Losing Control
Before I get into this review. I have been battling this review for months trying to find a way to write it with an unbiased, critical eye. Not possible. I just can’t do that with this book. Having been a witness to a good portion of the events that are discussed in this book I can’t help but be drawn back to those days. Reading this book for me is a reminder of what happened, but with the directors cut and all the behind the scenes details revealed. I wanted to start off with this because this review will be my honest, biased opinion.
Like always, let's break it down into three parts.
Cover-
10 out of 10. The cover is brilliant. The broken pencil is a perfect symbol for when things come to a standstill when something goes wrong. The overall design is very appealing, and the matte finish is excellent. At first, I had thought that gloss might have been the way until I actually saw the matte finish and I was wrong. Matte was the way to go. I really like the picture of Ashley on the back as well, it shows the full circle of where she started this journey and where she is now.
Plot-
10 out of 10. This story is amazing. I am a fiction kind of guy, so I stay away from nonfiction as a general rule. With that said, I can still tell a good story when I read one. When you read this story, it won’ take long for you to say to your self, “no way” and “this did not happen.” But I assure you it did. It is such an extreme story that even after having watched it take place first hand I still have a hard time accepting it. The story is just that incredible, and Ashley and Stephanie captured it perfectly. There are ups and downs, a lot of downs, and they were able to engrain those emotions and feelings onto the pages. You really feel like you are a fly on the wall watching this incredible story unfold.
Writing Mechanics-
10 out of 10. For the life of me, I can’t remember the lady’s name, but I remember we referred to her as eagle eye during the final stages of formatting and what a fitting name. For one thing, the story was amazingly written, it has an artistic flair to the writing style that I tend to not see in nonfiction (at least what I have read of the genre). The story progresses smoothly, without any bumps in the writing that breaks the story. The grammar is spot on, and the only problem I had with the story was that I had to keep taking breaks from reading because I felt myself starting to cry.
As I said in my intro, I remember this journey. I remember fasting and praying. Lifting up Ashley’s name and begging God to heal her. I remember doubting. I remember feeling like our prayers were going unanswered as the church got more and more bad news. For a while, it seemed that every doctor's appointment was another punch. I remember wondering how much longer this fight was going to last and doubting in my heart that God was going to heal her. I knew He could, but I began to wonder if He would. I remember being in the service when they announced that the cancer was gone. I don’t remember hearing any good news before that. I think I remember hearing that the cancer was bad and not responding well and then boom, gone.
Now, I could keep going on about this story, but I promise I won’t do it justice. You just need to read it for yourself to get an inside viewpoint of this fantastic journey. It also gives a lot of interesting perspectives on the things that we as outsiders wouldn’t find important but they were.
I loved this book and would highly recommend it to anyone and everyone. That is my very biased opinion.
PS. The formatting of this book was spot on.
|
|
1st Review Stephen king's revival
It is review time.
I am not going to lie. I am a little bit nervous about this. I have never formally reviewed anything before, let alone a novel, and the thought of it is a little bit daunting. With that said let’s jump right into this review.
The review is broken up into three categories at ten points each. Meaning that a perfect novel would be a 30/30. The categories are: Cover, Writing Mechanics, and Story Telling. Beware, spoilers are ahead. If you don’t want spoilers abandon hope, all ye that read here.
The first novel on the review chopping block is Revival by Stephen King.
Cover-
Now the edition of Revival that I have is the first edition hardback, so this is the one I will be reviewing. The cover is an eye-catching glossy cover that has a holographic tint to it. You can shift it in your hands and watch the colors dance across the cover like electricity which was the intention I believe. It is a very simple cover in regard to some of King’s other works, but that is not a negative for this cover. The back-page bio is clean and enticing and sets the stage for the novel without giving away the good stuff. I liked the print of the cover and the unique holographic tint to it and once you read the novel the cover fits well.
10/10
Writing Mechanics-
This one is really interesting for this book because I am a guitar player, which ties into a big part of the story, but that means that I understood a little about the musical side of this book. With that said, his references to everything starting off in E were spot on and made me laugh. Of course, it being a King novel I didn’t find any spelling errors or anything of that nature. It was an easy read, a fun read, and I didn’t feel bogged down with details or looking ahead for exciting parts.
10/10
Story Telling-
This is where I am going to lose some readers. Right here, I can feel it. I read this novel years after it released, I know I am behind the times. I am catching up, don’t patronize me. The reason I wanted to review this novel is that nearly every review I read or saw concerning this novel had the same line in it. “Scariest book I have read in a long time.” “Really scary.” “Scared the crap out of me.” Things to that tune. Well, it has been a while since I have read a book that truly scared me, so I thought it was about time. I jumped for this book because of the reviews, and I devoured this thing page by page. I was hungry for horror and scary but what I found was a mystery/suspense with a tinge of scary sprinkled on top.
