Best Day Ever book review

This is a hard book to review without giving away every plot twist. 

I can't say that I liked the book, but I did find it pretty compelling.  I was five pages in when I started exclaiming "I hate the narrator!".  I was about ten pages in when I figured out that was kind of the point. 

It felt like the author had a "I'm going to make the narrator SO BAD!" checklist going, and, to her credit, she hit all of them.  Honestly, I felt she could have dialed the evil back by about half and still had a good solid book.  After a while, I started saying "Oh, of COURSE he...." when a new revelation popped up. 

I was also very disappointed by the ending.  I felt that while possible realistic, it was not very healthy for her female protagonist.

This is not a reread book for me.  As I said, I found it compelling and well written, but oddly clunky in the amount of Bad Things happening left, right and centre.






(I received an ARC of this novel in return for my unbiased opinion)

Reincarnation Blues -- a NetGalley review

I loved this book.  I want to describe it as "sweet", but feel like "sweet" is one of those words that has fallen out of vogue.  Well, this book is sweet.  Not cloying icky, but squishy feel good.

The central concept of the book (and MAN, is it hard to talk around it, I don't want to spoil anything!) tips a generally accepted thing on it's head and wow, does it work.  I highly, highly recommend this, I couldn't put it down once I started.  Well written, tightly plotted and very worth a read.  I'm thinking about seeking out his first novel as well.

(this title was provided free for my unbiased opinion)

Urban Enemies -- a NetGalley review

I did like this book, although I feel that I missed a lot of the nuances in most of the stories.  I am familiar with Butcher's, Hearne;s, Armstrong's, McGuire's, and Vaughn's worlds, so enjoyed their stories more.  All of the stories are well-written, but without a knowledge of the world that they inhabit, again, a lot (if not all) of the nuance is lost.

That said, this is still well worth a read.  It is interesting to have stories from the villain's perspective and doing so opens up a different view to some well-loved universes.

Urban Enemies
edited by Joseph Nassise
Simon and Schuster, c2017




















I was offered a free copy of this ebook for my unbiased review.

NetGalley reviews

I am a NetGalley reviewer, so this is just adding old reviews to get them all in one place.

So thanks to NetGalley, I was offered an ARC of “Magic Binds” to read and review. I've done the read, so here's the review.

This is definitely not the book to start the Kate Daniels series off with. Andrews is starting to tie in threads from all through the novels so if you're not familiar with the series (and you really should be! Go read it, this will wait), a lot of the plot will not make sense to you at all. I love this series and am very pleased with how Andrews is letting Kate and Curran grow and evolve. None of the magic seems to be of the “oh shit, plot point needed here” variety, it's all hanging together. 

The surrounding cast of characters are all fully realized and you get the sense that they're all off doing there own thing when the spotlight isn't on them, a nice touch.

Again, a great novel in a great series and I can't wait for the next one!!

Cujo and my thoughts thereon

So in this reread, I was going along quite nicely, then it was Cujo's turn.  And blech.  I do not like the main female character AT ALL.  Part of this is what I call in my head the Weeds syndrome.  I tried very very hard to watch Weeds, a lot of people I respect loved it, but I just could not get past the part in the first ten minutes of the show (and I paraphrase here) the main character blurts out "So am I just supposed to get a job at the mall??".  Yes.  Yes, honey, when your husband dies and you have to feed your kids, your first thought should be "I need a job.".  And I get that without that character saying that, there would be no show, but it is an INSTANT way of making me turn away from the show completely.

Donna Trenton is sort of that character for me right now.  Aside from that immediate and kinda total dislike, Cujo is in no way a supernatural horror novel.  It is a sad, tragic tale, yes, but not horror, IMHO.

So I am giving myself permission to skip Cujo and go on to The Running Man.  (I took a hard side turn and reread/read a whole bunch of Discworld novels, which I enjoy mostly.)

In the album side of things, nothing earth shattering to report.  The first eight or so are jazz/big band, Sinatra and Elvis Presley, all things I enjoy.  Interestingly enough, while listening to Elvis, I realized that I had never heard anything other than his radio hits and very few of those at that.  Elvis kinda seeped into my consciousness, I guess.  I also decided that I will probably never be a huge fan of Thelonious Monk.  Can't quite put my finger on it, but was not what I expected.  Perhaps a few more listens to the album will change my mind.

King in the Seventies

I am now through the seventies in King's oeuvre.  Which, really, didn't take that long.  With the exception of The Stand, none of the books are much over 350 pages.  They all move though.  Funnily enough, I had forgotten quite a bit about them, so a lot of this may be a nice surprise.  (I had, however, remembered a lot of the short stories...funny how one's mind works.)

I have noticed that a theme through all of these books (and, perhaps, through all the rest, once I really get going.  The eighties and nineties are when his books turned into pretty good jackleg doorstops.) seems to be Choice.  And Consequences.  Or, to phrase it how I heard it growing up "you made your bed, you lie in it".  To be fair, you're not going to have much of a book if Jack Torrence turns down the job at the Overlook.  Or if Carrie decides not to destroy her town.  So maybe it's not much of a theme, just a storytelling device.  But it was interesting to see this thread run through the books.

My summer projects

It's been a while...but here I am.

So I announced on Facebook that my summer projects this year would be to reread Stephen King in publication order (yes, even the ones I read once and never ever ever went back to [Apt Pupil, I'm dreading your turn.  Oh and that creepy mechanical monkey one.  Gahhh.])

I've finished the first three and wanted to get some thoughts down.  First of all, not really scary to me any more.  I remember 'Salem's Lot scaring the bejeebers out of me when I first read it -- in fact, I had received a cheap cross in the mail from some ad in the back of a tabloid and I taped it to the window in my bedroom.  Dead centre, as this seemed to have the most chance of working.  I believe that I read both Carrie and 'Salem's Lot way, way WAY too young (well before I was 12.  Possibly around 10, but I can't be sure) which happens when you read anything and everything.

Second, the writing is tight.  I'm used (now) to setting aside at least a couple of days of steady reading to get through a King novel and I powered through Carrie in probably 3 hours total of reading time.  Tight and everything just hangs together, man.  Events just slot into place, bang bang bang and that's it.  That's the only way that those stories could have been told.

Third, I was a tad hesitant to start this because it had been so very long since I read the early ones...what if I didn't enjoy them anymore?  Well, I did.  Not only is the writing good, the story is good too.  Even when King was writing in a coked out haze, the man could tell a story.

I've just started The Stand (uncut, all pages restored version) which is probably in my top 5 of his books.  (The other ones would be Duma Key, Gerald's Game, Shawshank Redemption and Danse Macabre)

And in the other half of my summer project...I have many tomatoes on my two wee plants (well, wee-ish) and my mint is still alive.  I have hopes for chocolate mint tea from my own garden.