Don’t you just love finding a book that appears to be comprised of random things you’re personally fascinated with that the author seems to have somehow cherry picked right out of the curves of your brain and made into an engaging and entertaining story. This was definitely the case here.
Cryptozoology…check. With not one but whaaa…multiple beasties…check. Shadow government psyops…check. Mysterious creatures…check. Taut suspense…check. Dark and eerie atmosphere…check. Throw in some genuinely likeable characters and an ambiance inducing found footage style, believe it or not, here are the facts and I’m outta here first person presentation and this short novel or novella was just a perfect quick one sit read for the evening. This is exactly the right before bed reading for me and no, somehow it never affects my dreams. Frankly, this would have made for some fun dreams or tasty nightmares. So yeah, this was great. Cleverly imagined, well written and wildly (mean it) entertaining. What a great introduction to a new to me author. One I would definitely read more from given a chance. This book seems to be one of a series, but it reads perfectly as a standalone. Genre fans will want for nothing with this book. Among other things it’s just a really fun creature feature, crafted well enough to avoid devolving into guts and gore. Original, clever and eerie. Love it. Way to make Long Island terrifying, James Chambers. Color me a fan. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.
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Megan Abbott made a very good first impression with You Will Know Me. It was exactly the sort of book I like, dark psychological fiction, where drama rules and crime thrills. So I was excited to read this one, her latest. Excited…and then disappointed.
What didn’t work here and worked so well in the other book? This was, after all, a novel very much in a similar mold. A dark and heavy family drama with a dead body and a surprise twist in the end. But that’s the forest of it all and it was the trees that failed here. All those details… The basic plot revolves around a family which itself revolves around ballet. And I can’t even begin to tell you how much ballet is in here, but…there’s so much freaking ballet in this book. It is, after all, the thing Durants live for. Well, the female Durants, anyway. Two girls brought up by their mother to dance, dance, dance…And now in their 30s with grotesquely mangled feet and limited experience otherwise, they have a ballet school. Marie and Dara and Dara’s beloved Charlie, also a ballet dancer and their mother’s once upon a time trainee, until his body gave out on him and now he just handles the administrative side of things. It’s a weird sort of ménage à trois, but they make it work. Until a fire in their studio brings a construction man into their lives and all their dreams and nightmares come true. If that seems hyperbolic, wait till you meet this guy. This aged out Fabio described as having the build of an athlete gone to seed with too tight shirts and natty boots apparently is so irresistible to women that they will throw their entire lives away just for a chance to be with him. This literary creation is so over the top, it’s laughable. Who knew they even wrote characters like that outside of cheap romance paperbacks. The disparity is especially glaring in contrast with all the other realistic traumatized individuals in the book. And so this guy, every women’s wet dream and everyone’s who’s ever needed repairs worst nightmare, who seems to embody an overpowering masculinity and really horrible levels of professionalism comes into the sisters’ lives and their dance studio like a tsunami and does terrible things and it’s down to Dara to sort it out because Marie is quite literally useless and Charlie isn’t far from that either. And meanwhile, dark highly predictable family secrets will be revealed and, of course, there will be ballet. So much ballet. The thing is its difficult to outright dislike this book, because Abbott is such an obviously good writer. But aside from writing, this was kind of tedious. The characters ranged from unlikeable to unrealistic, the pacing was slow and had a strangely dreamy quality to it, possibly meant to emulate the sisters’ mindsets. The only thing really right about this novel was the way the author ratcheted up the unease as the situation with the construction Fabio took darker and darker turns. That had an eerie claustrophobic flavor that went very well with the dark psychological themes. But overall, unless you’re really, really into ballet or really, really have a bias against construction workers and deem them all evil manipulative conniving liars and cheats…there’s not much here to recommend itself. Unless…wait…have you ever been wanting to read a romance fantasy about a very, very, very manly construction worker and his exuberant sexual potency, but you’re just too classy to read cheap romance? Cause if so, you’ll love this. Otherwise, pass. Thanks Netgalley. The Secrets of Chocolate A Gourmand’s Trip Through a Top Chef’s Atelier by Franckie Alarcon8/4/2021 I might have just been hungry. It doesn’t rationalize eating a book about a food I do not eat, but there it is. And at any rate, it was a quick and cute read.
