Book Review: Overlord: The Undead King by Kugane Maruyama

The Undead King by Kugane Maruyama
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have never read a light novel in my life until I picked up Overlord. I have watched the anime (season one, actually) and I loved it so much that I had to read the light novel. I was not disappointed at all. Every scene of the book felt like I was rewatching the anime all over again. The idea of someone who has played a video game for so long, and wanted to stay till the end, only to wake up in your character’s body and you’re stuck in the world, having no idea how to get out of it.

That is what happened to Momonga when he spent one last day in the video game Yggdrasil, because he didn’t want to leave it. He said goodbye to one of his friends and when he closed his eyes...he woke up in the body of an undead lich. Confused, he walked around the Great Tomb of Nazarick and found all these geat NPCs-Albedo, Demiurge, Cyctous, Mare and Aura, Sebas, even Shalltear-and before the game even shut down and he went to sleep, he changed Albedo’s trait of being a bitch to being in love with him.

When he’s trying to figure out what works in the world he’s in right now and what doesn’t, a village called Caine Village got attacked by a bunch of knights of the Thane Sloanacy, to call out another knight they wanted to kill, Granef Stronoff. Ainz helped the village by summoning a death knight and only killed the knights and even helped two girls who were running from the village and gave them a healing potion. Once the village was saved and he spoke to the mayor of the village, that’s when the E-Rantel knights came and Granef and Ainz spoke, even though Ainz had a mask over his face so no one can see what he truly looked like.

Granef and the Thane Sloanacy did into a fight, but then they switch and it was Ainz vs The Thane Sloancy. The fight scenes in this book is really well written and it felt real, and I liked how Ainz was serious and also thinks about what spell to use before he attacks. He shocks the humans of the spells he uses, and they even try to get him to join the group, but Ainz says no, and i also like reading the thought process of the humans on the other side, trying to figure out what the hell is Ainz and how is he that powerful enough to kill angels and how he was still standing. In the end, they were sent to Nazarick and Carine Village is safe and in the protection of Ainz Ooal Gown.

For my first light novel, I have to say that I truly enjoyed it and am glad that I got book two and am planning on getting more of the series and finish watching the anime as well so I can enjoy it so much more. The light novel covers episodes one through four and I can’t wait to read where this story will lead us.

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Book Review: The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have DNFed this book, I put this book down MULTIPLE times, and I have also forgotten that I’m reading this book up till now. I finished this book yesterday, and I have to say, this book has to be one of my favorite books, right next to Dread Nation by Justine Ireland. The Eye of the World, though it is a long book with fifty three chapters along with the glossary, was very eyecatching, very easy to follow, and also very good to enjoy, to sit back and relax and just read.

The Eye of the World is about a boy named Rand al’Thor who lives in Emon Field with his friends, Mat Cuthon and Perrin Aybara, and his father, Tam al’Thor. They were excited for Bel Tine, a festival that celebrates spring, when Moiraine and Lan came to the village. They were only seeking shelter, no more, and that sparked the whispers and the fears that came with being an Aes Sedai. One night, Trollocs and a Myrddral appeared and attacks the village, looking for Rand and his friends. Sadly, they weren’t in town, and Tam got hurt. Rand found a way to make it back to the village, where Moiraine healed him and tells him that he and his friends have to leave the village to go somewhere else, to Tar Valon.

Though it hurt him and his friends to do that, that’s when they discover that they are much more than just a couple of farm boys from a small village called Emon Field/Two Rivers.

First off, Rand and his friends are haunted by the Dark One himself, and they tried to keep it from Moiraine, but they couldn’t keep it to themselves when they told her. Secondly, Perrin became a Wolfbrother, who can speak and communicate with the wolves. He and Egwene get caught by the Children of the Light, who thought that he was lying about some things, and one man was honestly going to kill him, but thank god he didn’t as they escaped thanks to Moiraine and Lan and Nynaeve. Egwene and Nynaeve can channel, though Egwene is excited about it and Nynaeve...isn’t. Mat stole a dagger that made him not trust a bunch of people (yep, THAT DAGGER) and it also cursed him, but Moiraine tried to heal him, but it didn’t work too well.

We also meet a lot of monsters and people in the book. We meet the ogier Loial, the trollocs, the myrddral, the forsaken and the Dark One, who for a couple of chapters he appeared scared me a bit, but as I moved on and kept reading, he became less scary to me. I also loved the other characters in the book, like Logain Albar the False Dragon, Elayne Tarkand, the Tuatha’an, Elyas-those people were so, so good and I felt like they rounded out the world, even though this is book one of this series.

I do have book two and book eleven, and one day, I will get all of the books, but for now I’m gonna finish this book review by saying that this is a really good fantasy novel, and a really good forway into the Wheel of Time series.