I wasn’t scared at all. No heart racing, sweaty palms, nervous breathing, nothing. There was a shroud of mystery as to how the Reverend was “curing” people and their side effects. The opening deaths of his wife and son were heart-wrenching, right up King’s alley. Pulled on all the feels but then it died off for almost then next half of the book. There were little bumps in the story but nothing that made me want to stay up late and press on to the end of the chapter because I had to know what was going on. At the end when the bill came due, and all was revealed, I was extremely let down.
I thought Rev. was going to find a way to put his mind in another body or something and was going to live forever and laugh as those around him screamed in terror. He just wanted a peek behind the curtain at the wizard which was a little lackluster for me. What he saw on the other side of the curtain, scary stuff. Whoa man, I wasn’t expecting that. Had the story had more writing like the family getting killed and the last few chapters I would have put this up there as the best novel he had ever written. There was just too much dry writing for me to enjoy the entire thing. I liked the ending until the end if that makes sense. It was good and scary, and then it just petered out. I closed the book feeling two things. The first was “That’s it?” while the second came a little later and was a “So what?”. I had an empty feeling, and I thought the main character was sort of empty by the end as well. I still liked the story overall, not my favorite but when King was on fire, he was blazing like the sun. I think it is worth the read if you were like me and hadn’t read it yet but I wouldn’t recommend going into looking to get scared.
5/10
Overall score 25/30
83.4 or a B. Good story, not his best.
I am not going to lie. I am a little bit nervous about this. I have never formally reviewed anything before, let alone a novel, and the thought of it is a little bit daunting. With that said let’s jump right into this review.
The review is broken up into three categories at ten points each. Meaning that a perfect novel would be a 30/30. The categories are: Cover, Writing Mechanics, and Story Telling. Beware, spoilers are ahead. If you don’t want spoilers abandon hope, all ye that read here.
The first novel on the review chopping block is Revival by Stephen King.
Cover-
Now the edition of Revival that I have is the first edition hardback, so this is the one I will be reviewing. The cover is an eye-catching glossy cover that has a holographic tint to it. You can shift it in your hands and watch the colors dance across the cover like electricity which was the intention I believe. It is a very simple cover in regard to some of King’s other works, but that is not a negative for this cover. The back-page bio is clean and enticing and sets the stage for the novel without giving away the good stuff. I liked the print of the cover and the unique holographic tint to it and once you read the novel the cover fits well.
10/10
Writing Mechanics-
This one is really interesting for this book because I am a guitar player, which ties into a big part of the story, but that means that I understood a little about the musical side of this book. With that said, his references to everything starting off in E were spot on and made me laugh. Of course, it being a King novel I didn’t find any spelling errors or anything of that nature. It was an easy read, a fun read, and I didn’t feel bogged down with details or looking ahead for exciting parts.
10/10
Story Telling-
This is where I am going to lose some readers. Right here, I can feel it. I read this novel years after it released, I know I am behind the times. I am catching up, don’t patronize me. The reason I wanted to review this novel is that nearly every review I read or saw concerning this novel had the same line in it. “Scariest book I have read in a long time.” “Really scary.” “Scared the crap out of me.” Things to that tune. Well, it has been a while since I have read a book that truly scared me, so I thought it was about time. I jumped for this book because of the reviews, and I devoured this thing page by page. I was hungry for horror and scary but what I found was a mystery/suspense with a tinge of scary sprinkled on top.
I wasn’t scared at all. No heart racing, sweaty palms, nervous breathing, nothing. There was a shroud of mystery as to how the Reverend was “curing” people and their side effects. The opening deaths of his wife and son were heart-wrenching, right up King’s alley. Pulled on all the feels but then it died off for almost then next half of the book. There were little bumps in the story but nothing that made me want to stay up late and press on to the end of the chapter because I had to know what was going on. At the end when the bill came due, and all was revealed, I was extremely let down.
I thought Rev. was going to find a way to put his mind in another body or something and was going to live forever and laugh as those around him screamed in terror. He just wanted a peek behind the curtain at the wizard which was a little lackluster for me. What he saw on the other side of the curtain, scary stuff. Whoa man, I wasn’t expecting that. Had the story had more writing like the family getting killed and the last few chapters I would have put this up there as the best novel he had ever written. There was just too much dry writing for me to enjoy the entire thing. I liked the ending until the end if that makes sense. It was good and scary, and then it just petered out. I closed the book feeling two things. The first was “That’s it?” while the second came a little later and was a “So what?”. I had an empty feeling, and I thought the main character was sort of empty by the end as well. I still liked the story overall, not my favorite but when King was on fire, he was blazing like the sun. I think it is worth the read if you were like me and hadn’t read it yet but I wouldn’t recommend going into looking to get scared.
5/10
Overall score 25/30
83.4 or a B. Good story, not his best.
