 I’m the first to rate and review this book. A privilege and a pleasure when the book is good. So, let’s do this…
Reading outside of my comfort zone sometimes means (armchair)traveling outside of my comfort zone. The West - wild wild or otherwise – has never been my jam. Not the cowboys, not the dust, not the culture nor the patois. And yet… This book charmed me completely. Surprisingly so. Its protagonist, the self-style rhinestone cowboy bail bondsman/bounty hunter, and the various and colorful characters he interacts with and encounters as he tries to locate a small time criminal who jumped bail were singular delights of offbeat randomness and delightful aphorisms. The West was a character too, vivid and cinematic. In fact, the entire book comes to life as you read it – and plays like one of those offbeat crime drama/comedies. My sleepy brain can only come up with Fargo for comparison, which I know isn’t ideal and way off geographically, but there it is. All in all, this book was oodles of fun. A most impressive debut novel for an author who knows how to zig and zag his narrative to tell a good story. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.
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 Who doesn’t like a good creepy doll horror story? Well, Sebastian looked like it was going to be one of those, but it held the creep factor way down in favor of a family drama.
I didn’t mind it since I’m a fan of subtlety, literary horror and the author, but it’s easy to see how it may not work for more action-minded genre fans. There is a doll. It’s kinda creepy. It’s meant to be a company and an art subject for a well-known photographer. Well-known enough so that flights of whimsy may and will be excused. At least, by others. For her son, it’s kind of difficult to deal with but he does. Technically, Sebastian isn’t a doll, he’s a (faceless) manikin. And yes, there is a difference. Is he creepy? Well, no, not really, he’s more along the lines of Winston of the Travels with My Father fame. So maybe don’t read it for the horror, at least not exclusively) although the ending is delicious. Maybe just read it as a literary novel, a mother/son relationship drama, or just a good slow-boiling story. Thanks Netgalley.  I’m a reluctant memoir reader, Especially when it’s memoirs by people who are way, way too young to be writing them. But I do check out some here and there in graphic form.
This one actually turned out quite lovely. I’m not familiar with the author and I’m not sure I’ve seen her New Yorker cartoons, but she certainly draws like a cartoonist – very minimalistic, squiggly lines, funny faces, etc. So not my traditional graphic novel fare art-wise, but the storytelling was first rate. Absolutely gorgeous. Every page read like a page out of a storybook, but these ones were (presumably real). Musings about her family, her own life, done in a sort of dreamy, lightly surreal, poetic in a good way style. Didn’t even know it was my thing, but yeah, I ended up enjoying it. Don’t know if I’d say it was visually arresting, though. For me, it was definitely words over art with this book. Either way, though, a surprisingly lovely read. Best use of shadow imagery since J.M Barrie. Recommended.  Just when you thought you’ve read every version of the zombie tale there is comes this one.
And then I woke up as a narrative twist is about the cheapest there is. It’s basically a cheat for someone who can’t or won’t resolve the plot properly. And Then I Woke Up the novel (or a long novella) is actually quite ingenious. It’s trippy and it plays with genre preconceptions very cleverly. It isn’t even a zombie story, not really, because what’s going on can be described in many different ways. Essentially, it’s madness. A madness some people get taken over by and some bounce back from. The narrator is one of the bounced ones and we follow his story as he tries to make sense of the strange new world he finds himself in. I can’t really say more without giving too much away. I won’t really say more because this book is pretty difficult to describe. I’m not going to claim to love it, because it isn’t lovely or lovable as such, but it’s certainly interesting and original and does a terrific job of drawing the reader right in and I definitely appreciated it. Genre fans who like their scares dark, psychological and trippy - and really anyone looking for something different - ought to check this out. Such a quick read too. Recommended.  And then there are random kindle freebies like this. Self-published books that make you be appreciative of the option.
