Review - Hellhole

Hellhole by Gina Damico

* Read via NetGalley and a copy I bought too

4 out of 5 gnomes

This book is well pretty super duper insane but in a good way. The only reason I rated it 4 instead of 5 gnomes was that I saw what the ending was going to be a little too easily and some questionable choices the characters made. Overall though this is one heck of an interesting read.

There are a myriad of funny quotes/lines in this book as you can see from my previous post. The humor really makes it though especially in the beginning and when Max gets drunk even one of the deaths in the book was pretty darn hilarious.

I do like Damico’s Croak series better but I do continue to love her writing style and dark sense of humor. I’m always looking forward to whatever she writes next. This book also shows how great the author is at setting up the scenes emotion wise and getting your feelings all jumbled up (just like Max.)

Burg, well he was quite the devil but I think I was expecting him to be less evil than he was (in that way I guess I underestimate him just like Max does.) Saying that though there are some really darn funny lines from him and of course plenty of bad behavior.

There are some great characters in this book. Max’s mom was a really cool, I loved her attitude and how she treated Max. Lore and her secrets made for some awesome twists and turns. I thought Audie was going to have a bigger part to play.

The ending really worked well because it shows you why Faustian bargains aren’t exactly the best ideas and then shows how Max and everyone will move on with their lives.

Sentence Sneak Peek - Hellhole

Hellhole by Gina Damico

The first sentence from each chapter of Hellhole, it's a mini summary of what you can expect to read.

*Spoilers are highlighted like so :)

“MAX’S LIFE OF CRIME STARTED POORLY, with the theft of a glittery pink bobblehead in the shape of a cat.”

“She knows, and she’s going to call the police, and I’m going to go to jail, and I’ll need to figure out how to use cigarettes as currency or I’ll become someone’s bitch—Oh, who am I kidding, I’ll become someone’s bitch no matter what—”

“Do police make courtesy calls before they arrest people?”

“MAX WAS OUTSIDE IN LESS THAN A MINUTE, wearing his crummiest pair of jeans and a jacket that was far too thin for how chilly it had gotten.”

“THE NEXT MORNING, MAX SLEPT IN.”

“AAAAAAAH!”

“MAX WOKE UP TO THE MOUTHWATERING SMELL OF BACON.”

“MAX SPENT THE REST OF THE DAY sitting in his living room, looking at his dinosaur watch, and listening to Burg play Call of Duty.”

“RECOUNTING THE WHOLE SORDID TALE took the better part of an hour.”

“MAX EXPECTED HIS BRAIN TO REACT the way it had the last time Burg scared him into another plane of existence—with that high-pitched, screaming sound buzzing through his head.”

“WHAT,” LORE SAID AS MAX TRUDGED through the bushes toward her, “is on your head?”

“THEY BIKED TO HIS HOUSE IN SILENCE, Lore without a smile and Max without a shirt, certain that the glare from his alabaster skin would cause several traffic accidents along the way.”

“STAVROULA LET HIM OUT OF WORK right then and there.”

“MAX’S SHOES SQUELCHED AS HE SLIPPED THROUGH his kitchen door, exhausted and hardly able to believe that it wasn’t even midnight yet.”

“MAX AWOKE TO FIND that someone had replaced his organs with water balloons, his mouth with a sandbox, and his head with a train track mid-construction, repeatedly being punctured by railroad spikes.”

“MAX LEARNED MANY THINGS IN SCHOOL THAT DAY.”

“MAX CHUCKED THE DETENTION SLIPS into a garbage bin, grabbed his stuff from his locker, and bolted down the stairs, but he couldn’t outrun his own reputation.”

“MAX BIKED HOME ALONE.”

“OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCES, Max had once read, didn’t happen only when people encountered brushes with death.”

“BURG IS BAD.”

“THE CROSS-GENERATIONAL HUMAN-DEVIL Double-Date Dinner: cute title, terrible idea.”

“DON’T MOVE,” SAID THE MAN.”

“THE DOORBELL RANG.”

“OVER THE NEXT TEN HOURS Max left his bed sixteen times.”

“THERE WAS SOME DEBATE about the best way to proceed.”

“AS LORE CAUTIOUSLY STEERED THE CAR through the winding roads of Honeybrook Hills, Max turned in his seat and looked at Burg.”

“MAX’S TIRES SKIDDED ACROSS THE PAVEMENT.”

“FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A WEEK Max got a full night’s sleep.”

“THE AMBULANCE ARRIVED AT THE HOSPITAL in a dazzling array of lights.”

