I hate reviewing poetry like this because I don’t want to sound dismissive or reductive of the experiences Rupi Kaur is sharing in this collection, buI hate reviewing poetry like this because I don’t want to sound dismissive or reductive of the experiences Rupi Kaur is sharing in this collection, but this style of poetry does not work for me. At all. Getting through this was kind of like pulling teeth. ...more
A Skull in Connemara is playwright-director Martin McDonagh's second play in his Leenane trilogy - three unrelated plays set in the same Irish villageA Skull in Connemara is playwright-director Martin McDonagh's second play in his Leenane trilogy - three unrelated plays set in the same Irish village. It follows Mick Dowd, who each year disinters bones from the local cemetery to make way for new arrivals. When he's forced to dig up the remains of his late wife, questions arise about his possible involvement in her death.
What I enjoyed about A Skull in Connemara is exactly what I enjoy about all of McDonagh's plays: morally corrupt characters, the banality of small-town life highlighted with humor and irony, morbid humor, razor sharp dialogue. I mean:
MAIRTIN: What kind of questions, Mary beag? MARY: Questions about where did he put our Padraig when he dug him up is the kind of question, and where did he put our Bridgit when he dug her up is the kind of question, and where did he put my poor ma and da when he dug them up is the biggest question! MAIRTIN: Where did you put all Mary's relations, Mick, then, now? The oul bones and the whatnot.
That's pretty great.
Anyway, this isn't one of McDonagh's stronger stories. His characters aren't as well-developed as usual - the relationships between them and their motivations remain hazy, and the result is that I'm just not as invested as I'd like to be. In typical McDonagh fashion, his characters are all distinct and wacky, but none here are as memorable as Katurian from The Pillowman or Padriac from The Lieutenant of Inishmore.
Maybe the right cast and the right production could breathe some life into this. I enjoyed reading it well enough, it was an entertaining enough way to spend an hour, and the final scene was definitely thought-provoking, but there was a certain lack of gravitas that McDonagh usually is able to incorporate into his black comedies. The biggest problem here is that the stakes in this play are low and they feel low, and I know McDonagh can do better. ...more
If I were prone to feeling guilt over enjoying the things I enjoy, I would classify this as a guilty pleasure book. This is more a nineteenth century If I were prone to feeling guilt over enjoying the things I enjoy, I would classify this as a guilty pleasure book. This is more a nineteenth century soap opera of a novel than a literary gothic mystery, so you'll do well to check those expectations of a second coming of Rebecca at the door before starting The English Wife. But I have no reservations at all saying that I loved this.
Sure, the writing is occasionally sophomoric; characters let out breaths they didn't realize they'd been holding; the word 'belied' is used approximately eight thousand times; the dialogue is often trite and heavy-handed, but for whatever reason, I found myself not caring. I was swept away by this incredibly well-crafted mystery that blends suspense and romance with the vibrant atmospheres of Victorian England and Gilded Age New York.
The novel begins at a ball in upstate New York in 1899, when wealthy socialite Bayard van Duyvil is found with a knife in his chest, and his wife, Annabelle, has vanished, presumed dead. There are two point of views in this book - that of Bay's wife, in flashbacks, and his sister, Janie, in the present. Both were compelling heroines who I found myself rooting for wholeheartedly. This is the kind of book where every character has secrets, and uncovering them all is a highly entertaining process. Some of the twists are excellent, others are rather predictable, but it's an undeniably twisty ride from start to finish. And getting to the bottom of the identity of the novel's central character, Annabelle, was the most compelling element for me.
Bottom line: this book was fun and enthralling enough to compensate for its many flaws. Highly recommended for anyone looking for somewhat mindless Victorian escapism....more
Everything Here is Beautiful is a quiet and thoughtful book about mental illness and the toll it takes on the relationship between two Chinese-AmericaEverything Here is Beautiful is a quiet and thoughtful book about mental illness and the toll it takes on the relationship between two Chinese-American sisters. Miranda is the older, responsible one, who's spent her life looking after her younger sister, Lucia, impetuous and free-spirited. Throughout her adult life, Lucia grapples with an undefined mental illness (doctors are unable to determine if it's schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or something in between), and Miranda struggles with the guilt of never being able to help her sister quite enough.