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Book Review: The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I normally don’t read new releases on the year/day it comes out. But because there was so much hype for this book, I decided to read it. My god, the hype for this book is real, because I loved every single moment of it. The grumpy/sunshine trope, the fake dating trope-set in academia? I was there. And the cover of the book drawn by one of my favorite artists on Twitter? I pre ordered this book before I could say less. There were other couples in this book, and the diversity in this book is really good as well, but I loved Olive and Adam’s fake relationship, and I also love Olive’s whole entire character. This book was just so good that I don’t know if I can get through the rest of the review.

The Love Hypothesis takes place at Stanford University, where Olive Smith is a third year Ph.D candidate, who makes the biggest mistake of her life and kisses the first person she sees...that person turns out to be Adam Carlsen, a well-known arsehole and a professor/scientist who wanted to automatically report Olive for kissing him. So Olive came up with a good idea to pretend they’re fake-dating, and shockingly, Adam agrees.

They go on dates at Starbucks, Olive putting sunscreen on Adam’s back, the sex in the hotel (pretty damned good, honestly) and the Tom Benton problem...I hated him. Just like Maven in Red Queen, I had a weird feeling towards Mr. Benton, until after Olive’s presentation at the science conference and he said all those horrible things that made her feel so horrible after she had sex with Adam and heard the recording right in front of her friends made me feel for her, because she wanted Adam free from her and that she won’t be in Boston to work for Tom.

Well thanks to the power of Malcolm and his boyfriend, Olive found Adam in a restaurant filled with a bunch of Harvard higher ups and Tom, and she got scared and just...pulled out her phone and played the recording for everyone to hear. To me, this was such a powerful move for a girl who is scared of someone, who doesn’t know what to do, but to stand there and play the horrible words that Tom has said to her. Of course, Adam got upset (Kylo Ren, is that you??) and told Olive that ‘he’ll take care of it’ and then the cute double date-SO CUTE. I loved it (and that Malcolm and Adam hates Pumpkin Spice...I AM OFFENDED in a good way) and Tom Benton went away, and everything is fine. Adam isn’t moving to Boston, and Olive is going to Berkeley to pursue what she wants to study really badly.

I honestly loved this book, mostly because I can relate to Olive very well, even though I;m not pursuing a scientific degree, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. In the words of our lord and savior Adam Driver: “Good Soup.”

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Book Review: Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When I first picked up this book, I wasn’t in the mood to even read this book, and that was a couple years ago, I think. Then I picked it up now, and I’m so glad that I read it. I really enjoyed it and it was very different from the fantasy that I’m used to reading. I was shocked about the guns in the book for a second, but then as I kept reading, it kinda works in this world and even the small scientific explanations of the powers were pretty fun to read.

BUT MAVEN. I don’t see why everyone swoons over this man-I hate him. I want to kill him so bad after I read THAT SCENE because WTF my guy. But I sensed that he’s a jumped up little shit the moment he came on the scene, and then when I read that chapter...MOTHER-

Before I get into that and the reason why I hate him, let’s get into the book, shall we?

So here’s a girl named Mare, who is stealing to keep her family well fed and whatnot. She is a friend of Kilorn and sister to Shade, who had “supposedly” died but I’ll get into that the more I get into this review. She is shocked that Kilorn is getting conscripted into the army-something Mare doesn’t want to happen. Because a couple months later she’ll be conscripted into the war as well, so she goes to her friend to find some way to smuggle her and Kilorn out of the Stilts and far away from the Red and Silver world. From there, she meets a woman named Farley, who is part of a revolutionary group called the Scarlet Guard.

Mare took Farley’s price-which meant going to the Silver Island to get something really expensive and really priceless. Unfortunately...that doesn’t happen. She gets caught, but her sister had her hand shattered, and she felt so bad that she went out and met a boy named Cal, whom she tried to steal from...who turns out to be the Crown Prince, who shocked Mare when she got the job of being a maid, and her first job was her being the help at the Queenstrial. During the Queenstrial, Mare’s powers manifest...and she can do lightning.

So what happens when the royal family catches you and brings you to them?

Mare is turned into a lost Silver Princess to hide that she is a Red that can do lightning, and her time in court, though it was short, was very different from everyone else. She had to go to protocol, she had to go take classes on how to be a lady and go to lunches and stuff with the Queen...but at the same time, she’s secretly aligning herself with Farley and the Scarlet Guard, along with Maven...who turns around and betrayed her and Cal at the drop of a hat. Like why, my guy, why….

But then when she and Cal was going to get executed...Maven played a video so twisted, so horrible that I don’t know if I can even call him a proper King for what he and Queen Elara did to Cal’s father (forces him to do) and then the twisted and malicious lies just hurts my soul SO SO MUCH and I fucking hated it so much that I wanted to scream. But I’m glad Mare and Cal escaped, and I’m really glad that Farley is still alive...BUT SHADE IS ALIVE. W...TF….how???

