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Wednesday, October 23, 2013

The Eye of Minds Review | GUEST BLOGGER

The Eye of Minds

Written by: James Dashner
# of pages: 323

Average Rating: 3.81/5
Ke-sha's Rating: 4/5

Read in August 2013

Summary according to goodreads

Michael is a gamer. And like most gamers, he almost spends more time on the VirtNet than in the actual world. The VirtNet offers total mind and body immersion, and it’s addictive. Thanks to technology, anyone with enough money can experience fantasy worlds, risk their life without the chance of death, or just hang around with Virt-friends. And the more hacking skills you have, the more fun. Why bother following the rules when most of them are dumb, anyway?

But some rules were made for a reason. Some technology is too dangerous to fool with. And recent reports claim that one gamer is going beyond what any gamer has done before: he’s holding players hostage inside the VirtNet. The effects are horrific—the hostages have all been declared brain-dead. Yet the gamer’s motives are a mystery.

The government knows that to catch a hacker, you need a hacker.
And they’ve been watching Michael. They want him on their team.
But the risk is enormous. If he accepts their challenge, Michael will need to go off the VirtNet grid. There are back alleys and corners in the system human eyes have never seen and predators he can’t even fathom—and there’s the possibility that the line between game and reality will be blurred forever.


Ke-sha's Thoughts


Micheal: I liked him a lot, He was laid back and like to do what a lot of us do, Hang out and eat with friends. Except he like to do it the VirtNet. Yes, you can eat food there. He's a little addicted to VirtNet and spends a considerably amount of time there. The only one he knows who spends more time there is his friend Bryson.



In the beginning of this book I questioned some of the choices made but I was able to look past them and enjoy the story. Michael is dedicated but starts asking the smart question a little to late. How much is he willing to sacrifice? And how will he react to the truth once revealed? 



Now Michael has two friends joining him for this journey. Bryson who doesn’t seem to have a filter from brain to mouth is someone who spends almost all there time in VirtNet. He's a little cocky throughout the book but I think he learns he's not exactly top dog throughout the story. Then there's Sara: who is the one who keeps the two boys in line a little. Sort of like a mother figure and when they’re being oblivious, point out the obvious to them. 



The friendship between the three is nice usually easy going and when horrible stuff happened they bonded together. Just because this doesn't take place in the real world doesn't mean there isn't any real danger. One of the most dangerous thing about the Cyber-Terrorist Kaine is that when he kills people in the VirtNet he's killing them in real life to. Which isn't something someone should be able to do. Plus there's the psychological damage they probably wont be getting over anytime soon.



I felt at times that we didn't get to know enough about Sarah and Bryson. I feel like Michael's character overshadowed the two of them a lot of times. I know he's the main character but it would have been nice to learn more about the other two. Maybe it will be different in the next book. Also they've never meet in real life so I wonder if the dynamic of the relationships will change once that happens. Who knows.


Despite all that I have high hopes for the second book. Reading about these three hacker friends hired to do something that the VirtNet security couldn't do was a real page-turner and Kaine, Well you'll have to read to find out all about his sinister deeds. The sequels are definitely on my Pre-Order list. I gave this book 4/5 stars, and I look forward to seeing how everything plays out in the upcoming books.



Go check out Ke-sha! She's great!



Monday, October 21, 2013

The Lightning Thief Review

Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief

Written by Rick Riordan
# of pages: 375

Average Rating: 4.16/5
My Rating 4/5

Read in October 2013

Summary according to goodreads

Percy Jackson is about to be kicked out of boarding school... again. And that's the least of his troubles. Lately, mythological monsters and the gods of Mount Olympus seem to be walking straight out of the pages of Percy's Greek mythology textbook and into his life. And worse, he's angered a few of them. Zeus' master lightning bolt has been stolen, and Percy is the prime suspect.

Now Percy and his friends have just ten days to find and return Zeus' stolen property and bring peace to a warring Mount Olympus. But to succeed on his quest, Percy will have to do more than catch the true thief: he must come to terms with the father who abandoned him; solve the riddle of the Oracle, which warns him of betrayal by a friend; and unravel a treachery more powerful than the gods themselves.

My Thoughts


It should not have taken me three months to read this book, as it is decent sized and middle grade. Every time I picked this book up, I could only read about 20 pages before I got bored and had to put it down again. This book was also easy to forget as whenever I picked it back up, I had forgotten what had happened where I left it off.

I found this novel to be kind of predictable at times, boring at others, and only interesting near the end. Knowing that there were other books in the series made it difficult for me to get nervous for the characters, and into the action of the story because in the back of my mind I knew he would complete his quest.

There was definitely character development in Percy and Grover, which should make the rest of the books in the series more interesting. I plan on picking up the rest of the books, but I am in no rush.