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jbwrites's reviews
143 reviews
No One Home by Tim Weaver
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Assassin's Creed: Renaissance by Oliver Bowden
4.0
I’m just going to be honest here. It’s exactly what you would expect it to be but slightly better. I’ll give you just some bullet points that will help you decide if you would like to read it.
Pros:
- I think the characters are well done. There’s no complexity or intrigue to them but you feel a lot more for them than characters than in the game. I also found myself googling the people they were based on quite a lot and as it turns out, many characters were based on real people.
- it is more logical than than the games. Locations are the same, but most of the events happen in better settings. For example it is pretty much always day time and sunny in the game but that wouldn’t make sense in the book, so sometimes he may strike at night or using a more logical method of killing to make it more realistic.
- Gore galore. Ezio’s kills are much more gory than the game as the game has limited graphics and capabilities. Ezio is also more respectful of his kills even in tough times.
- the book gives you a dictionary of Italian words and meanings in the back of the book that were used in the story and It really gave more of a renaissance feel to and furthered the believability of the story at the same time as me being able to understand what it said. It didn’t do this too often and you get to learn certain words as you go along.
Cons:
- the story is almost exactly the same as the game. Which is what you would expect. But why this is a con is because I had hoped it would delve deeper into Ezio’s life that I didn’t already know but it didn’t.
- the chapters are quite long, some being over 20 pages long because the author had to cram so much story into 501 pages. Plus there isn’t paragraph breaks unless the time period had significantly advanced. Which brings me onto my last con.
- a lot of time has passed in the book from beginning to end which feels like it’s been jammed together. Some times ten years could have passed and it is still in the same chapter, just a space between paragraphs to make it clear. But it would have been better if the chapters told the reader which city Ezio was in and the year.
Things to mention:
There is no mention of the animus or Desmond in the book, but it would be unnecessary information to the story and the concept kind of doesn’t make sense anyway when I think about it.
If your looking for a book with plot twists or particularly interesting characters, then it’s not the book for you. However if you liked the story/characters when you played the game then it’s definitely worth a read.
I’m not a massive reader, books tend to lose my attention fairly quickly but a book of this size would usually take me a lot longer to read. It’s mainly due to the fact there’s always something going on, it’s based on a game so the developers need to give their gamers challenges.
In short: if your an AC fan then I highly recommend, it stays true to the story and it’s characters, the action scenes are well planned out and easy to follow. If your not a fan already I don’t think you will enjoy this in my opinion. However if you have never played the games and want to, reading this first may increase your interest in the story before playing the game and becoming the main character of this book.
Pros:
- I think the characters are well done. There’s no complexity or intrigue to them but you feel a lot more for them than characters than in the game. I also found myself googling the people they were based on quite a lot and as it turns out, many characters were based on real people.
- it is more logical than than the games. Locations are the same, but most of the events happen in better settings. For example it is pretty much always day time and sunny in the game but that wouldn’t make sense in the book, so sometimes he may strike at night or using a more logical method of killing to make it more realistic.
- Gore galore. Ezio’s kills are much more gory than the game as the game has limited graphics and capabilities. Ezio is also more respectful of his kills even in tough times.
- the book gives you a dictionary of Italian words and meanings in the back of the book that were used in the story and It really gave more of a renaissance feel to and furthered the believability of the story at the same time as me being able to understand what it said. It didn’t do this too often and you get to learn certain words as you go along.
Cons:
- the story is almost exactly the same as the game. Which is what you would expect. But why this is a con is because I had hoped it would delve deeper into Ezio’s life that I didn’t already know but it didn’t.
- the chapters are quite long, some being over 20 pages long because the author had to cram so much story into 501 pages. Plus there isn’t paragraph breaks unless the time period had significantly advanced. Which brings me onto my last con.
- a lot of time has passed in the book from beginning to end which feels like it’s been jammed together. Some times ten years could have passed and it is still in the same chapter, just a space between paragraphs to make it clear. But it would have been better if the chapters told the reader which city Ezio was in and the year.
Things to mention:
There is no mention of the animus or Desmond in the book, but it would be unnecessary information to the story and the concept kind of doesn’t make sense anyway when I think about it.
If your looking for a book with plot twists or particularly interesting characters, then it’s not the book for you. However if you liked the story/characters when you played the game then it’s definitely worth a read.
I’m not a massive reader, books tend to lose my attention fairly quickly but a book of this size would usually take me a lot longer to read. It’s mainly due to the fact there’s always something going on, it’s based on a game so the developers need to give their gamers challenges.
In short: if your an AC fan then I highly recommend, it stays true to the story and it’s characters, the action scenes are well planned out and easy to follow. If your not a fan already I don’t think you will enjoy this in my opinion. However if you have never played the games and want to, reading this first may increase your interest in the story before playing the game and becoming the main character of this book.
Egghead: Or, You Can't Survive on Ideas Alone by Bo Burnham
4.0
I love and hate this book but hate in the nicest possible way. A lot of poems are ridiculous and don't make sense but I think a lot have deeper meanings and when you get to the heart of them, they are quite profound. There are some absolute gems in there. Some that are actually great life lessons. Would recommend, to a select few of my weirder friends...