Three-Star Books 2013 Part Two

Doll Bones by Holly Black: Goodreads synopsis: Zach, Poppy and Alice have been friends for ever. They love playing with their action figure toys, imagining a magical world of adventure and heroism. But disaster strikes when, without warning, Zach’s father throws out all his toys, declaring he’s too old for them. Zach is furious, confused and embarrassed, deciding that the only way to cope is to stop playing . . . and stop being friends with Poppy and Alice. But one night the girls pay Zach a visit, and tell him about a series of mysterious occurrences. Poppy swears that she is now being haunted by a china doll – who claims that it is made from the ground-up bones of a murdered girl. They must return the doll to where the girl lived, and bury it. Otherwise the three children will be cursed for eternity.

My review from Goodreads: Pitched a little younger than I realized. Pretty good, although some long stretches where not much happens. Fairly effective rendering of the inside of an imaginative 12 year old boy's head. The way the kids overcame obstacles on their trip was also quite realistic and interesting to follow. I have a strange relationship with Holly Black's writing - I first read Tithe and was quite underwhelmed, but everything I've read since - mostly short stories, I think, - has been brilliant. Oh, uh, there's an obvious conclusion to be drawn there, huh? I should try another book, though. 

The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card: Goodreads synopsis: Danny North knew from early childhood that his family was different, and that he was different from them.  While his cousins were learning how to create the things that commoners called fairies, ghosts, golems, trolls, werewolves, and other such miracles that were the heritage of the North family, Danny worried that he would never show a talent, never form an outself.
He grew up in the rambling old house, filled with dozens of cousins, and aunts and uncles, all ruled by his father.  Their home was isolated in the mountains of western Virginia, far from town, far from schools, far from other people.
There are many secrets in the House, and many rules that Danny must follow.   There is a secret library  with only a few dozen books, and none of them in English — but Danny and his cousins are expected to become fluent in the language of the books.  While Danny’s cousins are free to create magic whenever they like, they must never do it where outsiders might see.
Unfortunately, there are some secrets kept from Danny  as well.  And that will lead to disaster for the North family.

I read this again because all the OSC books that weren't Ender's Game were starting to blend together in my head, and I realized I was confusing The Lost Gate with this book. This was interesting, of course, with the customary emphasis on complicated relationships between people and a doubled plot that took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out. I think I'll stop reading OSC series books until all the books are out though - it's too hard to keep them straight and remember enough to read the next book.

Nemesis by Jo Nesbo: Goodreads synopsis: How do you catch a killer when you're the number one suspect? A man is caught on CCTV, shooting dead a cashier at a bank. Detective Harry Hole begins his investigation, but after dinner with an old flame wakes up with no memory of the past 12 hours. Then the girl is found dead in mysterious circumstances and he beings to receive threatening emails: is someone trying to frame him for her death? As Harry fights to clear his name, the bank robberies continue with unparalleled savagery.

My review from Goodreads: Pretty good entry in a solid series, although there were three or four 'surprise' endings, which sort of made it feel like it was ending....and ending...and ending...

The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar: Goodreads synopsis: Poignant, evocative, and unforgettable, The Space Between Us is an intimate portrait of a distant yet familiar world. Set in modern-day India, it is the story of two compelling and achingly real women: Sera Dubash, an upper-middle-class Parsi housewife whose opulent surroundings hide the shame and disappointment of her abusive marriage, and Bhima, a stoic illiterate hardened by a life of despair and loss, who has worked in the Dubash household for more than twenty years. A powerful and perceptive literary masterwork, author Thrity Umrigar's extraordinary novel demonstrates how the lives of the rich and poor are intrinsically connected yet vastly removed from each other, and how the strong bonds of womanhood are eternally opposed by the divisions of class and culture.

The plot device on which the novel hangs is quite contrived, but the rendering of the differences in life experience of people in different castes is incredibly vivid, pity-and-rage-inducing. 

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill: Reviewed on blog. I recently caught myself thinking about this as if it was a Stephen King book. Clearly, my first impression of it was bang on. 

American Morons by Glen Hirshberg: Goodreads synopsis: From the author of the acclaimed novel THE SNOWMAN'S CHILDREN and the award-winning collection THE TWO SAMS comes American Morons, a new collection of dazzling and haunting tales...
Two traveling college students confront their disintegrating relationship and the new American reality in a breakdown lane along the Italian Superstrade. A woman chases the ghost of her neglectful father to a vanished amusement park at the end of the Long Beach pier. Two recently retired teachers learn just how much Los Angeles has taken from them.
In these atmospheric, wide-ranging, surprisingly playful, and deeply mournful stories, grandkids and widows, ice cream-truck drivers and judges, travelers and invalids all discover -- and sometimes even survive -- the everyday losses from which the most vengeful ghosts so often spring.

I borrowed this collection because I read a searingly memorable short story by the author in a mixed-author collection. At least I thought I did, but I just looked up the story and it turns out Glen Hirshberg DIDN'T WRITE IT! How embarrassing for me! Well, happy accident then, because this collection was really cool. But geez man. I'm losing it. (The author of the short story I was thinking of is Steve Duffy, in case you're dying of curiosity. The story was called "Certain Death for a Known Person". Excuse me while I check the library catalogue for something else by Steve Duffy.)

Pure by Julianna Baggott: Goodreads synopsis: We know you are here, our brothers and sisters . . . 
Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost-how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers . . . to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. And now, at an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia to either be trained as a soldier or, if they are too damaged and weak, to be used as live targets, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small. Pressia is on the run.
Burn a Pure and Breathe the Ash . . . 
There are those who escaped the apocalypse unmarked. Pures. They are tucked safely inside the Dome that protects their healthy, superior bodies. Yet Partridge, whose father is one of the most influential men in the Dome, feels isolated and lonely. Different. He thinks about loss-maybe just because his family is broken; his father is emotionally distant; his brother killed himself; and his mother never made it inside their shelter. Or maybe it's his claustrophobia: his feeling that this Dome has become a swaddling of intensely rigid order. So when a slipped phrase suggests his mother might still be alive, Partridge risks his life to leave the Dome to find her. 
When Pressia meets Partridge, their worlds shatter all over again.

My review from Goodreads: Really quite good - a bit of a fresh take on the pseudo-apocalypse, if that's even possible. The characters are well drawn and the fused people are a rich trope - grotesque, but somehow whimsical. But when I was about halfway through I was possessed by a sudden cold suspicion, and flipped to the last page to find....*shock and dismay*.... END OF BOOK ONE. And this is NOT a teen novel. By all that is holy, why does everything keep turning out to be a trilogy? And there should be a hard and fast rule that if it is a trilogy, "Book one of (whateverthefucktrilogy)" should have to be printed on the book cover. So over all, I'm a little bitter about the whole experience. (Note: it turns out there was only one sequel, so it was actually only a .... duo? diptych? diology? Hey! Maybe they're all trilogies because there's no good word for a literary twosome. More likely there is one and my beer-battered brain is not retrieving it at the moment. Anyway, the second book is in the four-and-five-star post, so I'm less bitter about the experience now.)


A Tale of Time City by Diana Wynne Jones: Goodreads synopsis: Time City - built far in the future on a patch of space outside time - holds the formidable task of overseeing history, yet it's starting to decay, crumble .... What does that say for the future of the world ... for the past ... for the present? Two Time City boys, determined to save it all, think they have the answer in Vivian Smith, a young Twenty Century girl whom they pluck from a British train station at the start of World War II. But not only have they broken every rule in the book by traveling back in time - they have the wrong person! Unable to return safely, Vivian's only choice is to help the boys restore Time City or risk being stuck outside time forever.

A little lightweight, even for her, but good fun.

Music Makers by Kate Wilhelm: Goodreads synopsis: Music Makers is a collection of five stories.
Music Makers - Jake is sent to Memphis to do a puff article about an old, recently-deceased jazz pianist. There he learns about the true power of music, especially the “other music” that permeates an old southern mansion.
Shadows On The Wall Of The Cave - Joey was six when he vanished in the limestone cave in Kentucky, and he was six when he reappeared years later.
Mockingbird - Outwardly identical twins, inwardly two distinct individual women, Yin and Yang, day and night, right brain and left brain. If only one can win, will the other survive?
The Late Night Train - In the bitter cold of winter, the train whistle sounded as if it were coming closer and closer. Mother, father and adult daughter live together in a paralyzing impasse, but the late night train offers a way out.
An Ordinary Day With Jason - The strange thing about Jason is that a mysterious staircase might suddenly appear when he is innocently playing with his toys. Neither he nor anyone else should ascend the stairs, at least not yet.

