Calories – DaneCobain.com

Isa Chandra Moskowitz – Appetite for Reduction | Review

Author: Isa Chandra Moskowitz

Type: Non-Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 290

Rating 3/5

The idea behind this recipe book is to provide a range of low-fat vegan recipes, and I guess I can’t really fault it with that. The problem for me was that a lot of the dishes just tasted pretty bland, and I’m also not convinced about the measurements for the seasoning. It was always way over-seasoned, to the point at which when she said to use two teaspoons of something, what it actually needed was just a pinch.

I also felt like it cheated in a lot of ways to make sure that each meal was under 500 calories. For example, a curry would be under 500 calories, but then I feel like most normal people would want to eat that with something like rice or chips. With the hoi sin mustard tofu recipe, it would have been much better served in actual wraps than served in lettuce, and whole wheat pitta wouldn’t be too bad for you.

Still, there were maybe half a dozen recipes here that I liked enough to keep in my permanent rotation of recipes that I like, but that’s a surprisingly small ratio. I also appreciate the fact that not all low fat vegan recipes are going to taste amazing because by their very nature, they’re limited to a certain number of ingredients.

Would I recommend this? Probably not, especially not if you’re just looking for regular vegan recipes. It’s not bad if you’re looking for low fat vegan recipes for whatever reason, but I think it’d be easier just to take regular vegan recipes and to make them low fat.

Click here to buy Appetite for Reduction.

Cassandra Clare – Clockwork Angel | Review

Title: Clockwork Angel

Author: Cassandra Clare

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 496

Rating: 2.75*/5

Cassandra Clare – Clockwork Angel

I find it hard to pinpoint exactly what I didn’t like about this book. Perhaps it’s the fact that I disliked the majority of the characters (and that I also agreed with criticism I’ve heard before that Cassandra Clare just reuses her characters). Perhaps it’s because it’s supposed to be set in Victorian London but it still felt very American, with only the lightest description. I felt like I was being told that it was set in Victorian London, rather than being shown it. I think Clare was trying to tap into the steampunk trend with this one, but I don’t think she did it very well.

Perhaps it’s the fact that very little happens other than a big scene in the middle where there’s suddenly loads of action and then nothing again. Perhaps it’s the fact that as the reader, you’re supposed to give a damn about the “love story” between boring Tessa and dickhead Will. I just kind of hoped that one of them would die as I thought that might make it more interesting, but that didn’t happen.

I also got annoyed with the number of people smashing into rooms through windows. In the last Cassandra Clare book I read, it happened four or five times. It happened two or three times here, and it just irritated me. She had a few lines of dialogue attacking French people as well, which I’ve noticed in previous books. Nothing too serious I guess, just throwaway lines that imply that French people are all arrogant and that they’re all waiters, but it’s just not necessary.

Cassandra Clare

Ultimately, the previous Cassandra Clare books I’ve read have been like eating McDonald’s. They’re not fantastic, but they’ll do the job. This one was like eating cold McDonald’s after it’s been left on the side overnight. It made me wish that I’d just had a salad instead, it’s not worth the calories. In each of the books that I’ve read so far, I’ve felt as though it’s 100 pages longer than it needed to be. This one could have been cut down to a novella if all of the fluff was removed and we just got on with the story.

So as you can probably guess, I wasn’t too impressed with this one. In fact, the only reason I’ve got this far with Cassandra Clare’s books is that I’m buddy reading them with some YouTube friends. The problem is that the best of them so far have just been okay. With three okay books and one bad one, I’m just not sure if I want to keep going. I was hoping at least one of them would have been “good” by now. I’m going to have to have a think about it to decide whether I even want to keep going. It’s a big time commitment and I have other stuff to read.