Turns out, this boy can teleport.

Shocking, I know, but then, it kinda fit Shade.

I truly enjoyed this book and I’m glad I read it (and also brought the rest of the series to read in between my other books) and I can’t wait to read more of the series.

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Book Review: These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong...broke me in ways I never thought a book would. I thought that this was a nice, cute story about Juliette and Roma being all cute and stuff, BUT NO. Throw in a monster, and OH HELLO Y’ALL. This book immediately sucked me in the moment I read the first line in the book-In glittering Shanghai, a monster awakens. If that sentence doesn’t pull you in, I don’t know what will.

This fantastic book is about two gangs-The Scarlet Gang, ran by the Cai family, and the White Flowers, ran by the Montagov family. A madness is going around Shanghai, and it’s affecting the gangs, and both Juliette and Roma work together to stop all of this...if one can stop trying to pull out guns and knives at one another, this would be a perfect book. But nope. Add in the communists, a monster, a French gentleman who reminds me WAY TOO MUCH of Dex Dexter from Dynasty, and you have one hell of a story.

I loved the action so much in this book, and the monster and how it seemed like the Communist Zhang Gutai was behind it all. I honestly believed that it was him after all, summoning the monster to get rid of nearly half the workers and the gangsters on both sides-but at the end, they were wrong. So, so wrong. It wasn’t Zhang Gutai like they thought.

No, no, no.

It was actually his assistant, Mr. Qi Ren, who turned into the monster and sent out all those bugs after everyone-and I think he was controlled by Paul Dexter, that scheming son of a gun. But the shocker was the truth about what happened at that bombing with Juliette’s Nurse, and then Juliette getting her revenge on the White Flowers by telling them where Lady Montagova was. BUT WHEN JULIETTE SHOT MARSHALL...I went “Juliette WHY” and thought he was dead, but then it was all a rouse to show her cousin, Tyler (whomst I hate with a passion), but at least Marshall is okay.

BUT THE SIDE CHARACTERS. Kathleen, Benedikt and Marshall, Alisa, Tyler-ALL OF THEM WERE SO, SO GOOD. They were so fleshed out that I liked and loved all of them-all except Tyler, he can go to hell. And the secrets that came out...OMG. I was hanging on to my seat while reading them. I give this book a five out of five stars because of how good it really is. A Romeo and Juliet retelling? Sign me up PLEASE.

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Book Review: Clockwork Princess, an Infernal Devices novel by Cassandra Clare

Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book...was so beautiful that I cried. Yes, I, Brittany, cried after I read this book. This is the third book of the Infernal Devices, and I didn’t mean for it to just come and hit me like a trailer truck like that. I was expecting so many things to come at me all at once, to tell you the truth. I thought it was going to be a happy ending for me, for my favorite couple, everything. But NO. NO, NO, NO, NO. It just...fuckin’ hell, it hurts like hell and I kept crying at the end of it.

So basically it starts off at the end of Clockwork Prince, where Will’s sister Cecily shows up, demanding that he comes home, but thanks to the law, he cannot go home ever again. So Cecily became a Shadowhunter while the Lightwood boys, Gideon and Gabriel, stays there as well. Gideon had fallen in love with Sophia, but Sophia was worried about what Charlotte says, because she’s a maid at the London Institute and didn’t want to leave Charlotte alone. Gabriel’s just upset that his father was slowly going mad-and he did go slowly mad. He was mad because of Mortmain, and he turned into a giant snake that killed Tatiana’s husband. Everyone went to the Lightwood Manor and fought the snake monster, only for Gabriel to kill the demon by shooting an arrow in the eye (oof).

Then Consul Wayland shows up at the Institute after writing Charlotte a bunch of letters telling her to stand down and basically starts yelling at her and reminds her that he’s the Consul and she has to to everything she says, thinking that because she’s a woman she runs with her feelings and not with her heart, which is first of all sexist and bullshit because Charlotte can take care of everyone in the damn place, so fuck you my guy. Just fuck you. Then the worst thing came to light, when the clockwork/infernal devices came and took Tessa away, and then Jem, my poor baby Jem, was dying. And this was when Jessamine came back to them with the Silent Brothers, only for her to get killed by the clockworks that came to take Tessa away.

On his deathbed, Jem told Will to go and get Tessa back, but not before he asked him, “What did Magnus mean by asking you if I knew you were in love with Tessa?" to which, I shit you not, in Will’s head I think he went ‘DAMN’ and then those two had a talk about it, in which Will confessed to Jem about being in love with Tessa, but he couldn’t because of the engagement between her and Jem. After they talked about it, Jem told Will to go get Tessa back from the Magister, and he did, and then he died and was turned into a Silent Brother and was given a new name, Brother Zachariah, but to both Tessa and Will, he was still their Jem.

