I recently read The Patriot Threat by Steve Berry. Previously I had read The Romanov Prophecy by this author, and I remember that it was good. The Patriot Threat is not bad, but somehow less good. (however please bear in mind that I cannot remember The Romanov Prophecy very well any more)
I didn't appreciate the writing style in this book (Patriot Threat). Every chapter starts with a person, and somehow in the whole chapter, "he" or "she" usually refers to that person. However that is not apparent at the beginning... I had to go through some confusing he/she references before I figured out that that was how it worked.
The story and characters were actually not bad (quite good, even), but the book contains a certain plot point that I highly dislike. It's about how American "heroes" can do no wrong. I've written about something similar before, about the NCIS TV series (even though I didn't mention which series it was in that post) This book is basically about how American "heroes" go all out to protect America's "greatness". They even refer to themselves as the "good guys"; however from my point of view, they aren't really that "good".
As you can see, the title says "stories", in plural. The second one that I wanted to write about is Dot 2 Dot. It is a Hong Kong film that I discovered by accident on dimsum. The film is categorized as drama/romance, but I think it is more drama and practically no romance. (I'm not complaining)
The review that I linked sums it up quite nicely. The film's main purpose is to show you how Hong Kong has changed throughout the years. They use a unique plot to show this: connect-the-dots drawings. Even though there's not much action, and the story moves forward slowly, somehow I enjoyed the film. The characters were believable and relationship between them too. I don't mean just the two main characters, but the relationship between the main characters and the supporting ones as well.
The review says that the romance was badly done, but I personally would just classify it as drama and not romance. In that sense it makes it highly believable, like I said above. I'm actually quite happy that no romance was developed; otherwise the story would have become unbelievable. I liked the ending too (spoiler alert!), that the characters discover each other and they just leave it at that. We do not know how their relationship develops, whether there is just friendship or more.
This story reminded me of the short videos that I liked from Wong Fu Productions. They don't do videos like that any more... I partly blame their "new generation" (Wong Fu has expanded to have more members).
There is only one small thing that I wasn't quite satisfied with; a loose end, if you will. At one point, the headmistress of the language school says of the main male character, "I fought for his life." I thought that point would be clarified some time later in the film, but it wasn't. I'm not sure whether it was an error in translation, though, because I was using English subtitles.
I didn't appreciate the writing style in this book (Patriot Threat). Every chapter starts with a person, and somehow in the whole chapter, "he" or "she" usually refers to that person. However that is not apparent at the beginning... I had to go through some confusing he/she references before I figured out that that was how it worked.
The story and characters were actually not bad (quite good, even), but the book contains a certain plot point that I highly dislike. It's about how American "heroes" can do no wrong. I've written about something similar before, about the NCIS TV series (even though I didn't mention which series it was in that post) This book is basically about how American "heroes" go all out to protect America's "greatness". They even refer to themselves as the "good guys"; however from my point of view, they aren't really that "good".
As you can see, the title says "stories", in plural. The second one that I wanted to write about is Dot 2 Dot. It is a Hong Kong film that I discovered by accident on dimsum. The film is categorized as drama/romance, but I think it is more drama and practically no romance. (I'm not complaining)
The review that I linked sums it up quite nicely. The film's main purpose is to show you how Hong Kong has changed throughout the years. They use a unique plot to show this: connect-the-dots drawings. Even though there's not much action, and the story moves forward slowly, somehow I enjoyed the film. The characters were believable and relationship between them too. I don't mean just the two main characters, but the relationship between the main characters and the supporting ones as well.
The review says that the romance was badly done, but I personally would just classify it as drama and not romance. In that sense it makes it highly believable, like I said above. I'm actually quite happy that no romance was developed; otherwise the story would have become unbelievable. I liked the ending too (spoiler alert!), that the characters discover each other and they just leave it at that. We do not know how their relationship develops, whether there is just friendship or more.
This story reminded me of the short videos that I liked from Wong Fu Productions. They don't do videos like that any more... I partly blame their "new generation" (Wong Fu has expanded to have more members).
There is only one small thing that I wasn't quite satisfied with; a loose end, if you will. At one point, the headmistress of the language school says of the main male character, "I fought for his life." I thought that point would be clarified some time later in the film, but it wasn't. I'm not sure whether it was an error in translation, though, because I was using English subtitles.
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