Give Me A K-I-L-L by R. L. Stine REVIEW

By all technicalities, this is my first R. L. Stine book, which is a shame because I always wanted to read his books but my parents never let me because of content. I had an overactive imagination, so I guess it was a good call on their parts. Though I'm not disappointed! This, I enjoyed it a lot.

The story was very twisty, as in there were a lot of twists that happened very often. This leaves the leader with the thoughts of 'who's doing it' because the writing suggests that everyone's suspicious. The final twist was twisted with another twist and it was hard for me to wrap my head around what was going on. BUT I GUESSED THE ENDING SO I'M HAPPY.

The writing is by no means flawless, a lot of it felt rushed and wasn't put together well structurally and that made it kind of difficult to read especially when you consider the age group this kind of book is intended for. I really like clear concise timelines but I just think that's me. There wasn't too much jumping around time wise but R. L. Stine does this thing where he'll end chapters in the middle of one area and I take chapters as jumps in time rather than jumps in events. Sometimes he would end a chapter in one place, start the next chapter continuing the ending of the last chapter and then ending that continuation within a paragraph. The thought that comes to my mind is, why not just end that paragraph in the last chapter? It didn't build or lessen the anticipation factor so I didn't quite understand some of those choices, but that's just me.

Overall, pretty good, I had complaints and it wasn't perfect but what is the perfect novel really?

Big Mushy Happy Lump by Sarah Andersen REVIEW

For a book that doesn't have much substance in it, I don't know how I'm going to do an in depth review. But here I am, typing while shaking my head as I do so. What fun.

I always wanted the first Sarah Andersen collection but never bought it (because it's never on clearance ever). When I saw this on netgalley I knew that I had to read it and I waited until the great purging of the 'read now' section. (Currently, I aim to have so many books that I'm above 80% when I want  to review a lot of books at once. I am far from this goal.)

But, back to Sarah Andersen, I really really enjoyed this. It was super cute and for the most part very relatable to me. There are parts I did not agree with but I'm not going to hold that against Sarah Andersen because I am not a person that degrades people for daring to have a differing opinion.

The parts I appreciated the most were the parts where Sarah Andersen let us see a little bit more of how she is. Which like a lot of millennials is an anxious mess but she explains that she tries and that's the only thing that matters. I really appreciated her cat story. It was my favorite part.

So now, I want to add that I'm not too critical here because I don't see this book as something worth a critical review. I genuinely think that some books are genuinely made to not be taken too seriously. So enjoy the book if you can.

Scooby Apocalypse Volume 1 by Keith Giffen REVIEW

Oh Scooby Dooby Doo... I grew up with Scooby Doo and was really excited but this is a dense dense dense comic. It was so dense that it took me about a month to read it. I received it to review before the release date and it's after the release date and I just finished it.

This comic is based on the premise that instead of the monsters being people with masks on, they are actual monsters that actually want to kill people. So it's horror with survival with dystopian undertones.

The main five are much more darker versions of themselves, my favorites being Fred and Shaggy in this version. I am also fond of Scrappy Doo but unfortunately he is an antagonist.

As I mentioned before there is a lot of text dense moments which I don't typically like in a comic because I like things being fast paced, however, I find that a large bulk is necessary knowledge for the series.

Some people said that Velma's secret was 'shocking' they obviously need to read more thrillers because Daphne was literally saying that shit the WHOLE TIME. LITERALLY THE WHOLE TIME. It can't be shocking if it's been eluded to in nearly every conversation. That wasn't a huge revelation, it didn't even surprise me a little bit. I get more surprised when my mom gives me the grocery list for the week.

That being said, I'll definitely read the next volume whenever it comes out and decide whether or not I continue based on that goes. Volume one of most series tend to be groundwork anyway so maybe it'll go by a lot quicker next volume? Who knows?

The Last To Die by Kelly Garrett REVIEW

I don't know what it is about me but I really like thrillers so, while I was looking on netgalley, the synopsis popped out at me. It sounded like an average teen slasher movie in a book and that's always a win for me. Well, unless the writer is really boring then I probably wont get that far but usually they're instant wins.

Harper is an overly impulsive 16 year old who breaks into her friends houses when they're on vacation with her friends. They're a very diverse group of friends with different personalities and hobbies. But when Sara dies from an 'overdose' things start to get darker for Harper and who's left.

Or something like that but I will say that the synopsis and the title is misleading. Very misleading given the actual content of the book. It's less slasher and more general thriller where there is a killer around but it's not picking off the friends one by one and I was disappointed by that but overall I enjoyed it.

Sadly, I didn't guess the twist but I don't think anyone could have given most of the unknown information that was never presented to us in the end. As in, there were no subtle hints just unknown unknowns that are made present at the end. Also, the ending is a bit lack luster, it's not the best thing that's come to the thriller genre but it was enjoyable.

I beat my own reading record and read the whole thing in exactly an hour. But that's not that impressive.

