Monday, 12 March 2012

Breaking Dawn

This goes against every fibre in my being.

This post comes with a story. Talking to a friend of mine on Gmail about his upcoming bowling party. As the minutes turned to hours of silence, I decide to make a small wager. That wager didn't stay small. Without anything else to do, we ended up making a 9 part bet. Don't ask me them all, but these two were a part of it.

1: Read a book of the winner's choice.
2: Write at least a 300 word essay on it.

And this book report was born.

I was going to keep this report to myself, but after some... persuading... Meaghan and Olivia convinced me to post.

SPOILER ALERT!
Breaking Dawn

Author: Stephenie Meyer
Books: 5 (this is the 4th)
Rating: 2
Ages: 15-18
Genre: Fantasy, Romance


Much to Cameron Plants amusement, I present to you, my humiliating Breaking Dawn book report.

This book was very descriptive. This didn't help me at all considering that I haven't read any of the other Twilight books. Right off the bat, you are given a good description of Bella, the main character in this book. She is part of a world that we humans rarely get to understand. Bella is friends with vampires and werewolves. Not the safest of friends, but that’s just my opinion on the matter.

Bella, earlier in the series I assume, falls in love with a vampire named Edward. Now, falling in love with a magical creature is no laughing matter. Imagine what Bella's dad said when he found out! Well, this novel is about their marriage and married life. At one point, Bella gives birth to a child. This part of the novel was probably the most gruesome and disturbing few chapters I have ever read in my life! Luckily, Bella passed out for a lot of it and gave me a chance to regain my sanity.

This new child, named Renesmee, is a demon. This was apparent when she broke almost all of Bella's bones during birth. She is born with a gift. Not being able to speak at such a young age, she can communicate with people through touch. If she touches you, she would transfer a thought or memory to you. I have one question, how does she select which thoughts she shares with you? If you couldn't control it, that could get embarassing...

Overall, this was a terrible novel. I sentence it to death immediatly. No wonder they created a movie called vampires suck! Two lessons came out of this assignment:

1. Never make bets in my spare time
2. Work on my bowling skills!

Sunday, 26 February 2012

Brain Jack

I appologize!

I have been busy (and lazy) for over a month now and haven't written any reviews. I really needed to write a report or you'd think I'd forgotten about this blog! Well fortunately, I remmember this blog and I hope to write more reviews.

One of the weeks in my month of lazyness, I read a book. "Brain Jack" was a random pick for me. I was in chapters looking around when I saw this book and decided to give it a try. I bought the book, read it, and here is my review.

Brain Jack

Author: Brian Falkner
Books: 1
Rating: 6
Ages: 15+
Genre: Computers, Action


Sam Wilson is young hacker, extremely good at what he does. He and his friend Fargas use Sam's abilities to do as they please. Sam has the skills needed to take his entire country out, but Sam's biggest mistake, was plugging into a neuro-headset. A deadly mistake...

This is, without a doubt, a computer geek's book. Loads of techy refrences. I know I wrote 15+ for age, but if you know a lot about computers (don't kid yourself), then It would be fine. Brian Falkner actually does a very good job at simplifying the techy parts and giving the reader a visual point as a virus. This helps limit reader confusion and keep reader interest.

Brain Jack does what I like the best with regards to chapters. He makes sure that every one ends with a scenario that makes you want to continue. WARNING! If you read this book, you may never put it down!
Do not count this book out due to it's geekiness. It actually has a lot of action in it. For all you who like guns and weaponry, this book will deliver the thrill.

I wasn't quite happy with the ending of this novel. Not going to give you any spoilers, but the end is slightly unexpected. With the amount of action in this novel, am slightly dissapointed in the conclusion.

Good book, geeks unite!

Friday, 20 January 2012

How to Train your Dragon Series

Hello people of the internet!

First off, I just want to thank the people who have joined my blog so early into it's run. Love the feedback and glad you guys are there to support me. A special thanks to Olivia who has kindly advertised my blog on her blog. Means a lot!

This post is on "How to Train your Dragon", a series that grew my love of reading at an early age. I can't remember how I first got my tiny little hands on them, but I have been buying book after book ever since. Since then, the books have become popular enough to be made into a movie. (I have noticed this a lot with the books I have read.) The movie does not fit some of the descriptions that are mentioned in the books, but they keep major character names.

