Holly
I'm not putting a rating to this book because it's unfair to review a book you didn't finish. The fact I didn't complete it should speak volumes on its own.
I commend Anne McCaffrey's children's efforts in their attempt to continue her work, but it simply isn't, and never will be, the same without her.
I was surprised by “Hold Me Closer, Necromancer”. Quite frankly, going in, my expectations weren't high. In fact, this book had been teetering mid-way through the stack of TBRs for a while.
When I finally picked it up, I nearly set it down again permenantly when I realized Sam's (main character) full name was Samhain. I sneered in disgust. The author hadn't even done their research. As any good Gael will tell you Samhain is not pronounced “sam-hane”, more along the lines of “sah-win”.
Sorry to be such a pronunciation snob, but that sort of crap bugs me.
Fortunately, before I could throw the book across the room the author redeemed themselves with a plausible explanation in the next paragraph. At that point I gave up the struggle and let myself become completely engrossed.
Sam is a loveable slacker - a skateboarding college dropout working the fast-food career track. That is, until he has a run in with the local necromancer at which point Sam's entire life goes from meh to worse in the space of 48 hours.
One of the other reviewers said they pictured Sam looking like Llyod Dobler from the 80s movie Say Anything, and now I can't get the visual out of my head. Slap a hoody on him, give him a skateboard, put him in Seattle, and pit him against an evil-dead-raising SOB, and you have Sam LaCoix.
I'm looking forward to reading more about Sam and crew. If the first book is anything to judge by, it's going to be an interesting ride.
Overall Wicked Autumn is a good book with excellent character development. I want to read more about Max Tudor and the village of Nether Monkslip...
Can you hear the “but” coming?
...buuuuuut, compared to her three previous St. Just books (Death of a Cosy Writer, Death and the Lit Chick, Death at the Alma Mater) it fell short in the actual mystery department. The St. Just books rate high on my list of favorite mysteries, and Wicked Autumn is still a fun read. It's just not the same quality, plot-wise, as the other three.
I would highly recommend the St. Just books and save this one for reading a chapter at a time right before bed. Or on a rainy afternoon with tea and scones.
There are several interesting plot developments in the 3rd book of the Morganville Vampire series, but (maybe it's because I've read the first three books in less than 3 days) the premise is beginning to pall. Also, the main character is starting sound like an extremely whiney, sixteen year old. Maybe she has been all along, but by the end of the third book it's beginning to bug me.
And SERIOUSLY??!, what the hell do you not understand about NOT GOING OUT OF THE HOUSE AFTER DARK??? REALLY??! Is a run to the convienence store for gum really that important? Especially since by the third book there is definitely a pattern being established; namely, you go out after dark, something horrible happens. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
For a NancyDrewGirlGenius, Claire can be phenomenally stupid at times. It makes me want to smack her and force her to watch 24 hours of horror movies back-to-back so she will get a clue. Anyone who has ever watched an episode of Scooby Doo knows that you never go down to the basement in your underpants, never leave the closet door open when you turn out the bedroom light, never go out into the woods after dark, never open the door to a stranger who's carrying a chainsaw, wearing a mask, or is a leprechaun, and never split up.
Still, I bought the fourth book. We'll see how it goes.
Even though I received this back in August for my birthday, I'm just starting it. Mainly because my whole attitude was “Uck. ANOTHER teen vampire book. I swear if I have to read another one of these loathesome, brainless, boring books, I'm going to ram a wooden stake in my eye.”
What I said to the gift-giver was “Oh! WOW! Thank you! I've really been wanting to read this one!”
My momma didn't raise no rude girl.
For the most part, anyway.
(Please don't blame her for my momentary lapses. She did her best.)
The gift-giver asked me last weekend if I read it and I guiltily admitted that I hadn't. Rashly I promised it would be next selection in the TBR pile. True to my promise, last night I picked it up and started reading. I was very pleasantly surprised. I haven't gotten far, but I like the characters, I like the premise, I like the voice, I like the writing. We'll see if “like” turns in to “lurve” once I get further in. Or we may decide to break up due to irreconcilable diffs. It remains to be seen.
**
I'm done with Book 1, Glass Houses, and Book 2, The Dead Girls' Dance.
They were very BuffytVS-esque with a touch of Being Human, but that works for me. I am a huge Buffy and Being Human (BBC version) fan. Instead of Sunnydale On The Hellmouth, the setting is Morganville, Texas. The town would've been better named Vampireville, but that might have seemed a little obvious for its purpose.
I liked the characters right from the beginning. Claire is only sixteen, an advanced placement college student attending Morganville U. as a freshmeat... I mean, freshman. With her brainiac skills, she could've attended MIT or CalTech except for overprotective parents who wanted her to attend a college within driving distance of home.
