Friday 20 January 2012

Book review on "Evil Star" by Anthony Horowitz


Matt's adventure continues as he travels to Peru to try to stop a second gate opening. However, there is a traitor in the Nexus who is giving the evil Salamander,  who is trying to open the gate to release the old ones information on Matt's every move. Matt has to try to stop this gate from opening while avoiding the clutches of Salamader before it is too late.

I really enjoyed this book, which is the second in the power of five series. I loved Ravens Gate so I thought I would continue with the series and I'm glad I did, as Evil Star is just as good, if not better than Ravens Gate. It has all the action that the first book had, and even more exciting chase scenes, as Matt is continually being chased down by the police who work for Salamander, and has to try to escape from then each time. I also found it interesting that another member of the five has been introduced, a poor boy that Matt meets in Peru. I thought this was a good addition, as it shows that the five are not all of the same race and social class, and do not all speak the same language. This gives it a sense of unity, as although the five could be completely different from each other, in the end they will all have to unite together.

I am interested to find out how the story will progress, and to find out about the other three, and see what powers they posses, as the two members that have already been introduced have the powers of being able to predict the future, control objects without touching them and having the power to heal the injured. As the Old Ones are too powerful to be defeated by Matt alone, I am looking forward to seeing if the five are able to overthrow the Old Ones once they have all come together. I will definitely be continuing this series in the near future.

Monday 16 January 2012

Random Update

Just thought i'd update this blog seeing as I haven't in a while. Soo what have I been up to? Well i've finally finished my English essay which means I have a little more free time although I have to start on a brand new reading setlist. I probably won't do reviews on them seeing as i'm probably going to stick to reviewing childrens and young adult books seeing as those are the ones that interest me most, and the novels I will have to read for my American Literature course are probably going to be boring. If I find one that I think is worth a review though who knows? Right now i'm in the middle of Evil Star which is the second novel in the Power of Five series. I'm enjoying it so far and it seems to be as good if not better than Ravens Gate. I will be doing a review on it once i've finished it. I may not have time to read books not on my set list as often as I would like, so it may mean less reviews and more of me talking about my boring life and complaining about work. Right now i'm writing up a new chapter for the fanfiction i'm working on, but i'm planning on getting back to my book before I decide to go to sleep, so hopefully i'll have a new book review posted by next week.

Thursday 5 January 2012

Book review on "Ravens Gate" by Anthony Horowitz



Matt is not a normal 14 year old boy. He has the power to see into the future, and to move objects without touching them. He discovers this power when he is 8 years old, and manages to escape death by foreseeing that his parents would die in a car crash, which happens later on in the day. He makes friends with a boy who is a bad influence, and convinces him to steal for a warehouse, which results in him getting caught by the police and getting sent off to live with Jayne Deverill who lives near a small village called Lesser Malling. However Matt finds out that something is not right in the village. A man warns him to leave as soon as possible, he starts to hear whispering in what seems to be a strange language, and he sees electrical lights coming from the abandoned nuclear power plant. Matt becomes involved in a race to stop what the villagers are planning, and to stop the Old Ones from returning after hundreds of years of being locked behind Ravens Gate.

Ravens Gate is the first book in the Power of Fives series, which is about 5 children who are destined to save the world from the Old Ones. I really enjoyed this book. I picked it up from the university library having no idea what it was about,but once I started reading it I was hooked from the start. The book is very fast paced, and does not take too long to get into the story as a lot of books do, and is more like you are watching an action movie than reading a book. Once you finish a chapter it is difficult to put the book down, as you need to know what is going to happen next, and I finished the book in three days even though it was 283 pages long. It has both a sense of action and mystery, as it is somewhat like a detective novel, as Matt has to find out why the villagers are acting so strange, and find out what Ravens Gate is. The reader finds out more information with Matt, so this helps the reader identify with him, as they want Matt to find the source of what is going on in the village. As the book is part of a series, I will definitely be checking out the rest of the series to see how the story about the Old Ones progresses, and what the other four children will have to do.

Rating: 4/5

Wednesday 4 January 2012

10 facts you may or may not know about me

- I'm an only child
- I know karate
- I had a cockatiel for my 10th birthday but it died a few years ago
- My favorite fictional couples are Blaine and Kurt from Glee and Ron and Hermione from Harry Potter
- my favorite band is McFly and I have seen them over 8 times and have met them twice
- My middle name is Lauren
- I love musicals and am hoping to go to London to see Wicked sometime soon
- I have never met my real grandpa on my mums side and he has no idea that I exist
- My best friend lives across an ocean but I am determined to meet her sometime soon
- I often laugh at my own jokes as nobody else finds them funny or understands them

Hey There =]

So if you are reading this then you have somehow stumbled across my blog. I made this mainly to post about things that the majority of people who know me won't care about, but my closer friends may find interesing. That means I will be posting about my pathetic excuse for a life, and will be doing reviews on books and movies. So I guess I'll start by posting a little about myself. I'm Rachel and I'm 20 years old. I'm from Wrexham which is a town in North Wales. I currently go to Liverpool Hope University where I am studying Media and English Literature. I'm hoping to get a job in media when I leave, such as working for a small tv company working behind the scenes. I also wish to publish a novel some day which I have a basic idea for but have not had the time to start writing yet. I'm hoping to start this in the summer holidays, as I will have a few month off to start this. I am currently working on a fan fiction with my friend Michelle. This is purely for our entertainment and to improve our writing skills. We post this onto fanfiction.net where we have a small following of readers who write reviews on each chapter as they get posted. This helps us as they tell us what they like and dislike about it, so that we know when we are doing something right and when something needs to be changed. soo that's just a bit about my life for my first post. hopefully this blog will improve as time goes on, as this is the first time I've started a blog so I'm not too sure what I'm doing at the moment.