This novella is a well-written, easy read that I got through in 2 hours on a flight home after the Christmas holidays.It is the first in 5 novellas that set the scene for the full length novel "Throne of Glass".I'm glad I started with this book. Having received a brand new Kindle for Chrismas, this was my first Kindle purchase at 80p. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will definitely be reading the rest.This story focuses on Assassin Celeana and her quest, with Sam, to free some slaves from a pirate lord. This book focuses on a gripping and exciting story and intense characterisation, without bothering with overly complicated description or indulging in complex, sentence structures. I hate novels that use the "beautiful english language" - I find it pretentious, so I'm glad that this novella didn't bother and instead delivered a cracking story.Celeana is the protagonist and bloody likeable. She's a headstrong, top class assassin, but she's 16 so she's got all the cockiness and arrogance that come with the age, that can lead to mistakes. The key to a good character is showing their flaws. So Celeana became more likeable and believable to me because of them, and despite her stupid name.All in all, a cracking read, and I'm excited to read the next ones!
If you are a fan of indie high fantasy and a plethora of adjectives, then this is the book for you!I first came across this book at the beginning of the year when Ben Galley ambushed a friend of mine in Waterstones begging her to buy his book. She was terrified, but I was amused and yes, intrigued. The book seemed to tick all of my boxes and the cover art is really amazing. I kind of hate the matte-type feeling, but I let that one slide. Needless to say, it has taken me a long time to finish it, but let's start with the things I liked about this book first.First of all it has to be said that Galley has impressed me by indie publishing his first novel to quite a high standard. My first novel will never (no, never!!) see the light of day so I'm impressed he has managed it. And he's made quite the splash too. My mum recently sent me links to his website and some articles about him. She raved about him, saying he sounded amazing and that I should take notes for my own writing. I did actually tell her that I was reading his first book and was an avid reader of his blog posts and we had quite a nice discussion about it all. If anyone follows Galley on the old twitter or facey b, you'll see that this is his full-time job and he clearly puts a great deal of effort into it all. *impressed face*So let's have a quickie review what I liked, shall we?1) The book started off rather well, it set the tone for the novel (dark and full of magic, awesome!). Galley gets points for a very good opening chapter.2) I really liked the main character. I was immediately intrigued by Farden. It took me a while to fully warm up to him and did end up liking the character a lot. He's not your typical anti-hero. He's got an edge to him: with the romance, the addiction, his bizarre relationship with the cat that was a little out of character but I loved it. I liked him!I felt that maybe a little more characterization may have been useful, but in all the character worked for me. I did find myself rooting for the guy and wanting to read more about his story.3) There were some details which I really loved and want to see more of! The whole "magic tattoos" gimmick was excellent and I just loved the dragon tearbooks. It's those little things; the new, exciting fantasy details that I really love!3) The plot in itself is really good: the kind of thing I like. The ending especially made me actually say "you know what, I think I actually will read Pale Kings". If I was giving a rating for the plot itself I would give five stars. The execution however let Galley down. Here is why:Galley's writing style is not really my cup of tea. I am not a huge fan of an over use of adjectives, nor am I a big fan of massive paragraphs of description. In some of the fast-paced scenes the description does pays off as I like to have more detail to help me visualize certain scenes like battles. But in all the never ending descriptions, however poetic, just annoyed me. This was the main reason it took me so long to finish the book. It slows down the pace and after a while just caused me to read on autopilot, reading without taking anything in until I found myself in the middle of the first plot twist without a clue what was going on.[Side note: was the first plot twist really a plot twist? I found it totally predictable]Yes, there were a few parts of the book which really grabbed me, but about 70% I just felt like this.The names were another thing that annoyed me. The names of the characters and places just struck me as "Tolkien gone wrong". It's not just the whole "vampyre" with a 'y' thing, it's everything. I mean: 'Kiltyrin' and 'Fidlarig'? 'Uncle Tyrfing'? I'd like to at least be able to attempt to pronounce these names! And while we're on the subject of names, who the hell is Ridda? He appears at the end of book 3 like "oh em gee it was Ridda all along", and I had to flip through the entire book trying to figure out who the hell he was. Did I miss this guy somewhere in the descriptive narrative? I just can't keep track of all these sporadically appearing characters with ridiculous names!One last thing before I end this review, and it is something a lot of other reviewers have picked up on. The mistakes. The spelling, grammar, punctuation mistakes that irritated me so much I couldn't resist tweeting them to Galley like "oi mister, fix this". I know it doesn't matter too much to some people, but if I spot any mistakes in a book my mind just leaves that universe likeI wasn't sure if I was going to pick up the sequel or not. By the ending of The Written I think I realized that I cared enough about the plot to see what happens. I do think there is an excellent chance for Galley to show us a better book in Pale Kings.And Ben I know you're busy writing Dead Stars at the moment, so if I could just add some constructive criticism that you don't have to listen to at all....- You really don't need so much poetic, cliched, adjective-y description to add filler to the novel. A little is good, but not too much! Your plot and characters are fantastic and that's what you should be focusing on. And please, enough with the italic excerpts at the beginning of each and every chapter. I hate to throw the word 'pretentious' in there, but yeah. Less is more!CONCLUSION: Good debut novel. It has its strong points as well as its bad points. Galley's strength is a really good plot and some intriguing characters. Writing style may need some work. But I am up for reading Pale Kings, and fully hoping Galley will rock my world with that one.