How to Train your Dragon

Author: Cressida Cowell
Books: 9 (so far)
Rating: 8
Ages: 7-12
Size: medium
Genre: Comical, light Fantasy

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III is a viking. He is son of Stoick the Vast, the leader of the Hairy Hooligans. Hiccup has to live with being a disappointment to his father. Hiccup is not strong, rude or coordinated, but he does have a few specialities. Hiccup is rather intelligent and can also speak the language of dragons, dragonese. This allows him to communicate with many dragons including his small, common hunting dragon named Toothless. As his name suggests, Toothless has no teeth and is regarded as pathetic by other hunting dragons. Along with Fishlegs, his wimpy friend, and Toothless, Hiccup gets into all types of trouble. Sometimes, jeopardising his entire tribe. Hiccup's only goal is to make it through adolescence... alive.

This series is extremely funny. I know my age recommendation is low, but I really think that the humour in this book would still be appreciated by a slightly older audience. Let me put it this way, I still read the series!

I was slightly disappointed by one major change in the movie. In the books, Toothless is this pathetic, harmless little green dragon. In the movie, he is the huge, deadly dragon, feared by the whole tribe. This removes some of the comical pieces related to Toothless's size. Another bummer, in the movie, Toothless has teeth! That just bothers me.

The characters are hilarious, the plot intriguing, and illustrations amusing. I can't get enough of this series!

Tuesday, 17 January 2012

Fablehaven Series

OK, I had to do a lot of thinking as to which book I would do my first report on. In the end I decided to post on a whole series! As you probably guessed from the title of this post, it is the Fablehaven series. So here is my evaluation.

Fablehaven

Author: Brandon Mull
Books: 5
Rating: 7
Ages: 12-16
Size: large
Genre: Fantasy

This series kept me entertained for ages! I had never heard of Brandon Mull until I saw my friend with the first Fablehaven book in his hands. After borrowing and reading the 1st book, I became attached to the concept and the series.

There are 5 books in this series.  Fablehaven, Fablehaven: Rise of the Evening Star, Fablehaven: Grip of the Shadow Plague, Fablehaven: Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary, and the final book, Fablehaven: Keys to the Demon Prison. The main characters, Seth and Kendra Sorenson, are taken by their parents to their grandparents house while they go on a cruise with relatives. Kendra and Seth don't know that their grandparents keep a big secret. They actually own a preserve for magical creatures called Fablehaven! With the beauty and the elegance of the preserve comes danger and hazard. When things go wrong on the preserve, Kendra and Seth have no choice but to assist the resistance against The Rise of The Evening Star, an organisation that wishes to open the demon prison Zzyzx. With the end of the world approaching, Kendra and Seth have to complete a series of impossible tasks to prepare for war.

This is, without a doubt, a fantasy lovers series. Brandon Mull does an AMAZING job at describing the scenario to the reader. Sometimes, in my opinion, too much detail. It might have just been the fact that I read every book at night...

Some very memorable characters: Hugo the golem (my personal favourite), Doren and Newel the satyrs, and Graulus.

Long series, but an intense story line. A good buy.

and now, a goodbye. (Get it? A good buy - goodbye?)

excuse my bad puns.

Welcome to my new blog!

This is the grand opening to my brand new blog, YAY!

(confetti) (streamers) (balloons)

OK, so maybe it's not that exciting, but it will sure be an awesome blog.

I am going to make this perfectly clear. If you came here looking for Twilight reviews, you came to the wrong place. Just to get the awkward introduction out of the way, I'm Ben Campbell (Don't judge me by my profile picture, I will explain later). This blog's purpose is to convey my thoughts and my criticisms on the books I read. I am a teenager. This is a TEEN blog! What do adults know about what we like to read? That is why my goal is to write reviews that other teens can actually relate to!
I don't know how many of you will like the pun that is placed in my blog's title. Captain Book... Captain Hook, you see where I was going with that...

I would very much appreciate if you were to comment on my posts with your opinions. I will do my best to read and acknowledge as many as possible. Also, feel free to send me requests as to what books you would like me to review.

I WILL notify you if a post or part of a post is a spoiler. I will try not to reveal any major events in books but please forgive me if I do.

I guess thats my introduction, let the reviews commence!