“THE ELEVATOR DINGED.”

“MAX RAN SOME MORE.”

“MAX TIED HIS SHOE, then double knotted it.”

My Favorite Quotes/Lines - Hellhole

Hellhole by Gina Damico

“Seventeen-year-old Max Kilgore suffered from the unfortunate curse of having a name that was far cooler than the person it was attached to.”

“Trouble was something that kids with piercings and sculpted calf muscles got into, and as he had neither, he toed the line like a perpetually paranoid parolee.”

“The purr-fect crime,” he whispered, followed by a strong urge to punch himself.”

“Max was not adapting well to the criminal life.”

“Plus, Tom Hanks gave him hope. The man’s head looked like a loaded baked potato, yet he always got the girl in the end.”

“Max had the flirting ability of a packing peanut.”

“I don’t think I could eat a baby anything. Except baby corn. Those things are so weird. It’s like, are you real corn, or were you shrunk down by a shrinking ray, or what’s going on here?”

“May I call you Shovel?”

“Interesting. You’re not as dumb as you look, sound, and act.”

“If there’s anything on earth more delicious that a hot, dead pig, I don’t want to know about it.”

“Are you sure you don’t go to a . . . special school?”

“I’ve known you for about ten minutes and you’ve almost died twice. Think you can get to your house without contracting smallpox?”

“We can’t love it when a plan comes together if the plan doesn’t come together, right?”

“This is Russell. Russell Crowebar.”

“He was basically required to stay fifty feet away from flirting at all times.”

“Don’t say anything about veal, don’t say anything about veal.”

“Nothing with googly eyes can be menacing.”

“There are way too many ‘probablys’ in this plan of yours.”

“Max, it turned out, was a loud drunk.”

“Nothing is better than embroidery!”

“You gotta use that accessories wall wisely, bro.”

“Self-narrating was yet another one of Drunk Max’s finer qualities.”

“You’re a smart kid, Max, but you seem to have a great deal of difficulty comprehending plural pronouns. Yes, we.”

“Cats are evil.”

“I’m so glad we found a common interest,” she said.”

P.R.R.(Pre Review Ravings) - Hellhole

These are my P.R.R.(Pre Review Ravings) aka what I think before I write my review.

Hellhole by Gina Damico

- This book is insane, but in a good way.

- There are so many great/funny lines in the book.

- I liked Damico’s Croak series better but do continue to love her writing style and dark sense of humor.

- I think I was expecting Burg to be less evil than he was.

- Max’s mom was such a cool character, I loved her attitude/relationship with Max.

- I think Lore was an awesome character and now I really want to know more about her.

- Burg was pretty darn funny at times/horrible at others.

- Author really great at setting the scene emotion wise/getting your feelings all jumbled up (just like Max.)

- I thought Audie was going to have a bigger part to play.

- That ending was great.

Top 5 Sundays - Favorite Heroes! (Movies, Books and TV)

This feature was thought up by the awesome Larissa & Friends’ Bookish Life

Rules:

1 - Write a post listing your TOP 5 choices within the theme I chose (or was chosen on a poll) for the week.

2 - Mention this Blog on the post and link back to it.

3 - Feel free to use the Features image

4 - After you've finished your post, add your link (of the post, not your blog's main page) to the Mr.Linky at the end of that week's post.

5 – If you don’t have a blog to post, just leave your list in the comments =)   

Favorite Heroes! (Movies, Books and TV)

I love Harry Potter and all the other heroes in this series. The whole magical world is pretty much endlessly re-readable (if that’s a word...)

Percy Jackson is an awesome character and I love all the myth inspired adventures he goes on. I adored the first series the character was the star of and then thought the finale of the second series was kind of a let down compared to the first.

The X-Men have been some of my favorite heroes since I first started watching the cartoon in the 90s and then all the movies made me like them even more. Also me and my sister used to pretend to be X-Men so that's why I'm really fond of the characters too.

Star-Lord and The Guardians of the Galaxy is pretty much my new favorite marvel character/movie. Having all the humor and good looks of Chris Pratt is awfully awesome also.

I’ve always been a fan of The Flash as Wally West from the cartoons and wasn’t sure if I’d like a TV show about Barry. Well I was wrong and I think this show is in my top 10 of best shows.

Happy Friday

Here’s hoping you all have a great weekend full of reading and fun. I’m going to be a Saturday Librarian this week but I also have a couple of books that I want to get through too.

