Simon
Utopia v Dystopia, featuring Portrait Artist of the Year and The Wicker Man.
The world is broken. Society is just mumbling and bumbling along waiting for the end. One man, with more money than sense and possibly a little bit musky, has a solution. A self sustaining island filled with the youth of tomorrow and a warehouse full of seeds and DNA. BUT, at what cost to everyone else!!!! duh duh duh!!!!
I did really enjoyed this, I loved the vagueness at the start of the book. I like not knowing when or where and then slowing piecing it all together. It's a bit cultish, there's something happening and you are never quite sure what, the build up is slow, and that works quite well. However, the reveal and the ending was a little messy, I wanted a bit more from it and the final scene was a little predictable.
Still, a decent addition the dystopia pile.
3.5 rounded up, purely due to the fact I really loved the historical part of the story. Unfortunately, the bits set in the present were mostly preposterous, full of unlikeable people doing stupid things, and some of the most eye rollingly convenient plot twists in the history of flip flop fiction. The paranormal element however, works really well, the malevolent spirit Farquhar terrorising both timelines with his stink, his groping and much much worse.
Overall, completely and utterly bonkers.
Well written, incredibly clever and completely mind bending.
A heady mix of The Matrix, Mathematics, Sophies World, Airport 80, Simulation Hypothesis, Astrophysics, Stephen King's Under The Dome, Philosophy, Barry Manilow's Bermuda Triangle (to which I know all the words!!!), Theology and the TV show Fringe.
“I'm very gentle,” Corky said, very gently. Then: “All my victims say that.”
Corky Withers is a rubbish magician and a bit of a loser. Join him and his sinister dummy Fats, on a chilling descent into madness. Quality psychological thriller / love story. A bit confusing at the beginning but it's worth it for the utterly brilliant dialogue between Corky and Fats. A zillion times better than the film, and I liked the film.
I really enjoyed this. Obvious comparisons with Dan Simmons' The Terror; A ship full of men, all beards and hands and chunky jumpers, freezing environment, disaster, unimaginable suffering, paranoia, madness, hallucinations etc etc.
The only grumble, and it's a slight one. I Wasn't really sure what to make of Johnathan, I didn't particularly like them, thought the relationship with Harry was strange and was confused by their reaction to Tarlington and Nicholls. Can't decide if the author missed an opportunity to do something amazing or if they were spot on with the character. Ponderings.......... the sign of good book. Will definitely read more from this author.
Carol, Patricia Highsmith's ground breaking lesbian novel originally released in 1952 as the The Price Of Salt under the pseudonym Claire Morgan.
Perhaps the best thing about this novel is that it has a positive and uplifting ending, definitely something that is missing in a lot of LGBTQ literature I have read (mainly misery, loneliness and death). However, I won't lie, it is dull in places and is definitely saved by the Thelma and Louiseish act 2, which is all posh sausages, martinis and private detectives.
Easy read, charming, dullish but worth it. (probably have that on my tombstone)
Dark, funny and a little bit strange. Black-Eyed Susans is slightly better than your average twisty turny thriller. This is the story of Tessa/Tessie, one of the Susans who survived at the hands of a Monster and now that Monster is on death row and it seems he might be innocent.....duh duh duh!!!!!
There is a huge red herring quite early on in the story and I completely fell for it, I thought I had it all worked out, but I hadn't. Now I just feel a little bit sad and stupid because it was so obvious.
I seem to read a lot of stuff that is just plain bonkers and this is right up there with the best of the bonkers.
Not a ghost story, more of a whodunnit/espionage thingy. There is a supernatural element but it's just so strange, the ghosts are literally just hanging around, checking things out, having a wander and peering over people's shoulders. I laughed a few times but I am not sure I was supposed to. I did, however, love the character Kate Cartwright, I hope she gets her own story one day, a secret agent who can see dead people is just what the world needs right now.
Sherlock Holmes meets BBCs Ghosts meets You Rang M'lord (with guns) A generous 3.
A huge mountain suddenly appears in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and a group of scientists and some people with guns are sent to investigate. In the end everything is explained in a name and the name is..(huge drumroll).... Neil Amai. Nobody could quite believe it when they worked it out, and my eyes, they rolled like mad things, just like they did with the Sutekh reveal in Dr Who.
Anyway, told in series of rambling letters, this is an insane mix of adventure, science and theology. The start of the book, especially the foreword, is beyond good, it really draws you in. The more the story unfolds, and unfolds is the correct term, the madder it becomes, and yet it is incredibly readable, even the science bits. On the whole, most of it works, some of it doesn't, some of it is incredibly corny and so much is left unanswered, but I really enjoyed it anyway. (even the science bits)
If you liked any of these you will probably enjoy it
The Sphere by Michael Crichton
The Mountains of Madness by Lovecraft
Dr Who & The Seeds of Doom
Abominable by Dan Simmons
Set against a backdrop of political and social upheaval in India. A young woman makes a horrible mis-step, and ends up being arrested and charged with a heinous crime. Her fate lies in the hands of two people who know her; A former teacher and would be actress called Lovely
There is something magical about this book. I could easily have read this in two sittings, 288 pages and yet so much depth, so many moral twists and turns and three brilliantly imagined characters. I wasn't totally bananas about the ending but overall, very very good.
