Book Review - The Princess and the Fool by Paul Neafcy

Found this little jewel in an group for indie authors on Goodreads.  I've pasted the review I left on Amazon and Goodreads below, but I wanted to add a few more things here.

I tend to judge books by how much I will neglect other things in order to keep returning to the story.  In that respect, this book triumphed.  The author was very successful in creating scene breaks that encouraged the reader to continue without being on a constant cliffhanger.  There's a delicate balance there between keeping the reader interested and keeping them on edge.  Being interested can be sustained without becoming irritating, but keeping your reader constantly dangling can become tiresome.  At least that's my opinion.  At any rate, he kept me wanting to come back for more.

I will not give away the ending, but will say it was my only complaint.  I understand the ending, but it's not the way I would have preferred to see it.  Still, it doesn't detract from my scoring of the book, nor does it dissuade me from recommending it to others.

The author promises more to come from this duo, and I am looking forward to more adventures.

Rated: 4 stars

The posted review follows below.

This was a fast and fun read. There was enough action that I had a hard time putting it down and I can't recall times where it dragged. It certainly delivered on the promise of humor as well, with several actual laugh out loud moments (one of which earned a scowl from my wife who was watching a movie).

Instead of using traditional chapters, the author uses scene breaks headed with the character whose PoV from which it will be told. This kept the story interesting and allowed the reader to see the same event from several different angles. I found only one or two instances where it seemed to create a strange verb tense scenario that tripped me up. Overall though, I enjoyed the effect.

The author does a good job of worldbuilding using excerpts from stories within his world, providing something much more interesting to read than the dreaded "infodump".The author suggests more to come from this dynamic duo and I am looking forward to seeing more adventures from them. 

Book Review: John Dies at the End by David Wong

It's an older book, I know, but I just got around to reading it.  Below is the review I posted on Goodreads.  Enjoy!

I love the smell of lavender. It has been associated with calming and soothing effects for probably centuries. When I was suffering from a slight cold, my wife suggested a little lavender oil to help me sleep, and I readily agreed. It was then I discovered the darker side of this sneaky flower. While it does promote a deep and more restful sleep in most people, it can also cause vivid and bizarre dreams. I don't remember the dreams now, only the feeling of them. So real I felt for days like there was some task or job I desperately needed to do, but couldn't remember. The strangest part - I kinda want to try it again.

Why do I mention this? Simple. The first two days I spent a decent amount of time reading this book, my nights were like those of my lavender trip. Bizarre and surreal dreams. It was awesome.

Now, the actual review. Does this book overuse juvenile words like "retarded" and "stupid"? Yes. Did those words fit the situation in which they were used? Absolutely. Could the author have come up with better alternatives? I would certainly hope so. Would the narrator the author created have bothered with trying to find different words to describe the situation he was in? Hell no. Does this book contain too many penis jokes? Define "too many". Look, if you can't laugh at a few dozen penis jokes and references then you should probably just move on to another book.

I actually watched (and enjoyed) the movie before I read the book. If you liked the movie, then I would highly recommend the book. It won't necessarily make anything clearer, but it's an even wilder ride.