What's particularly striking about this book is how Mira T. Lee balances an array of perspectives, which serves to challenge the reader's perception on a single issue. We flit back and forth between Miranda, Lucia, Manuel (Lucia's young Ecuadorian lover), and Yonah (Lucia's husband), and we stay in each of their heads long enough that they genuinely feel like real people, each with their own strengths and biases and shortcomings. We hear from Lucia both when she's lucid and when she's wrestling with what she refers to as the 'serpents' in her mind, which provides us with a hard-hitting and candid exploration of how 'real' Lucia's paranoia and delusions feel to her. Lee also highlights the sad truth that there are often no easy answers when it comes to addressing severe mental illness - at different times in her life Lucia tries medication and hospitalization, and while I'm happy to say that this is not a narrative that maligns medication in any way (it's ultimately a rather pro-meds message), the reality of medicating doesn't provide Lucia with a simple solution, which is often the case. It's an important narrative that I think will resonate with anyone who's grappled with mental illness at some point, and I'm hoping that books like this and Chemistry will succeed in starting some conversations about the stigma surrounding mental health in our society.
But back to the narrative - I do have a few complaints. (1) It was too long by about a hundred pages. The plot stalled at about a third of the way through, and though the pace eventually rectified itself, there was still a lot of filler. I was initially sure I was going to breeze through this book, but for a while there in the middle picking it up was kind of a drag. (2) I'm not a fan of first and third person being used together in novels. I've seen it done well (e.g., Burial Rites by Hannah Kent) but for the most part it doesn't work for me. Here it felt arbitrary and stylistic. The effect Lee created with the multiple POVs could have been easily achieved with exclusively either first or third person. (3) The timeline was occasionally unclear - there would be big time jumps between two chapters with hardly any indication.
But all that said, I mostly really loved this. Everything Here is Beautiful is a powerful and moving novel. Mira T. Lee comes out of the gate strong with this debut, taking on issues of mental health, immigration, familial duty, motherhood, and national and cultural identity. I'd highly recommend this to fans of Celeste Ng, Min Jin Lee, and/or Weike Wang.
Thank you to First to Read and Mira T. Lee for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Everything Here is Beautiful will be published on January 16, 2018....more
Since this gets the distinction of being one of Christie’s favorite books that she wrote, I guess I was expecting a bit more from Crooked House, whichSince this gets the distinction of being one of Christie’s favorite books that she wrote, I guess I was expecting a bit more from Crooked House, which I actually found to be the most predictable of any of her novels that I’ve read so far. Still, I enjoyed all these characters a lot and had fun watching everything unfold....more
No one likes to be one of the pioneering negative reviews for a book, especially when you're already invested in the author, so let me start out by saNo one likes to be one of the pioneering negative reviews for a book, especially when you're already invested in the author, so let me start out by saying: some readers are going to love this. Unbury Carol is not a bad book by any means - it was just not the book for me.
I recently read and adored Bird Box, and even though the summary for Unbury Carol seemed about as different from Bird Box as anything could be, I had enough faith in Malerman's storytelling to confidently dive in. What I found was a very bizarre story, sort of a spaghetti western-horror-fantasy-fairytale hybrid.
Basically, Carol Evers has this condition where she goes into a coma for days at a time, and while she's unconscious, she appears dead - you have to wait for a full minute to feel a pulse. When she slips into a coma at the beginning of the novel, this time her husband Dwight is conniving to bury her alive and steal her fortune. When he gets wind of what's going on, a notorious outlaw - and Carol's ex-lover - James Moxie, has to ride the Trail to Carol's town, racing against time to save her.