Sigh. I don't know. I discovered Kate Wilhelm years ago, with one incendiary short story collection (The Infinity Box) and the Charlie and Constance series, which seems infinitely rich and strange, their relationship a lovely dance and the plots always admitting the possibility of strangeness. Then she started writing the Barbara Holloway series, which seemed lamentably pedestrian by comparison. Then I discovered this collection and a couple of new (or new-to-me) Charlie and Constance entries in the Kindle store. But I'm too old now, or something - the magic has worn thin. So, while these are perfectly charming stories, something seemed to be missing. 

Thank You for Smoking by Christopher Buckley: Goodreads synopsis: Nick Naylor likes his job. In the neo-puritanical nineties, it's a challenge to defend the rights of smokers and a privilege to promote their liberty. Sure, it hurts a little when you're compared to Nazi war criminals, but Nick says he's just doing what it takes to pay the mortgage and put his son through Washington's elite private school St. Euthanasius. He can handle the pressure from the antismoking zealots, but he is less certain about his new boss, BR, who questions whether Nick is worth $150,000 a year to fight a losing war. Under pressure to produce results, Nick goes on a PR offensive. But his heightened notoriety makes him a target for someone who wants to prove just how hazardous smoking can be. If Nick isn't careful, he's going to be stubbed out.

My review from Goodreads: I enjoyed this more than I expected to: I had to read it for book club and I'm not a big lover of satire, especially extended over an entire novel. It does sometimes become almost unforgivably silly, and it's very formulaic, but there are some hilarious moments, some touching ones, and the writing style is skillful.

This Book is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It by David Wong: Goodreads synopsis: From the writer of the cult sensation John Dies at the End comes another terrifying and hilarious tale of almost Armageddon at the hands of two hopeless heroes.
WARNING: You may have a huge, invisible spider living in your skull. THIS IS NOT A METAPHOR.
You will dismiss this as ridiculous fearmongering. Dismissing things as ridiculous fearmongering is, in fact, the first symptom of parasitic spider infection-the creature secretes a chemical into the brain to stimulate skepticism, in order to prevent you from seeking a cure. That's just as well, since the "cure" involves learning what a chain saw tastes like.
You can't feel the spider, because it controls your nerve endings. You can't see it, because it decides what you see. You won't even feel it when it breeds. And it will breed. So what happens when your family, friends, and neighbors get mind-controlling skull spiders? We're all about to find out.
Just stay calm, and remember that telling you about the spider situation is not the same as having caused it. I'm just the messenger. Even if I did sort of cause it.
Either way, I won't hold it against you if you're upset. I know that's just the spider talking.

Good crazy profane hysterical fun with some thoughtful bits thrown in. I reviewed the first book in the series here. 

Bad Wolf by Nele Neuhaus: Goodreads synopsis: On a hot June day the body of a sixteen-year-old girl washes up on a river bank outside of Frankfurt. She has been brutally murdered, but no one comes forward with any information as to her identity. Even weeks later, the local police have not been able to find out who she is. Then a new case comes in: A popular TV reporter is attacked, raped, and locked in the trunk of her own car. She survives, barely, and is able to supply certain hints to the police, having to do with her recent investigations into a child welfare organization and the potential uncovering of a child pornography ring with members from the highest echelon of society. As the two cases collide, Inspectors Pia Kirchhoff and Oliver von Bodenstein dig deep into the past and underneath the veneer of bourgeois society to come up against a terrible secret that is about to impact their personal lives as well. In Nele Neuhaus's second U.S. publication of her enormously popular series, tensions run high and a complex and unpredictable plot propels her characters forward at breakneck speed.

My review from Goodreads: As a police procedural, this works well. The author does a good job of introducing the different characters and narrative shards and then piecing them all together. I enjoy books where several stories begin and then intersect in sometimes surprising ways.

There are some issues with writing and dialogue which might be due to translation, and a couple of passages where characters seem to undergo shifts in perspective or behaviour that aren't credible; there are a couple of incredibly clunky passages, such as when the main policewoman character is cozying up to her husband and their dialogue is "are you thinking what I'm thinking?" "I don't know. What are you thinking?" "I'm thinking of....sex." ARGH. Please tell me that was something witty in German that simply wouldn't translate. Hanna's relationship with her daughter is actually quite realistic and affecting, but then the daughter has a sudden moment of clarity and self-reflection that seems highly unlikely.

On the whole though, this is a good mystery. 

Sunshine by Robin McKinley: Goodreads synopsis: There hadn't been any trouble out at the lake for years, and Sunshine just needed a spot where she could be alone with her thoughts.
Vampires never entered her mind. Until they found her.

This wasn't even on my pile. I bought it at some point and stuck it on a shelf in the living room. Last week I was taking my daughter to the walk-in clinic and she had a book and I needed one, and my shoes were already on, so I grabbed it from the nearest shelf. I always feel a little caught off-guard when I slam a book into the rotation like this, and it's November, so who knows if I can review it fairly?

There are certain authors who I think of positively, and then when I examine the assumption more closely I realize I haven't read much, if any, of their work. I think Robin McKinley might be one of them. This started out really well - loved the character of Rae/Sunshine, loved the world-making, loved the atmosphere of Charlie's coffee house and the cast of characters. The plot set-up was nicely tantalizing too.

Then..... then.... I don't know, things just kind of go limp. In a very nice kind of way, but still fairly limp. There are things Sunshine wants to know about the mysterious vampire who chose not to eat her - why do the other vampires hate him? Why is he old and yet able to withstand sunlight unlike other vampires? Why is she sexually attracted to him when she has a lovely boyfriend and vampires and humans are never attracted to each other because vampires are nasty beings who EAT HUMANS? - but she keeps saying things like "there were so many questions I didn't want answers to". Except, for chrissakes, THE READER DOES WANT ANSWERS TO THOSE QUESTIONS, and McKinley doesn't give them to us either, and not in a 'non-closure, figure-it-out-for-youself' kind of way, just in a 'didn't bother' kind of way. The set-up for the final confrontation is interminable, and then the confrontation is over in a couple of pages. 

The writing is kind of circuitous and conversational, with multiple tangents and meandering sentences, which I went back and forth on being cool with and being annoyed by. On the whole, I liked it, but not as much as I thought I would at the beginning, and I think it could have been much better. 

Under the Dome by Stephen King: Goodreads synopsis: On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester's Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener's hand is severed as "the dome" comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when -- or if -- it will go away. Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens -- town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician's assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing -- even murder -- to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn't just short. It's running out.

My review from Goodreads: Not quite sure how I feel. Didn't hate it, didn't love it. It was long. It was really, really long. There were some good parts, but nothing really popped. It still kicked the shit out of the tv series. (Note: Having recently reread The Shining and read Doctor Sleep, I'm even more assured in my assessment of this book as a bit of a clunker in the King oeuvre). 

Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld: Goodreads synopsis: Curtis Sittenfeld, New York Times bestselling author of American Wifeand Prep, returns with a mesmerizing novel of family and identity, loyalty and deception, and the delicate line between truth and belief. 
From an early age, Kate and her identical twin sister, Violet, knew that they were unlike everyone else. Kate and Vi were born with peculiar “senses”—innate psychic abilities concerning future events and other people’s secrets. Though Vi embraced her visions, Kate did her best to hide them.
 Now, years later, their different paths have led them both back to their hometown of St. Louis. Vi has pursued an eccentric career as a psychic medium, while Kate, a devoted wife and mother, has settled down in the suburbs to raise her two young children. But when a minor earthquake hits in the middle of the night, the normal life Kate has always wished for begins to shift. After Vi goes on television to share a premonition that another, more devastating earthquake will soon hit the St. Louis area, Kate is mortified. Equally troubling, however, is her fear that Vi may be right. As the date of the predicted earthquake quickly approaches, Kate is forced to reconcile her fraught relationship with her sister and to face truths about herself she’s long tried to deny. 
Funny, haunting, and thought-provoking, Sisterland is a beautifully written novel of the obligation we have toward others, and the responsibility we take for ourselves. With her deep empathy, keen wisdom, and unerring talent for finding the extraordinary moments in our everyday lives, Curtis Sittenfeld is one of the most exceptional voices in literary fiction today.

