Safe Haven review

When I read it: 30th June - 28th August 2014

Rating: 4/5

** spoiler alert ** Like the Nicholas Sparks book I read prior to this, 'Message in a bottle', it has also been a slow start. I think I can safely assume I will be a slow reader from the beginning and pick up the pace as the story unfolds for all of Sparks' books.

I have seen the movie before starting this book but my original plan was to do it the other way round, the reason this didn't occur was because I found the beginning simply boring and hard to get into. All the introductory chapters in books bore me and usually put me off entirely, but as I have previously seen the movie I knew there were excitable scenes to be revealed so I kept going, hopes high.

The story tells about a woman named Erin her alias Katie, because of the past she's running away from. She was in an abusive relationship and finally found the perfect moment to escape. Obviously she finds her safe haven, this including what she really never had before, friends, a loving family and a gentle partner. As expected, the drunk abusive husband of her past drops everything in his wretched life to go find her and he succeeds.

Once you really get to grips with the story and characters you start to feel warm to Katie and feel the abuse from her shoes. The literature is really something powerful to make even you as an outside being feel terrified of Kevin and his inability to see any sense.

What I got from Kevin, if anyone has read American Psycho, is the same personality type as Patrick Bateman. The way he repeats himself, the obsession with cleanliness, his obsession to beat and finally kill his once loved wife. We get to see an inside peak of his distorted mind and it's really something rare to do perfectly for a third-person POV which would naturally makes the reader feel objective but this story on the contrary still makes you feel like you're in the characters' heads.

If you're a Sparks fan, this is definitely one of his finest works.
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Murder On The Orient Express (Book 10, Hercule Poirot series) review

When I read it: 15th August - 18th August 2014
Rating: 5/5

Another book I have skimmed through before for studies but was not quite interested enough to actually 'read' it. This time round I read out of leisure and oh my, it was superb, I wish I appreciated it more few years back when I had to study it for an essay in A Level. The famous Agatha Christie lives up to her name and reputation, the novel was certainly an amazing mystery that I would not expect any other author to do any better. She keeps on reeling you in, when you just about tied up the knot of who you think did the murder, she throws you off course and gives you yet another handful of evidence to prove you wrong and that in fact, it was someone else. All in all, you don't pick up whom it is until right at the finish line, and let me say, that's the best way to write a murder mystery.
Naturally, I came to the assumption of whom did it just before the end as I have seen many remakes and parodies of the Orient Express that I couldn't really forget it. 
If you love mystery and a novel where it gives you a chance to ponder on the evidence and accusations, and who done. This is the no. 1 book for you!

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The Maze Runner (Book 1, The Maze Runner series) review

When I read it: 2nd August - 10th August 2014
Rating: 4/5

Firstly, when I heard about this book and heard people's interest in said book, they always seemed to mention the first of the series is a slow read, so I had that assumption in mind while reading. On the contrary, personally I didn't find it slow or at least, as slow as I found many previous books I read in the past. It was in fact interesting from page one to page 371 (especially page 371). 
I did pick up on a lot of the slang they used quite fast and despite myself found I have said them a couple of times in the real world. I love how the protagonist, Thomas goes through the same disorientation as we do as we go through the book with all the new words, the setting it's taking place in, what's happening and so forth that we don't find in most dystopian novels these days. 
What put me down a little was the little bit of repetition and the over-use of catchphrases but that was a small disappointment in comparison to all the praises I give to this book. 

I agree that for some this book maybe tiresome to read from the beginning but I promise it picks up speed near the end where the chapters get shorter and you'll end up loving the whole "shuckin" thing.
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