Here's my main problem with Unbury Carol: it relies on and perpetuates one of the most tired tropes of all time - the damsel in distress. That's essentially what Carol is for the duration of the book. Whether Malerman eventually subverts this trope by having Carol save herself (which is hinted at early on as a possibility), I can't say without getting into spoiler territory, but the fact is, rather than focusing on Carol herself, the majority of this novel is told from the point of view of male characters who have a vested interest in Carol's fate: her husband Dwight, her former lover James, and a criminal called Smoke who's hired to prevent James from reaching Carol in time. As an avid reader, it feels stale, and as a feminist, it feels insulting, to have Carol's story stripped from her and framed around so many male characters. To clarify - Carol does have POV chapters. I don't think everyone is going to agree with my assessment about her lack of agency - you could even argue that that's the point, to illustrate the injustice of male characters having to fight for Carol's sake. It just didn't quite sit right with me, especially from a male author. I think any good intentions Malerman may have had with this book got swallowed up by a sort of unwieldy execution.
The good news is that Malerman still has a great way with words, and I flew through this pretty quickly. I liked several of his characters, too, especially Carol's young and intelligent housekeeper, Farrah. Fans of westerns will probably be especially riveted by this story, which does well to evoke an old-timey western atmosphere, even though there are more fantastical elements than you'd traditionally expect. But the fact that I couldn't even make it through Westworld probably should have clued me in that this wasn't going to be for me.
Thank you to Del Rey and Josh Malerman for the ARC received in exchange for an honest review. Unbury Carol will be published in April 2018....more
“When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years which you h
“When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you’ll not talk about the joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?”
This book is something rare and extraordinary. Though ostensibly a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche (I'd recommend reading Lewis's afterward before you begin if you're not already familiar with the story, as he provides a succinct summary), it's told from the point of view of one of Psyche's sisters, Orual, a princess cursed with an ugly face. I think if I'd been informed before starting this book that so much of the focus would be on Orual rather than Psyche, I would have been disappointed - and that disappointment would have been very misguided indeed, because Orual captured my heart. This strong, flawed, broken young woman is honestly one of the most complex and haunting female protagonists I've come across.
I hadn't read any C.S. Lewis except for the first three (I think) books in the Chronicles of Narnia series when I was younger, and, as evidenced by the fact that I only read the first three (I think), I was not a huge fan. Honestly, he was an author I never had much interest in, but after reading Till We Have Faces, I am distraught that more of his fiction doesn't appeal to me (I'm not a big science fiction fan). I love his writing - the passage I quoted above is only one of many that I had to pause and reread because I found his prose so striking.
It's hard to summarize this book, or even fully wrap my head around it, as it's one of the more thematically complex things I think I've ever read. It's a book that almost demands to be read more than once. That's not to say that it's dense to the point of incomprehensibility - I read it in two days, and doing so was an absolute joy. But Lewis provides a thoughtful meditation on beauty and ugliness (with a startling commentary on how a woman's worth is wrongly determined by her appearance), as well as the symbiotic nature of love and hatred, before delving into even deeper philosophical and theological themes, examining the very nature of man's relationship with God (or, in the case of mythology, the gods). It's heavy stuff, but in a rewarding way. This book will stay with me. (Also, on a personal note, I'm not religious. I can't comment on whether having a vested interest in Christianity is essential for reading any of C.S. Lewis's other works, but I found that, despite the religious themes, this was really not the case here. I'd recommend this to absolutely everyone.)
Till We Have Faces achieves everything I like to see in a retelling - it fleshes out the stories of minor characters who only play bit parts in the original, it interrogates and expands on the original themes, and it captures the wondrous atmosphere that makes mythology so compelling. I'm in awe of this book....more
I thought I had the full measure of Northanger Abbey when I first read it in 2017, so I nearly opted to skip it when my Jane Austen book club picked iI thought I had the full measure of Northanger Abbey when I first read it in 2017, so I nearly opted to skip it when my Jane Austen book club picked it up, but I decided to give it a re-read and I'm very glad I did. Having now read a couple of other Jane Austen novels, I found this book both richer and thornier the second time around, and also a hell of a lot more fun.
