Burning through mysteries in the offhours while reading this month’s challenge book.
Really erotic and sexy…but sometimes in a very icky way. Spooky premise, creepy surroundings, and a very messed up girl. Not for the faint of heart. Not to be read at night alone in the dark.
A younger version of the main characters from “About a Boy” and “High Fidelity” (two very beloved books ’round here. Although you may remember, I do NOT love some of his others; and I only love the movie of ONE of those).
Easy, honest, open…with a wee little bit of fantasy future thrown in. Liked it, but didn’t always love it, sometimes frustrated by it. As with all teenage boys, right?
Reading mysteries in the offhours while burning through this month’s challenge book.
The latest Jack Reacher (or latest in paperback at least). Jack Reacher is my dream…everything he is in the books with Tahmoh Penikett’s body, looks, voice, etc. Perfect!
Since this month’s challenge is back to short stories, I find myself breaking it up a bit with short&sweet mystery novels. I know, right? Bizarre.
Anyways….I was reading for the next Myron Bolitar book but couldn’t find it on my way to the airport, so had to settle for a non-Myron Bolitar, the first stand-alone Coben I’ve read.
I liked some of the characters, I liked the “figuring it out” stuff. But I thought the main mystery was both too convoluted and too improbable to really work. Too many moving parts. Still kept you intrigued…but like an badly plotted action movie that wows you while you’re IN IT, but is too easy to pick apart afterward.
Books 3 and 4 in the Myron Bolitar series (1, 2). Still enjoying these.
In some ways, Win’s character makes these much more violent than your average mystery (is that why I like them?). And the ongoing confusion of the Jessica situation also adds an intensity. But I’m not sure why temptation always has to be a part of it. The come-back scenario in Fade Away was really bittersweet.
The April challenge book. Certainly the toughest read so far, for both Dad and me.
The language is rich, gorgeous and elegaic; much like reading Virgil himself (or Homer. or Ovid). It’s dreamy and powerful and image-full. But…
Part 1: Interesting. Lovely imagery and prose. Nice.
Part 2: Interminable. Almost the death of ME, let alone Virgil. Sentences so long, you can’t remember where they began or if anything has even happened in them. And what? Did he just suggest burning the Aeneid? WHAT?!?!
Part 3: Hey, there’s some stuff happening again! Still a very high-toned literary experience, but now the drama with Octavian really pulls things along. Some very neat imagery, the landscape arising out of nothing (much easier to do in film than in prose). His yearning is so strong, you can really feel it. [According to Dad the slave boy and Plotia play a very similar role here to that of Jessica Lange in “All That Jazz.” I was then castigated for not having seen that recently enough to be able to agree (or not). p.s. just between you, world wide web, and me, I’m not even sure I’ve ever seen it all the way through!] Really enjoyable.
Part 4: Ugh, we’re back to part 2-like process again. Dad: “It’s like 2001 the Space Odyssey. At first it’s kinda cool and then after a while you just get really, really bored.” Me: Hard to know what’s happening here, when he’s actually dead, what is dream sequence vs. reality vs. post-mortem? (And in this part, hard to care. If this was written like Part 3, I’d be all over it!)
Glad to have read it, but certainly never going to need to read it again. Definitely a challenge.
Bought this one in an airport due at least partly to its paper-cut-out looking cover (Yo, Chicken, you would LOVE it, have you seen it????) and its Stephen King blurb.
Definitely fits into that “damaged girl comes home, solves mystery” genre (like Sharp Objects but a little less dark).
I have some misgivings: some of the characters made me a little crazy; I’m not sure the historical stuff ever really found its way IN to the story / didn’t quite coalesce; and there’s at least one character who I, and I would assume many readers feel this way, still have outstanding concerns about as the book ends.
But I liked the tone, I liked the focus on academia, the almost, but not quite, high-browed literariness of it. And I loved the contrast between the unmonstrousness of the actual monster and the metaphoricness of the Monsters of the title. Some stuff really well done. Very textured and tactile.
The second in a (somewhat loose) series about Cornelia (and, now, Teo). I liked the first book, but didn’t love it. I LOVED this one.
Less Claire in this book, although still importantly part of it. Dev was a great character, scenes with him really shone.
Easy, natural conversational tone that just sucked me right in, I could barely put it down. Laughed with it, cried with it. Ouch. Friendships, families, what makes them, what breaks them. Many similar themes to the earlier book. But, in my opinion, much better written and handled.
Definitely a step up.
Recommended.
There is a fine line between a coffee break and a crack house.
-Harlan Coben “One False Move”
In somewhat related news, if you normally order a “tall” but then one day by accident you order a “grand” because you can’t remember what the stupid word they substitute for “small” is, well you may have a problem the next however many days later it is when you without realizing it order a “tall” again and then it comes and it’s gone in two sips and you think what the hell happened to my drink, why was it so SMALL. You know what they say: once you go […in this case “grand”]…
Things I am definitely not allowed to buy right now:
Things I actually need to be buying right now, but never do:
*I say this as the new jacket I bought from Nau this week (Ridiculous!!) is keeping me warm in the frigidaire known as my “secondary browsing location”. It’s all Lim’s fault for posting about their going out of business sale!!!!