Mackenzi Lee

4 Stars

Solid score for high adventure!

Admittedly, I’m sorta kinda the odd man out as I didn’t love this hard like most, and I didn’t find it all that funny. Monty drove me bonkers with his self absorbed attitude, his womanizing and manizing alike, the excess drinking, flagrant partying, and flippant attitude toward any responsibility at the ripe old age of 18. However, Monty has good reason. He’s been told his whole life he’s a fuck up so why even attempt to change such perceptions?

As per the blurb, this starts out with Monty and his bff Percy, who are on their year long tour before things must get serious - Monty to start training to take over the responsibilities of running his father’s estate, Percy to go off to law school in another country. Things go awry when Monty, in a flight of fancy, steals a priceless box and embroils himself, Percy, and his sister Felicity, in a run for their lives across Europe. Ensue terrifying chase after chase, all the while trying to hide one's feelings for their bff.

So again, all the points go toward this trio’s shenanigans as I was never bored. It doesn’t hurt that the underlying UST and pining love that Monty has for Percy were pitch perfect and with just the right amount of swoon. This kept me on my toes and for that, I look forward to another adventure that’s sure to be present in the sequel!

Audio highly recommended… (altro)

Representation: N/A
Trigger warnings: Death and murder, dead bodies, physical assault and injury, blood depiction, military violence and war themes, World War Two, hospitalisation of a person, near-death experience, amputation (arm)
Score: Seven points out of ten.

I wanted to read The Winter Soldier: Cold Front for a while but I didn't get around till now. I saw it a few months back but someone transferred it. Months later, I transferred it back when it was finally time to read it. I glanced at the blurb, making it seem intriguing. I almost gave this one three stars, until it redeemed itself.

It starts with the first two characters I see, V, living in the Soviet Union in 1954 as a super soldier experiment, and Bucky Barnes, refusing to enlist for the US army in WWII in 1941, instead taking part in a special British mission, where he meets a woman who plays chess, and plays chess. The pacing is slow as nothing significant happens in the first 200 pages, but it soon picks up in the last 200. I initially found it tedious to read The Winter Soldier: Cold Front, as it switches between time to time and character to character, establishing a non-linear narrative structure, but at least it's not as disjointed as another fictional composition I've read. I didn't bother trying to connect or relate to the characters as Bucky was naïve and V was cold-hearted. It bored me so much I was about to say it disappointed me, but it didn't, because of one moment that changed everything. Bucky and V were the same person, only with a different identity between the years since Bucky was missing in action and the United States presumed him dead, only for the Soviet Union to retrieve and restore him but as another person, whose identity is now V. The action further increased as V tried to escape the lab, but there was a cliffhanger in the end where scientists wiped his mind so he forgets all the memories he had before he became the experiment. That is where the story earns its fourth star.… (altro)

I love marvel but this just wasn’t for me.

There was a few plot points I didn’t expect but honestly it was mostly predictable.

I did love Theo Bell as a character but that’s about it.

Amora’s manipulative nature was not it, especially with half of the book building up to the main plot. It was frankly irrelevant in my opinion for the majority of the book.

I was mostly determined to read it all the way but once Loki was on Midgard I wanted to DNF it but I didn’t. The beginning chapters of Amora and Loki was the most enjoyable part and it only went downhill from there.… (altro)