I'm kind of wondering now why I didn't give this four stars. It was well-written, non-formulaic, memorable and imaginative. I thought the relationship between the sisters was exceptionally well-rendered. It was a great story. 

Breed by Chase Novak: Goodreads synopsis: Alex and Leslie Twisden told each other they would do anything to have children. The price didn’t matter. But the experimental procedure they found had costs they couldn’t foresee.
Adam and Alice Twisden’s lives seem perfectly normal. Except that, every night, without fail, their parents lock them into their rooms.
And the twins know that the sounds they can hear are not just their imagination. They’re real. And they’re getting louder...
From a new name in horror, Breed is a stunning thriller in the vein of Rosemary’s Baby, brilliantly written, daring, and unforgettable.

My review from Goodreads: Call it three and a half. The writing is good enough to make the characters more fully realized than they often are in genre fiction. Like the best horror tends to be, much of it is wrenchingly sad.

Help for the Haunted by John Searles: Goodreads synopsis: It begins with a call in the middle of snowy February evening. Lying in her bed, young Sylvie Mason overhears her parents on the phone across the hall. This is not the first late-night call they have received, since her mother and father have an uncommon occupation, helping "haunted souls" find peace. And yet, something in Sylvie senses that this call is different than the rest, especially when they are lured to the old church on the outskirts of town. Once there, her parents disappear, one after the other, behind the church's red door, leaving Sylvie alone in the car. Not long after, she drifts off to sleep only to wake to the sound of gunfire.
Nearly a year later, we meet Sylvie again struggling with the loss of her parents, and living in the care of her older sister, who may be to blame for what happened the previous winter.
As the story moves back and forth in time, through the years leading up to the crime and the months following, the ever inquisitive and tender-hearted Sylvie pursues the mystery, moving closer to the knowledge of what occurred that night, as she comes to terms with her family's past and uncovers secrets that have haunted them for years.

It wasn't bad. But it wasn't what I wanted it to be. I don't know how to say anything else without being spoilery, but it's really quite a good story. Just really not what I was expecting, and I really wanted what I was expecting. 


Being Henry David by Cal Armistead: Goodreads synopsis: Seventeen-year-old "Hank" has found himself at Penn Station in New York City with no memory of anything --who he is, where he came from, why he's running away. His only possession is a worn copy of Walden, by Henry David Thoreau. And so he becomes Henry David-or "Hank" and takes first to the streets, and then to the only destination he can think of--Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. Cal Armistead's remarkable debut novel is about a teen in search of himself. Hank begins to piece together recollections from his past. The only way Hank can discover his present is to face up to the realities of his grievous memories. He must come to terms with the tragedy of his past, to stop running, and to find his way home.

My review from Goodreads: CRAP, I didn't WRITE a review on Goodreads. Every year I tell myself to write more reviews on Goodreads so I won't be stuck doing this post trying to remember stuff about every book and come up with something intelligent to say. This wasn't an out-of-the-park home run but it was a nice solid hit for a young age group. I liked the Thoreau references and I'm a sucker for an amnesia tale, wildly improbable as they inevitably are.

Shards and Ashes by Melissa Marr: Goodreads synopsis: Gripping original stories of dystopian worlds from nine New York Times bestselling authors, edited by Melissa Marr and Kelley Armstrong.
The world is gone, destroyed by human, ecological, or supernatural causes. Survivors dodge chemical warfare and cruel gods; they travel the reaches of space and inhabit underground caverns. Their enemies are disease, corrupt corporations, and one another; their resources are few, and their courage is tested.
Powerful original dystopian tales from nine bestselling authors offer bleak insight, prophetic visions, and precious glimmers of light among the shards and ashes of a ruined world.

I'm also a sucker for dystopian worlds and apocalyptic scenarios, when they're well done. I really enjoyed this collection.

The Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin: Goodreads synopsis: For Matt and his sisters, life with their cruel, physically abusive mother is a day-to-day struggle for survival. But then Matt witnesses a man named Murdoch coming to a child’s rescue in a convenience store; and for the first time, he feels a glimmer of hope. Then, amazingly, Murdoch begins dating Matt’s mother. Life is suddenly almost good. But the relief lasts only a short time. When Murdoch inevitable breaks up with their mother, Matt knows that he’ll need to take some action. Can he call upon Murdoch to be his hero? Or will Matt have to take measures into his own hands?

This was very well done, but so different from the two other books I've read by this author (this one and this one) that I kept being slightly annoyed by the non-appearance of curses or otherworldly nefarious creatures.  Nothing but relentless realism here, though. Vivid, realistic and upsetting.

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon: Goodreads synopsis: The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon--when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient stone circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach--an "outlander"--in a Scotland torn by war and raiding Highland clans in the year of Our Lord...1743.
Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into intrigues and dangers that may threaten her life...and shatter her heart. For here she meets James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, and becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire...and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.

I'm going to try really hard to be honest here, even though I find it humiliating when I avoid a series like this for years and then somehow slip and wake up with my face on the finished book. I'm not going to pretend I didn't like it, or that I could stop reading it, or that I'm not waiting impatiently for the next one to show up on my holds list at the library. But wow, uncomfortably rape-y bits? And people keep saying it's not really a romance, but geez, it's totally a romance, with some unrepentant Harlequin-like elements - someone said that Jamie was such a wonderful, flawed, real character - WHAT FUCKING FLAWS? Also, Claire is a pretty great character, and I liked that the author didn't conveniently make it a bad marriage that she leaves behind, but does she not make a pretty quick peace with being married and incredibly connubial with another man? And is that not some pretty self-serving pseudo-religious claptrap Brother Whoever serves her at the end to make it all more palatable? And the Redcoats showing up every time things settle down made me feel like I was watching a Star Trek episode - you start settling into a nice little story about life on an Irish farm and getting some insight into childbirth and medical wisdom in the eighteenth century, and then there's space goo leaking around the barn door or something. I'm saying this badly. Whatever. 

Bottom line - Gabaldon is a genius. What is it about these books that leave me with the exhilaration of a well-told tale, yet feeling a little dirty inside? I guess that's the thing about guilty pleasures?

Be My Enemy by Ian McDonald: Goodreads synopsis: Everett Singh has escaped with the Infundibulum from the clutches of Charlotte Villiers and the Order, but at a terrible price. His father is missing, banished to one of the billions of parallel universes of the Panoply of All World, and Everett and the crew of the airship Everness have taken a wild, random Heisenberg Jump to a random parallel plane. Everett is smart and resourceful and from a frozen earth far beyond the Plenitude plans to rescue his family. But the villainous Charlotte Villiers is one step ahead of him.

Bit of a fail grab from the library shelves. I'm not sure I didn't have a small seizure and grasp it reflexively - what the hell would possess me to try reading something with "random Heisenberg jumps" in it? I don't LIKE my science fiction hard. Also, hello moron, it's the second in the series. Still, kind of different and interesting. Although when I cracked it open for the first time and read the jacket copy, I said "WHAT?" out loud. Mystified. Truly.

When We Wake by Karen Healey: Goodreads synopsis: Sixteen-year-old Tegan is just like every other girl living in 2027—she's happiest when playing the guitar, she's falling in love for the first time, and she's joining her friends to protest the wrongs of the world: environmental collapse, social discrimination, and political injustice.
But on what should have been the best day of Tegan's life, she dies—and wakes up a hundred years later, locked in a government facility with no idea what happened.
The future isn't all she had hoped it would be, and when appalling secrets come to light, Tegan must make a choice: Does she keep her head down and survive, or fight for a better world?
Award-winning author Karen Healey has created a haunting, cautionary tale of an inspiring protagonist living in a not-so-distant future that could easily be our own.

Pretty fresh take on the displaced-in-time trope. Good voice, believable rendering of a teenager waking up a hundred years past her time. The friendships are endearing, and the romance isn't too formula. Also, praise the gods, it's not the first in a trilogy. (Except, JOKE'S ON ME, It TOTALLY IS the first in a trilogy! It says #1 RIGHT AFTER THE TITLE on Goodreads! People, I've gone into active, self-deluding denial about the trilogy phenomenon!)