The author is very passionate about chocolate, kind of an addict, possibly. It’s a passion I don’t share, but it nevertheless comes through the pages in a fun light fashion. In a wish come true for any chocoholic, he gets to hang out with famous chocolatiers for a year while making this book. And so he learns to make certain treats, goes to Peru to find and taste the source of cocoa and more or less eats his weight in chocolate. And, because he’s European, he apparently stays rail thin, but that’s neither here nor there. Anyway, this was a cute read and lovely graphics. The art is cartoonish in style and sophistication, but bright and fun. Chocolate fans should probably read it in digital form, because otherwise their drool would destroy the pages. Nom nom. I’m all about apocalyptic books, fiction of nonfiction. The world is ending anyway, according to the news. It’s just doing it slowly and stupidly. The books, at least, do it in an exciting fashion.
Well, maybe not all books. Certainly not this one. This is more of a sociopolitical and socioeconomic take on apocalypse, presented in a highly partisan left wing heavily didactic manner by a very well meaning altruist who seems to be very proud of being an archeologist. Seriously, if I had a dollar for every sentence in this book that he started with the words As an archeologist…well, there’d be a lot of dollars. Mind you, the man is also an anthropologist, but this is only a sentence starter once and seems almost like a typo. At any rate, the author is well educated in the and experienced in the fields of archeology and anthropology, so his views are both informed and well formed. And, of course, he is absolutely right to castigate the right for all they’ve done to grease the wheels of the coming apocalypse train, from climate change deniers to whatever the f*ck the last 5 years have been. But, having that been said, as a book this didn’t do much for me. I didn’t care for the overbearing self righteously idealistic tone very much. And I really didn’t enjoy the repetitiveness with which the author belabored his ideas. Over and over and over again and it’s like, ok, already, that nail is hammered, continue. I’m also not sure I entirely agree with his ideology, though he makes compelling arguments. For instance, in the first section of the book he argues that civilizations do not collapse, they merely evolve…or devolve would be more accurate and the remnants assimilate with the majority at the time. So Mayan civilization in his view did not collapse, it just diminished dramatically and the rest of the Mayan people went to live among the other locals. I mean, for me, if a civilization no longer has their customary way of life (their cities, sacrifice slabs, etc.) and the population gets reduced by something like 90%...that’s a freaking collapse. But ok. Next up, the author argues that apocalypse is different for different people. For someone in Central America (or presumably any other third world country) EMP or something like that wouldn’t be a tragedy, they might not have had electricity to begin with. And this is a huge thing with him too, most of his ideology is based on going from Kentucky to Chicago to South America (kinda civilized to properly civilized to barely civilized) and all the concomitant culture clash and adjustments. Mind you, apparently, he loved it down there, went properly native, even married a local. (And boy, is this repeated in some form or another and frequently verbatim throughout the book.) Learned lot of survival skills too, more on this later. But the thing is that’s also not ideal. And that’s also a form of collapse and something most people (not brave survivors of Central American privation, but many others) would dread. Frankly, Central Americans might not be huge fans of this lifestyle ether. After all, huge numbers of them risk their lives and limbs just to get out of there and come to one of those countries that EMP would, in fact, devastate. And then, of course, as a well meaning liberal the author goes on to pontificate how cooperation in an apocalyptic situation would be the key to survival. And, should the civilization indeed collapse, how people should stay put and help one another. Which is a bewilderingly naïve and one sided perspective. And this is from a man who actually appears to have some skills in surviving on his own, enough to teach a course about it. There’s some of that in the book, which makes up the only incontrovertibly practical portion of it. Overall, this wasn’t at all the book I expected or was hoping for. It dragged at times accordingly. This is the book on the apocalypse the PC police would write, if they took the time to write books instead of sitting around making up stupid rules. The political correctness of the text is overwhelming. Granted, some of it is interesting, like the malecentric paternalistic attitudes in apocalyptic fiction and movies. Like I said, the author makes some interesting arguments. But they are so overbaked and, frankly, use precisely the sources they need to support them. Can the Walking Dead (arguably some of the greatest apocalyptic fiction and definitely the greatest apocalypse tv show ever) be presented to support such an argument because of Rick Grimes’ many years of leadership? Well, sure. But arguably, Michonne is just as good and some of the female antagonists on the show have outshone the guys, for sure. Alpha is infinitely creepier and scarier than the Governor. But this is a digression and as much as I’d love to discuss WD, this review is already much too long. So to sum up, I didn’t love this book. I’m not sure I liked it all that much either. It frustrated me with its repetitive writing style and its overdone political message. I didn’t necessarily love the author’s tone and his overfond experiences of being, essentially, a poverty tourist, albeit with a prolonged work based stay, in a small third world village got tiresome. Only a first world person would get such a kick out of sh*tting in the wild and forgoing modern conveniences in general. That’s why they invented camping. Then again, he makes some interesting thought provoking arguments and the book was informative at times (such as survival gear) so it wasn’t a total waste of time either. I’m going to go back to Walking Dead, though, for apocalypse entertainment and mental prep. Other readers might get more out of this one. Thanks Netgalley. My second read in this Simply series , the books that aim to present complicated lives of significant historical individuals in a…well, less complicated manner.
