Jason
This was focused less on the dispatcher aspect of series and more on the mystery element. That's not to say that the former was chucked out the window, it just didn't form the central element of the plot like in the first book. I'm fine with this because the plot was good enough to carry its own weight.
3.5 stars.
Was surprised by this one. Going by the opinion of Ken Follett himself, I didn't expect Paper Money to be a good novel, but it was. The ending was somewhat unsatisfactory, which is why the novel isn't getting a fourth star, but otherwise, I don't regret reading it.
Amazing. I went into thinking that because of the film, the might be over-hyped.
Dear reader, it wasn't. Admittedly, I haven't read much literary fiction so I don't have a barometer to measure The English Patient against, but I have to say that this is one of the finer novels I've read.
4.5 stars.
3.75 stars. It was fine. Not bad, but didn't blow my socks off and into the next room. The last bit is meandering and the constant twists get tiring.
File this under “Books I Bought Years Ago and Should Have Read Years Ago” because I really should have. A fine first entry that makes me want to pick up the next book in the series. 3.8 stars.
Five stars, six stars, all the stars! Loved this book and the characters. I almost cried twice in a span of 30 minutes at one point. If you've read this book, you can probably guess which parts and why.
Understatement of the century, but Raymond Chandler had a way with sentences like a Renaissance sculptor had a way with marble.
Fair warning: The book does contain some homophobic slurs. Not really surprising given that it was published in 1939.
When I pulled it off the shelf at my local library, I did not expect this book to be as wild of a ride as it turned out to be. Holy smokes, this woman survived a plane crash on top of the mountain, didn't freeze to death, then climbed down the dang mountain to safety. Near the end of the book, she says that in total, she walked like twenty miles.
And she did it while wearing a skit, leather boots with heels, a WWI era flying cap, and as she notes several times, no underwear.
Lauren Elder makes Rambo look like a wuss.
Did I spent 99 cents on an eight page short story? Yes. Was it silly to spend almost a dollar on an eight page short story? Yes. Would I do it again in a heartbeat? Yes. Would I buy Martha Wells's grocery list if she wrote “The Murderbot Diaries” on it? Yes.
Minor spoilers ahead:
A book that started out strong, stumbled a bit, and ended okay. Not a bad book - indeed, it was quite enjoyable - it just hits a point where certain characters get on your nerves and it the story feels overly long, as if Michael Crichton was padding the story to meet the word count.
It was interesting to compare the book with the Steven Spielberg flick. There were differences, obviously, but it was fun to see what scenes made it into the movie. I like that in the book, John Hammond is far from being the nice, likeable character that the late great Richard Attenborough portrayed. In the novel, he's just an absolute b*stard and so blatantly out of touch with reality and the consequences of his actions (like funding the creation of dinosaurs and populating an entire island with them), that you'll almost gleefully enjoy his demise.
On the flipside, however, Crichton very obviously did not know how to write little girls. I say this because by three quarters of the way into the novel, you'll want to throw Lexi to the velociraptors yourself! In the movie, she's a fine, likeable character. In the book, she's almost a non-entity for most of the book whereupon she suddenly and inexplicably turns into an absolute brat. Seriously, there's a scene where she refuses to give her older brother (their ages are flipped around in the movie) a radio because "I found it first" and that trumps him needing to call for help. At that point, I started wishing that she'd either go back to plaintively complaining about being hungry, or that one of those aforementioned velociraptors would show up and eat her. Sounds terrible, but holy cow, she's bad.
All in all, I would still recommend this to anybody who wants to read a techno-thriller based on science run amok.
That was fun. The plot twist was unexpected, which is always nice. The dialogue was witty, the writing fine, which coming from the pen of Lawrence Block is to be expected.
I honestly related to the main character a lot more than I'm comfortable admitting. Sayaka Murata really captured what it's like to feel “disconnected” from society and that's something I haven't come across in a book before.
Loved this like Sibil likes $1 margarita nights. I laughed my ass off and cheered for Laurel. I hope Felicia Day writes more and soon.
3.5 stars
It was a good thriller, but there were certain oddities that stuck out. For example, the main character, John Knox, apparently had a bottomless pocket full of baseball caps and sunglasses because at one point, he was switching to new ones every several blocks as he walked.
His idea of “questioning” dudes basically consisted of hitting them in the crotch until their nuts and tonsils traded places.
Interesting and engaging. I have to wonder what the final product would have been like had Michelle McNamara lived. I equally wonder what her reaction would have been if she had been alive when the Golden State Killer was finally arrested.
3.25 stars.
I first came across this series after seeing ads for it on a webcomic back in the mid-00s. Unfortunately, I could never recall the name, so it wasn't until a couple of weeks ago that I finally stumbled across it while looking up space opera books on Amazon. Needless to say, I decided to finally read it.
It was good. The writing isn't great, but seeing as how this was self-published and one of the author's earliest ones, I'm not going to criticize it. I still plan on reading the next book in the series.
Great book. I liked how it's split into three sections: the first is basically a history of the Osage and the many trials and hardships wrongly imposed upon them. The second focuses on the FBI's investigation into the murders, which would put just about any mystery novelist to shame with all the ups and downs and twists and turns. Lastly, the third section is about David Grann's visit to Osage land and how his own investigations unexpectedly turns up evidence that the crimes against the Osage were much, much worse than what the FBI unearthed.
I often use the phrase “didn't blow my socks off” to describe books that are good, but not outstandingly good, and this aptly describes The Bormann Testament. Did I enjoy reading it? Yes. Is it going to be a book of the year for me? Nope, but that's fine. If I hadn't liked it, I would have DNF'd it and moved on.
The idea of Martin Bormann - Hitler's private secretary and right-hand man - surviving the war and trying to sell a tell-all memoir is interesting, but also an anachronism in retrospect. In reality, Bormann died just after Hitler painted a wall with his brains and before Berlin fell to the Soviets, but at the time this novel came out, it was unclear whether he was alive or dead. His remains wouldn't be found until 1975 and definitely identified via DNA testing in 1998. Of course, if it was known that he was dead, then this novel wouldn't exist.
I'm not quite sure how I feel about the main character, Paul Chavasse. He was not in any sense a James Bond clone. In fact, he would probably only qualify as one of those 00 agents that were sometimes mentioned as being killed in the movies. He was often caught flatfooted and found himself being rescued by one of the other characters in the novel. It's not really a surprise, then, that Jack Higgins only wrote six books starring Chavasse (the last being in 1969) and moved on to other characters.
Having said that, I might continue the series, provided I can get my hands on the next book in the series.
3.5 stars.