While I did know it was satire the first time around, I didn't think that made for a more pleasurable reading experience--though in retrospect I think it's because I still insisted on treating this book with a level of seriousness that it doesn't ask of the reader. This book is absurd and unapologetically so, and once that clicked for me it ended up working incredibly well--arguably even better than Pride and Prejudice, which is a practically faultless book, unlike Northanger Abbey which is something of a structural mess, but which still left me a bit colder than this one did.
What I continue to dislike about Northanger Abbey is its central romance. There's no sense that Cathy has met her match with Henry Tilney, or he with her; instead their dynamic where her youthful naivety meets his playful condescension makes my skin crawl. (As someone who's accustomed to liking books about unlikable characters, this ended up being much more of a sticking point for me than I thought it would, and probably points to my lack of familiarity with the romance genre.)
Anyway, I think I partially like this book for how unpolished and imperfect it is, and of the three Austen novels I've read so far, I think this is the one I'm most likely to return to. I keep thinking about it while Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice have almost left my mind entirely.
Previous review from 2017 which I have to keep in here as I find it quite funny now:
This was the single most inoffensive reading experience of my life. I didn’t like this book. I didn’t dislike this book. I have no opinion on this book and I have absolutely nothing else to say....more
A delightfully creepy novella that's reminiscent of du Maurier's Rebecca, and which does a terrific job of exploring gender roles in fairy tales. The A delightfully creepy novella that's reminiscent of du Maurier's Rebecca, and which does a terrific job of exploring gender roles in fairy tales. The writing at times is a bit simplistic and the plot rather predictable, but for the gothic and sinister atmosphere I really enjoyed reading this....more
I'm so conflicted about The Immortalists. On the one hand, it was compulsively readable and at times rather hard-hitting, and on the other, I found thI'm so conflicted about The Immortalists. On the one hand, it was compulsively readable and at times rather hard-hitting, and on the other, I found the effort as a whole rather trite. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't particularly striking or memorable.
In the novel's prologue, in 1969 New York, the Gold siblings - Varya, Daniel, Klara, and Simon - visit a Romani fortune teller, who tells each of them the date they're going to die. The Immortalists is told in four sections, one for each of the siblings, and one by one, we see a snapshot of each of their lives, ending in each of their deaths.
It's a chilling and intriguing premise, but Chloe Benjamin doesn't really do a whole lot with it. My problem with this book is that it was just so... obvious? Imagine you're told beyond a shadow of a doubt that you're going to die young. You'll probably shape your life decisions around the short-term, and live in the present, and these are the very careless actions that will probably end your life. This is the premise of the book, and each of the Gold siblings' fates unfolds in a similarly straightforward manner. I really wanted something more, I wanted Benjamin to dig in a bit further, to explore this theme from a less obvious vantage point. But I ultimately didn't get much more out of this book than if I'd stuck to reading its summary.
As a whole, the four sections are rather well balanced. I think everyone is going to have a preference for which sibling's story they prefer, but each is similarly well-researched, and I don't think there's a clear objective frontrunner, or one that's notably weaker than the others, which is a good thing for a novel of this format. Unfortunately I did find that each of the sections suffered from the same issues - unclear timeline, emotionally manipulative plot points, the role of certain characters being ridiculously contrived (notably Eddie).
Though this book is relentlessly depressing, the only part I found viscerally difficult to read was Varya's section, and the descriptions of the experiments Varya's lab conducts on primates. Though it was a comparatively small part of the book (if each of the siblings' sections comprises 25% of the book, the plight of Frida the monkey is only about 25% of that 25%), I found myself so upset by this one scene that I almost regretted reading this book at all. Thankfully Chloe Benjamin acknowledges her passion for the welfare of primates who have been used for lab research in her afterward, but animal lovers, approach this section with caution.