Invisibility by Andrea Cremer and David Levithan: Goodreads synopsis: Stephen has been invisible for practically his whole life — because of a curse his grandfather, a powerful cursecaster, bestowed on Stephen’s mother before Stephen was born. So when Elizabeth moves to Stephen’s NYC apartment building from Minnesota, no one is more surprised than he is that she can see him. A budding romance ensues, and when Stephen confides in Elizabeth about his predicament, the two of them decide to dive headfirst into the secret world of cursecasters and spellseekers to figure out a way to break the curse. But things don’t go as planned, especially when Stephen’s grandfather arrives in town, taking his anger out on everyone he sees. In the end, Elizabeth and Stephen must decide how big of a sacrifice they’re willing to make for Stephen to become visible — because the answer could mean the difference between life and death. At least for Elizabeth.

Good fun. And there's a curse! I love curses! Yeah, it's to be continued. I've totally

capitulated. 

Legion by William Peter Blatty: Amazon synopsis (It's midnight, I'm tired and my allergies are kicking up and Goodreads is fucking with me NOW? On the VERY LAST BOOK?! REALLY?!): Just in time for the 40th anniversary of The Exorcist -- Legion, a classic tale of horror, is back in print!
A young boy is found horribly murdered in a mock crucifixion. Is the murderer the elderly woman who witnessed the crime? A neurologist who can no longer bear the pain life inflicts on its victims? A psychiatrist with a macabre sense of humor and a guilty secret? A mysterious mental patient, locked in silent isolation?
Lieutenant Kinderman follows a bewildering trail that links all these people, confronting a new enigma at every turn even as more murders surface. Why does each victim suffer the same dreadful mutilations? Why are two of the victims priests? Is there a connection between these crimes and another series of murders that took place twelve years ago—and supposedly ended with the death of the killer?
Legion is a novel of breathtaking energy and suspense. But more than this, it is an extraordinary journey into the uncharted depths of the human mind and the most agonizing questions of the human condition.
The answers are revealed in a climax so stunning that it could only have been written by the author of The Exorcist—William Peter Blatty.

My review from Goodreads: Weird. Deliciously creepy. A little cheesy. Mostly saved by the delightful Columbo-type philosophical detective.

Three Star Books 2013

When I was brushing my teeth before bed at around 2 a.m. on January 1st, it occurred to me that I should recall which book I last read in 2013. It was Hyperbole and a Half (I gave it to my sister and Matt's uncle for Christmas: my brother-in-law gave it to me), which I sat down with for half an hour before I started cooking stuff to receive company. Seems like a pretty good book to end the year with. On January 1st, I read The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which could not have been more perfect for a first read of the year.

Forty-six three-star reads this year.

Merciless by Richard Montanari: Goodreads synopsis: On a frigid December night, Karen sits at the edge of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River, dressed in a flowing gown, like a visitor from the distant past. A beautiful and shining young woman, she gazes up at a bone-white winter moon like a fairy-tale princess frozen in time. At first glance, one might not even notice that she is dead, coated in a glistening patina of ice.
Homicide cops Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano take the lead on the case, uncovering a plethora of eerie clues–each more warped and spine-chilling than the last. Yet the identity of Karen’s pitiless killer remains a mystery. Then the next victim is found upriver at an abandoned waterworks, posed with an unlikely object in her clasped hands. Struggling to link the victims and make sense of the madman’s agenda, Byrne and Balzano follow his twisted trail, which stretches into a past of dark crimes forgotten by all but a few. 
Now the past roars back into the present with a vengeance as the ingenious killer unleashes a torrent of rage upon the streets of Philadelphia. As Byrne and Balzano sift through suspects and clues, they unearth a shocking secret history: a legacy of malevolence and cold-blooded retribution dating back twenty years. And the farther they make their way up the body-strewn banks of the Schuylkill River, the closer they get to a villain from their worst nightmare, an evil as patient as it is merciless. 
Lightning fast and razor sharp, this jolting thriller from acclaimed author Richard Montanari coils back in time to deliver a fiendish mystery, a shattering revelation, and one hell of a wild ride. Lock your doors and turn up the lights. Montanari’s terrifying bedtime story will keep you up all night.

I remember that I liked the characters, but nothing about the mystery. Oops. 

Defending Jacob by William Landay: Goodreads synopsis: Andy Barber has been an assistant district attorney in his suburban Massachusetts county for more than twenty years. He is respected in his community, tenacious in the courtroom, and happy at home with his wife, Laurie, and son, Jacob. But when a shocking crime shatters their New England town, Andy is blindsided by what happens next: His fourteen-year-old son is charged with the murder of a fellow student.
Every parental instinct Andy has rallies to protect his boy. Jacob insists that he is innocent, and Andy believes him. Andy must. He’s his father. But as damning facts and shocking revelations surface, as a marriage threatens to crumble and the trial intensifies, as the crisis reveals how little a father knows about his son, Andy will face a trial of his own—between loyalty and justice, between truth and allegation, between a past he’s tried to bury and a future he cannot conceive.
Award-winning author William Landay has written the consummate novel of an embattled family in crisis—a suspenseful, character-driven mystery that is also a spellbinding tale of guilt, betrayal, and the terrifying speed at which our lives can spin out of control.

My review from Goodreads: Another good-ish book that could have been great, with a little more time or skill or editing or something. It's a slightly dated style of storytelling, to my mind, and early on there is some incisive musing about human nature. But the dialogue, particularly between the husband and wife regarding the son, and between the main character and his father, is just sort of shallow and repetitive, and could really have used more thought. The author may have been going for uncertainty as to Jacob's character, but instead he just seems insufficiently fleshed out. The ending was surprising but could have been devastating in more careful or skilled hands.


Pandemonium by Daryl Gregory: Goodreads synopsis: It is a world like our own in every respect . . . save one. In the 1950s, random acts of possession begin to occur. Ordinary men, women, and children are the targets of entities that seem to spring from the depths of the collective unconscious, pop-cultural avatars some call demons. There’s the Truth, implacable avenger of falsehood. The Captain, brave and self-sacrificing soldier. The Little Angel, whose kiss brings death, whether desired or not. And a string of others, ranging from the bizarre to the benign to the horrific.
As a boy, Del Pierce is possessed by the Hellion, an entity whose mischief-making can be deadly. With the help of Del’s family and a caring psychiatrist, the demon is exorcised . . . or is it? Years later, following a car accident, the Hellion is back, trapped inside Del’s head and clamoring to get out.
Del’s quest for help leads him to Valis, an entity possessing the science fiction writer formerly known as Philip K. Dick; to Mother Mariette, a nun who inspires decidedly unchaste feelings; and to the Human League, a secret society devoted to the extermination of demons. All believe that Del holds the key to the plague of possession–and its solution. But for Del, the cure may be worse than the disease.

My review from Goodreads: I was eager to read this, and then had trouble getting into it. I'm not sure why - the characters are likable and the family dynamic is completely realistic, but the events of the first third of the book or so seemed confusing to me, as if the author was having some trouble bending the events to fit the premise. The rest of the book picks up momentum, and the ending is quite affecting.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford: Goodreads synopsis: In the opening pages of Jamie Ford's stunning debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Henry Lee comes upon a crowd gathered outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle's Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has made an incredible discovery: the belongings of Japanese families, left when they were rounded up and sent to internment camps during World War II. As Henry looks on, the owner opens a Japanese parasol.
This simple act takes old Henry Lee back to the 1940s, at the height of the war, when young Henry's world is a jumble of confusion and excitement, and to his father, who is obsessed with the war in China and having Henry grow up American. While "scholarshipping" at the exclusive Rainier Elementary, where the white kids ignore him, Henry meets Keiko Okabe, a young Japanese American student. Amid the chaos of blackouts, curfews, and FBI raids, Henry and Keiko forge a bond of friendship - and innocent love - that transcends the long-standing prejudices of their Old World ancestors. And after Keiko and her family are swept up in the evacuations to the internment camps, she and Henry are left only with the hope that the war will end, and that their promise to each other will be kept.
Forty years later, Henry Lee is certain that the parasol belonged to Keiko. In the hotel's dark dusty basement he begins looking for signs of the Okabe family's belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot begin to measure. Now a widower, Henry is still trying to find his voice - words that might explain the actions of his nationalistic father; words that might bridge the gap between him and his modern, Chinese American son; words that might help him confront the choices he made many years ago.
Set during one of the most conflicted and volatile times in American history, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is an extraordinary story of commitment and enduring hope. In Henry and Keiko, Jamie Ford has created an unforgettable duo whose story teaches us of the power of forgiveness and the human heart.

Sweet. Almost too sweet, maybe a bit toothless. Might have done better as a YA novel. Wait, is it a YA novel? As a YA novel it's very good. Captures the flavour of the Japanese internment, but not much of the horror. Renders the miscommunication between generations, but wraps it up a touch too neatly. Lovely story, though, and good history lesson.

