Review: Such A Pretty Smile by Kristi Demeester

 I got this from Netgalley back in 2022 and am finally reading it and I dislike it. It was not what I was expecting and I should have kown it was bad with the Goodreads rating. 

We start with follow a 13 year old girl named Lila and she is navigating a friendship with a girl named Macie who acts way older than she is. There is SOOOO much sex talk with these girls and it was very uncomfortable because my youngest is 13 and these girls had adult voices. It was hard to picture 13 year olds talking about sex and cussing and the blatant disregard for their safety because parents were uncool and the missing girls were cool because they were being talked about.

We also get the point of view from Lila's mother Carolina who was in New Orleans the year before Katrina and hurricane Katrina was mentioned quite a bit... like we get it, New Orleans was ravaged, but we don't need every ruin pointed out and things said like Katrina is still keeping things from being repaired. It's like the author doesn't know that there have been more hurricanes to hit Louisiana since 2005.. Get a fucking clue!

There was so much going on with this book that it seemed like the author couldn't figure out which one she wanted to focus on so she decided to try to put them together and IT DID NOT WORK!

I seriously thought that the wolves that were the big bad were actual shape shifters and in the end, I was so confused I really don't know who the fuck was The Cur because Carolina kept seing the faces change between the psychiatrist to other people, and I just wanted to finish this damn book.

-10 out of 10 DO NOT RECOMMEND!

Review: Murder At The Vicarage by Agatha Christie

 

The first in the Miss Marple series. I was expecting a young detective woman but Miss Marple is a nosy gossipy hen. Other than that tidbit, I really enjoyed this and gave it 4 stars. I liked how it was way more character driven than the Hercule Poirot series. All of the characters were present throughout and this little village was where everything took place.

Our main POV is the vicar who is the one leading the case and helping the detectives. I listened to the audiobook and I really like the Scottish accents of the characters. 

Almost every character in this book is branded a suspect after a man named Colonel Protheroe is found dead at the vicar's desk. Colonel Protheroe was not a well liked man and the night before his death, talks of him dying and being a good riddance is said by the vicar himself.

The synopsis makes this book seem like Miss Marple does a lot of the sleuthing and work of figuring out, but she does absolutely nothing. She just stays in her house and watches and observes the people coming and going. 

Also the conclusion and the who dunnit was fairly obvious because it is the same everytime an affair occurs and the wife's lover is trying to pull the wool over everyones eyes. 

I did like this start of the Miss Marple series but the Tommy and Tupence series is still my number 1 then Hercule Poirot. I am hoping that Miss Marple will actually be more involved in the rest of her books and ot just an observer and be like... "well this happened and I seen this, so it was so and so because of this far out reason".

Review: One Piece volume 4-5-6 by Eiichiro Oda *SPOILERS*

 

Finally reading the second omnibus of One Piece a year after reading the first one. I started the anime and the live action with my girls last year and we really loved it and we have just been slacking on continuing the manga. The hype is real and I follow a booktuber who is constantly hyping the series up in almost every video of his, so I am buckling down and starting volume 4. 

VOLUME 4:

I did go a little to far in the anime and know what is going to happen. Volume 4 starts out with Usopp crying pirate again to the villagers and them not believing him except this time it is real. He goes to tell Kaya that her butler Khaladore is really a pirate and is in charge of the Black Cat pirates.

Usopp has told Luffy, Zoro and Nami that pirates are coming and no one believes him. Luffy decides that they will help defeat the pirates. Khaladore recieves the gift from Kaya and he finally starts his evil plan by taking out the maid who screams for Kaya to run. 

I really like the inclusion of the question corner and how Eiichiro Oda explains the inspiration of Roronoa Zoro's character. The black cat pirates find Nami's treasure on the ship and it surprises Usopp. He tries to give it to the black cat pirates to get them to leave. That little sleezeball. Zoro finally got out of the oil slick and Luffy got lost running north. They show up and Luffy states that he is in a bad mood...lol

The straw hat crew battle the black cat pirates, but Captain Django hypnotises them to believe that they are strong and Khaladore is getting pissed that they are late. Luffy also gets hypnotised and he becomes strong and takes out their ship and then he gets put to sleep. 

Kaya finds Merry knocked out and Merry tells her that Khaladore is really a pirate and that Usopp was telling the truth. The meowban brothers are so weird. One has cat ears and the other is wearing a bell. HOLYFUCK, one of the meowban brothers snatched Zoro's swords in a instant. LMAO, he's a cat burglar. 

Captain Kuro aka Khaladore shows up and demands an explanation as to why they didn't show up on time and the meowban brothers are trying to mutiny. WHAT????? Kuro's pussyfoot maneuver has been revealed to be cat claws and the technique to be undetectable, and why he pushes up his glasses the way he does.

