review - Jason’s Feed

Review: Star Wars: Before the Awakening

Star Wars: Before the Awakening is really three stories one for each of the characters on its cover: Finn, Rey and Poe. This is a junior novel. Really written for 12 year-old crowd, but it is a Star Wars book the tells the story of these characters before the movie and my local library had a copy, so my decision was made for me. I grabbed this as soon as it came in. And it already has another person waiting for it. They will get their chance now as I have finished it. I loved this book and gave it four stars. It loses one star for being a little easy, written for children as it is. Maybe I shouldn’t mark it off for that since it is a junior novel, but thats just the way I am. 5 stars is perfection after all.

In this novel we find go along with Finn through some of this training and on his first real mission. I had thought the one we saw in the movie was his first, but not so. Rey’s story I don’t want to tell you about. It concerns her scavenger life before the movie. Her story is so excellent, its actually the reason I gave the book 4 stars instead of 5. I loved her story so much, I thought there was more the author could have done with it. Poe’s story is also good. The second best story in the book after Rey’s of course. In it Poe meets general Leia Organa Solo for the first time and goes on a very thrilling mission. If you are a Star Wars fan, young or old, you will enjoy this book!

Review: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Incredible Cross-Sections

Incredible cross-sections is a beautiful book! Not only are all the images “incredible”, but there are short articles on every page. The articles tell you a little about each vehicle. For example, did you know that Rey built that speeder herself? Even Han’s new freighter is in this book and so are the Rathtars.

I am very glad that my library had this book. But honestly, if my kids were a little more into Star Wars I would not hesitate to buy this for $20. As it is, I don’t have the room for this and I’d be the only one looking at it. Click on the image above to see a larger version. Can you find Finn?

Review: The Alchemist

34% of goodreads users gave The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho 5 stars. I’m not sure I listened to the same book as these people read. Maybe there is some deep philosophical meaning that this book contained and my tiny mind just didn’t gasp it. I have no idea. To mean this book “read” like a children’s book. It was not written poorly. The story just didn’t appeal to me. There was nothing that grabbed me. There was no foreshadowing that I wanted to hang out for and see how it went. Therefore, I fall solidly in the only 9% of goodreads users that gave this book a measly 2 stars.

Review: The Stranger

This was a strange book. The Stranger (aka The Outsider) by Albert Camus is an odd book. The main character seems completely apathetic. I gave this book 3 stars. It was well written and the story was interesting, but that was the extent of it. I’m not sure what the author wanted us to take away on this novel. In trying to review this book I ran across this video review. You have to watch it.

Review: The Power of Reading

The Power of Reading by Stephen D. Krashen is a very through book. I first got interested in reading books about books when I read Book Lust by Nancy Pearl, which by the way is worth having a copy. I can’t recommend Book Lust enough! But, back to The Power of Reading.

This has tons of citations from studies conducted in the 1990s and 2000s. Because there are no recent studies the book is a little dated in its citations. The copy I read was published in 2004, but the book was first published in 1993 and it seems not a lot of the references have been kept as up-to-date as a reader like me would have liked.

This book reads like a research paper so be prepared for that. If you want something that is a little easier to read I would highly suggest you read The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease. His book is mentioned in any good study of reading books and the positive effects.

I gave The Power of Reading 3 out of 5 stars. Not great, but if you are doing a paper on the importance of reading or reading to improve english as a second language (ESL) then this is the book you need to check-out, but I wouldn’t recommend buying it.

Review: Jude the Obscure

Liked this classic a lot. It is on my BBC100 challenge list. I thought at first it was going to be a great romantic novel, but it turns into a sad depressing novel. While I still liked this book, I was disappointed in the sadness of the novel. I was looking at reviews online about this book and Mark Goacher nails it with this you tube video review on Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy.