I have no doubt that many others will love this book, but I can't help but to be somewhat underwhelmed. One last thought - maybe people with siblings will feel a stronger connection to this story than I did?
Thank you to Netgalley, Putnam, and Chloe Benjamin for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review....more
Dunbar is the sixth novel in the Hogarth Shakespeare series, but it was actually my first. (No, I haven't read Hag-Seed.) So it wasn't a desire to keeDunbar is the sixth novel in the Hogarth Shakespeare series, but it was actually my first. (No, I haven't read Hag-Seed.) So it wasn't a desire to keep up with the Hogarth series that drove me to click 'request' on this title - I was drawn to it because for whatever reason I just really, really like King Lear.
The main question on my mind as I was reading was: what exactly is the purpose of a retelling? I don't think there's ever going to be a definitive consensus on this subject, as I'm sure some of us prefer our retellings on the more literal side, while others prefer them to be more abstract. But in general, I'd say that for a retelling to be a success, that the book should pay homage to the original while still adding something new to the story - maybe exploring certain themes present in the original in greater depth.
So with that in mind, how did Dunbar fare? I can't quite make up my mind. Dunbar is a contemporary spin on the tale in which the titular figure is a Canadian media mogul, whose company is currently being usurped by his two vindictive daughters, Abby and Megan. The story begins in medias res, with Henry Dunbar in a care home somewhere outside Manchester, telling the story of how he was betrayed by his two power-hungry daughters, and how he regrets betraying his other, loyal daughter, Florence, by cutting her out of the trust.
While it doesn't follow King Lear to a T, it really only ever deviates by omission. (The subplot with Edgar and Edmund isn't really present at all.) But where it zeroes in on the relationship between Lear and his daughters, Dunbar is an extremely literal retelling. I mean, Regan is actually called Megan. On the one hand, it was done very well, and on the other, there wasn't a whole lot left to the imagination.
Interestingly, one facet of Lear that I thought went unexplored in Dunbar is actually one of its most salient themes: the fraught balance between fate and chaos - how much of our human nature is free will and how much is predetermined by planetary influence? The passages in which Henry Dunbar grapples with his 'madness' I thought were some of the weakest, and they really missed the opportunity to delve into this theme. Instead, this is a very stripped down King Lear, which ostensibly focuses on the reconciliation between Dunbar (Lear) and Florence (Cordelia). It was well done in its own right, but I couldn't help wanting more out of this story.
Dunbar was also my first encounter with Edward St. Aubyn, who admittedly I hadn't even heard of before now, but I have to say that for the most part I was impressed. His writing is lively and clever; I was awed by his intelligence on more than one occasion. I'll readily admit that as someone with essentially zero knowledge of the stock market, a lot of the details of this book went right over my head - but St. Aubyn still kept me engaged, with stakes that consistently felt high even when some of the details escaped me.
Bottom line (insofar as I am able to give a bottom line when I'm as conflicted as I clearly am about this book): as a novel in its own right, Dunbar was strangely riveting and stimulating. As a King Lear retelling, it left a lot to be desired. Nevertheless, I did really enjoy reading this, and was fully prepared to give it 4 stars until its overly hasty conclusion, which unfortunately left me dissatisfied. 3.5 stars, rounded down.
Thank you Netgalley, Hogarth, and Edward St. Aubyn for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review....more
Sparkling Cyanide was my fifth Agatha Christie, and my fifth time being absolutely blown away by how well crafted her mysteries are. The novel begins Sparkling Cyanide was my fifth Agatha Christie, and my fifth time being absolutely blown away by how well crafted her mysteries are. The novel begins with Iris Marle looking back on a dinner party which had resulted in the death of her sister Rosemary, whose champagne had been poisoned with cyanide. Though it had been initially ruled as a suicide, Rosemary's husband, George, becomes convinced that Rosemary had been murdered - which means the culprit was necessarily one of the six guests in attendance that night.