Chinggis, spelled and pronounced thusly so eat it Wiki, the way I first learned it and the way the book’s author so compellingly insists is correct, was one of these complicated individuals who left a huge imprint on the world as we know it and as all these ubiquitous DNA tests tell us. A properly self made man, Chinggis went on to conquer and rule over the largest contiguous empire in the world. Just think about it. Alexander the Great with great in his name didn’t come close. England did, in fact they technically grabbed more land than anyone, but it wasn’t contiguous. They sailed. The Mongols rode. Legendarily. Chinggis was a really interesting character. Despite his warlord tendencies, he tended to try diplomacy first. Despite being unable to read or write, he highly valued education and made sure his children received it. Despite all that ambition and success in life, his death came ignominiously (a wild ass startled his ride, he got thrown and injured). And no one knows where he was buried. To this day. Chinggis left an enormous legacy behind, and not just in his native Mongolia. The man lived largely, loved largely, leaving behind a wealth of genetic material from numerous wives and concubines. Depending on whatever statistics you believe, there are millions of his descendants walking around today. This appreciation of the good life and good fights made him a prototype for Conan the Barbarian. So yeah…epic. Does this book do its subject justice? Yes, it does. The author is an expert on all things Mongolian and has written several books to that effect. It’s obvious he knows what he’s talking about. The book is concise (by the nature of the format) and dense with information. The overall tome is somewhat more scholarly than I prefer in my nonfiction, (which was also the case with Simply Einstein) , but it was plenty educational and informative. Great resource for anyone looking to learn more about Chinggis Khan. Thanks Netgalley. I don’t normally read traditional superhero comics, but Deadpool was so much fun in the movies, I figured I’d check it out, see if it translated well on the page. And sure enough, he’s still fun and sassy and smart alecky, albeit not on the same level, the suit really does need that awesome Reynolds comedic timing. Also, it really is difficult for me to enjoy the traditional guys in tights thing and there are so many superheroes in this thing, Avengers and all, the entire comic universe.
Deadpool is great because he isn’t a traditional superhero, unbound by values and morals, he does it for money, as the title suggests. Mercin’ it for all its worth. And frequently in various states of undress since his supersuit doesn’t appear to have the same blastproof qualities the rest of the sups do. This graphic novel collects 6 individual books, the first 3 are one continuous adventure of Deadpool being the only one to defeat a terrifying foe from outer space and thus the Avengers reluctantly have to ask for his assistance. The other 3 are individual standalone kind of stories that for me were much more enjoyable. All in all, the book was fun and showcased its smartass protagonist nicely, even for people who might be somehow (gasp) still unfamiliar with him. If you are those people, do yourself a favor and watch the movies. Like immediately. They are the wackiest cleverest funniest meta takes on superhero genre out there. The art was good here too, traditional superhero art very well done. Great muscles and great reds. Overall, yeah, fun was had. Wouldn’t be opposed to reading more. But would really love a third movie. I can’t even remember the whatever winding road I stumbled upon that led me to this random kindle freebie, but kinda glad it did. Every so often something pleasantly different may be unearth when you’re not expecting it.
Never heard of the author, had no idea what to expect and wasn’t wowed at first, btu as the stories in this tiny collection progressed, they began to appeal more and more. While at first admittedly I didn’t care very much for the way the language tended to veer into poeticism, the stories did have a certain beguiling quality in the way that tended to slide and slipstream into the surreal territory, from time traveling to ghosts. I appreciated the subtlety of those transitions. Overall, though the execution might have been slightly too dreamy and poetic for me at times, the plots were interesting enough to balance the production out nicely and so it turned out to be quite a nice find. And such a quick read to boot. Recommended. |
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December 2023
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