Prince of Thorns - Mark Lawrence

 

 

Novel: Prince of Thorns

Author: Mark Lawrence

Pages: 336

Rating: 4/5

 

 

Before I started reading this book, I was looking for something to read that was going to be epic and really leave an impression. This novel did that from the opening line. There was lots of action. Lots of blood - so not for the faint hearted.

 

The novel is about Prince Honorous Jorg Ancrath and his band of outlaws - whom he calls "brothers". He is out to get revenge on Count Renar who sent a group of soldiers to kill him and his mother and brother. They succeeded in the murders of both Jorg's mother and brother but he was thrown into a thorn bush - hence the name "Prince of Thorns".

 

During Jorg's quest to kill the Count, he leaves behind him a bloody trail of murders, rapes and very often his own "brother's" deaths at the hand of his sword. Jorg is not a character that you would want to mess with, given the fact that he is only 14 years old. He is very cruel in his slayings but he is a character that I grew to love. Mainly because we get the background story of his life prior to being on the road with his outlaw "brothers". I felt a sense of pain coming from him deep within that he is scared to show anyone else.

 

One thing that I found Lawrence did really well with this novel is that he used the 1st person narrative. We get everything from Jorg's point of view and I think that also helped with the "liking and rooting for the bad guy".

 

If you can get past the first few very gory and brutal chapters then I'm sure that you will love this novel just as much as I did. It really got me thinking about a lot of things, like where people come from and why people are the way they are. In the end revenge isn't sweet and nor does it do anyone any justice but you'll have to read the book to find out if Jorg got his revenge or not.

 

 



The Shining - Stephen King

Novel: The Shining

Author: Stephen King

Pages: 683

Rating: 4.5/5

This is the first Stephen King novel I've ever read and I have to say, I'm glad I read it.

When I first started reading "The Shining", I wasn't familiar with King's writing technique and to be quite frank, I didn't like it. But a few chapters in and I was intrigued by the story. For those of you who don't know the story of "The Shining", it's about a family - Jack, Wendy and their 5-year-old son Danny. Danny is psychic and can see spirits and premonitions of what is going to happen in the future. He has an imaginary friend called Tony, who visits him from time to time.

Wendy is very protective over her son and although she loves her husband, she can't help but think that life would be so much easier without him. When Jack, who is a recovering alcoholic loses his job, he gets offered a job as the winter caretaker of a hotel called The Overlook. He takes his family with him to the isolation of this spooky hotel for the whole winter - about 5 months in total.

It doesn't take long for some strange things to start happening and the hotel plays a huge role in this story.

I don't want to spoil what happens for those of you that don't know the story, so I'll leave you with that brief overview.

The story had me captivated and almost screaming at the pages as what I was reading both shocked and excited me. I was so eager to find out what happened next that I read all 683 pages in 4 days. It kept me up at night, terrified of leaving my bedroom in the dark.

If you have seen the Stanley Kubrick movie then I'd completely forget about it in all honesty. It does the novel no justice at all and doesn't show the true colours of Jack Torrence. There is a fine line between alcoholism and psychosis which the movie just doesn't capture at all.

All in all I was very pleased with the book and say I'd most probably read it again and with the knowledge and a little bit of experience of King's writing I think I'd enjoy it more.