A charmingly macabre creepypasta novelette of an obsession. Two friends who love horror movies and one of them who can’t stop pushing for fresher, scarier thrills until she finds one that she can’t let go of…or, more accurately, one that won’t let go of her. You can’t see him until he won’t you to and once you do, you won’t be able to look away. Papier-mâché or it’s Americanized version here has never been creepier. A really good read – read it in the dark if possible. Well written, atmospheric and profoundly unsettling in a dark psychological manner without resorting to guts and gore, this definitely worked. Nice cover and professionally edited to boot. One of the nicer freebie finds, for sure. Well done, kudos to the author. Recommended.  It’s a dangerous business being a woman. It’s a dangerous business being a prostitute. And it’s a dangerous business playing a detective. So, from the get-go, Eliza (chosen name) Ripple has her work cut out for her.
But she is young, clever and resilient and so she goes on about it as steadily and compellingly as any good protagonist would. Inspired by Poe’s fictional detective Dupin, buoyed by her new best friend, and just plain curious, Eliza sets off to solve the recent murders of young women in the area. Monterey during the Californian Gold rush isn’t exactly the most law-abiding of places and these are not the sort of women whose disappearance would be properly investigated by the powers that be, so Eliza and her friend might be justice’s best options. The other mystery here is why did it take me so long to read this author? She’s been around for ages, well-known, well-regarded, certainly someone I’ve heard off and yet…not until now. Maybe that’s a good thing because this book is certainly serves as a terrific introduction to a new (to me) author. It’s so very well written, Smiley obviously has the gift of natural/organic storytelling, it all just come alive: her characters, her descriptions. The novel is as transporting as you’d ever wish for in a work of historical fiction. The mystery is indeed mysterious and fun to investigate alongside Eliza and her friend. The denouement works very well too. Frontier justice sort of thing and all that. The depiction of prostitution was…surprisingly quaint. Probably the quaintest I’ve ever encountered in fiction. It’s just a job like any other job and not at all a terrible one at that with mostly decent and reasonable people. Go figure. Certainly, a perfectly reasonable (and not even remotely exploitative) choice for a young widow without means like Eliza. Monterey – well, it shines in golden sunshine in this book. A place as a character done right. So all in all, a lovely novel, a terrific perfectly sized, perfectly engaging read. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.  The Devil is in Scotland, and he want you to know all about him. That’s the basic premise of this debut novel which, to its credit, is anything but basic.
Oh no, this is a twisted descent into madness rendered so vividly, so terrifyingly, that you’ll have difficulty putting it down. Is it a perfect book? No, not by any means. But it’s a really, really good one. So, onto details… A young man from a heavily religious and severely traumatizing upbringing comes to Scotland to attend University. The Devil finds him and commissions him to write a book about him. (How strongly does it echo Angel’s Game? Very strongly. But present-day Scotland is a far cry from post WWII Barcelona, so there’s that.) Anyway, the young man is terrified of the project for it has every potential to rekindle his once crippling phobia, but is desperate for money and so he reluctantly takes it on and finds himself spiraling further and further out of control. But that’s actually the before story. The book stars with the aftermath, so we know just how far the spiraling went. So far that he became a notorious “Devil made him do it” murderer nicknamed Devil’s Advocate, went to prison for it and died there. The book is an account assembled by a journalist with interest in the case. It comprises the young man’s own narrative allegedly found afterwards and interviews and testimonies of people relevant to the case. The separate elements add up into a cohesive and riveting sum total. A novel as intense and as bleak and as unsettling as any dark psychological fiction/literary horror fans might wish for. The atmosphere is perfect. The madness is technicolor. The way the author writes about panic attacks and anxiety is right on the money. The only detractor here for me was the way the homosexual angle was handled. And hey, before you start the accusations of homophobia, hear me out. Nothing against it, but here in this novel it was so freaking heavy-handed. The rest of the novel is terrifically subtle in that is he or isn’t he going mad and what is lurking in those shadows way. But the homosexual aspect is layered in so thickly as too almost be clumsy with it. And yes, unlike the rest of the plot, you can see it coming from across the Atlantic. It ends up almost preachy with it. Disappointingly so for such an otherwise strong novel. The author obviously did that old “write what you know” thing here. Being a homosexual American man who attended a University in Scotland, he created a protagonist he could understand and recognize. But not subtly. And agenda heavy. But aside from that, the novel worked really well. So well written, so creepy, so engaging. Definitely something fans ought to check out. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.  If you like the idea of books as windows to other people’s minds, hearts and souls and all that – this is the book for you.
