Bought on the Dublin trip as well.
A story that kind of swirls around you, with bouts of amnesia, an unreliable narrator, and a mysterious crime (or two) that took place before the novel’s start. Creepy and tense and really good.
Bought in Dublin.
Really liked this book. Set in Belfast. Two down-n-out friends. Chuckie Lurgan, protestant, and Jake Jackson, catholic. They’re so scruffy and downtrodden, one would have to call them anti-heroes. It’s sarcastic and crass and rough and funny and unexpected. Very enjoyable.
So, scattered throughout April and May, a few here, a few there, I have made my way through all the Sookie Stackhouse books published so far (the basis behind HBO’s True Blood series).
1. Dead Until Dark
2. Living Dead in Dallas
3. Club Dead
4. Dead as a Doornail
5. Definitely Dead
6. All Together Dead
7. From Dead to Worse
8. Dead and Gone (read on my iPhone/Kindle app! instead of having to buy hardcover, yay!)
They are certainly entertaining although sometimes quite predictable. Harris puts her own twist on the vampire genre by outing vampires to the real world thanks to the Japanese development of a synthetic blood drink almost as good as the real thing.
I like Sookie, although I think sometimes she is painted more vapid than others, depending on the needs of that storyline. It cracks me up that OF COURSE she begins the series as a virgin (every vampire story needs a virgin) but (again OF COURSE) soon finds sex the Best. Thing. Ever (you KNOW how good vampires are at sex. come on!). I love that while finding her a new person to sleep with in quite a few of the books, Harris continues to really underline Sookie’s naive, good-girl status.
I like the mysteries, I haven’t found them as obvious as I feared, and there are some supporting characters I really enjoy. But at their best, these are “entertaining”. And I need them to be a LOT longer.
There’s a lot of discussion (in the 365 knitter/crafter world anyway!) as to whether they’re better written than the Meyer books. I’d have to say they’re differently written / not necessarily better or worse. In terms of actual well-writtenness, I’d recommend the Cassandra Clare books over either of these sets, really.*
But it IS nice to read the Sookie books which are all clearly, despite Sookie’s protected innocent status, very much more adult comedies. Sometimes the teenybopper books can get toooo angsty. Sookie rarely keeps angst hanging around very long.
ETA: And Sookie, unlike Bella, is quite capable of taking care of herself. She is an unexpectedly self sufficient heroine, for someone so often pictured as naive in the ways of the world.
*But if you’re looking for actual very well-written adult fantasy books, then you need to be reading Patricia Briggs. They are less vampire-focused but they’re really “tight”. The Mercedes books are modern-day but if you want “fantasy medieval feelin’ worlds”, she writes those too.
Bought in Dublin, although Vargas is a French writer. Sil said her stuff can be hard to find.
This was almost a philosophical mystery. For a LOT of this book, very little is taking place but people are thinking and talking and wondering and hypothesizing. The characters are a real collection of oddballs, thrown together nearly by chance.
Quite enjoyable and quirky.
I think this was loaned to me by Mariko. Or did I buy this? Can’t remember.
A stand-alone mystery (not part of his Myron Bolitar series. You may remember I’ve sort of lost my patience with those.) I liked some of this, found some of it frustrating, and thought the plot ultimately suffered from too many twists of the very same moment. It was OK. Eggplant, do you want this book back?
Sanderson is the author picked to finish up Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series and I thought I’d like to read something he’d written on his own before those start rolling out (the final book is being spilt into three with the first one coming out Nov 3. yay!).
This was his debut novel and also, somewhat unusually for fantasy, it’s a stand-alone so a good one to read when you’re not necessarily looking to get thrown into yet another fantasy series… 🙂
There’s a city of magic that was mysteriously corroded; there’s a new religion rising; there are politicians who’ve stopped caring about the body politic; and there’s an arranged marriage that fell apart before it even started. Intrigue and magic and religious furor and HOPE really is the thing this book is about. Really enjoyed it.
Our challenge book for April.
