Mutterings

I swear that this is the last book review that will ever be published in this blog... How do I review this book? Bartholomew's Top Ten Games you can Play in your Head, by Yourself is more like a guided daydream not too different from a guided meditation, especially since the whole book comes in an MP3 file.  The book is supposedly written by J Theophrastus Bartholomew, who did not exist on the internet until this book came out. Even images of my old english teacher would come out if you search for him on Google, albeit being slightly outdated. Whether Bartholomew actually exists or not is still a hotly debated topic. The editors, however, were Sam Gorski and D.F. Lovett, of which Sam Gorski was the founder of the viral YouTube channel Corridor Digital.  The amazon page has what seems like a wild description for a terrible rip-off that begs the very question of whether this thing actually works. However, The book is far from a fraud. It first lets you do exercises to be able to...

 Why am I stuck writing book reviews?  Anyway, here's the review for the series the Game is Life: WARNING: CONTAINS (slight) SPOILER The Game is Life is a special series unlike any other book I have ever read. It's got just the right amount of thrill, technology, romance and deeper meanings, all without boring the reader. The whole book is packed with the motif of people saying "The Game is life" and conspiray theories.  The book is about a reality called Tygon, which has servers hosting Earth, which is the reality we live (or according to the book, play) in.  On Tygon, it is reffered to as The Game. Children use The Game to educate themselves, and, as a decade in The Game is a week on Tygon, is able to gain multiple lifetimes of experience.  SPOILER STARTS Then, we realise that there is another world, where there is a power-hungry general wreaking havoc in order to keep it. A person called Samson Thorn then developed Virtual Reality. Not the silly headset type,...

For many, just seeing the name “Charles Dickens” on the cover is enough to send them far away from anything to do with it. But ignore the label screaming “DANGER OF DEATH: DAHL”S CHICKENS DETECTED”: A Christmas Carol is different. It is lightly humorous and very easy to read, as well as having Charles Dickens’ style.  The Christmas Carol is about a miserable man, Scrooge, who hates Christmas and helping the poor, transforming into the exact opposite as he is visited by three ghosts. The first one reminds him of his past relationship, which ended when his greed overtook him. The second shows him how everyone else celebrates Christmas merrily, and then  the third foreshadows what happens if he does not change. I especially like the way the language is ingeniously put together. The way he creates moods so immersive and real seems like pure genius, but when observed closely, you find only common techniques like listing, similes and metaphors, just extended slightly and used with t...

There is no denying that the Darkest Minds series by Alexandra Bracken is quite interesting. The plot is, for the most part, good, apart from the 100 pages in the middle of the third book; characters are developed well… the list goes on. This review will hopefully advise you as to whether you would enjoy reading it.    Firstly, the plot is about a mysterious “virus”(read the book to find out why I put that in quotes) that killed most of the children in America, causing the economy to crash. The few surviving children  were put into concentration camps by the government, as they developed supernatural, frightening and potentially threatening skills.  In particular, Bracken’s writing style was excellent. It plays with the reader’s mind, which is ironic because the main character, Ruby, also developed abilities to edit other people’s memories and push images and feelings into their minds.   The blurbs at the back of the books are also interesting and even they...

     For many, Maths Prep Book 3 is a nightmare. I mean, seriously: It’s packed to the brim with complicated equations that are impossible to understand with equally confusing explanations for them.       The book has thoughtful prompts and questions that require actual Mathematical skills, as opposed to other books, which just succumb to tell the reader to blindly follow random equations. This book actually bothers to attempt, however hopelessly, to explain what’s going on, instead of dumping a load of questions at you without warning like other books. It also attempts to incorporate the history of Mathematics into the book, resulting in a rather eerie mixture of chaos.       Still, I would not use Maths Prep Book 3 for trying to prepare for 13+ without a teacher (or parent) to guide you through strange equations where it failed to explain what actually is happening behind the numbers seemingly magically transforming.   ...

Jimmy knew something was wrong, although it was a fine spring day. He had heard the others talk about something about storms. He didn’t like them. They also always resulted in the family wasting money on repairing the perfectly fine mansion and not walking him enough. So to get a good view of the potential storm, he sat on the damp, carpeted floor of the only room on the rooftop garden, full of exotic plants of every imaginable kind, with floor-to-ceiling windows on all sides, which also was connected to the lift, facing a freshly repaired window. Then it started: the waves, like a frenzied and ferocious giant, finally breaking free after millions of years of imprisonment, tore through the coast. They crashed into the shore and onto the mansion, shamelessly smashing and tearing out chunks the size of small asteroids off the marble walls of the mansion. Jimmy watched on. The dark seas churned with infinite rage; imperishable hunger and a gnawing voracity. A frothy, dark grey wave banged...

God seems to have a destructive and equally twisted sense of humour. In ancient books,films and propaganda, 2020 seemed to be another word for a complete utopia. The truth couldn’t be more wrong. The would-be Mars settlements and flying cars have been re-shaped by cold, stark reality into millions of dead bodies, piled up on an incinerator, ready to be forgotten. The dreams and hopes we had have been crushed by a tide of crashed economies. Twenty-twenty would have been perfect just safely locked away in just another ludicrous dystopian book written by just another ludicrous idiot with just another ludicrous idea. Only that the book happened to be real, and we find ourselves in this: a time where strange stories surface and bitter books of pure disaster are real. So people say.  2020 seems to stink of mouldy disinfectant. One of my friends’ mum insisted on scrubbing everything that came through the front door like a madman at least three times with disinfectant wipes before consider...