It isn’t an easy or easily likable read, but it isn’t meant to be. It certainly doesn’t have an easy or an easily likable protagonist. Oh no, Frances is a garbage fire of a person. And her life is garbage fire. Abandoned by her mother in childhood, Frances has never gotten past it as an adult. She tries to find substitutes for that sort of love in her relationships, which never work out. For various reasons. Because she wants too much. Because she doesn’t give enough. Because she has a crap taste in people. Because she’s a drunk and a junkie and has no aims, goals, etc. Frances has been emotionally devastated by a hurricane of a relationship with someone she was madly in love with and now she is rebounding. All over the place. While addling her mind with chemicals. The former gets her involved with an exuberant, exuberantly loving, chatty, needy, insatiable Elaine. The latter, her habit, gets her on the hook to a local dealer for two grand. Not too much but way more than she has. So her grand plan is to have Elaine (who comes from money and has some) move in with her and give her the two grand as rent. Elaine is thrilled and does so immediately and suddenly Frances finds her tiny place and her organized life invaded and upended in the most intolerable ways. Her next grand plan is to…you guess it…sedate Elaine. Just to get a few days of peace and quiet until the money comes through. To no one surprise but Frances’ her plans go awry and soon she finds herself in more of a mess than ever. Perhaps it’s time to sort out her sh*t once and for all, take out the garbage, put out the fires and try to live a real life? Perhaps. You’ll just have to read and find out. So yeah, a messy protagonist, a messy life, but the narrative is great, completely immersive, hypnotic almost. Outside of the overdone mommy issues, it works really well on every level due to the strikingly strong character writing. You don’t have to like Frances, but you will follow her story along. It’s like that. And it’s good. I really enjoyed reading this. Recommended.  Jeff Lemire created something really special with Black Hammer. Only four books, but an entire universe of flawed superheroes trying to fit in in a “normal” world and all their storied pasts and ideas for the future. The writing was great, the art was terrific, but what really shined were the characters – so exciting, so engaging, so likable that you didn’t want the books to be over.
And if that’s how you felt, well, apparently you weren’t the only one; hence this two-book edition of Black Hammer Visions where (as the title suggests) various authors and artists present their own visions of the Black Hammer universe. A somewhat uneven collection, with volume one being the real star of the show. Volume two features the lesser characters from the Black Hammer universe. Still plenty entertaining, though, from kickass Western tale to the charming ditty of a tentacled plumber who just wants to be left alone. Overall, this collection just really makes you miss the original. But still, in its own right, very quick reads and plenty of fun.  Jeff Lemire created something really special with Black Hammer. Only four books, but an entire universe of flawed superheroes trying to fit in in a “normal” world and all their storied pasts and ideas for the future. The writing was great, the art was terrific, but what really shined were the characters – so exciting, so engaging, so likable that you didn’t want the books to be over.
And if that’s how you felt, well, apparently you weren’t the only one; hence this two-book edition of Black Hammer Visions where (as the title suggests) various authors and artists present their own visions of the Black Hammer universe. A somewhat uneven collection, with volume one being the real star of the show, with four diverse tales featuring the main characters with a particularly trippy, cleverly-woven tale of different realities colliding closing out the book. Very nice. Nothing like the originals, but close enough to the next best thing and nostalgic value too. Onto the next one. |
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