Crewel by Gennifer Albin: Goodreads synopsis: Incapable. Awkward. Artless. 

That’s what the other girls whisper behind her back. But sixteen-year-old Adelice Lewys has a secret: She wants to fail.
Gifted with the ability to weave time with matter, she’s exactly what the Guild is looking for, and in the world of Arras, being chosen to work the looms is everything a girl could want. It means privilege, eternal beauty, and being something other than a secretary. It also means the power to manipulate the very fabric of reality. But if controlling what people eat, where they live, and how many children they have is the price of having it all, Adelice isn’t interested.
Not that her feelings matter, because she slipped and used her hidden talent for a moment. Now she has one hour to eat her mom’s overcooked pot roast. One hour to listen to her sister’s academy gossip and laugh at her dad’s jokes. One hour to pretend everything’s okay. And one hour to escape.
Because tonight, they’ll come for her.

My review from Goodreads: In many ways it follows the formula of all the other trilogies of this ilk - heroine with unsuspected special talent, repressive regime, hints of subversiveness and coming revolution - but the weaving device is original and works well, and the heroine is very enjoyable, gutsy and wise-cracking and strong. I don't know why I'm such an idiot that I pick these up and don't realize until I'm halfway through that I'm headed for an 'end of Book One' type of ending. Sigh.


Somewhere Beneath Those Waves by Sarah Monette: Goodreads synopsis: The first non-themed collection of critically acclaimed author Sarah Monette''s best short fiction. To paraphrase Hugo-award winner Elizabeth Bear's introduction: "Monette's prose is lapidary, her ideas are fantastical and chilling. She has studied the craft of fantastic fiction from the pens of masters and mistresses of the genre. She is a poet of the awkward and the uncertain, exalter of the outcast, the outre, and the downright weird. There is nothing else quite like Sarah Monette's fiction.

My review from Goodreads: Wildly uneven. Some are mere vignettes, which bothers me when they are included in a short story collection, because they should be stories, dammit. I felt like I was being led down the garden path by someone who wanted to dazzle me with her labyrinthine prose for the first few entries, but then I read one that I actually liked, so I decided not to give up. The ones that I liked, I really liked. I'd be interested in some of her longer fiction.

Sweetness in the Belly by Camilla Gibb: Goodreads synopsis: Like Brick Lane and The Kite Runner, Camilla Gibb's widely praised new novel is a poignant and intensely atmospheric look beyond the stereotypes of Islam. After her hippie British parents are murdered, Lilly is raised at a Sufi shrine in Morocco. As a young woman she goes on pilgrimage to Harar, Ethiopia, where she teaches Qur'an to children and falls in love with an idealistic doctor. But even swathed in a traditional headscarf, Lilly can't escape being marked as a foreigner. Forced to flee Ethiopia for England, she must once again confront the riddle of who she is and where she belongs.

My review from Goodreads: It's interesting that Clara Callan is recommended on the Goodreads page for people who like this book, because they do strike me as very similar - a nicely-told story that richly evokes a specific time and place. The prose doesn't scream 'look at me' and there are no bells and whistles, but the characters are fully fleshed out and the setting is impeccable.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain: Goodreads synopsis: At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking, reading to partying; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over brainstorming in teams. Although they are often labeled "quiet," it is to introverts that we owe many of the great contributions to society--from van Gogh’s sunflowers to the invention of the personal computer.
Passionately argued, impressively researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet shows how dramatically we undervalue introverts, and how much we lose in doing so. Taking the reader on a journey from Dale Carnegie’s birthplace to Harvard Business School, from a Tony Robbins seminar to an evangelical megachurch, Susan Cain charts the rise of the Extrovert Ideal in the twentieth century and explores its far-reaching effects. She talks to Asian-American students who feel alienated from the brash, backslapping atmosphere of American schools. She questions the dominant values of American business culture, where forced collaboration can stand in the way of innovation, and where the leadership potential of introverts is often overlooked. And she draws on cutting-edge research in psychology and neuroscience to reveal the surprising differences between extroverts and introverts.
Perhaps most inspiring, she introduces us to successful introverts--from a witty, high-octane public speaker who recharges in solitude after his talks, to a record-breaking salesman who quietly taps into the power of questions. Finally, she offers invaluable advice on everything from how to better negotiate differences in introvert-extrovert relationships to how to empower an introverted child to when it makes sense to be a "pretend extrovert."
This extraordinary book has the power to permanently change how we see introverts and, equally important, how introverts see themselves.

I didn't like this quite as much as I expected to. There were certainly some interesting observations and persuasive insights, but the author herself was a little bit annoying, and the tenor of the book was too much "introverts rule, extroverts are too dumb and loud and golden-retriever-leaping-about to recognize it" and not enough "we need both". 

Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare: Goodreads synopsis: In a time when Shadowhunters are barely winning the fight against the forces of darkness, one battle will change the course of history forever. Welcome to the Infernal Devices trilogy, a stunning and dangerous prequel to the New York Times bestselling Mortal Instruments series.
The year is 1878. Tessa Gray descends into London’s dark supernatural underworld in search of her missing brother. She soon discovers that her only allies are the demon-slaying Shadowhunters—including Will and Jem, the mysterious boys she is attracted to. Soon they find themselves up against the Pandemonium Club, a secret organization of vampires, demons, warlocks, and humans. Equipped with a magical army of unstoppable clockwork creatures, the Club is out to rule the British Empire, and only Tessa and her allies can stop them.

Meh. Yeah. I dunno. The time and place and steampunk elements are cool. The clockwork army is neat. I like the Shadowhunters device. But the tortured love triangle is SO rote and formula - well, okay, the friendship between Will and Jem makes it a little different, but the whole fact of Will being cruel to Tessa because he loves her but some deep dark secret means he can't be with her was positively vomitorious. 

Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare: Goodreads synopsis: In magical Victorian London, orphan Tessa found safety with the Shadowhunters, until traitors betray her to the Magister. He wants to marry her, but so do self-destructive Will and fiercely devoted Jem. Mage Magnus Bane returns to help them. Secrets to her parentage lie with the mist-shrouded Yorkshire Institute's aged manager Alyosius Starkweather.

Why yes, yes I did read this one too. More of the same. The deep dark secret was - well, okay, legitimately deep and dark. The love triangle has reached ludicrous proportions. Still kept my attention. 

The Sixty-Eight Rooms by Marianna Malone: Goodreads synopsis: Almost everybody who has grown up in Chicago knows about the Thorne Rooms. Housed in the Children’s Galleries of the Chicago Art Institute, they are a collection of 68 exquisitely crafted miniature rooms made in the 1930s by Mrs. James Ward Thorne. Each of the 68 rooms is designed in the style of a different historic period, and every detail is perfect, from the knobs on the doors to the candles in the candlesticks. Some might even say, the rooms are magic.
Imagine—what if you discovered a key that allowed you to shrink so that you were small enough to sneak inside and explore the rooms’ secrets? What if you discovered that others had done so before you? And that someone had left something important behind?
Fans of Chasing Vermeer, The Doll People, and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler will be swept up in the magic of this exciting art adventure!

My review from Goodreads: Two and a half stars. Sweet, slight. (I think maybe I was a little hard on this. It's classed for eight and up. What did I expect, exactly? Or maybe I shouldn't second-guess myself. If I remember correctly, the writing was simply NOT as good as E.L. Konigsburg's, even though the plot was cute. So THERE).

Prized by Caragh M. O'Brien: Goodreads synopsis: Striking out into the wasteland with nothing but her baby sister, a handful of supplies, and a rumor to guide her, sixteen-year-old midwife Gaia Stone survives only to be captured by the people of Sylum, a dystopian society where women rule the men who drastically outnumber them, and a kiss is a crime. In order to see her sister again, Gaia must submit to their strict social code, but how can she deny her sense of justice, her curiosity, and everything in her heart that makes her whole?

My review from Goodreads: Interesting move, creating a whole new setting from the first book's. Isn't Gaia Stone a fantastic name? Suffers a bit from Insurgent Syndrome, i.e. independent sympathetic heroine becoming a bit annoying and doing inexplicably dumb stuff. And the romantic square, because a triangle wasn't complicated and contrived enough? And the wildly improbably conceit of a small number of women completely dominating a large number of men? 

Seriously, WHY does everything have to be a trilogy?

