Monday 30 March 2015

Book Review - Devoted: 38 Extraordinary Tales of Love, Loyalty and Life with Dogs

Devoted: 38 Extraordinary Tales of Love, Loyalty, and Life With DogsDevoted: 38 Extraordinary Tales of Love, Loyalty, and Life With Dogs by Rebecca Ascher-Walsh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Heartwarming, sweet collection of loving, devoted dog stories. Fabulous for dog lovers. Made me tear up and hug my dog. Lots. She approves of this book.

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Wednesday 25 March 2015

Book Review - The Engagements

The EngagementsThe Engagements by J. Courtney Sullivan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have very mixed feelings about this book. I found some of the characters annoying and frustrating and found myself so unhappy and bored when their stories came up in queue. Other stories I really enjoyed reading and wanted them to last longer. The writing is excellent, but if I can't feel invested in a plotline because of the characters, it makes the time invested in the book seem less than worthwhile.

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Friday 20 March 2015

Book Review - Everyday Psychopaths

Everyday PsychopathsEveryday Psychopaths by Jonas Eriksson
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

So. Awful.

The writing is bad. The style is bad. The story is pretty bad. I couldn't find anything redeeming here. I didn't give one whit about any of the characters. It's gross (in multiple ways). Regret the price I paid for it, which was free.

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Saturday 14 March 2015

Book Review - Life Sentences

Life SentencesLife Sentences by Laura Lippman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is much more a book about memories and perceptions than it is a mystery. The question of whether or not the narrator, Cassandra's childhood friend committed a murder takes a backseat to Cassandra's own past, which she delves into in order to ask the question "Why do girls who start out in the same place wind up in such different adult realities?"

The answer, of course, is that they weren't in the same place to start with, which seems obvious from the outside but when you are inside of a situation it often takes drastic measures for us to see past our own versions of the truth.

This is another book about a writer - I should really start a shelf for that - which is one of the reasons I picked it up. I kept reading because so much of Cassandra's experiences resonated with me. We were of different generations but I knew what it meant to be the lone white girl in a group of friends, and what that could mean. I didn't understand why it was a big deal when, freshman year at a new school, I sat at the "black" table. I sat with the girls who were nice to me, who talked to me as a student who didn't know anyone else, and who welcomed me. So that seemed normal to me; race took a back seat. But some of the issues Cassandra had rang very true to me.

I enjoyed this book, but if you are expecting typical mystery instead of literary fiction, you may be disappointed.

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Saturday 7 March 2015

Book Review - Joyland

JoylandJoyland by Stephen King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book seemed so familiar when I was in the first few chapters. I started to wonder if I had read it before - I've done this from time to time, particularly with favourite, more prolific authors. But that wasn't it.

I did a lot of reading of Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas last year, and this reads almost like an Odd Thomas book. It may be the first person perspective, or the charmingly clueless "aw, shucks"-ness of the main character, or the fact that he's lovelorn and kind of groundless in the world, or that he's going to save the world - or at least a few people - not necessarily on purpose but because he can't help it. Well, it's probably all those things.

That doesn't make it a bad book, and it's certainly not a rip-off, but it does strongly recollect those books in my mind, while standing on it's own with a curious, interesting mystery and a cold crime that gets solved in a fascinating way.

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Wednesday 4 March 2015

Book Review - Dollbaby

DollbabyDollbaby by Laura Lane McNeal
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It took me a little while to really get into this book, but once I did, I was hooked. This was an excellent read, and I particularly liked the very last plot twist, which surprised me (plot twists so rarely do!) Dollbaby paints a rich and colorful picture of New Orleans in the 1960s and 70s, with relatable, flawed, growing and changing characters in an era of world-wide change. Really fantastic for those who like historical fiction and/or character based novels.

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