Book Review #704 - Supernatural: The Roads Not Taken by Tim Waggoner

Whether the reader is new to the Supernatural family or has been with them since the beginning, they’re in for a wild and surprising ride with Supernatural: The Roads Not Taken.

For the first time ever, you can make decisions alongside Sam and Dean Winchester in their quest to battle monsters, demons, and every Big Bad looking to crawl out of the dark recesses of America’s small towns. Open up a local paper in a diner and pick which strange occurrence the boys will investigate first. Jump headfirst into your very own adventure with the Winchester brothers and pick your cover story: will you be an FBI agent, reporter, or bikini inspector? Figure out which lead to follow. Decide whether to split up or stay together. Do you call Bobby Singer for help? And remember, the clock is ticking! If you make the wrong decision, another victim could meet a dark and gory death.

Demons, spirits, and ghouls lurk around every corner, waiting to get the drop on Sam and Dean — and only by following all the clues, interviewing the right suspects, and making the right choices can you lead them to victory. This heart-pounding interactive adventure will be broken down into a series of five original stories, each with branching storylines and multiple endings, all based on the choices the reader makes.

My Rating: 6/10

I used to read a lot of 'Choose your own adventure' books as a kid and loved how you could reread the book numerous times and get a different story each time. This book isn't like that however, as your choices have consequences. If you don't pick the right option each time, you get Sam and Dean killed. 

I have read a number of Supernatural related books now but this book is definitely the closest I have found that captured Dean and Sam's personalities. 

I loved the ending how the four very short stories all connected together unexpectedly. 

Book Review # 674 - Witch's Canyon (Supernatural #2) by Jeff Mariotte

Twenty-two years ago, Sam and Dean Winchester lost their mother to a mysterious and demonic supernatural force. In the years after, their father, John, taught them about the paranormal evil that lives in the dark corners and on the back roads of America...and he taught them how to kill it.

Sam and Dean have set out on a road trip to the Grand Canyon, but this is no vacation for the brothers. On a stretch of deserted ranchland just beyond the canyon's stunning vistas, mysterious murder sprees have occurred every forty years. The area's inhabitants have been few and far between in years past, but a nearby mega-mall is about to celebrate its grand opening and attract thousands of fresh victims.

The Winchester boys are determined to protect locals and shoppers alike, but they never anticipated they'd be fighting a group of killers this vicious, this vindictive, this . . . dead. A deadly horde of animal spirits and human ghosts has arisen to terrorize this tiny corner of the Arizona desert. If Sam and Dean can't figure out why, the wide-open spaces of the West will once again become a desolate frontier . . . and the witch's canyon will be the brothers' final resting place.

My Rating: 3/5

The death count in this book is so much higher than I remember there being in any average Supernatural episode. 

Because of the amount of characters this book had, there was very little of Sam and Dean - or less than one would expect in a Supernatural book. 

The supernatural element in this book was interesting although it took WAY too long to develop. All the action was in the last 50 or so pages. The first 300 pages were mainly deaths and out of character dialogue. 

I felt like the author was restricted by the fact this was a novelisation of Supernatural. If he had been able to branch out and develop the characters and the story the way he wanted then the book would have been 100% better. 

Book Review #628 - Nevermore (Supernatural #1) by Keith R.A. DeCandido

My Rating: 3/5


Source: Bought


Goodreads











Twenty years ago they lost their mother to a mysterious and demonic supernatural force. In the years after, their father, John, taught them about the paranormal evil that lives in the dark corners and on the back roads of America...and he taught them how to kill it. 

Sam and Dean have hit New York City to check out a local rocker's haunted house. But before they can figure out why a lovesick banshee in an '80s heavy-metal T-shirt is wailing in the bedroom, a far more macabre crime catches their attention. Not far from the house, two university students were beaten to death by a strange assailant. A murder that's bizarre even by New York City standards, it's the latest in a line of killings that the brothers soon suspect are based on the creepy stories of legendary writer Edgar Allan Poe.

Their investigation leads them to the center of one of Poe's horror classics, face-to-face with their most terrifying foe yet. And if Sam and Dean don't rewrite the ending of this chilling tale, a grisly serial killer will end their lives forevermore.

I had relatively low expectations for this book. The fact that this is not a novelisation of an episode, but an original Supernatural story set between episodes gave me hope though.

The book starts off very promising with two college guys getting murdered. It soon becomes very commercialised.

The main issue I had with this book was the amount of depth put into things that didn't influence anything. There was so much description of the music that Dean liked which I found incredibly boring.

I wouldn't say that Sam and Dean were perfectly portrayed, they were kind of one dimensional versions of themselves.

There were two separate stories going on. One with a banshee at a friend of a friends house and then someone trying to resurrect Edgar Allan Poe.

I liked both of these stories, but I felt like they didn't go that well together and made the plot seem rather messy.

I loved the setting of the Bronx as it is obviously an area that the author loves and knows well.

Book Review #104 - Billy Elliot by Melvin Burgess

Set in northern England during the 1984 miner's strike, Billy Elliot tells the story of a young working class boy who chooses not to follow his widowed father's instructions to train to be a boxer. Instead, fascinated by the ballet class sharing the same building as his gym, Billy hangs up his gloves to pursue dreams of being a dancer. But even as he discovers his virtuoso gift for ballet he must hide his triumph from his father and brother -- both miners on strike struggling to keep food on the table

My Rating: 3/5

I decided to read this book because I had just watched the movie when I saw it at my local Library.

I liked how the book alternated between Billy and his father's points of view (there were other points of view sometimes but was mainly Billy and his father).

This was a good book and I am glad I read it I just didn't like it as much as I thought I would. I think the book was just lacking the charisma and magic that made the movie so good.