Dexter is Delicious by Jeff Lindsay: Goodreads synopsis: Dexter Morgan's happy homicidal life is undergoing some major changes. He's always live by a single golden rule - he kills only people who deserve it. But the Miami blood-spatter analyst has recently become a daddy - to an eight-pound curiosity named Lily Anne - and strangely, Dex's dark urges seem to have left him. Is he ready to become an overprotective father? To pick up soft teddy bears instead of his trusty knife, duct tape, and fishing wire? What's a serial killer to do?
Then Dexter is summoned to investigate the disappearance of an eighteen-year-old girl who seems to have been abducted by a bizarre group...who just may be vampires...and - possibly - cannibals. Nothing like the familiar hum of his day job to get Dexter's creative dark juices flowing again. Assisting his bull-in-a-china-shop detective sister, Deborah, Dex wades into an investigation that gets more disturbing by the moment. And to compound the complication of Dexter's ever-more-complicated life, a person from his past suddenly reappears...moving dangerously close to his home turf and threatening to destroy the one thing tat has maintained Dexter's pretend human cover and kept him out of the electric chair: his new family.
From an uncharacteristically racy encounter in the Florida Everglades to the most bizarre fringe nightclub in the anything-goes Miami scene,Dexter Is Delicious is an ingenious journey through the dark recesses of Dexter's lovably cold soul. Jeff Lindsay is once again at the top of his game, with this new novel that will thrill fans of his bestselling series.

I pick one of these up periodically, just to savour the delicious weirdness of a mystery series wherein the tv show is actually better - more nuanced, more profound, more substantial - than the books. Oh, the books are diverting, amusing, fun enough. But if you were going to consume one or the other, I'd steer you towards the show. Actually, SPOILER ALERT

I like the way the books handled Dexter's sister finding out about his pastime a little better than how the show did it. But I hate how dumb Rita is in the books. I loved her in the show, and in the books she comes across as borderline mentally challenged. Rita's kids being as sociopathic and murderous as their stepfather is amusing in the books, but wouldn't translate well to television.

Off the Grid by P.J. Tracy: Goodreads synopsis: PJ Tracy, author of top 10 bestsellers "Play to Kill", "Snow Blind" and "Dead Run", returns with "Two Evils", a brand new, nerve-shredding Gino and Magozzi thriller that will keep you up well in to the night. When a missing teenage girl is found dead in a parking lot, her throat slashed, it's only the beginning. The discovery leads police directly to the bodies of two young immigrants killed in their run down apartment. The next morning three more men are found dead in the street nearby. Welcome to summer in the city. None of it makes any sense. But as Minneapolis Police Department homicide detectives Gino and Magozzi struggle to establish what's happened, they realise that the deaths may not be as random as they first appear. Nor, it seems, were they simply an isolated, freak twenty-four hours of violence in the Twin Cities. As the killings continue, Gino and Magozzi turn to maverick computer analyst Grace McBride for help. But Grace's contribution to the investigation depends on her staying alive long enough to provide it. And as the evidence mounts, piece by piece, it reveals terrifying intent. Ultimately, it forces the two detectives to make a dreadful choice: down which path does the lesser of two evils lie..."Two Evils" offers all the knife-edge plotting, rich characterisation and crackling dialogue PJ Tracy fans have come to expect from a thriller writer at the top of their game.

My review on Goodreads: None of the later books have captured the energy and excitement of the first three for me, but this one was better than the last one or two. (Strangely enough, this mother/daughter writing team seem to me to have STARTED the series at the top of their game. Their first book was outstanding, their second I remember as one of the best mysteries I've ever read, and the third (the first one I read) was great. Since then I just get the feeling that they're kind of phoning it in. They don't seem to know what to do with Grace and Leo, although they were doing fine early on. The books aren't bad, they're just sort of pale imitations when compared with the early ones).

Walls Within Walls by Maureen Sherry: Goodreads synopsis: After their father, a video-game inventor, strikes it rich, the Smithfork kids find they hate their new life. They move from their cozy Brooklyn neighborhood to a swanky apartment on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue. They have no friends, a nanny who takes the place of their parents, and a school year looming ahead that promises to be miserable.
And then, one day, Brid, CJ, and Patrick discover an astonishing secret about their apartment: The original owner, the deceased multimillionaire Mr. Post, long ago turned the apartment itself into a giant puzzle containing a mysterious book and hidden panels—a puzzle that, with some luck, courage, and brainpower, will lead to discovering the Post family fortune. Unraveling the mystery causes them to race through today's New York City—and to uncover some long-hidden secrets of the past.
Maureen Sherry's page-turning debut novel is filled with adventure, intrigue, and heart.

Cute and fun, with some history and an obvious affection for New York City. A solid three stars, maybe three and a half. I'll make Eve read it if she ever gets done with Percy Jackson books. 


Kindred by Octavia E. Butler: Goodreads synopsis: Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana's life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.

My review from Goodreads: I started it, then put it down for a while because it wasn't living up to the other books of hers I had read. It seemed like more of a thought experiment about what it would be like to be a contemporary black woman transported back to the days of slavery than a true novel. But then I picked it up again, and I think I read in the meantime that she was quite young when she wrote it as a workshop project, and in this light I am more impressed by it. It is quite fascinating to contemplate whether it would be worse to be a slave with no knowledge of anything else and no hope that things would change, or to be forced to act subservient out of self-defense when it isn't your reality (although racism still exists). The complexity of Rufus's character, and Dana's feelings about him, is quite maturely done, although it sometimes stretched the bonds of credulity that she could still forgive him for increasingly inhuman behaviour. Or maybe it was just human weakness. Clearly, the book did make me think, so that's a good thing.(If you're interested in reading Butler, I would recommend Parable of the Sower or Fledgling before this: her short stories are also excellent). 

Mind's Eye by Hakan Nesser: Goodreads synopsis: The highly anticipated first novel in the Inspector Van Veeteren series in now available in English. At last, American readers will be able to enjoy, from its very beginnings, this addictive series by one of Europe’s most beloved and best-selling crime writers.
Chief Inspector Van Veeteren knew that murder cases were never as open-and-shut as this one: Janek Mitter woke one morning with a brutal hangover and discovered his wife of three months lying facedown in the bathtub, dead. With only the flimsiest excuse as his defense, he is found guilty of a drunken crime of passion and imprisoned in a mental institution.
But Van Veeteren’s suspicions about the identity of the killer are borne out when Mitter also becomes a murder victim. Now the chief inspector launches a full-scale investigation of the two slayings. But it may only be the unspoken secrets of the dead–revealed in a mysterious letter that Mitter wrote shortly before his death–that will finally allow Van Veeteren to unmask the killer and expose the shocking root of this sordid violence.

My review from Goodreads: I think I read the second or third in this series first, and this wasn't nearly as good. Van Veeteren was intelligent and insightful in the one I read - in this one he comes across as more cartoonishly grumpy. It was still well plotted and interestingly offbeat - I will probably read the others in the series. But the first one I read was more reminiscent of Fred Vargas's Adamsberg books, which I adore. If I had read this one first, I probably wouldn't have continued. 

The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes: Goodreads synopsis: THE GIRL WHO WOULDN'T DIE HUNTS THE KILLER WHO SHOULDN'T EXIST.
The future is not as loud as war, but it is relentless. It has a terrible fury all its own." 
Harper Curtis is a killer who stepped out of the past. Kirby Mazrachi is the girl who was never meant to have a future.
Kirby is the last shining girl, one of the bright young women, burning with potential, whose lives Harper is destined to snuff out after he stumbles on a House in Depression-era Chicago that opens on to other times. 
At the urging of the House, Harper inserts himself into the lives of the shining girls, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. He's the ultimate hunter, vanishing into another time after each murder, untraceable-until one of his victims survives.
Determined to bring her would-be killer to justice, Kirby joins theChicago Sun-Times to work with the ex-homicide reporter, Dan Velasquez, who covered her case. Soon Kirby finds herself closing in on the impossible truth . . . 
THE SHINING GIRLS is a masterful twist on the serial killer tale: a violent quantum leap featuring a memorable and appealing heroine in pursuit of a deadly criminal.

My review from Goodreads: Three and a half, I guess. Interesting plotline, I loved Kirby, and I loved the way all the shining girls were completely fleshed out and given whole, deep stories even though they were about to be killed. I wanted more about the house, though, rather than just 'this is the way it is', and Harper could have been a more complex character who struggled more with the demands of the house. (This was a little disappointing purely because when I read the reviews and the synopsis it sounded SO COOL and the reality fell just ever-so-slightly short. It reminded me of the tv miniseries The Lost Room, which I really enjoyed). 