Nami wakes Luffy up by stepping on his head. Kaya shows up and tries to just giver her fortune away to Khaladore, but he was her demise along with the destruction of the village. Luffy hits him and then he gets up because of course he does and then Luffy tells him that he is a gum gum man from eating the gum gum devil fruit.

So volume 4 stops on a really weird part. Usopp's little pirate crew are charged with protecting Kaya and Luffy and Zoro are going to battle Kuro. But the part I don't understand is why the chapter page had a picture of Buggy the Clown and there was no Buggy. 

VOLUME 5: 

The battle continues. Django is hunting Kaya and Usopp's pirates. Zoro is still fighting the meowban brothers and Kuro is egging them all on and laughing at Usopp. Luffy is fighting Kuro on his own and did a gum gum spear with his feet, which is really weird. Zoro has Usopp and is off to save the kids and Kaya.

We get backstory on how Khaladore stopped being Captain Kuro because he was tired of the same old same old and he wanted a change. He just gave up being captain and he slaughtered an entire crew of Navy sailors that were after him. 

Luffy of course telling Kuro if he didn't want a reputation, he shouldn't have become a pirate....no shit. Luffy breaks Kuro's claws. Khaladore has let the black cat pirate crew know that he never intended to let them live after the mission because he needs to keep his cover story that Captain Kuro was captured and dead. Savage! He has a move called out-of-the-bag and its when he slashes anything and everything he sees and he wont stop until he tires out, and the black cat pirates are freaking the fuck out because they know they are about to die.

Kuro is massacring his crew and Luffy is shocked and angry. Kaya wrote her will to save Usopps's little pirates. I love their names Pepper, Onion and Carrot. They are pretending to be dead alot to try to trick Django. I now understand the images of Buggy on each chapter title page. I am so dumb but they are hilarious. Luffy is about to kick Kuro's butt and the black cat pirates are rooting for Luffy and he asks them why are they rooting for him because he is coming for them next after he defeats Kuro...lol. SUCKERS.

Usopp doesn't want the villagers to know that he actually saved them and he wants the little pirates and Kaya to keep it a secret because he doesn't want them to be known as liars as well. I really like when the villagers were waiting for Usopp to run through the village screaming about pirates coming and he never did and it threw off their whole day. Pepper, Onion and Carrot are shocked to learn that Usopp is going to sea the be a true pirate captain and he disbands Usopps pirate crew which is actually really fucking sad.

Kaya has gifted Luffy, Zoro and Nami a ship that Merry designed and named Merry Go. Silly. Usopp has lost control of his bag and it is rolling with him attached down the road towards the ship and Luffy stops him with his foot. I cannot wait to see that part in the anime and live action. Kaya is missing Usopp and Merry tells her about Usopp's dad being a pirate and his mother dying after his father left. 

Usopp joins the straw hat crew and wants to be captain...lol. The little pirates take up where Usopp left off and are running through the village screaming pirates. Luffy shows the crew the new flag and it is so bad, that Nami designs their flag and tada with have the straw hat jolly roger.

Luffy is doing target practice with the cannon and he is missing the rock. Usopp comes over and blasts the rock to pieces. All of a sudden, this guy comes on the ship and starts fighting Luffy. Apparently Zoro knows him and the guy named Johnny starts telling him about someone named Yosaku and he is dying. Also Luffy is an idiot because he says that there is one more position that needs to be filled and it needs to be a musician, when the other three think it should be a cook.

So Nami saves Yosaku with lime juice because he is suffering from scurvy. Johnny and Yosaku are Zoro old bounty hunting team. The crew is on the way to an oceangoing resturant which is next to the grand line and where Zoro's old target is chillin.

They get to the restuarant which is a massive ship and then a navy ship shows up. This big wig named Lt. Ironfist decides to fire on the straw hat crew because he can but he can't deal to much with it because it is his day off anad he has a hot date. He humilates himself in the restaurant when he incorrectly identifies the wine. Luffy thinks he blew the cooks leg off because he has a peg leg, but he says that Luffy has to work for a year without pay to fix the damage that he did by reversing the cannonball from the Navy ship. 

Shit goes down. The guy named Sanji who isi pretending to be a waiter but is NOT a waiter puts Ironfist in his place after he dumps his soup on the floor and insults a sea cook. Peg leg chef is kicking Luffy's ass because Luffy is refusing to work for a year because he has already had to wait 10 years to become a pirate.

The character Patty King is a mess. He calls out Sanji for being rude to a customer because customer is King and Sanji is fed up with Lt. Ironfist because he can't shut his mouth about the bug that he put in his own soup and threatening to close them down. 

