Book Review - Horns

Horns by Joe Hill
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Before I read this book (though after I read Heart Shaped Box, Joe Hill's debut novel) I learned that the author is Stephen King's son. Cool! I love Stephen King! I thought it was pretty awesome of him that he was using a nom de plume instead of cashing in on his dad's fame, but from what others told me, they were disappointed in his writing, because he doesn't write like his dad.

It's true. This does not read like a Stephen King novel. If you expect his kid to write knock-offs of his dad's work you're going to be disappointed. If you're a Stephen King fan, you may actually not be interested in his style, characters or plotlines.

That said, if you're a fan of books by Chuck Palahniuk, you'll probably LOVE Joe Hill's style, characters and plotlines. Seriously. He's not derivative, but he's very similar stylistically and in a good way. Being as I'm a big fan of both those authors, it probably doesn't come as a surprise that I really liked this book.

What would happen if you woke up after a drinking binge one day to discover horns growing out of your forehead? Even worse, what if people were so affected by those horns that they'd tell you their deepest desires, looking for approval for their sins, and somehow couldn't remember either talking to you or the fact that you were suddenly be-horned?

This is a fun, trippy, scary, gory, intriguing, and entertaining book. It has some spectacular gore... which I mostly skimmed, I have a weak stomach (what, in a Palahniuk fan? I know, I know!!). It has some fascinating characters that reveal some truths about human nature and the human condition as a whole. There are some wonderful moments about secrets in families, and some hilarious rolled-my-eyes bits of dialogue. While some of the characters and scenarios were a bit cliched, there's a root to them that makes them cliche, the way they pop up over and over in literature and in life.

Overall, an interesting book. Definitely kept me intrigued to the last page.

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Book Review - Mercy

Mercy by Jodi Picoult
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Allie has a pretty good life. She has a husband - the town sherriff and clan head of the Scottish clan that inhabits her small town - that she adores to the point of worship. She lives in a town so pretty that tourists mistake the houses for a recreation/tourist attraction, and where she has her dream job - owning her own florist shop. She has a lovely mother-in-law who she is great friends with. Everything seems peachy until a distant cousin on her husband's side drives into town one day with a corpse in his truck, and admits in front of most everyone that he's just killed his wife.

On the same day Jamie - the distant cousin - arrives, so does Mia, a drifter and traveller who becomes Mia's assistant as she and her husband seek to sort out the tale of the wife, dead from a mercy killing because she was dying of an incurable cancer. The four lives intertwine in ways that will make you clench your teeth, and maybe your fists, and shake your head.

I discovered Jodi Picoult a few years ago thanks to my local book club and have been slowly making my way through some of her older titles. This book was pretty good - but not as much of a stunner as her later books are. The plot stumbles here and there and has moments of either too much or too little exposition. There's also some terminology used in some places that I found mildly offensive and I had to wonder if she would use the same terms today, twenty years later.

Overall though, this is a solid book. Picoult's strong suit is always her characters, and I can't find fault with those here. They are detailed and drawn precisely to the point where you'd swear they were someone you actually knew. You fall for them, particularly Allie if you're like me, and you become invested in their lives, which keeps you reading through the murky bits.

Definitely a good book, and quite a throwback for me since it's set in the early 90's. A friend pointed out to me how funny-odd Seinfeld is now, because with cell phones so much of the storyline would be pointless - there are several points like that in this book, as well.

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Book Review - Lies

Lies by Michael Grant
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

After really loving the first couple of books in the series, I found myself almost indifferent to this one. Yes, everyone is still stuck in the FAYZ - Fallout Alley Youth Zone - under the invisible dome with the nuclear reactor at the center, where everyone over the age of 14 vanished one day, leaving kids to fend for themselves. Yes, they're still starving. Yes, they're still infighting. No, no one has made any progress on either diplomacy or finding an exit or anything else for that matter.

I just felt like there was no story progression, and I was sincerely depressed by the "stuck" quality of the main characters. While one of the major threats was removed in the last book, it appears to be back again here, which really means no progress was made. I felt, in some ways, like the plot took a step backward here instead of progressing, and I found myself less inspired to go on with the series. (As such, I'm taking a break rather than plowing through them all as I usually might do).

My overall reaction? Meh.

