FairyLoot - August 2018 Box

Theme: Mutinous Pirates

Items:

• ‘Why is the Rum gone?’ Water Bottle by KDP Letters
• Prince Elian Candle by Nerd Poured Candles
• Pirate Wax Seal by FairyLoot
• Sweet Peat Sugar Scrub Soap by Geeky Clean
• ‘Impossible’ Hanging Flag by Reverie and Ink
• Pirate Magnet by Miss Phi
• These Rebel Waves by Sara Raasch
• Exclusive King of Scars Sampler/Poster

Review: 
So the theme was Mutinous Pirates so basically anything pirate. I’ve loved pirates for as long as I can remember and I’m quite a fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies that the first item was based on. 

I bought this box because I love pirates and even though I’ve not read any pirate books I thought this box would be a great way into that genre. This was because the box was advertised that even if you read none of the books you should still enjoy the items. This gave me hope and that hope was correctly placed because it ended up being a great box. 

I would say so far this box has definitely been the most value for money. Although I loved my March box, as I read all the books that the items were themed on, this box was just so much better quality and usability. There seemed to be a lot in this box, a lot of very decent items and the book itself was worth £17 not including the added touches so I can definitely say I got my money worth.

The first item I saw when I opened the box was the ‘Why is the Rum gone?’ Water Bottle and instantly knew this was the Pirates of the Caribbean themed item. The quote on the bottle is actually “Why is the Rum always gone”, which is a quote from the second movie Dead Man’s Chest. This was my favourite item in the box, so much so that it was right next to me as I write this blog post at work. I’ll be using it everyday with the irony of having water in it rather than rum, the rum is always gone. I love the design of this bottle, simple and rustic. It’s a nice size bottle for gripping when exercising. Under the lid there seems to be a removable filter in case you wanted to add fruit to your water.

As pretty much always there was a candle in the box. This candle was white with gold sparkles on top, it looked very pretty and was much better than the Goblet of Fire candle from the March 2018 box. The scent was sea mist and musk, the perfect combination for a pirate. This candle I think is an acquired taste smell wise, I happen to love it. To me it smells a lot like a nice bottle of men’s aftershave. So I very much enjoyed burning it. The candle was based on To Kill A Kingdom by Alexandra Christo and I look forward to reading the book someday.

The most unexpected item was the pirate wax seal. It’s such a beautiful designed item and I hope one day I will be able to use it. Thinking of maybe using it on Christmas cards or birthday party invites. Even though I don’t have use for a wax seal, I love the concept of it and just find it amazing to have. I’m quite a history nerd so it fits me well.

Another common item like the candle is soap. This time the soap was a Sugar Scrub Soap. Now I have really bad eczema so I can’t use soap but I know FairyLoot don’t know that so I’m not gonna complain about them putting it in their boxes. I still appreciate the soap and it smelt of sweets to me. I don’t let the soaps go to waste, I get my sister to use them and she loved it.

The ‘Impossible’ Hanging Flag I loved instantly. I loved rolling it out like it was a scroll and hung up on my bookcase. The quote is from the Grishna series and it reads ‘When people say impossible they ussually mean improbable.’ Now you may notice there’s a spelling mistake, usually is spelt wrong. I didn’t even realise this till I read my emails and saw that they’re sending a replacement out to fix it, I had to search through my box to figure out which had the error. I’m going to keep it hanging till the replacement arrives. I like the simple design of it and it is a good quote. The July box that Sammie reviewed also had an item with a typo that is getting replaced. I hope that FairyLoot will stop making this error, as it’s just disappointing.

A nice small item included was a magnet, my family and I collect fridge magnets mainly from around the world but we still love this one. It’s already on the fridge and it too has a great quote: ‘Oh the Ridiculous things one has to do when one is a Pirate’. Lovely little magnet.

The box also contained a bonus item, this was a poster/sampler of the upcoming King of Scars. I’ve decided to not read the sampler as it’s a sequel series to the Grishna books that I haven’t read yet. Trying to avoid spoilers but I did hang the poster. I’m not the biggest fan of the poster as I don’t like the quality of it. It’s just paper basically and I’m use to proper posters. What I really don’t like is the text on it though. I would have preferred a quote as the text. Nevertheless it helps make my walls look less bare and fits nicely next to my book case and lizard.

