's a woman with very small breasts. She's the type who is bothered by it, but won't wear extreme push-up bras to compensate. While breasts are a central theme in the story, it's more about what she goes through with work, her love life, her family, and the people with whom she interacts. The story does lack a focus, and most of the time I was wondering where they were going with it. It felt more like a jumble of short stories with the same characters than a coherent thing. There were some other funny moments though, aside from the breast jokes. This drama starts out a bit offensively, and I did almost stop watching at the beginning. The new employee at the store has exceptionally big br...

I wasn't sure if I wanted to watch this movie. The book is on my "never read" list, mostly because I heard it has a lot of romance in it with insta-love, which I can't abide. I was afraid that the movie would be like that as well. However, I have had a movie change my mind about reading the book, twice actually. Therefore, I decided to give this one a shot. I've heard the story compared to The Hunger Games  more times than I can remember. Funny thing was that it reminded me of a whole lot of other dystopian novels, and even some non-dystopian ones, but not The Hunger Games . The factions remind me more of the houses in Harry Potter. Especially because the houses seemed to stay with them even after they left them. The difference is that Hufflepuff is divided up into three aspects of the Hufflepuff mentality, which in a way doesn't make sense, but it does if you think in the terms of jobs. The only people we're missing are the Slytherins. The problem wit...

After finishing the previous book, I knew this one would be a departure from what we had before. I was afraid that because Lissa and Rose weren't in physical contact anymore, I wouldn't get anything from Lissa. However, I got plenty, since Rose couldn't stop herself from checking on her best friend, luckily we didn't miss anything important either. The story itself is quite different. Before we mostly had some sort of a mystery, which became the task to be resolved by the end. The main story here is a journey. It seems quite hopeless at the beginning, but we can expect that it's not. There are a lot of new things that Rose discovers during her travels, which I found very interesting. The author expanded on the universe in a good way, and didn't feel like she found herself in a bind and just threw things in. The details in the new environment felt real. As someone who lives in Eastern Europe, though not in any place in the book, I often find that foreign people h...

The third book in the Vampire Academy series follows the pattern of the previous books in that it starts off slowly, increases pace in the middle, and the last 20% is so fast, you have a hard time putting it down. So far, I enjoyed this edition the most, though the mystery I guessed very soon, a lot sooner than Rose. At least, it didn't take her hundreds of pages as it did Bella in New Moon about the wolves. That was where I gave up on that thing. The ending I knew a few pages before it happened, because it made sense story-building-wise. In this book Rose evolves away from Lissa even more. It's a natural progressing, as in the first book Rose was centred around her, then with the romance in the second book she started to get away from her more, until in this book Lissa is just on the side, with Rose having a lot more things to focus on. The story does have many strands, but in the end they come together nicely, and everything makes sense, even though some events are clearly b...