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Book Review - Gone

Gone by Michael Grant
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When you were a kid, did you ever fantasize about what the world would be like if all the adults suddenly vanished? I know I did! Unfortunately for the kids of Gone, the adults - everyone over the age of 14 - do vanish, in one moment, and leave them behind to deal with survival, both for themselves and the infants and toddlers that are suddenly in their charge. The struggle inevitably leads to a fight for power and control between two factions, one led by a bully from the private school in town, one led by an unassuming natural leader from the public school.

Along the way, things get strange when kids develop powers, possibly due to the nuclear reactor in town, or maybe a meteorite that hit the area several years ago, or maybe a strange power that lives in a gold mine and calls itself "The Darkness", or maybe the green scary thing with teeth. I think it's a combination of all of the above, but the answers aren't found in this, the first novel in a series.

I found this to be a fun, quick read. I love the character of Astrid, or "Astrid the Genius" as she's known among the kids in this community, because she's smart and charming, which makes her a hero in her own way (along with the tender way in which she looks after her four year old autistic brother). I like that the book is smart and engaging in the way that makes you forget you're reading a YA book.

Were there a couple of moments that made my brows arch and my suspension of disbelief stretch a little thin? Yeah. But that happens to me often; I'm a bit of a realist. However it wasn't to the extreme and wasn't to the point where I didn't really enjoy the book.

When you get to the last eighty pages or so, be prepared to plow through to the end; you won't be able to put it down!

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Book Review - Caught

Caught by Harlan Coben
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I didn't discover Harlan Coben until late last year, and as I ease through his books (I have quite a selection waiting for me now on my eReader) I find myself wishing I'd found him years ago.

This is a solid mystery/suspense novel. It's captivating, kept my attention, and had a wonderful twist at the end that I wasn't expecting. Yay, a surprise! Too often I figure out all the twists way before the end, so I always try to point out the spectacular reads where I don't.

There is a cloud hanging over the head of a group of men who were freshmen suitemates at Princeton decades earlier. A college scandal, swept under the rug, seems to have spawned new scandals that are decimating lives left and right. One intrepid reported, instrumental in one of those scandals herself, is determined to get to the bottom of the crisis, as well as figure out why a young girl from her son's graduating class at the high school has disappeared. Is it connected? Is one of the men responsible for her disappearance? Or perhaps it's the mastermind behind all the scheming?

This was fun. It isn't literary or profound, it's just entertaining and fun and a fast-paced read. I really liked it.

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Book Review - Mr. And Miss. Anonymous

Mr. and Miss Anonymous by Fern Michaels
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Okay, so I didn't love this book. It went just a tiny bit too far with a little weirdness I couldn't reconcile.

Mr. and Miss. Anonymous is the tale of two donors - college students who make those extra few bucks they need to pay tuition by donating sperm and eggs to a fertility clinic near the Berkley campus. They both eschew the offered counseling, and find themselves suffering from terrible regrets twenty years later, when they run into one another at an airport while heading back to Berkley for a fundraising event. Their paths had only crossed briefly when they were students, but they never forgot one another. While in the airport, footage of a school shooting comes on the news and a child that looks remarkably like the gentleman donor is billed as an escapee of the melee.

The two set off to find out where there donations wound up, breaking all kinds of laws along the way, and track down the kid who looked so familiar on TV. Along the way they uncover a huge plethora of conspiracies, corrupt government officials, hitmen, scary old men, and ghosts.

Yeah, it was the ghosts, of all things, that bothered me. I couldn't figure out why they had to muddy the waters of my nice, neat little mystery novel.

It was an okay read, but nothing spectacular, and left me feeling a bit unsettled.

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Book Review - Identity Theft and Other Stories

Identity Theft and Other Stories by Robert J. Sawyer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a wonderful surprise this book was.

I grabbed it at the library, on impulse. I didn't even read the blurb before grabbing it, and I was surprised to find that it was sci-fi (I think I expected some kind of mystery/thriller from the title!).

Not only sci-fi, but sci-fi with a noir detective. It would be an understatement to say that my last foray into fiction with both of those elements did not go well. (A vast, vast understatement of epic proportions. So much so that I would have thrown this book aside if it hadn't been dark, and if I hadn't already been tucked into bed and wary of waking a snoring husband).

Boy am I glad I gave this book a chance. It was awesome! Funny, smart, witty in all the right ways, full of action, and kept my interest the whole way through. Yep, I loved it. Go figure.

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