Finally the book, this month’s book was These Rebel Waves by Sara Raasch. It’ll be a while yet till I get round to reading it but when I do I will make sure to upload a review of it. The book was hardback which I always prefer and it had the edges sprayed bright green. I love the colour green and it went really nice with the black cover. Inside the book was signed by the author. It looks like a great book and hopefully I will read it soon.. 

This was an amazing box so I’m glad I took the gamble with buying a box with items based on books I’ve never read. I look forward to my September box arriving. That theme is Starcrossed Swoons, and this time I have read some of the mentioned books. Expect a review from that soon.

Rating: 4.5 runes out of 5

Check out my review of These Rebel Waves (tbc)
Check out my September FairyLoot review: Starcrossed Swoons

written by Lauren

FairyLoot - August 2018 Box

Theme: Mutinous Pirates

Items:

• ‘Why is the Rum gone?’ Water Bottle by KDP Letters
• Prince Elian Candle by Nerd Poured Candles
• Pirate Wax Seal by FairyLoot
• Sweet Peat Sugar Scrub Soap by Geeky Clean
• ‘Impossible’ Hanging Flag by Reverie and Ink
• Pirate Magnet by Miss Phi
• These Rebel Waves by Sara Raasch
• Exclusive King of Scars Sampler/Poster

Review: 
So the theme was Mutinous Pirates so basically anything pirate. I’ve loved pirates for as long as I can remember and I’m quite a fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies that the first item was based on. 

I bought this box because I love pirates and even though I’ve not read any pirate books I thought this box would be a great way into that genre. This was because the box was advertised that even if you read none of the books you should still enjoy the items. This gave me hope and that hope was correctly placed because it ended up being a great box. 

I would say so far this box has definitely been the most value for money. Although I loved my March box, as I read all the books that the items were themed on, this box was just so much better quality and usability. There seemed to be a lot in this box, a lot of very decent items and the book itself was worth £17 not including the added touches so I can definitely say I got my money worth.

The first item I saw when I opened the box was the ‘Why is the Rum gone?’ Water Bottle and instantly knew this was the Pirates of the Caribbean themed item. The quote on the bottle is actually “Why is the Rum always gone”, which is a quote from the second movie Dead Man’s Chest. This was my favourite item in the box, so much so that it was right next to me as I write this blog post at work. I’ll be using it everyday with the irony of having water in it rather than rum, the rum is always gone. I love the design of this bottle, simple and rustic. It’s a nice size bottle for gripping when exercising. Under the lid there seems to be a removable filter in case you wanted to add fruit to your water.

As pretty much always there was a candle in the box. This candle was white with gold sparkles on top, it looked very pretty and was much better than the Goblet of Fire candle from the March 2018 box. The scent was sea mist and musk, the perfect combination for a pirate. This candle I think is an acquired taste smell wise, I happen to love it. To me it smells a lot like a nice bottle of men’s aftershave. So I very much enjoyed burning it. The candle was based on To Kill A Kingdom by Alexandra Christo and I look forward to reading the book someday.

The most unexpected item was the pirate wax seal. It’s such a beautiful designed item and I hope one day I will be able to use it. Thinking of maybe using it on Christmas cards or birthday party invites. Even though I don’t have use for a wax seal, I love the concept of it and just find it amazing to have. I’m quite a history nerd so it fits me well.

Another common item like the candle is soap. This time the soap was a Sugar Scrub Soap. Now I have really bad eczema so I can’t use soap but I know FairyLoot don’t know that so I’m not gonna complain about them putting it in their boxes. I still appreciate the soap and it smelt of sweets to me. I don’t let the soaps go to waste, I get my sister to use them and she loved it.

The ‘Impossible’ Hanging Flag I loved instantly. I loved rolling it out like it was a scroll and hung up on my bookcase. The quote is from the Grishna series and it reads ‘When people say impossible they ussually mean improbable.’ Now you may notice there’s a spelling mistake, usually is spelt wrong. I didn’t even realise this till I read my emails and saw that they’re sending a replacement out to fix it, I had to search through my box to figure out which had the error. I’m going to keep it hanging till the replacement arrives. I like the simple design of it and it is a good quote. The July box that Sammie reviewed also had an item with a typo that is getting replaced. I hope that FairyLoot will stop making this error, as it’s just disappointing.