At the same damn time, both Lightwood brothers are being used as a pawn in Consul Wayland’s plan to bring down Charlotte, asking them to spy on her, and they did do it, sending false letters about what was being talked about in Charlotte’s letters, but it turns out that Charlotte wasn’t writing about anything bad-she talked to her uncle who was dealing with a sickness, and anything else that wasn’t doing anything bad.

But Tessa...poor, poor Tessa. Getting kidnapped by the clockwork that turned Mrs. Dark into a clockwork herself, she was presented to the Magister and was forced to turn into his father and watched horribly as she/his father wrote a spell that uses demon energies to tie to something-in this case, Mortmain’s clockwork soldiers. The more Tessa begged for Mortmain to let her go or to stop it, he took her to a village...where he killed everyone (all except Will, who escaped) and told her not to play on his humanity-he has none left to give. Sadly, that didn’t stop Will from finding her, and the two confessed their love for each other I believe and then they intercoursed until they were interrupted by Magnus Bane, who came in through the portal that he and Henry made to come and save Tessa. Once everyone is there, that is when Mortmain shows up with his clockwork army, and a fight commences.

Henry lost his legs, Will was surprised to see Jem fighting as a Silent Brother, and Tessa turned into the angel locked up in her necklace to stop Mortmain and the clockworks. In the end, Will proposed to Tessa, Gabriel and Cecily are dating, Sophia ascended, Charlotte became Consul and had her child, and Magnus left for New York. And the epilogue broke me, but at the same time I loved it so much that I really didn’t care because it left me in tears. A Five out of Five book for me.

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Book Review: Dark Lover, a novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood by J.R. Ward

Dark Lover by J.R. Ward
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When you haven’t book reviewed a book in so long, in like a YEAR, and then you reread the book to do a book review…

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Caldwell, NY, where Brittany has totally forgotten about reviewing the first ever book of the Black Dagger Brotherhood and hasn’t book reviewed it in a LONG ASS TIME because she simply forgot. Oops. So she’s here to rectify that because reading the book twice as I did brought back memories and the fact that this book is so damned good that I want to read the rest of the series (which I will...after I get done with my other ones that I want to get to…)

Let’s start off with Wrath, the leader of the Black Dagger Brotherhood and basically the so called Blind King...but he really didn’t want the title of king. In fact, he liked being the leader of the brotherhood, and he really loves to fight. He’s the last of the pureblood vampires, and he wants to find the slayers and kill them for what they did to his parents. But when one of his warriors, a man named Darius, asks him to being his only daughter into their world, Wrath downright refuses to do it. He didn’t want to bring a woman he didn’t even know into their world, even though she’s about to go through the change.

But then Darius died and Wrath HAD to do it-even though he swore up and down and sideways and upways that he didn’t want to take his daughter from the life she knew into his world-there was no way in hell he wanted to do it. But then he scooped her place out and took a good look at her...and he fell in love with her, something he swore he didn’t want to do. Yes, they had great sex and all, but then when it became time to tell her who he was and who her father was and what she was about to be...well, it shocked the hell out of her.

And the queen to Wrath’s king’s name, you ask, is Elizabeth ‘Beth’ Randall, Darius’s daughter, who was a half human, half vampire woman living a normal human life before she even met Wrath, whom at the same time was supposedly mated to Marissa, but Wrath never even touched her, only for blood only, but when Beth came into the picture, all of that stopped, and yeah, it made Marissa mad, but then she met the human cop Butch…

Who tried to arrest Wrath after thinking that he was going to go in Beth’s apartment and hurt her, thinking that Wrath was a criminal (yeah, right) and gave her drugs as soon as Beth started going through the change, then becoming friends (like...besties) with Vishous/V...and also falling in love with Marissa and wanted to do it as slowly as possible after finding out that she’s a virgin and not wanting to hurt her.

When the lesser came and snuck around the house after making a deal with Havers and kidnapping Beth...that was the wrong thing to do, because Wrath felt like he wanted to tear the whole world apart just to find her. Which he did and got hurt really bad for it (it was after their wedding too, man, what the fuck) and Havers, the man that wanted to kill Wrath for hurting Marissa by trying to get Z to do it, only to find out that Z didn’t betray the brotherhood or the king, so he got the lesser to do it. So he worked and saved Wrath, who turned to his brothers and told them that he’s going to ascend the throne and let Tohrment run the brotherhood and also rebuild the vampire population, hurray!!!

I truly enjoyed this book, and I’m so sorry that I haven’t reviewed it the first time I read it, because OMG it was such a good book. Ten out of Ten stars for me, if I could give it that!!

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