If protecting their only daughter was their goal, count it as an epic fail. It seems the citizens of Morganville are always looking for new blood.
Literally.
Just label her a french fry, coat her in ketchup, and toss her into the middle of an Overeaters Anonymous Meeting.
It's only when she and her three housemates, who are townie natives and currently holding the top three slots on the Most Tasty list, bond together that they stand a chance against the forces at work in Morganville.
I ordered book three, Midnight Alley, on my Kindle today.
Even though I'm not a big fan, every so often I venture into the genre of romance. On a friend's recommendation, I picked up “Nobody's Baby But Mine”. Hey, I'm open minded. I'm willing to give it a shot. You never know, right? People tastes change.
I finished all 350+pages the book to find that... uh... nope. Still don't care for it. I still prefer a plot that has a romantic interest as a subplot. Romance as the entire focus for a book just doesn't carry a story for me.
A fast, action-packed, engrossing read. I Finished it with my toast and tea this morning. However, I didn't like it as well as I did Child of Fire, the first Twenty Palaces novel. Fans of the Dresden Files would enjoy these novels, though the character of Ray Lilly isn't as humorous or sarcastic as Harry Dresden and therefore less appealing to me. It would depend on what kind of character you prefer, I suppose.
I like the Monster Hunter books so far - all two of them. They're so action-packed that for three days after finishing Vendetta I was driving down the road pretending to shoot at shredded tire “monsters” along the side of the road, complete with pretend machine gun fire.
Eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh (machine gun)
Blam-blam-blam (shotgun)
KABOOM!!! (rocket launcher)
My six year old nephew thinks it's hilarious.
I thoroughly enjoyed Dissolution, though it was darker than some of the historical mysteries I've read. By the end, I was grateful to be living in the time I do now. I appreciate luxuries like regular bathing, warm (deloused, unsoiled) clothing in the winter, fresh, uncontaminated food, and beer free of chicken poop.
Fans of Brother Cadfael and Sister Fidelma could probably appreciate this well-researched and well-written book, though Dissolution takes place later in the historical timeline of the U.K. than either of the others.
Toward the end I guessed who-dun-it. Or I thought I had. The author hid some devious twists and turns in the last few pages that I didn't anticipate.
I would definitely pick up the next book in the Shardlake series, because I want to know how the character progresses after his disillusionment.
Surprises and Spoilers Contained Within
It's a story about a ghost.
SURPRISE!
The ghost of Harry Dresden.
SURPRISE!
You thought he would survive the assassin's bullet, didn't you?
SURPRISE!
You thought because he'd beaten the loup-garou and the skinwalker, battled the legions of heaven and hell, walked the paths of the Nevernever, annihilated the entire Red Court with a single spell, backtalked/sassed/gave lip and generally pissed off gods, goddesses, wizards, creepy little girls with vast amounts of knowledge, FBI agents, necromancers, the entire Chicago police department, hellhounds, mob bosses, queens, knights, priests, fairy godmothers, werewolves, medical examiners, wardens, valkyries, tv show hosts, enforcers, ectomancers, pub owners, and homicidal ex-girlfriends that he was somehow invincible?
Yeah. Me too.
Bummer.
“Here Lies Harry Dresden. He Died Doing the Right Thing.”
But a wizard's work is never done, not even after death. Harry couldn't get that lucky. After death, things really start to get interesting. That's part of Harry's curse; he lives (and dies, apparently) in interesting times.
I thought it would be impossible to top Changes, the previous novel in the Dresden Files series; it was just that good. So Jim Butcher didn't try. Instead of throwing punches and fists full of fire (Fuego!) to beat his last book, Butcher bobbed, he weaved, he faded out to the incorporeal. Topping Changes became a non-issue. A moot point. A ghost.
“He dodged it,” as my friend and fellow Dresden fan, Clint, so aptly put it.
He went in a totally different direction.
Awesome.
In order to get the most out of Ghost Story, I highly recommend reading Side Jobs, the collection of Dresden short stories published between Changes and Ghost Story. The last chapter, Aftermath, helps explain the developments since Harry's death and the appearance of the Formor. It's not a must, but it definitely clarifies a few things and sets up Ghost Story nicely. Plus the short stories are good, clean (except for “Love Hurts”, but it's a good kind of naughty) fun.
In Ghost Story, readers learn more about characters introduced in earlier novels, meet a few new characters, and explore the wounded depths of Harry's friends and frenemies after his death. Harry realizes the enormous impact his life, death, and afterlife has had on everyone around him, as well as the city that he calls home.
Harry may be dead, but don't write him off yet. It ain't over ‘til the valkyrie sings.
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http://travelingduewest.blogspot.com
Was it really 269 pages? It felt much shorter, and not in a good way. When the book ended it still seemed only partially developed, like a solid second draft. All the elements were there for a great story, but it just never quite came to fruition.