A nice small item included was a magnet, my family and I collect fridge magnets mainly from around the world but we still love this one. It’s already on the fridge and it too has a great quote: ‘Oh the Ridiculous things one has to do when one is a Pirate’. Lovely little magnet.

The box also contained a bonus item, this was a poster/sampler of the upcoming King of Scars. I’ve decided to not read the sampler as it’s a sequel series to the Grishna books that I haven’t read yet. Trying to avoid spoilers but I did hang the poster. I’m not the biggest fan of the poster as I don’t like the quality of it. It’s just paper basically and I’m use to proper posters. What I really don’t like is the text on it though. I would have preferred a quote as the text. Nevertheless it helps make my walls look less bare and fits nicely next to my book case and lizard.

Finally the book, this month’s book was These Rebel Waves by Sara Raasch. It’ll be a while yet till I get round to reading it but when I do I will make sure to upload a review of it. The book was hardback which I always prefer and it had the edges sprayed bright green. I love the colour green and it went really nice with the black cover. Inside the book was signed by the author. It looks like a great book and hopefully I will read it soon.. 

This was an amazing box so I’m glad I took the gamble with buying a box with items based on books I’ve never read. I look forward to my September box arriving. That theme is Starcrossed Swoons, and this time I have read some of the mentioned books. Expect a review from that soon.

Rating: 4.5 runes out of 5

Check out my review of These Rebel Waves (tbc)
Check out my September FairyLoot review: Starcrossed Swoons

written by Lauren

Ready Player One 

By Ernest Cline 

Blurb: 
In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade's devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world's digital confines, puzzles that are based on their creator's obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them. When Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade's going to survive, he'll have to win—and confront the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.

Review: 
The layout of the book is quite interesting. It’s split into levels, 3 to be exact. It’s basically the equivalent of splitting the book in parts. The levels are also roughly each gate, which is a nice split. It’s understandable why it’s split into levels to help stick with the gaming theme.

When I first started reading the book I realised it was very descriptive which I liked. It make a vast use of funny similes which I really appreciated. However there was moments when it was too detailed especially when it came to Halliday trivia. It was often that the book would go on unnecessary rants about Halliday’s likes and it make the book a bit boring at times. Then there was moments where things weren’t described enough, such as the 80’s pop-culture references. Very few references I understood and sometimes they were explained and other times I just had to know them to understand especially when it came to talking about movies.

One of the things I enjoyed about the book was the natural/realistic behaviour and speech of the characters. It felt like real teenage perspectives of life and I really appreciated it. When the characters were speaking to each other it generally felt like a real conversation. Ernest Cline did a great job at becoming a teenage mind.

This book does contain swearing and although in real life I don’t mind it. I don’t tend to be a fan of it when it’s used in books as normally it seems quite forced, unnecessary and unimaginative of the writer. With saying that however, I thought this book used bad language quite well. It was very fitting for the main character and it helped with his humour.

The plot of this book was there is a VR system known as the OASIS which everyone in the world uses for all sorts such as work and school. One of the creators of the OASIS dies and leaves a challenge for someone to win all his fortunes. The challenge consists of working out riddles to find a key then using that key to go through a gate which is a mini challenge. To win you need to be the first to finish the third gate.

I like the idea of the plot its unique and full of suspense as you await for the puzzle to be solved. However the way this plot has been ruined is with the vast amount of 80’s pop culture references. This book was released in 2011 so there was no need for it to be 80’s themed only that the author enjoyed the 80’s a bit too much. I think the book would have been better if the riddles were less obscure and that the gate tasks were harder and something we’d all understand.

I also enjoyed the creative and imagination put into the book by Cline. He created a world that every child dreams about. Cline made things up in the book that I never even thought about such as trailers being stacked on top of each other to solve overpopulation. I can respect that he put a lot of effort in the book.