I'm disappointed that I couldn't get into this book.It was partly because it was rushed, and partly because of the 19th century writing. It's not the first time I've read a book from this era, but I'll definitely admit I was out of touch. As much as I enjoy the language, it makes the book more of an effort to read at times, and I just could not picture any of the scenes in my mind. There was also very little characterization, which is not my kind of thing.A classic, maybe, but not for me.
When I was 14 I read Jostein Gaarder's "Sophie's World". It quickly became one of my all-time favourite books and even inspired a theatre piece I wrote in my third year of university. Eight years later, I have finally read another of Gaarder's books and it was wonderful to rediscover his brilliant writing style.The Orange Girl is a short novella of only 150 pages, so I was easily able to devour the whole book in one sitting. Just like in "Sophie's World", there is a mystery to be solved and the book is narrated by two different characters. Georg, 15, has received a long letter from his late father, Jan, who tells him the story of the Orange Girl and how she affected his life.Gaarder does a good job of giving the two characters two different 'voices'. Georg, as a teenager who isn't particularly interested in literature, has a simple and sometimes irritating narrative style that reflects his youth and slight ignorance about the world. Jan, who is older and fancies himself a writer, is fascinating and a remarkable story-teller. He not only tells his son about the Orange Girl and the whole story surrounding her, but goes into immense detail about his thought processes. I especially loved his paragraphs speculating about who she is. They were so entertaining! In my own writing I do a lot of that kind of thing, and have always been worried it would be considered 'waffling' and readers would be annoyed by it. But I love that kind of thing - to me it is one of the best kinds of characterization. If Jostein Gaarder does it, then so shall I!The mystery of the Orange Girl is not a difficult one to figure out, but you fall in love with the characters through the mystery and suspense of it all. I was less interested with Georg's story, but he has a role to play too, and the story is so much more meaningful when you consider that he is reading a story from his late father.Jostein Gaarder had me hooked again in this book and, as always, leaves us with the moral of the story:"Nature is a miracle, the world is a fairytale, and life is a lottery in which only the winning tickets are shown. And if you are reading this then you have a winning ticket, lucky you!" (And also, stalking is fucking romantic.)
HAHAHAAHAHAHAHA! Now I know why this ebook was free!! I swear even fifty shades of grey is better written than this. I don't know; this is only the second "erotic" novel I have ever read, but so far I am not sold on them. They are so cringe worthy and this one is no different!
Charlie Chaplin's autobiography is a blatantly honest and beautifully written account of the most famous man in the world in the early 1900s. His ease with writing and the book's fantastic flow offer amazing juxtaposition with his account of the life of a pauper in 19th century London. You simply do not expect such eloquence from someone who was partially raised in a work-house and confessed he was mainly self-taught.The stories of his youth were brilliantly told. They were moving, funny and always honest. Chaplin paints a very clear picture of his childhood and transports the reader with ease. He even remembers how he felt at each point in time, and never sugarcoated his feelings about his family, particularly his mentally ill mother. Chaplin spends quite a few chapters exploring his childhood and when the story eventually covers his rise to fame the narrative feels rushed, which is essentially how i must have felt for him. All of a sudden Chaplin became a new person in a brand new world of his own creating, but he rises to to challenge fantastically, and the rest is history.Chaplin does not shy away from talking about his sex life and his many failed marriages. It was refreshing to read that Chaplin never made excuses for his failed relationships. The failures mainly boiled down to him being a workaholic, and not really loving his wives that much in the first place. Chaplin does not deny this. The whole feeling I got from the narrative was Charlie saying "yes I was a dick back then. Apologies to all involved, but that's just me. I'm not a bad person, I acted like a twat for a long time." This honesty just made me love him even more.I am a lifelong fan of Chaplin and this autobiography just made me love him more. He was a brilliant, funny and intelligent man. He writes his life story as if writing a novel and refuses to lie to his readers.Recommend!
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