Interestingly, the question of who could possibly have poisoned beautiful, well-liked, friendly Rosemary is quickly answered - it turns out that each of the guests in turn had their own motive. So instead the question becomes: who actually did it? It was refreshing that Christie's approach here was to rule out several potential culprits, rather than spending the majority of the novel searching for motive.
As always with Christie, I found myself doubting my predictions at every twist and turn. The person I settled on about 65% into the book did end up bring the right one, but I'm still waiting for the day I read one of her books and can choose the murderer early on with a certain amount of confidence. Her plots are too layered and her characters too well-rounded for the kind of easy predictability you get in a lot of contemporary thrillers. As with the other four Christie novels I've read, Sparkling Cyanide was a quick, entertaining, clever read that I enjoyed immensely....more
It's easy to see why The Woman in the Window is the Hot New Thing, especially since several elements that worked for The Girl on the Train come into pIt's easy to see why The Woman in the Window is the Hot New Thing, especially since several elements that worked for The Girl on the Train come into play here. Namely: an alcoholic, unreliable narrator who has information that no one believes, and a fascination-bordering-on-obsession with the couple next door. But I think seasoned thriller fans are going to be disappointed at just how predictably The Woman in the Window unfolds.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I positively devoured this book. I read the bulk of this more-than-400-page book in one day. It's compulsively readable, the chapters are short, and it keeps you on your toes. But for me it was one of those things where I got to the end and was like, 'that was it?'
This was a sort of mixed bag of predictability for me. There were two main twists - one that admittedly shocked me, and one that I saw coming virtually from page one. But for the most part, The Woman in the Window relies heavily on tried and true thriller formulas. It's plenty twisty and addicting, but, entertainment value aside, it doesn't really have much to contribute to the genre.
The other thing that I found virtually insufferable about this book is how the author felt the need to insert his opinions about film noir and old thrillers onto just about every page. We get it, A.J. Finn, you've seen a lot of movies. This did absolutely nothing to further the narration, and resulted in a pretty ham-fisted attempt to force a Hitchcockian vibe onto the novel, which would have been altogether stronger without this heavy-handed comparison to Rear Window being shoved in the readers' faces.
Bottom line: reading this was a fun way to spend an afternoon, but it's been a week since I finished it and I'm already forgetting characters' names, so that's not a particularly good sign for this novel's lasting impact. I won't go as far as to dissuade others from reading this, especially if you're curious about the book that may very well end The Girl on the Train's reign as the most oft-referenced psychological thriller, but I think it's a good idea to go into this with lowered expectations. It's entertaining but underwhelming.
Thank you to William Morrow and A.J. Finn for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review....more
I knew before I started Wuthering Heights that it tends to be one of those quintessential love-it-or-hate-it books, but I was fairly confident that I I knew before I started Wuthering Heights that it tends to be one of those quintessential love-it-or-hate-it books, but I was fairly confident that I would love it. The complaints I'd seen leveled against it - dense prose, unlikable characters - are things I find myself often defending. As you can see, this did not go as expected.
The prose wasn't just dense; it was clunky, awkward, and every sentence seemed to be crafted for the sheer purpose of deliberate obfuscation. Reading this book felt like walking through brambles that haven't been trimmed, I'm not sure how else to describe it.
The characters weren't just unlikable; they were loathsome, and (in my opinion) utterly one-dimensional. Heathcliff and Catherine are jealous, spiteful, and cruel, and... that's it. Several hundred pages follow of them being jealous, spiteful, and cruel to one another. To clarify: my problem with this book isn't that I didn't find their relationship romantic - that's the last thing I care about in a novel, really. I had been looking forward into digging into this iconic fictional relationship and finding myself fascinated and compelled by the dynamic. Suffice to say, I was neither fascinated nor compelled. I was bored.