I've also reviewed the movie, so check that out: Ready Player One Movie

*SPOILERS*
This book was generally quite funny at times. One of the funniest/weirdest/disturbing scenes was when Wade was describing how he spent his money. After having his trailer blown up, Wade moves away and buys a boat load of equipment to make his OASIS experience more realistic. One of this new equipment was a sex simulator. Basically it was a fancy sex doll and while in the OASIS he could pretend to be having sex with a prostitute. I found this scene disturbingly funny and found it to be very expected of a teenage boy that was going through a breakup. 

To an extent though I did enjoy the story and it did have suspense which made it hard to put down at times especially when he solved the riddles. However I was constantly in a battle with the main character on whether he was a ‘Mary Sue’ or not. A ‘Mary Sue’ is when a character is pretty much perfect. For the collection of the first key he wasn’t totally a ‘Mary Sue’ as he didn’t find the location first and also took 2 tries of the game. The second key was also beat for it’s collection but then after that he went full ‘Mary Sue’ mode. He was able to be first for the final key and instantly knew that it would take 3 people to open the final gate. He got himself imprisoned and escaped with no problems. Wade also just happen to find the pacman coin making him the only character to remain alive, in order to go through the final gate first. It was obvious before starting the book that he would win but it could have been more challenging for him. Also he lost lose of weight fast and came muscly of course, to look like a real hero. 

The book lacked surprises and twists in my opinion. I feel like a lot of things were predictable such as Wade winning the egg. I also predicted when the names of the first 5 people to gain the first key was announced that they would eventually have to reluctantly team up because of how much the characters talked about being soloists. Therefore I wasn’t surprised they teamed up to take on the final gate and also wasn’t surprised that he still ended up going through the gate alone. Wade was always meant to win.

Don’t get me wrong though there was some twists. One of my favourites was the revealing of the characters true identities. It was expected that at least one of the characters wouldn’t be their true gender. Which luckily for Wade, Art3mis was but Aech turned out not to be. Aech turned out to be a black fat lesbian woman rather than a teenage boy. I appreciated this twist as it wasn’t Art3mis that was the wrong gender. It was also revealed that Shoto and Daito weren’t really brothers and hadn’t actually met in person before. Then finally Art3mis made a big deal about her appearance not being the same when in reality all she left out of her character was the huge birthmark on her face. These were twists that were needed.

A bigger twist that I had a problem with was the blowing up of Wade’s home trailer. This caused the death of his Aunt, neighbours including his friend Mrs Gilmore. Wade showed slight emotion/guilt for it but overall I felt like he should have been a lot more emotional, it was disappointing that he didn’t seem to care. This should have been better written.

In the end of the book as stated before Wade gained the prize and as expected had no problem gaining the girl. The ending was good but like I keep saying just don’t think there was enough struggle in the book. With the obscure 80 references and plot I decided that I enjoyed the book but it could have been done better. So it just makes a 3 star rating, as it was very well written and humorous but it lacked in the overall plot.

Quote: 

'No giant two-headed hermaphrodite demon unicorn avatars were allowed. Not on school grounds, anyway.'

- Wade Watts, Ready Player One

Rating: 3 runes out of 5 

Check out the movie review: Ready Player One

written by Lauren

Ready Player One 

By Ernest Cline 

Blurb: 
In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade's devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world's digital confines, puzzles that are based on their creator's obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them. When Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade's going to survive, he'll have to win—and confront the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.

Review: 
The layout of the book is quite interesting. It’s split into levels, 3 to be exact. It’s basically the equivalent of splitting the book in parts. The levels are also roughly each gate, which is a nice split. It’s understandable why it’s split into levels to help stick with the gaming theme.

When I first started reading the book I realised it was very descriptive which I liked. It make a vast use of funny similes which I really appreciated. However there was moments when it was too detailed especially when it came to Halliday trivia. It was often that the book would go on unnecessary rants about Halliday’s likes and it make the book a bit boring at times. Then there was moments where things weren’t described enough, such as the 80’s pop-culture references. Very few references I understood and sometimes they were explained and other times I just had to know them to understand especially when it came to talking about movies.