I think this is a great classic and worth reading. I like the drive that Jude shows throughout the novel. I listened to this novel read by David Case on audio. Mark in the above video even talks about the films that were made of the book including the 1996 film Jude. I can’t wait to watch this movie and hopefully do a review on the movie part of the book. I’ve always like Kate Winslet and she plays Sue in the movie.

Review: Anthem

This is a very original novel. It is super short. My copy was only 105 pages. Anthem, originally called Ego, by Ayn Rand is a dystopian story. It follows one person who has a hard time falling in line with other people. The story is in the future but somehow humans have fallen back into the dark ages. They use candles and all technology is no longer used.

I was curious how other people were reviewing this book so I did a quick search and found this very interesting take on the book:

I really like the book and would recommend if for other lovers of post-apocalyptic stories. A great place to find more post-apocalyptic books is a goodreads book club that I belong to.

Review: Missing Person

Missing Person by Patrick Modiano, was originally written in French I believe. I of course read an English translation. Mr. Modiano won the 2014 nobel prize for literature. Because of this, I was expecting an amazing book with shocking brilliant prose. The book is not bad, it is in fact a some what interesting story. But it doesn’t move very quickly. It is a kind of detective novel.

I bought this copy on abebooks I believe and it was hard to find. I had to purchase it because none of the local libraries had a copy. I think I know why they didn’t have a copy now. There is nothing special about this book. The story is just kind of there. Nothing exciting. Maybe this was just over my head, I’m not sure, but I can’t give this a good rating as it just didn’t interest me very much. I think the best part was the first 40 pages or so when the story is just getting started and I thought it was building up to something great. But it was anti-climatic. I was let down. This book only earned two stars out of five from me. Very disappointed.

Review: The Sleeper and the Spindle

The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman was recommended to me from Lucythereader. You can see her recommendation in the video below:

Start at 1:10 if you only want to hear about The Sleeper and the Spindle. This book has fantastic illustrations and I would be remiss if I did not mention the amazing work that Chris Riddell did in this book. Simply astounding. Take a look:

The Sleeper and the Spindle - Inside — The Sleeper and the Spindle – Inside

Just gorgeous. If you are a Neil Gaiman this one is a keeper. I however, didn’t purchase this one. I borrowed it from the library. I was thinking I have about an hour what can I read in that time. So I glanced at my to-read list on goodreads and this was a short book that I remembered from Lucy’s video. I’m so glad I read it.

My local library had a digital copy ready for download. So, for the first time I tried downloading an ebook on my iPad. It worked really well.

The Sleeper and the Spindle - iPad — The Sleeper and the Spindle – iPad

Back to the story though. It was a wonderful fantasy about dwarfs and a princess and an evil witch/enchantress. They have a dangerous and wondrous adventure. In typical Gaiman style, things are never as you expect. This book is easily a 4 out of 5 star book! The only thing I didn’t like was that it ended so soon!

If you want something like this but a little longer I highly recommend The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel, another Neil Gaiman novel. This one is just perfect. I read it in 2015 and it is definitely a 5 star book!

Review: The Secret History

Halfway through The Secret History by Donna Tartt I knew I was going to give this book a 5 out of 5. It is a story about a handful of students that are taught by a special professor. The professor only has this handful of students and teaches all but one or two of the students classes himself. An oddity in college. The story takes place in Vermont. The students see them self as elite as does the professor and the professor helps them see only the best in themselves.

The students take things too far. Further than you or I would think possible. There are several places where Greek is spoken but you get the just of things so it’s okay. It helps if you have read some of the Greek classics. Just when you think the book is winding down, boom! There is a surprise. Great book!

I listened to the audio edition of the book. It is read by Donna Tartt, the author. I love it when the author does the audio book themselves. You know they are reading it the way it is meant to be read. They are putting emphasis in all the right places. They do the voices of the characters as they should be and as they felt they would be. Really it’s the best thing you can get if unable to read the print version.

This book is on the BBC 100 list that I have been referring to often in my writing on this blog. So, I’m very glad I can put a line through another title. I would recommend this book to my friends. It is a great story and not slow by any means.