Zoo City by Lauren Beukes: Goodreads synopsis: Zinzi has a Sloth on her back, a dirty 419 scam habit and a talent for finding lost things. But when a little old lady turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheck, she’s forced to take on her least favourite kind of job – missing persons.
Being hired by reclusive music producer Odi Huron to find a teenybop pop star should be her ticket out of Zoo City, the festering slum where the criminal underclass and their animal companions live in the shadow of hell’s undertow.
Instead, it catapults Zinzi deeper into the maw of a city twisted by crime and magic, where she’ll be forced to confront the dark secrets of former lives – including her own.

Three and a half stars would be more precise. You know how when you read a lot of books, a lot of them kind of blend together in an amorphous mass? Kind of like if you travel a lot to similar places? This book made me feel like I was reading a DIFFERENT book, the same way going to Morocco made me feel like I was visiting a DIFFERENT country from mine. There are long sections where I suddenly realized that nothing had happened that was really germane to the plot, and yet it all was strongly evocative of Zinzi's life and reality, and I kind of loved her. The whole concept of the penance animals was really well-done too - reminded me of the daemons from The Golden Compass, but in an analagous cool way, not a derivative one. The Shining Girls might have been her breakout book, but I think I actually liked this one a little more. 

And now let's slap a PART ONE on this so we can all get some sleep. TO BE CONTINUED...

Books 2013 - Final Total and Two-Star Books

Here we go! Books I read in 2013 (that I remembered to record on Goodreads - otherwise they're quite possibly lost to the ether forever). 111 seems to be the grand total, compared with -- *clicks around madly looking for last year's post* -- geez, 144 last year. I've been positively slacking. I blame baseball (Little League World Series Diary).

I always pause and reflect on whether it's worth posting about the one-and-two-star books - if people are reading these posts for recommendations, it seems kind of silly. But then I looked at the Goodreads reviews for a book I downloaded to my ipad on a whim on New Year's Eve Eve and then stayed up way too late reading, and it really illustrated how different people can have completely different reactions to the same book, and it doesn't denote a lack of intelligence or one person being more right than another (unless we're talking about, say, this (The Shack), or maybe this (Fifty Shades of Grey) - so many people, so, so wrong). So I post these inviting and welcoming disagreement.

Swimming Home by Deborah Levy: Goodreads synopsis: Swimming Home is a subversive page-turner, a merciless gaze at the insidious harm that depression can have on apparently stable, well-turned-out people. Set in a summer villa, the story is tautly structured, taking place over a single week in which a group of beautiful, flawed tourists in the French Riviera come loose at the seams. Deborah Levy's writing combines linguistic virtuosity, technical brilliance and a strong sense of what it means to be alive. Swimming Home represents a new direction for a major writer. In this book, the wildness and the danger are all the more powerful for resting just beneath the surface. With its deep psychology, biting humour and deceptively light surface, it wears its darkness lightly.

Damn. I was hoping I'd written something down on Goodreads, but other than categorizing it under both "fiction" and "hellacious waste of time", there's nothing. It was sent to me by Trish Osuch from House of Anansi, and I think it's the only book she's ever sent me that I didn't like. I just remember that it was a dismal mess - a bunch of unlikable people trying to sound profound and instead sounding self-obsessed and ridiculous. It had what seemed to me to be a kind of seventies vibe - a lot of drinking, self-destructive behaviour and adultery in full view of any children who happened to be around, under the guise of narcissistic adults needing the freedom to 'find themselves'. I gave it one star, which I rarely do.

The Quarry by Johan Theorin: My review on Goodreads: It's called 'The Quarry' in English, but that version

doesn't seem to be on here. I found this deeply disappointing compared to the first two books I read by this author, which were well-written, character-driven, satisfyingly dark and labyrinthine with a great sense of place. The characterization here seemed weak (I know people react differently to the same situations, but Per's behaviour, considering his daughter was in the hospital with a serious illness, seemed extremely odd), the twists were more like mild kinks and the whole thing just seemed kind of flat.

The Vanishing Point by Val McDermid: Goodreads synopsis: One of the finest crime writers we have, Val McDermid’s heart-stopping thrillers have won her international renown and a devoted following of readers worldwide. In The Vanishing Point, she kicks off a terrifying thriller with a nightmare scenario: a parent who loses her child in a bustling international airport.
Young Jimmy Higgins is snatched from an airport security checkpoint while his guardian watches helplessly from the glass inspection box. But this is no ordinary abduction, as Jimmy is no ordinary child. His mother was Scarlett, a reality TV star who, dying of cancer and alienated from her unreliable family, entrusted the boy to the person she believed best able to give him a happy, stable life: her ghost writer, Stephanie Harker. Assisting the FBI in their attempt to recover the missing boy, Stephanie reaches into the past to uncover the motive for the abduction. Has Jimmy been taken by his own relatives? Is Stephanie’s obsessive ex-lover trying to teach her a lesson? Has one of Scarlett’s stalkers come back to haunt them all?
A powerful, grippingly-plotted thriller that will keep readers on the edge of their seats until the end, The Vanishing Point showcases McDermid at the height of her talent.

My review on Goodreads: I find her to be a wildly uneven writer. Her best work is really good, tight and controlled and with some depth and insight, and her Tony Hill and Carol Jordan series contains brilliant characterization. This is one of the 'what the heck' entries in my book - it starts out interestingly enough, but becomes increasingly hollow and unlikely. Mildly diverting at best.

Criminal by Karin Slaughter: Goodreads synopsis: Will Trent is a brilliant agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Newly in love, he is beginning to put a difficult past behind him. Then a local college student goes missing, and Will is inexplicably kept off the case by his supervisor and mentor, deputy director Amanda Wagner. Will cannot fathom Amanda’s motivation until the two of them literally collide in an abandoned orphanage they have both been drawn to for different reasons. Decades before, when his father was imprisoned for murder, this was Will’s home. It appears that the case that launched Amanda’s career forty years ago has suddenly come back to life—and it involves the long-held mystery of Will’s birth and parentage. Now these two dauntless investigators will each need to face down demons from the past if they are to prevent an even greater terror from being unleashed.

I had read a few of Karin Slaughter's Grant County series and found them passable, if forgettable. The first book in her Will Trent series seemed to me like it was written by an entirely different author - it was darker, much deeper and more complex. Then she brought a character from the old series into the new - Sara Linton, the not-quite-simpering but slightly-too-good-to-be-true doctor -  and suddenly the quality seems to have fallen off again. Maybe I just liked Will Trent better when he was tortured and messed-up instead of being soppily in love, but it seems to drag down the whole book rather than just the romantic passages. It's perplexing. 

One Breath Away by Heather Gudenkauf: Goodreads synopsis: In her most emotionally charged novel to date, New York Timesbestselling author Heather Gudenkauf explores the unspoken events that shape a community, the ties between parents and their children and how the fragile normalcy of our everyday life is so easily shattered.
In the midst of a sudden spring snowstorm, an unknown man armed with a gun walks into an elementary school classroom. Outside the school, the town of Broken Branch watches and waits.
Officer Meg Barrett holds the responsibility for the town's children in her hands. Will Thwaite, reluctantly entrusted with the care of his two grandchildren by the daughter who left home years earlier, stands by helplessly and wonders if he has failed his child again. Trapped in her classroom, Evelyn Oliver watches for an opportunity to rescue the children in her care. And thirteen-year-old Augie Baker, already struggling with the aftermath of a terrible accident that has brought her to Broken Branch, will risk her own safety to protect her little brother.
As tension mounts with each passing minute, the hidden fears and grudges of the small town are revealed as the people of Broken Branch race to uncover the identity of the stranger who holds their children hostage.

My review on Goodreads: Can't think how to frame exactly what I think. I was bothered by the lack of convincing explanation for Holly's estrangement from her parents - it kind of seemed like they were pretty good people and she was just kind of a bitch, but we're supposed to consider her a sympathetic character. Also, the demeanour of the gunman before we know who he is doesn't at all match up with his behaviour afterwards. I liked the schoolteacher but overall everything was just a little too pat. It seemed a little "movie of the week". Or maybe I'm just a bitch.