One of the things I enjoyed about the book was the natural/realistic behaviour and speech of the characters. It felt like real teenage perspectives of life and I really appreciated it. When the characters were speaking to each other it generally felt like a real conversation. Ernest Cline did a great job at becoming a teenage mind.

This book does contain swearing and although in real life I don’t mind it. I don’t tend to be a fan of it when it’s used in books as normally it seems quite forced, unnecessary and unimaginative of the writer. With saying that however, I thought this book used bad language quite well. It was very fitting for the main character and it helped with his humour.

The plot of this book was there is a VR system known as the OASIS which everyone in the world uses for all sorts such as work and school. One of the creators of the OASIS dies and leaves a challenge for someone to win all his fortunes. The challenge consists of working out riddles to find a key then using that key to go through a gate which is a mini challenge. To win you need to be the first to finish the third gate.

I like the idea of the plot its unique and full of suspense as you await for the puzzle to be solved. However the way this plot has been ruined is with the vast amount of 80’s pop culture references. This book was released in 2011 so there was no need for it to be 80’s themed only that the author enjoyed the 80’s a bit too much. I think the book would have been better if the riddles were less obscure and that the gate tasks were harder and something we’d all understand.

I also enjoyed the creative and imagination put into the book by Cline. He created a world that every child dreams about. Cline made things up in the book that I never even thought about such as trailers being stacked on top of each other to solve overpopulation. I can respect that he put a lot of effort in the book.

I've also reviewed the movie, so check that out: Ready Player One Movie

*SPOILERS*
This book was generally quite funny at times. One of the funniest/weirdest/disturbing scenes was when Wade was describing how he spent his money. After having his trailer blown up, Wade moves away and buys a boat load of equipment to make his OASIS experience more realistic. One of this new equipment was a sex simulator. Basically it was a fancy sex doll and while in the OASIS he could pretend to be having sex with a prostitute. I found this scene disturbingly funny and found it to be very expected of a teenage boy that was going through a breakup. 

To an extent though I did enjoy the story and it did have suspense which made it hard to put down at times especially when he solved the riddles. However I was constantly in a battle with the main character on whether he was a ‘Mary Sue’ or not. A ‘Mary Sue’ is when a character is pretty much perfect. For the collection of the first key he wasn’t totally a ‘Mary Sue’ as he didn’t find the location first and also took 2 tries of the game. The second key was also beat for it’s collection but then after that he went full ‘Mary Sue’ mode. He was able to be first for the final key and instantly knew that it would take 3 people to open the final gate. He got himself imprisoned and escaped with no problems. Wade also just happen to find the pacman coin making him the only character to remain alive, in order to go through the final gate first. It was obvious before starting the book that he would win but it could have been more challenging for him. Also he lost lose of weight fast and came muscly of course, to look like a real hero. 

The book lacked surprises and twists in my opinion. I feel like a lot of things were predictable such as Wade winning the egg. I also predicted when the names of the first 5 people to gain the first key was announced that they would eventually have to reluctantly team up because of how much the characters talked about being soloists. Therefore I wasn’t surprised they teamed up to take on the final gate and also wasn’t surprised that he still ended up going through the gate alone. Wade was always meant to win.

Don’t get me wrong though there was some twists. One of my favourites was the revealing of the characters true identities. It was expected that at least one of the characters wouldn’t be their true gender. Which luckily for Wade, Art3mis was but Aech turned out not to be. Aech turned out to be a black fat lesbian woman rather than a teenage boy. I appreciated this twist as it wasn’t Art3mis that was the wrong gender. It was also revealed that Shoto and Daito weren’t really brothers and hadn’t actually met in person before. Then finally Art3mis made a big deal about her appearance not being the same when in reality all she left out of her character was the huge birthmark on her face. These were twists that were needed.

A bigger twist that I had a problem with was the blowing up of Wade’s home trailer. This caused the death of his Aunt, neighbours including his friend Mrs Gilmore. Wade showed slight emotion/guilt for it but overall I felt like he should have been a lot more emotional, it was disappointing that he didn’t seem to care. This should have been better written.