My third problem with Wuthering Heights was the narration. It begins from the point of view of Lockwood, the most unutterably pointless character in the history of literature, and a few chapters in, Nelly begins to tell Lockwood the story of Heathcliff and Catherine. So you'll have a direct quote from Heathcliff, which is being narrated by Nelly, which is then recorded for our supreme reading pleasure by Lockwood. And the thing is, there is nothing to distinguish Lockwood and Nelly's narration. The narrative voices of a well-to-do gentleman and a housemaid should not be identical. It was also frustrating, the fact that everything was recounted secondhand. First person minor is probably my least favorite point of view of all time (I have similarly negative feelings about The Great Gatsby), so I am fully aware that this is mostly my own bias, but I don't fully understand the point of crafting such a passionate and volatile tale only to keep your reader at arm's length from it.
Sorry, Emily, I think I shall stick with Charlotte from now on....more
The Chalk Man is a delightfully twisted oldschool thriller that could somehow be a cross between an early Stephen King novel and an episode of MidsommThe Chalk Man is a delightfully twisted oldschool thriller that could somehow be a cross between an early Stephen King novel and an episode of Midsommer Murders. In a small town in 1980s England, a series of events occurs in the life of 12-year-old Eddie Adams - a beautiful girl is injured in a freak accident at a local fair; a mysterious new teacher arrives in town; a girl will soon be found murdered; and in the middle of it all, one of Eddie's friends receives a bucket of chalk as a birthday gift.
Though it's a comparatively short thriller (not even 300 pages), CJ Tudor packs a whole lot into this book. There are more background characters and subplots than you'd initially expect, and the result is a fast-paced, addicting, plot-driven novel that's nearly impossible to put down once you start reading. I'm left with absolutely no doubt as to why this is being heralded as one of the first big thrillers of 2018. Tudor is going to be a name to look out for.
At first I was sure this was going to be a 5 star read, but (without getting into spoiler territory) I wasn't entirely satisfied with the ending... I found a lot of it predictable and I thought there were too many plot points conveniently tied up all at once. It's one of those endings that's a bit too neat and doesn't leave much to the imagination. I loved reading this, but I doubt it will stay with me years from now. That said, it's a must-read for anyone who likes their mysteries creepy and addicting. I dare you not to fly through this once you pick it up.
While it's not an outright horror novel, this book flirts with horror more than your average thriller, so proceed with caution. NB triggers for rape and gore.
Many thanks to Crown Publishing and CJ Tudor for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review. The Chalk Man will be published in January 2018....more
The End We Start From is Station Eleven meets Exit West - a literary soft apocalypse refugee story set in a near-future Great Britain. Except, it's a The End We Start From is Station Eleven meets Exit West - a literary soft apocalypse refugee story set in a near-future Great Britain. Except, it's a pared down, sort of anemic version of both of those novels. It was well written, but for the most part left me cold.
This novella doesn't use names and doesn't fixate on details - instead it's about humanity, the connections we make, the ways we adapt to change. Although Megan Hunter does an impressive job at delving into these themes in so short a story, there was too much left unsaid for me to be able to really connect with this on an emotional level. London is submerged underwater, the unnamed narrator gives birth to a baby, she and her husband are separated, and I should care, but I don't.
Hunter's prose is worth mentioning as it is undoubtedly this novella's biggest strength. It's poetic and lyrical, incisive and creative... but strong prose isn't enough to elevate this past 3 stars. Bottom line: I finished this book and thought 'what exactly was the point of that?' There just wasn't anything particularly unique or innovative about this story. Reading these 160 pages wasn't an entirely unpleasant way to spend my time, but I can't say it made much of an impression on me. I have a feeling that when I look through the books I read in 2017 at the end of the year, I'm going to see this one and say 'wait, what was that again?'
Thank you to Netgalley, Grove Atlantic, and Megan Hunter for the electronic copy provided in exchange for an honest review....more
I think I would have found this book insufferable had it been written by an author with even a sliver less skill than André Aciman. It's fraught with I think I would have found this book insufferable had it been written by an author with even a sliver less skill than André Aciman. It's fraught with clichés, as well as an abundance of elements that usually irritate me - characters being preternaturally gifted at everything, talk of sex on just about every page, at times tedious introspection, being told rather than shown how characters feel - but somehow Call Me by Your Name is greater than the sum of its parts, or maybe André Aciman knew exactly what he was doing with this book's at times infuriating construction, because he ultimately won me over against my better judgment.