GirlReaction: We both came to really like it in the end, Dad perhaps a bit more than me, but it was a bit of a struggle to get into. There were times when I felt he played a little fast and loose with the third-person narrative: i.e., if “we over here” don’t like “those people over there” they should be “they”s not also another set of “we”s. And I wonder if this book will have a lasting legacy; it’s VERY much a book of its time: of a world with “Office Space” and “The Office” and layoffs and recession/depression (and bonus for me: set in Chicago!).
DadReaction, first: Weirdest response: read one paragraph and thought ‘going to like this’. read two paragraphs and thought ‘can’t go on’–happens every time I pick it up!! There seems to be an underlying suicidal depression about it–maybe it takes me back to when I was desperately job hunting when you guys were tiny. Tres traumatic.
GirlReaction: That may have been part of my struggle with the book as well: my current-day frustrations with the bureaucratic office environment and at the point we were reading this, I had not yet given notice and it did seem each day like I might just be there forever, until I eventually died there and why am I reading a book about people just as unhappy as me…. Arggghhhhhh. However, at some point I did find my way to enjoying the characters and all their many tics and nuances, and I thought it really picked up after a bit. Really enjoyed the Lynn-centric section and the way that really evolved the action.
DadReaction, second: Finished the book of the month. Okay: officially declaring this the best book I’ve read this year. Amazing effects, some wallops. So weird that it was so hard to get into. But it did take off, as you PROMISED. More than that, though: really mesmerizing use of the ‘we’–it gave the narration a real spaciousness, as though this stuff was always happening, the way you really do feel at work, when it seems like you’ve been telling the same jokes forever. Great comic moments, but a real dive into seriousness–esp. with the Lynn episode, but also when you really believe Tom Mota COULD be blowing people away.
Some very teasing character developments, with Joe Pope and Jim and Amber and Larry, who all seem kind of throw away when they first come round but then he keeps circling them and they all kind of come alive. Oh, and then it was cool that he would mention other people you never heard of, just the way you do when you’re telling work tales.
What else? I’m starting to think we should declare a moratorium–wait, no, an outright, absolute BAN on all references to September 11, 2001–because, folks, there really have been worse disasters in history and it’s only the infantile Americans who don’t seem to realize that. Or realize that we have killed more people in its wake than we want to admit.
But that said, I loved the leap at the end with Hank’s novel and the VERY nice touch that it wasn’t this entire novel but only the part about Lynn. But the greatest part WAS the way the ‘we’ sort of surrounded you without ever becoming focussed and that wonderful, wonderful last line with just ‘you and me’ left. That’s from the Muse her ownself.
Oh, and wasn’t Janine sitting in the McDonald’s play area just a crushing image–and those jerks staring at her, and Joe calling them on it, and then they really feel their primal jerkiness. I thought a lot of it was LIKE Kafka but more fetching than Kafka, less distant and more able to draw you in, but still the same strangeness. And how about Benny’s totem pole?!! (Tres glad Marcia and Benny linked up.)
But now: ALL THAT SAID–why does it seem like IT REALLY DOES TAKE FOREVER TO READ!!!!!!?????????? I felt like I’d never get through it, even as I enjoyed each moment. (To be fair, my own exhaustion could have played a part in that.)
The third book of the Mortal Instruments trilogy (book 1 here and book 2 here).
I loaned this book out since finishing it so I can’t flip through it to refresh my memory. I liked it; I was SO HAPPY to find out that the thing I thought was a lie throughout the first two books was indeed false. I thought it had some cool mythical fights and some touching moments. Maybe not quite as strong as book 1, but certainly a worthy end to the story. I’ll be looking to read what Clare does next, certainly.
LOVED it. My third favorite book so far this year (preceded by #1 and #2).
I thought his previous novel was good: intense and unexpected. But this book just went to an entirely higher level. Completely swept me away.
A British woman crosses paths with a young African girl. And then we hear how their story started. And nothing was ever the same again. Really lovely.
Borrowed from Lauren & Peter. A Holocaust memoir. What a crazy combination of luck, intelligence, and kindness helped Szpilman to survive the devastation. Very moving.