What happened to the Bennetts? Pretty much everything, and it was all bad, really bad. There is happiness though, at the end a lost dog and returned to it's owners by a network of mean looking truckers with hearts of gold, and I was glad about that.
Completely nuts, but as always, deliciously moreish.
If I am being completely honest, I think I enjoyed the learning experience more than I did the actual story. I learned a lot about a country and period of history I knew little about, very similar to how I felt after reading Wild Swans by Jung Chang.
The first half of the book is quite slow. We meet the main characters and learn quite a lot about Nigerian culture, especially food and I have already tried and failed to make Jollof rice. The second half focuses on the Nigerian Biafran civil war and certainly doesn't hold back. Corruption, mass killing, starvation, desperation, rape. It really does conjure up some horrific imagery.
When I finished reading, I felt unsatisfied because there is a big question that is left unanswered. But when you think about it, that's exactly what would happen at the end of a war. There are somethings that you will never know and there are somethings that you are better off not knowing.
“In the outside world, you will find more people who are kind than people who are not. Seek them out.”
Sally Diamond suffered an unimaginably horrific trauma when she was a child, she's still suffering, this her story.
It is impossible not to fall in love with Sally. Hats off to Liz Nugent such a beautifully written character. I guess you would put this in the same group as say, The Room and Girl A. Can't say anything else without giving it away. Wasn't totally bonkers about the ending, probably because of the nature of the story, you want a different ending for a such an endearing person.
Giving this a generous 5, it's probably more of a 4 BUT I always go high if something makes me tear up, and this did. Strangely enough though, it was at the beginning of the book, not the end.
“Human odour was nothing special. Children smelled insipid, men urinous, all sour sweat and cheese, women smelled of rancid fat and rotting fish.”
A long time ago (many moons), I worked in a well-known high street music shop. We had our fair share of “strange” customers and one in particular sprang to mind while I was reading this book. He was known as “The CD Sniffer”. He used to come in and smell the cd cases, sometimes he would lick them too, so utterly bizarre. I wonder now if he could smell every person that had touched that cd, smell their odour. (((Shudders))
Anyway, the book, loved most of it, hated some of it. Weird, revolting, deranged, stinky and so very very strange. Extra olfactory perception is my game, world domination by odour is my aim.
Did I say it was weird? Because it really really is, Just so weird.
“Distressing memories left buried can poison the mind.” He knows. He knows what's inside my head.
This is the story of Maude, or is it, Mary? She finds herself locked away in an asylum with no memory how she got there. Things start to improve when a new Doctor arrives at the asylum, and using a new technique called hypnotism, he helps Maude unlock her past. But, not everyone at the asylum wants her to remember.
So glad I took a punt on this. Wonderfully written with lots of vile characters, you will love it if you love the gothic.
Radicalized paperboy terrorizes the Jewish population of LA. Alcoholic, jazz loving police officer and his soft-core porn star sidekick set out to stop him,
OR
An excellent police thriller about a man, driven over the edge by radical propaganda, who terrorizes the Jewish community in Los Angeles. It's the job of a seriously flawed police officer called Jack Gold (with the help of a young Eric Estrada
Bleak and brutal. I don't think I have ever read anything that is written so beautifully about a life that is so empty of love and happiness, where just being is all there is. Where little crumbs of comfort come from being used by someone or being given to someone.
I can't say I enjoyed this, it is not a comfortable read, but the prose is something else, the whole thing is really quite astonishing.
This book is off the scale bonkers and completely ridiculous. But also, disturbingly moreish.
I guess reading it was a little bit like eating a bag of Twiglets. Twiglets are a wheat-based snack that are flavoured with secretions from Satan's anus. Eating one Twiglet causes your face to melt, your eyes to bleed and snakes to come out of your ears, and yet, after eating one you simply must have another, and another etc etc.
As with all mysteries like this, I wanted it to be aliens.. Unfortunately it was just Claudia Winkleman in a wet suit.
“The boy emerged out of the earth, clinging to the end of the rope. He was covered in slippery sewer sludge, and when he stood up, he shone and shimmered in the sun with a terrible beauty. His hair, stiffened by the muck, flared from his head like a crown of black flames. Behind him, the slum smoke curled towards the sky, and the hellishness of the place was complete. “
Probably the most shockingly brutal and violently upsetting comedy you will ever read. Constantly hovering between a 4 and 5, It's not without it's dull moments but they are few and far between, and for a 600+ page book, that's really something.