I was prepared to love this book - magic, mystery, love, and barbeque all set against the backdrop of a small southern town - but by the end I was “meh”. Several of the book club crew favored Allen's Garden Magic over this selection and recommended reading it. I might.
For magical realism I prefer Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (Mistress of Spices), Joann Harris (Chocolat), and Angela Carter (Nights at the Circus).
I fell in love with this author when, after having read his first novel, The Name of the Wind, I was checking out his profile and saw he was wearing a t-shirt that said “Joss Whedon is My Master Now”.
Since I have a t-shirt that says “Willing to be Joss Whedon's Baby Mama”, I determined at that moment that Rothfuss and I are soulmates.
The Wise Man's Fear is the second installment in the Kingkiller Chronicle, a fantasy series detailing the life and times of Kvothe, a legendary warrior-mage who is now trying to live the peaceful, non-descript life of a rural innkeeper. The Wise Man's Fear picks up the story-within-a-story style begun in The Name of the Wind, told as Kvothe relates the true story of his past to a Chronicler. The story doesn't, however, lose any of it's potency or it's immediacy for all that.
Despite its length of 1008 pages (Hey, it's epic fantasy. What did you expect?), I didn't skip a single page. OK, the descriptions of the boobs and general nekkidness of one of the fae characters, Felurian, started to get a little old after a while, but I still didn't skip ahead. There were even nights I burned the 2AM oil just so I could finish one. More. Page. Maybe one more. After this one I'll stop. I'll stop at the next break. Next chapter, maybe.
If you are a reader, you know how that works. I haven't found a fantasy novel that's done that for me in a while.
BEST PART: Rothfuss' development of the Adem culture was, for me, the best part of the novel. I hope someday Rothfuss writes a novel just about the Adem mercenaries and their schools. The whole idea of their language and how emotions were expressed was brilliant. I experienced the whole “I wish I'd thought of that” surge of writer's envy.
Both The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear are driven by extremely well developed, fleshed-out characters. Rothfuss doesn't seem to be in a rush to get us to the end prematurely (I like that in a man/author :))and is willing to go the extra mile with his world-building and include all the fascinating details that make reading fantasy novels worthwhile.
Read the books in order. You won't be able to pick them up out of sequence and enjoy them fully. These books are to be savored.
WORST PART: The damn book weighed 3 lbs. I tore the bottom out of a new purse hauling that thing around. Next time I'll buy and read it on my Kindle, and purchase the hardback for the shelf.
Take good care of yourself, Rothfuss. Eat healthy, exercise, and look both ways when you cross the street, because I expect you to be around to write these books for a long, long time.
L.Penny just keeps getting better and better with each book. I blew threw the most recent three books in her Inspector Gamache series when I was snowed in for a few days. (Thank God for the Kindle. I just downloaded the next one right from my cozy bed. No trip to the bookstore in a blizzard, risking life and limb for the next installment. Such a fantastic invention!)
I would recommend these to anyone who is a fan of both the cozy and the police procedural. Somehow L.Penny has managed to concoct the perfect blend of both.
If you do pick these up, they are best read in order to get the full effect of the character development, which is marvelously well-crafted.
Her Inspector Gamache series just keeps getting better. If you are a mystery-lover who enjoys a cozy with more depth, a fascinating, small village (French Canadian) setting, and intriguing, well-developed characters you will want to cuddle up with her books. Be sure to have a hot cup of tea in hand before you start reading.
I so enjoyed the first three Dr. Siri novels that this one threw me for a loop. In this installment the plot wasn't as intriging and the characters seemed flat even though they experience some life-altering changes. I hope that book #5 Curse of the Pogo Stick redeems the series for me. Dr. Siri and pals are some of the most interesting characters I've come across in a long time.
Still Life is the first in the series of Inspector Gamache novels, but the second one that I had read. I started with book #4 - A Rule Against Murder. If I'd begun reading from the beginning I probably would have rated Still Life 3.5 or 4 stars. Fortunately the series gets better with age and by comparison to the later work I had to rate it a 3.
The good news is, it encouraged me to pick up the second book, A Fatal Grace, to see if they continue to improve.
I was just glad to have it finished, which is probably not a good sign.
Interesting premise, plot was decent, some very good alien creature and world building, but I simply could not relate to the characters. There was a lot of telling the reader how the characters felt (particularly toward each other), but not a lot of showing. Actions speak louder than words, right? I often found myself thinking, “What?? Where did THAT come from?” Having not seen the emotion between characters develop over time it would comme as a suprise when BOOM!, all of a sudden we have significant feeling between them. The characters seemed not just reserved, but robotic.
Frankly, I started out liking the main character, but by the end I thought he was an ass. Maybe he redeems himself in later books, but I don't know that I want to spend the time finding out.