Dreams and Shadows by C. Robert Cargill: Goodreads synopsis: A brilliantly crafted modern tale from

acclaimed film critic and screenwriter C. Robert Cargill—part Neil Gaiman, part Guillermo Del Toro, part William S. Burroughs—that charts the lives of two boys from their star-crossed childhood in the realm of magic and mystery to their anguished adulthoods.
There is another world than our own—one no closer than a kiss and one no further than our nightmares—where all the stuff of which dreams are made is real and magic is just a step away. But once you see that world, you will never be the same.
Dreams and Shadows takes us beyond this veil. Once bold explorers and youthful denizens of this magical realm, Ewan is now an Austin musician who just met his dream girl, and Colby, meanwhile, cannot escape the consequences of an innocent wish. But while Ewan and Colby left the Limestone Kingdom as children, it has never forgotten them. And in a world where angels relax on rooftops, whiskey-swilling genies argue metaphysics with foul-mouthed wizards, and monsters in the shadows feed on fear, you can never outrun your fate.
Dreams and Shadows is a stunning and evocative debut about the magic and monsters in our world and in our self.

My review on Goodreads: First of all, what is with people who feel the need to use a first initial and middle name? If you don't like your first name, just use your damned middle name and jettison the first one altogether. Do you expect people to call you "C Robert" in conversation? No, because THAT WOULD BE DOUCHEY! Okay, the book:  "Failure to launch" is the phrase that keeps coming to mind. I started this a while ago, put it down, and finished most of it yesterday - I should admit that I have a pinched nerve in my neck so I was in severe pain for most of the time I was reading, in case that had an effect on my mood. It seems like the requisite elements are all in place, but instead of achieving any kind of smooth dynamic they just grind together uncomfortably. The beginning is interesting, if horribly sad, but then everything is broken into chunks by the 'scholarly' descriptions of fey folk and it all feels disjointed. It's hard to care about the characters because the depth just isn't there.

The Betrayal of Trust by Susan Hill: Goodreads synopsis: Freak weather and flash floods all over southern England. Half of Lafferton is afloat. A landslip on the Moor has closed the bypass and, as the rain slowly drains away, a shallow grave - and a skeleton - are exposed. The remains are identified as those of missing teenager, Harriet Lowther, last seen 16 years ago.

My review on Goodreads: Profoundly disappointing entry in a series I usually really admire. It all seemed incredibly contrived, and wholly lacking in the usually deft characterization and complex plotting. The euthanasia/dementia subplot was heavyhanded. The ending was abrupt and unsatisfying.

I was surprised to see that I had given a Susan Hill novel a two-star rating when I was composing this post. Now I remember why I did. 

The Bone Bed by Patricia Cornwell: Goodreads synopsis: In Alberta, Canada, an eminent paleontologist disappears from a dinosaur dig site, and at the Cambridge Forensic Center, Kay Scarpetta receives a grisly communication that gives her a dreadful reason to suspect this may become her next case. Then, with shocking speed, events begin to unfold.
A body recovered from Boston Harbor reveals bizarre trace evidence hinting of a link to other unsolved cases that seem to have nothing in common. Who is behind all this? And whom can Scarpetta trust? Her lead investigator, Pete Marino, and FBI agent husband, Benton Wesley, are both unhappy with her because of personnel changes at the CFC, and her niece Lucy has become even more secretive than usual. Scarpetta fears she just may be on her own this time against an enormously powerful and cunning enemy who seems impossible to defeat.

Why do I ever go back to Patricia Cornwell? Her first few books were really good. Now I just wish some editor would stop her. There is no personal growth in any of the characters, there is an increasing and desperate-seeming need to make Scarpetta sexually attractive to any nearby male, Marino is just a hopeless mess, and worst of all, the mysteries are tepid and the writing is indifferent. 
Revolution 19 by Gregg Rosenblum: Goodreads synopsis: Twenty years ago, the robots designed to fight our wars abandoned the battlefields. Then they turned their weapons on us.
Only a few escaped the robot revolution of 2071. Kevin, Nick, and Cass are lucky —they live with their parents in a secret human community in the woods. Then their village is detected and wiped out. Hopeful that other survivors have been captured by bots, the teens risk everything to save the only people they have left in the world—by infiltrating a city controlled by their greatest enemies.
Revolution 19 is a cinematic thriller unlike anything else. With a dynamic cast of characters, this surefire blockbuster has everything teen readers want—action, drama, mystery, and romance. Written by debut novelist Gregg Rosenblum, this gripping story shouldn’t be missed.

I thought this was only an e-book, which might have excused some of the terrible writing, cheesy dialogue and the plot lacking in anything resembling credibility. But it wasn't. You know what that means? That means THERE IS NO EXCUSE.
13 1/2 by Nevada Barr: Goodreads synopsis: In 1971, the state of Minnesota was rocked by the "Butcher Boy" incident, as coverage of a family brutally murdered by one of their own swept across newspapers and television screens nationwide.
Now, in present-day New Orleans, Polly Deschamps finds herself at yet another lonely crossroads in her life. No stranger to tragedy, Polly was a runaway at the age of fifteen, escaping a nightmarish Mississippi childhood.
Lonely, that is, until she encounters architect Marshall Marchand. Polly is immediately smitten. She finds him attractive, charming, and intelligent. Marshall, a lifelong bachelor, spends most of his time with his brother Danny. When Polly’s two young daughters from her previous marriage are likewise taken with Marshall, she marries him. However, as Polly begins to settle into her new life, she becomes uneasy about her husband’s increasing dark moods, fearing that Danny may be influencing Marshall in ways she cannot understand.
But what of the ominous prediction by a New Orleans tarot card reader, who proclaims that Polly will murder her husband? What, if any, is the Marchands' connection to the infamous "Butcher Boy" multiple homicide? And could Marshall and his eccentric brother be keeping a dark secret from Polly, one that will shatter the happiness she has forever prayed for?

My review on Goodreads: Starts out fairly interestingly, then quickly devolves into a lazy, silly, shallow, embarrassing mess. What are clearly meant to be deep, dark secrets are glaringly obvious to anyone with half a brain. Far inferior to the Anna Pigeon series.

InterWorld by Neil Gaiman: Goodreads synopsis: Joey Harker isn't a hero.
In fact, he's the kind of guy who gets lost in his own house.But then one day, Joey gets really lost. He walks straight out of his world and into another dimension.Joey's walk between the worlds makes him prey to two terrible forces, armies of magic and science who will do anything to harness his power to travel between dimensions.When he sees the evil those forces are capable of, Joey makes the only possible choice: to join an army of his own, an army of versions of himself from different dimensions who all share his amazing power and who are all determined to fight to save the worlds.
Master storyteller Neil Gaiman and Emmy Award-winning science-fiction writer Michael Reaves team up to create a dazzling tale of magic, science, honor, and the destiny of one very special boy and all the others like him.

My review on Goodreads: It was meant to be a tv script, and reads that way. The Gaiman imagination is here, but it's very simplistic and seems aimed at a very young audience.

Promised by Caragh O'Brien: Goodreads synopsis: After defying the ruthless Enclave, surviving the wasteland, and upending the rigid matriarchy of Sylum, Gaia Stone now faces her biggest challenge ever.  She must lead the people of Sylum back to the Enclave and persuade the Protectorat to grant them refuge from the wasteland.  In Gaia's absence, the Enclave has grown more cruel, more desperate to experiment on mothers from outside the wall, and now the stakes of cooperating or rebelling have never been higher.  Is Gaia ready, as a leader, to sacrifice what--or whom--she loves most?

This Just seemed really rushed and neither the plot nor the dialogue really stood up under close scrutiny. Gaia constantly put herself in danger, which of course necessitated other people having to put themselves in danger to rescue her, without due thought or reasoning. Her jealousy about one of her cast-off suitors becoming involved with someone else seemed silly also - not that she would feel it, but that she wouldn't recognize it as unfair and also somewhat unimportant, given that she had a few other things to think about as the leader of a people who were in danger of being completely wiped out. This didn't at all bear out the promise of the first book in the trilogy, and even the second held more interest. I understand that it can be difficult to craft an appropriate ending, but in my opinion the author should have kept on trying. 

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Now. I was going to have a couple of blog friends look this over and ask their opinion about a couple of technical details, but then I thought, why not ask everyone who reads and cares to weigh in? I've put the Goodreads synopses and any reviews that I posted on Goodreads in the body of the post so you don't have to click over to read them; do you find this agreeable, or does it clutter up the post too much? 

Three-star reviews and then four-and-five stars forthcoming. 

Happy new year!