Call Me by Your Name is less romantic than I had been expecting. Instead, it's charged with sexual tension, and the relationship between Elio and Oliver is characterized less by romance than by passion and obsession (which isn't to say it's not intensely intimate). Aciman chronicles the somewhat contradictory nature of young love with precision - the fear, the hesitation, the desire that Elio felt were all achingly real. Though it's a story that builds very slowly, Elio is a compelling narrator, and his struggle for self-awareness a well-crafted thread that holds the novel together.
I think I mainly liked this book for two reasons. The first is that it's one of the most evocative things I've ever read - it transported me back to summer nights in Italy with an unnervingly convincing atmosphere. And the second is that André Aciman's prose is exquisite. This book is unapologetically pretentious in a way that I found more stimulating than irritating, though I'm sure many would disagree with that assessment. I was reminded of The Secret History in a way - Aciman's writing is nothing at all like Tartt's, but the comparison is that some people hate that book for its abundant intellectualism, and some people (myself included) can't help but to love it for it. I thought the intertextuality in Call Me by Your Name was nothing short of brilliant - references to Paul Celan, Emily Bronte, Michel de Montaigne, Dante, and Claude Monet abound - which for me served to give an understanding of how these characters interacted with the world, or in Elio's case, hid behind literary references instead of interacting with the world.
I still don't really know what I'm trying to communicate with this review. This book was nothing like what I'd expected, but I was still utterly swept away by it. I guess I'd been expecting a slow burn romance and instead found myself reading intellectually charged literary soft-erotica, so I think I have to give Aciman credit where it's due for winning me over, because if that is the book I'd been expecting to read, I don't think I would have picked it up in the first place. This was a beautiful novel, especially for a story that's more about the ugliness of love than the beauty of it.
Also, this is the 100th book I finished this year. Yay!...more
Wow, so, the Goodreads summary does not do this book justice at all. I mean, I'll be honest, with sentences like "When tensions rise and Milly feels tWow, so, the Goodreads summary does not do this book justice at all. I mean, I'll be honest, with sentences like "When tensions rise and Milly feels trapped by her shiny new life, she has to decide: Will she be good? Or is she bad?" I was expecting a sort of corny, mindless thriller, which would have been okay, but the reality of this novel is so much better.
Good Me, Bad Me is a dark, psychological character study of a novel. The story begins with Annie, who gets rechristened as Milly, finally deciding to turn her mother into the police, after a childhood of being forced to watch her mother abuse and murder children. Milly is placed into foster care with parents Mike and Saskia and their daughter Phoebe, who feels threatened by Milly's presence in their family and likes to remind her that her time with them is only temporary. Milly struggles with both assimilating to her new life, and ignoring her mother's voice which she hears inside her head, constantly urging her to indulge her darker instincts.
This is a novel about aftermath and recovery, about nature vs. nurture, and though the prose makes for a quick and compelling read, fans of the mystery/thriller genre may be disappointed at just how character-driven this is. I thought that the moments where this novel endeavored to cross over into proper thriller territory were actually the weakest - neither of the two main reveals were shocking at all, so I almost feel like this novel would have been stronger if all facts had been presented up front rather than in a "gotcha!" kind of way.
But that isn't a criticism as much as advice on how to adjust your expectations going in. As someone who finds character studies fascinating, I loved this book. I found Milly to be sympathetic and intriguing - I wanted to get to the bottom of her, to really understand to what extent she is her mother's daughter, but I also just wanted her to be happy.
This is a chilling, harrowing novel that I won't forget any time soon. Trigger warnings for rape, child abuse, and self-harm, all of which are presented sensitively but unsparingly. This novel isn't graphic, but it is relentlessly dark.
Thank you to Netgalley, Flatiron Books, and Ali Land for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review....more
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