In the end of the book as stated before Wade gained the prize and as expected had no problem gaining the girl. The ending was good but like I keep saying just don’t think there was enough struggle in the book. With the obscure 80 references and plot I decided that I enjoyed the book but it could have been done better. So it just makes a 3 star rating, as it was very well written and humorous but it lacked in the overall plot.

Quote: 

'No giant two-headed hermaphrodite demon unicorn avatars were allowed. Not on school grounds, anyway.'

- Wade Watts, Ready Player One

Rating: 3 runes out of 5 

Check out the movie review: Ready Player One

written by Lauren

Furyborn (Empirium Series, book 1) 

By Claire Legrand

Blurb: 
Follows two fiercely independent young women, centuries apart, who hold the power to save their world...or doom it.

When assassins ambush her best friend, the crown prince, Rielle Dardenne risks everything to save him, exposing her ability to perform all seven kinds of elemental magic. The only people who should possess this extraordinary power are a pair of prophesied queens: a queen of light and salvation and a queen of blood and destruction. To prove she is the Sun Queen, Rielle must endure seven trials to test her magic. If she fails, she will be executed...unless the trials kill her first.

A thousand years later, the legend of Queen Rielle is a mere fairy tale to bounty hunter Eliana Ferracora. When the Undying Empire conquered her kingdom, she embraced violence to keep her family alive. Now, she believes herself untouchable--until her mother vanishes without a trace, along with countless other women in their city. To find her, Eliana joins a rebel captain on a dangerous mission and discovers that the evil at the heart of the empire is more terrible than she ever imagined.

As Rielle and Eliana fight in a cosmic war that spans millennia, their stories intersect, and the shocking connections between them ultimately determine the fate of their world--and of each other.

Review: 
The book starts with the scene of Rielle giving birth to a little girl while Simon is in the room trying to ingore the sound of child birth. Once Rielle has gave birth she sense that Corien is on his way to come and get her baby since he is the father so she gives the girl to Simon to take care off with a necklace so they get a safe entrance to the place they are going.

It then jumps back many years to when Rielle was a girl and discovers who she really is. She goes through all these different trials to prove who she is, she also comes across many challenges and secret loves that she can't tell anyone about. While reading Rielle's point of view you discover how she met Corien and their relationship with one another.

Eliana's point of view starts when she is a teenager and is fighting rebels to stay alive and help keep food on her families table. Her best friend helps her with some of these tasks she is given, until she finds herself in a situation where he isn't around and the wolf finds her.

This isn't the first time I've read this book, as I got an advanced copy in November's FairyLoot in 2017. I'm pleased to see my opinion on this book hasn't changed and that the main story line has also not changed. I'm not entirely sure whether the ending has changed compared to the advanced reading copy and I can't look at the end of the book because it's sadly packed away in a box ready for moving house.

The description of each character is excellent. The amount of detail that has gone into the chapters to make you feel a connection to them is great, it was nice to also to see a connection between the two storylines eventhough they are set so far apart from one another. 

The adventures within the book are great, there is so much detail put into them that you actually have an image in your mind of what the places look like. This is possibly one of the very few books that I've managed to picture scenes in, so in my opinion that was a great positive to get out of the book.

Now to get onto the sexual scenes! There wasn't too many throughout the whole book but there was a few. The sexual scenes were a bit drastic at times when Audric was kissing and touching Rielle the walls rumbled as she had an orgasm. I thought this was quite strange but I managed to put it by and carry on reading. The love triangles were quite good too for both main characters as they were realistic and actually believable unlike some that you read.

The storyline overall wasn't that good but I suppose it is the first book and allows you to have a better understanding of each character for the next book. A lot of things happened but it was the same storyline for both characters all the way through the book. At times it was quite difficult to remember which characters point of view you were actually reading until names popped up, because the styles are so similar to each other. I also found that the scenery between the characters point of views didn't change much even-though they are set in different eras.

Overall the book was great, I loved the adventures, the amount of detail, the characters and the style of writing. I can't wait to read the second book when it eventually comes out. I'd definitely recommend this book to people who love adventures, twists, love triangles and angels.

Favourite Characters: Simon

Read: 16/08/18 - 24/08/18

5 stars out of 5

written by Sammie

Check out Sammie's review of book 2: Kingsbane