Heels, Heartache, and Headlines by Ni-Ni Simone and Amir Abrams REVIEW

So, I frequent a store called Dollar Tree and when you're at dollar tree there's always a different selection of books waiting for you and you never really know what's going to be there. I believe that I got the third book of this series from that store. I've been on the lookout for the other books but they're really hard to come by so when I saw this on netgalley I had to read it and I did.

I'm not really sure what I expected from this book but the story was really really dramatic. An exciting over dramatic kind of way. It's a shallow story, it's kind of like a book version of Mean Girls which I appreciate, I always enjoy stories with just mean girls, they're just more fun in general.

There is a lot of heavy topics in this book, suicide attempt, domestic abuse, bullying, drug usage, and a lot of other stuff that is implied. The book is young adult but keep those things in mind because you won't like this book if you don't want to read about those topics. It's probably also better to read the books that came before this, there were somethings I didn't understand because I didn't read the books that came before this one. Learn from my mistakes.

I really liked London, I'm actually surprised by how much I liked her. I think that it's because London was the character that I related to the most on a superficial level but as far as the other characters are concerned Heather is another very relatable character.

Overall, the book was very okay, not bad but not good enough to give it a high rating.

Loveless Volume 4 by Yun Kouga REVIEW

Blurb: Ritsuka! Soubi! Loveless still continues. (No really, the series is still STILL ongoing. SMH)

Storyline: WOW! The story progresses so rapidly in this volume that I cannot even believe it. This is mainly about the female ZERO team Koya and Yamato. With that, the whole volume is small because it focuses on that storyline alone. It's dramatic and heart-wrenching. Some things happened in this volume that really acts as foreshadowing for the rest of the series. There's also a chapter that focuses on the actual child innocence that is frequently bashed and ignored which is a fresh change of pace for this series.

Art: KOUGA YUN IS FAVORITE MANGAKA.

Characters: We got introduced to Yamato and Koya, the female ZERO team and their relationship. Both ZERO teams are two of my favorite characters in the series other than a character that hasn't been introduced yet. We finally get to see Nagisa and what she's about. We also meet a friend of Ritsuka's named Omasu(???!). We get minor character development with Natsuo and Youji. Then some major development with Ritsuka.

Grand Verdict: This Volume was definitely one of the more emotional ones. If only I had volume 5 for more flow.

Loveless Volume 3 by Yun Kouga REVIEW

Blurb: Ritsuka's story continues in the third volume of the Loveless series by Kouga Yun.

Content: In this volume we get the ending of the ZERO storyline, go into a septimal moon storyline, and start another ZERO storyline. Things were very tense in this volume especially with Soubi and Ritsuka. Ritsuka is losing trust in Soubi and Soubi is getting more secretive (somehow). We see more of Soubi's past (which like Ritsuka's present is not that great). I didn't have many complaints about this volume, there were moments that made me feel angst which is definitely intended given the fact that this is a really angsty series and I know it gets only worse from here.

Art: I will never trash talk Kouga Yun's art. It's just good okay? I'm biased here.

Characters: As stated before, Soubi gets even more secretive in this series... and he always just seems to become more and more like a giant question mark. We see more of Ritsuka's mother and how she mentally torments this poor kid. We get introduced to the female ZERO team, Ritsu, and another lady that I forgot the name of.

Verdict: I genuinely feel that this volume serves as a transitional volume more than anything else. Nothing too big happened so there wasn't really anything huge to react to.

Anthem by Ayn Rand REVIEW

I write this review understanding that a lot of people dislike Ayn Rand's point of view. However, as I learned about her life I completely understand how she came up with Objectivism. I just love Ayn Rand's work, okay?

So Anthem, in the current political climate consisting of the regressive left versus the alt right... Well, I found this novel to actually be something that could be applicable. Obviously not in a literal kind of way but the world that was presented I could not help but think that it was very much similar to the regressive left's point of view on everything. And that thought was stuck with me throughout the whole novel.

It was in first person throughout the book, set in a world where people referred to themselves as 'we' rather than 'I' because the concept of individualism is a sin. Having your own ideas or opinions in this world is a crime punished by death.

Our protagonist in this novel seeks to prove himself in this world where it's about the collective. He does his job, he discovers an area and starts to invent things, and he falls in love.

I must admit that the romance was oddly placed. Ayn Rand was a feminist and in her time, the way she wrote her female characters were not the norm. However, this main female was a let down for me. This was not the strong female character that I'm used to from Ayn Rand.

There were times when I found plot holes but then a few pages later those holes were filled in effortlessly and as an aspiring writer I find that to be very impressive. There was also a lengthy monologue at the end that lasted for pages where the main character adamantly declared his independence. I feel that that should have been drastically condensed because it was really repetitive.

Ayn Rand isn't perfect and her philosophy isn't perfect but in this day and age where words matter more than action, I'm finding Objectivism to be more and more attractive as the days go on.