Patty King took out a feared pirate because he wouldn't pay. Luffy is acting surprised by the amount of pirates showing up. He is really stupid. Luffy has his eyes on Sanji for the ship cook because he decided to feed the customer who couldn't pay. 

VOLUME 6:

Now I can put the live action face of the other crew member to character. Sanji declines Luffy's invitation to join his crew and then Sanji insults the straw hat and they start going at it. The ferocious fighting cooks at the Baratie oceangoing restaurant is ganging up on Patty King because he tossed out a man of Captain Krieg's crew who is feared and has an armada of 50 ships.

"On hiatus from piracy free labor chore boy Monkey D Luffy" killed me. He is an awful chore boy and his crew is in the dining room ordering food and to watch him work for free. The guy that Sanji fed has went back to Don Krieg and is going to show him the way to the restaurant... CRAP!!!

The head chef tries to fire Sanji because he can't stop flirting and fighting with the other cooks. He keeps flirting with Nami and he called Usopp a mangy octopus...lol. Nami is laying it on thick to get out of paying for the meal and it works and Sanji demands that Usopp eat his mushrooms and to pay up. I honestly can't wait to to see this part in the live action.

Don Krieg's ship shows up and the ferocious fighting cooks are freaking out but Sanji notices how bad the ship looks. Gin helps Don Krieg through the door and he asks for food and that he has lots of money. Very suspicious.

The pirates are against feeding him because he will get his strength back and kill them. Sanji gives him rice despite the protests from the other pirates. We also get Don Kriegs origin story of how he became a feared pirate and amassed his crew. OF COURSE DON KRIEG PULLED A FAST ONE. He wants the restuarant. 

Don Krieg orders the fighting cooks to give 100 rations to his men on his ship that are still breathing so they can regain their strength to take over the restaurant. This guy is CRAZY! Then Sanji just starts walking to the kitchen to prepare the orders.. WHAT????  

THE MEATBALL OF DOOM. I'm cackling over here. Patty King wants to smear butter on Krieg's ship and set it on fire. I can't with him. He survived the meatball of doom by armor and diamond fists. This guy is no joke. The chef calls Krieg a coward for running from the grand line. Krieg is shocked to see that the chef is Red Shoes Zeff. I honestly cannot deal with these names. 

The blood of his enemies dyed his shoes... epic! Krieg wants Zeff's logbook from his time on the grand line. Of course Luffy is going to run his mouth about him being the king of the pirates after Krieg mentions going after the one piece.

Krieg's armada was destroyed in seven days and it is shocking to all the pirates. All of the fighting cooks are pissed at Sanji for bringing this trouble upon them, but surprisingly Chef Zeff is not mad at all because he knows what it's like to be hungry for days on the open sea and Sanji doesn't like seeing anyone hungry which is a good moral to have.

Gin is telling Luffy and everyone about the man with the hawk eyes that took down every single one of Krieg's ships, and Zoro is freaked. He's the guy that Zoro has been looking for. Krieg's crew satisfies their hunger and they howl like wolves. He then says that they must return to the grand line. Nami done took the ship and split with the treasure leaving Luffy, Zoro and Usopp behind.

Zoro and Usopp with Jonny and Yosaku are going to go after Nami while Luffy stays behind to help protect the Baratie. Hawkeye just shows up and takes out Kriegs ship. We learn that he is the greatest swordsman and is known as the master swordsman. That has to be a sore spot for Zoro. So naturally he challenges Hawkeye because he only uses one sword while Zoro uses three. 

Hawkeye is fighting Zoro with a little dagger. And he stopped Zoro's onigiri demon attack. He keeps calling Zoro and weakling and it is pissing Johnny and Yosaku off and they try to run in and help, but Luffy holds them back. Nami is upset that she left the guys.

Hawkeye has stabbed Zoro and demands he give up. Zoro rather die than admit defeat, so Hawkeye pulls out the black blade which is the sword that cut Krieg's ship in two. Zoro tries one more move and impresses Hawkeye but Zoro gets sliced. Hawkeye has left Zoro alive to live on to get stronger as a swordsman to challenge him again.

Zoro was worried aboust disappointing Luffy because he lost and he vows to never lose again and to be the greatest swordsman for the king of the pirates. Hawkeye secretly approves their team and says that they will get far. Don Krieg is still going after the restaurant and the log book and I am fed up with him. The fighting cooks are getting into position to fight Krieg and defend the restaurant. The fish at the front pops off and being driven towards Krieg's ship and the mouth opens. They fire on the ship but unfortunately, they go flying because Don Krieg is that good.

