Alli's CBR-III Review #35 - His Robot Girlfriend

2 Reviews in one day, I am just motoring through!

I downloaded "His Robot Girlfriend" by Wesley Allison because it was free on iBooks. I have been reading it off and on when I had absolutely nothing else to do. I have to say that I understand why it was free, it was pretty terrible.

It is set in the future, about 20 or so years from now. Our protagonist, Mike decides to buy himself a Daffodil, a robot girlfriend. She comes into his life, helps him to improve it and although she is a robot, to him he falls in love and sees her as his girlfriend.

Alli's CBR-III Review #34 - Sweet Valley Confidential

Growing up I read a lot of the "Sweet Valley" books by Francine Pascal so I was pretty excited to see "Sweet Valley Confidential" a new book to accompany the series. It is said to be set ten years later, but the time frame is suspect, as the original books were from the 80s. In any case, it follows twins Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield in their late 20s.

As we catch up with the twins, they have had an extreme falling out as Jessica stole Todd Willkins from her. Todd was her longtime boyfriend. The details of how this all happened are laid out in the book using flashbacks.

Alli's CBR-III Review #33 - Wild Abandon

Last night I finished reading "Wild Abandon" by Joe Dunthorne. It promised to be a tale about a commune in England at the time of the end of the world. The tag line on the cover was "The last day on earth is coming, bring your own booze".

I was pretty disappointed in this book, I found it pretty uneventful and I just rushed through the second half just to be done with it. I am pretty fascinated with apocalyptic tales and sadly in this case it was more metaphorical end of the world and that just didn't do it for me.

If it had just been sold to me as a tale of life in a commune, a coming of age tale of two siblings and the adults in the community, then I may have been less disappointed. The writing was decent, but the pace was rather slow, and there wasn't really much plot to speak of. All in all, I am sure that I will forget all about it in a couple weeks.

Alli's CBR-III Review #32 - Dead Reckoning

I was planning to wait to read this book since that way the wait for the next edition wouldn't seem as long. However, I was visiting the new Surrey library and they had a copy just sitting there on the shelf waiting for me, how could I resist? I devoured this book up in just over an afternoon, these books are such a guilty pleasure for me. If only all books were this quick to read I would have a way higher number on my count by now.

Alli's CBR-III Review #31 - Under The Dome

OK I’ll admit it, I have an addictive personality. I have been lucky that it has (mostly) affected me in fairly innocent ways, like my Sims addiction or my chocolate addiction. Another addiction I have had for a while is my Stephen King addiction. My latest fix was “Under the Dome”. Yesterday with around 100 pages to go I left the monstrosity on my desk at work, and I almost started crying. I stayed awake late nights reading it, I dreamt about it, I loved it.

I know it is fairly chiché to be into Stephen King and I really don’t care. There is just something about Mr King and his writing that just speaks to me. I may have said that before and I will probably say it again. “Under the Dome” reminded me in some ways of my favorite King book (and possibly all time favorite book) “The Stand”. For those not aware or who cannot guess by the title, “Under the Dome” is about a small town in Maine (of course) that becomes cut off from the outside world when a mysterious and invisible barrier pops up. For a lack of a better term it is called a dome, but it fits precisely around the borders of the town so it is not really a dome as many might think of one.