Manga Review: Uzumaki by Junji Ito

Back in December when browsing Barnes & Noble I was browsing the manga section when the 3-in-1 edition of Uzumaki, the full series, caught my eye. I sat down and began reading it, getting a little over 1/10th into it before I had to go. This was, without a doubt, the most hooking manga I have read to date.

Read more

Young Adult Review: Charisma by Jeanne Ryan

I saw Nerve when it was in theaters last summer, and because it’s based off Jeanne Ryan’s second book I went ahead and picked her first book, Charisma, up from the library. It’s about a girl named Aislyn who has crippling social anxiety. She’s offered an underground gene therapy drug named Charisma by a doctor she trusts. She’s told that Charisma will get rid of her shyness and make her one who stands out – on the condition that she tells nobody. After some internal debate, she goes ahead and takes it. There’s a problem, though. She’s not the only one who was given the drug, and others who have taken it have fallen into comas. The doctor who created and administered Charisma is now conveniently nowhere to be found.

Read more

Memoir Review: Life of the Party: Stories of a Perpetual Man-Child by Bert Kreischer

When a book’s first sentence is “Bong hits are like strippers: they’re best when shared with a group of friends.”, you know you’re in for a wild ride.

I’ve seen Bert Kreischer on the History Channel before (If you’ve read this you’ll get my joke) and somehow, I’m not really sure exactly, I stumbled across this memoir of his. Personally, I found his stories hilarious. While none of these activities he describes or choices he’s made I would personally engage in, his way of telling the stories was amusing and filled me with constant laughter.

Read more
This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp

Young Adult Review: This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp

This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp is a contemporary young adult novel dealing with school shootings. This story is told from the perspectives of four teenagers at Opportunity High School in Alabama, each trying to survive and figure out the reason why this is happening. At 10:00 am the principal is in the auditorium giving a speech to the entire student body like she does every year, and once over and the students get up to leave, they discover that the auditorium doors are all locked and won’t budge open. That’s when the shooting starts.

Read more
Against All Silence (SOS #2) by E.C. Myers

Thriller Review: Against All Silence (SOS #2) by E.C. Myers

If you’ve been reading Devin’s Book Hub for a while now, you may recall me reviewing The Silence of Six by E.C. Myers about a year and a half ago, after winning a copy of the novel via a Goodreads giveaway. I was fortunate enough to receive an advance copy of the upcoming sequel, Against All Silence, which will be available next week.

Just like the first book in the series, it is jam packed with action. This time, however, the stakes are even higher. The story takes place where the previous one ended: after everything that went down with Panjea, Max went on a trip to France to get away from the media and let things cool down for a bit.

While waiting in line at the airport to go home a few days before Christmas, he decides to check his private email, which is where he sees a several day old email from his friend Penny, one of the members of his hacking group, Dramatis Personai. She says that she is in Berlin and would like him to meet her new friend, Ada Kiesler, who is a whistleblower. Instantly I thought of Edward Snowden and his whistleblowing, which I’m guesssing heavily influenced Myers when writing this.

Read more