tori_storydelver's reviews
625 reviews

I am now officially caught up to where I stopped reading this series as a child. I liked this one, although the first two-thirds or so of this book are a little boring. The end really picks up and starts hinting at a bigger, on-going story instead of the same formula in a different setting like they have been going so far. This one even added some new characters that I expect we will see again! Although this book isn't going to be one of my favorites of this series, it really made me excited to get to the rest!

I almost didn't finish it! This book was so cheesy and cliche'. The main character, Penny is very materialistic and doesn't have much of a personality beyond a "naive red-head clumsy teen" like in every other book written for the pre-teen demographic. The other characters weren't any better. Every conflict that popped up was so quickly resolved and predictably so, that the book was not at all entertaining. Zoella has admitted to using a ghost writer, but I do believe she wrote some of this book herself. There were parts that were written very stiffly and used words like "mustn't" that were completely out of place and style. I wasn't expecting this book to be great, I picked it up thinking it would be a light teen romance to read around Valentines Day, but it just wasn't enjoyable at all.

I think this is my favorite of the series so far! (although The Reptile Room is a close runner-up) I am so glad that these don't stick with the same recycled plot over and over, and that there is, in fact, an ongoing story line. Like in The Miserable Mill, there are some real problems with trying to imagine the time it takes to complete tasks, but it is a very enjoyable and fun read. I loved the ongoing joke of things being "in" or "out" and I never got tired of it. I just really enjoyed this book overall.

This is a great example of a book that is not timeless. I enjoyed most of the plot, it seemed very dreamlike and full of childhood fascinations. But, I couldn't help thinking about reading this to children as a bedtime story. You would have to stop and explain so much simply because modern life is much different to when this play was first written. Violence and racism are abundant in this story. I would have given this four stars because it would be unfair to judge this book so harshly for being out-of-date when it was written so long ago, but the ending dragged on and on in a very unnecessary way.

I decided to read this because (a) It was near valentines and I wanted to read something with a little romance, and (b) I was supposed to have read it in high school but just knew enough about the story to BS my way through all the homework without actually reading it in its entirety. I have always loved reading and read the majority of required school readings, but I hate Shakespeare! I really, really, really want to like his works, There were parts of Macbeth that I definitely enjoyed, I understand the impact he has had on the English language, but overall I just cannot get into them. I hate how dramatic all the characters are. In this case Juliet especially got on my nerves, she was so rude to her maid. Romeo wasn't much better. It just really didn't help that the two main characters were also the most annoying characters in the whole play. I'm sure I'll torture myself and pick up another Shakespeare (I do want to read Hamlet) but I am going to need another long break in between reading them.

A truly bizarre character study of what maybe is the most determined movie director, Tommy Wiseau. Told by one of his only close friends, Greg Sestero. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Greg Sestero which was great! He did Tommy's strange accent very well, as I suppose you would have to after spending so much time together. I feel like I finished the book with new questions replacing the old questions about Tommy Wiseau I had when I started. In other words, Tommy is a mysterious dude. You can learn a lot from this book, but you are still completely in the dark about some aspects of his life. I also learned more about an actors journey to get work (I knew nothing of the subject before) so that was quite interesting.

As someone who loves learning about 60's culture I was really looking forward to reading this. For a long time. Like, really long. When I saw this a couple weeks ago I thought to myself, how have you not read this book yet!? It inspired a lot of the people who I am so interested in, and yet I still had not read it.

Unfortunately, I am quite torn on this book. On one hand it really submerged me into a time I will never get to experience myself. It's not easy to hitchhike across the country anymore. You'd have to do a lot more walking if you were planning a cross country trip without a car. And everything was so cheap back then! It was really crazy to think about how much inflation has increased the value of everything. I really liked some of the characters and little stories about the places he visits and the people he met. On the other hand, I kinda felt like I was reading a bad ripoff of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. I know there are a lot of differences, but at their core they are really just near plot-less books about traveling around and getting drunk. If it was just that I probably would have only taken one star off, but I hate Dean. Like many others have commented I thought he was very self absorbed and as a result treated people very badly. But ultimately, I (more or less) have a friend who is practically a modern day Dean. He

I liked this one, it was maybe a little lack-luster compared some of the others, but I enjoyed it none the less. I like that you can solve the riddles along with the Baudelaires. I think the third book has been the only other one so far that gives the reader the clues at the same time as the children. Doing that gives it a classic mystery novel vibe that I really enjoy. I also liked the weird town with the crows, it just gives it a gloomy, whimsical backdrop that I really enjoy in this series. I thought The Vile Village read a lot quicker than the others, but maybe I just read it really fast.