Fortunately for Patty and Carne, Sanji kicks the fish away from the boat and surprises everyone... 

THE END!

Review: Everybody Wants To Rule the World Except Me by Django Wexler *SPOILERS*

 

Another duology done this year. I really liked these books as a whole, but this one did lag a bit. I gave the first book a 4 star and I give this one a 3. There were times where I started to zone out and I was getting bored of the same conversations being had over and over and then the action would start, and I wouldn't want it to end.

This picks up right where the first left off with Davi becoming the Dark Lord and all of the wilders screaming Death to the Humans.. which freaks her the hell out. She doesn't want to kill the humans because duh... she is one, so she makes a decision to leave the horde with Tsav and leave some of her closest confidants in charge to order the horde around while Davi hightails it to the Kingdom to warn the Prince.. who by the way is her ex himbo boyfried. Also, the amount of time we are reminded that Prince Johann is her himbo ex boyfriend is RIDICULOUS! 

Davi and Tsav eventually reach the kingdom and Davi is confronted with someone else on the throne. Duke Aster is now on the throne in the Prince's place because the Prince is now a married man to the Duke's nerdy cousin Matthias. Davi doesn't know how to feel about this and she is suspicious of Matthias until he proves himself by helping Tsav in the library with research on one of the founders.

They go on battles against wilders and Davi eventually lets Prince Johann and Matthias that she is the Dark Lord. Meanwhile, everything has fallen apart with the horde and in her absence, Sibrarae has taken over and is marching on the Kingdom. 

Shit hits the fan and then Davi tries to get everything under control and it works when the cowardly Duke turns up to ruin it. This book contained so much whiplash that I was constantly putting it down and then picking it back up. 

I do now have another favorite quote of all time. It is when Davi learns that Johann is now married.

"Johann is my himbo boyfriend! Grr, hiss, invasion of territory, bark bark bark. Maybe I should piss on him to make it clear"

Like I mentioned earlier, I did enjoy this but by the ending I was ready for it to be over and solved. It just repeated itself to much and once it was revealed who the big bad actually is and why the time loop thing was a thing, it was like beating a dead horse. 

I will definitely be reading more from Django Wexler.

Review: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

 

Another classic done for my 4th year of the Classics Club challenge. My 4th year is done and my 5th and final year has started. This is my third Charles Dickens and I thought I would enjoy it like I did A Tale of Two Cities.

Unfortunately, this was OK. I gave it a three stars and it is a little forgetable. I went in knowing nothing except the main character's name and that he was an orphan. I do have to say that the character growth of every single character kept my interest and the plot was not in my favor.

We follow a young boy named Pip who is being brought up by his older sister and her blacksmith husband named Joe. One night he sees two convicts on the marshes and he is told to bring them food and not to tell a soul that he saw them. They eventually get recaptured and then one day he is summoned by a woman who lives in the town to come play for her. This is where I started to get confused by the whole ordeal.

The timing of this story was also off because I had no idea that Pip was growing up until he was given money and was living with Herbert. I was so confused with the character Miss Havisham and why she was so obsessed with Pip. I kind of think that she wanted Estella to be with Pip but she screwed that up. 

I just cannot wrap my head around this story and I honestly think I may lower this to a 2 stars because it is so jumbled. 

The Classics Club Challenge: Year 4 Update

I completely forgot that I read The Odyssey at the beginning of last year before my year 3 update, so my numbers were off. I never wrote a review and I forgot that I added it to my list as a re-read. 

1. The Odyssey

2. Little Women

3. The Catcher in the Rye

4. Fahrenheit 451

5. The Hobbit

6. Lord of the Flies

7. The Princess Bride

8. The Fellowship of the Ring

9. Catch-22

10. Great Expectations

Favorite read of this year is The Hobbit!!

Least favorite is too many.. Catcher in the Rye, Fahrenheit 451, Lord of the Flies

Review: Catch-22 by Joesph Heller

 

The tagline at the top "The Classic Bestseller" is a lie. This book was straight up awful. I was expecting a solid war book and instead it was about a coward named Yossarian who only joined the military to be a bombadier and make training last till the war was over so he wouldn't have to fly. Also this book should be more targeted toward exotic and snuff reads because of the amount of prostitution and sexual assualt and objectifying every single female character.

There were times when this book made me straight up laugh but then it would say something like "I had to kill her but I only raped her once". Like what the actual fuck???

About 100 pages in, I watched the first episode of the mini series on Hulu and it helped me put faces to names because every character was exactly the same. There was no growth or different attributes. 

Also the gory details about every wound and injury was straight up disgusting. Ground meat was mentioned and then stewed tomatoes falling out of one persons guts as he lay dying from a flak wound.