Awesomeness of the Week - Shadow Scale

I’m thrilled to be part of the blog tour for Shadow Scale (the tour's not until April but I'm still excited). I can’t wait to read this sequel. Here’s my review of Seraphina from way back in 2012. I loved how different the first book was and am looking forward to seeing what's going to happen next.

"Waiting On" Wednesday - I'm Glad I Did

"Waiting On"  Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week I'm waiting on...  


I'm Glad I Did by Cynthia Weil

* Book will be released January 27, 2015
Check out the description from Goodreads:

"Mad Men meets Nashville in this debut mystery set in 1963, written by Grammy winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Cynthia Weil.

It’s the summer of 1963 and JJ Green is a born songwriter—which is a major problem, considering that her family thinks the music business is a cesspool of lowlifes and hustlers. Defying them, she takes an internship at the Brill Building, the epicenter of a new sound called rock and roll.

JJ is finally living her dream. She even finds herself a writing partner in Luke Silver, a boy with mesmerizing green eyes who seems to connect instantly with her music. Best of all, they’ll be cutting their first demo with legendary singer Dulcie Brown. Though Dulcie is now a custodian in the Brill Building and has fallen on hard times, JJ is convinced that she can shine again.

But Dulcie’s past is a tangle of secrets, and when events take a dark turn, JJ must navigate a web of hidden identities and shattered lives—before it snares her, too."

This looks like the kind of contemporary YA that I haven’t read a lot of. Being about music/songwriting and a mystery should make for an interesting read. It's also a newish to me read because it takes place in the 60s while I was born in the 80s (but I love the music from the 60s too.)

Question of the Day - What movies did you see this weekend?

Question of the Day - What movies did you see this weekend?

I saw a bunch of movies this weekend because I had a three day weekend.

This movie was hilarious, so if you need a funny movie in your life be sure to check this out.

This movie is intense of course and it is crazy how much Bradley Cooper looks like the real guy the movie’s based on.

The movie theater was showing this movie for $5 a ticket so of course me and my sister had to go. It’s awesome seeing this movie and the big screen and it’s funny as ever.

Weekend Read - The DUFF

I’ve known about this book forever and have heard plenty of good things about it. After seeing that the movie is being released soon I knew I wanted to check it out. Here’s hoping it’s a great book/movie.

"Waiting On" Wednesday - Doctor Who: Official Guide on How to be a Time Lord

"Waiting On"  Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week I'm waiting on... 
Doctor Who: Official Guide on How to be a Time Lord by various (aka doesn't really say who the author is.)

* Book will be released January 20, 2015
Check out the description from Goodreads:

"-This is the definitive guide on how to be a Time Lord written by the ancient Time Lords but hilariously improved/sabotaged by the Eleventh Doctor as a gift for his successor, the Twelfth Doctor. Throughout the factual Time Lord sections, the Doctor has crossed things out, added funny scribbles, silly doodles and post-it notes. The central section has been ripped out by an impatient Doctor and replaced with far more important/interesting stuff such as how to correctly wear a fez or dip a fish finger into custard, and other crucial things about how to be a time-travelling hero just like him."

I love Doctor Who and this looks like it’ll be a fun read. Plus it looks to have some great stuff included form the 11th Doctor.

Review - Ordinary

3 gnomes and a gnome hat out of 5 gnomes

I always think that a new take on powers or superheroes is something worth reading. This comic is definitely worth checking out. This is a really interesting series and the star is a poor “loser” who doesn’t get super powers when everyone else in the world does.

The art is really well done and fun to see all the details in the background. There's a wide range of powers and some quite interesting characters.

The story flies by pretty fast, I just wish there had been even more about how everything happened. It was awesome seeing all the changes and I really loved his son in the story. So be sure to check out this story.

Top 5 Sundays - Movies I can't Wait for in 2015!

This feature was thought up by the awesome Larissa & Friends’ Bookish Life

Rules:

1 - Write a post listing your TOP 5 choices within the theme I chose (or was chosen on a poll) for the week.

2 - Mention this Blog on the post and link back to it.

3 - Feel free to use the Features image

4 - After you've finished your post, add your link (of the post, not your blog's main page) to the Mr.Linky at the end of that week's post.

5 – If you don’t have a blog to post, just leave your list in the comments =)  


Top 5 Sundays - Movies I can't Wait for in 2015!

This looks like it'll be a crazy sci-fi movie.

Can't wait to see what happens with Ultron.

Jurassic Park has always been awesome and after seeing the trailer I really can't wait to see what happens.

This looks like it'll be a really fun movie.

I hope this one is like the older Star Wars vs the newer ones. Either way it's Star Wars and I can't wait to see it.