Simon
Three hours, this refers to the time frame in which the book is set and involves a school shooting. This is a tough subject and I think it's done, on the whole, quite well. The POV switches around between different characters, school kids, teachers, police, parents and I found this effected the pacing a bit especially at the beginning. Basically, the whole thing is about fear and how different people react to an extraordinary event. I'm not going to lie, some of the actions some of the people involved (one group of people in particular) are really quite bizarre and that did spoil it for me a little. However, what would I know about how people would react to something like this, I would probably be hiding in a peeing my pants.
Atmospheric, well written, slow paced mystery. Two stories running side by side with everything linking up very conveniently in the final four chapters. I wasn't particularly surprised by anything, feeling more like “ah yes, so that's what it was”. Very strange last paragraph. Set your whelmometer somewhere in the middle.
Classic Adam Nevill. Domestic horror, a family dreaming of a better life, buy a house they can hardly afford that needs so much work doing to it. Join this family as their life slowly unravels, add VERY strange neighbours, a magical wood at the bottom of the garden, and WTF did the dog just dig up the garden? I don't think the transition into insane nipple sucking, rabbit stroking folk horror is a smooth as some of his other books but what the hell !!!!!
As with all books by Mr Nevill, after reading, you will need cleansing.
There is so much about this book that I loved. At first it felt a lot like Station Eleven and I loved Max's recordings she left for Ory. I think most of the issues I have are down to me, you definitely need to read it slowly and take it in. Lots of the explanations are non linier and I frequently found myself stopping and asking myself “did I miss something” and sometimes I had and sometimes I hadn't. I guess just read it, savour it, and when weird shit happens just role with it because tyring to barter for bandages (intentionally covered from head to foot in red paint) with an army of book lovers using only the medium of mime as a form of communication is perfectly normal, perfectly normal.
Grim Michael Crichtonish thriller about a virus that may or may not be the end of civilisation. This book is 70% science and geopolitics and 30% human story. I enjoyed the human element but found the other stuff, for the most part, incredibly tedious but frighteningly close to reality, especially the stuff about Putin. This is not for you if you are feeling a bit shit about the state of the world, it certainly won't make you feel any better. Utterly bleak. Now off to watch some videos of dogs chasing carrier bags.
This the 3rd Jane Harper novel I've read, the other 2 being Aaron Falk stories. This one is a stand-alone novel set in a small costal town in Tasmania. It's pretty decent but it does feel very “story by numbers” and the ending is very underwhelming. If you've not read Jane Harper before start with the Aaron Flak novels before this one, they are much better.
OH
Hello, what?
I don't have the words to fully explain how I feel after finishing this. First 300 pages, absolutely fine, better than fine, actually really good. It reads like a love letter to Stephen King, the influences are there for all to see, bits of IT, The Talisman and whiff of Needful Things.
BUT THEN.
Honestly I don't know ... some kind of Christian fable, God v The Devil with rabid deer, a mass scabies outbreak, immaculate conception, LOTS of hissing and LOTS of scratching and tree houses lots of those too. I was ready to give up on a number of occasions but strangely I kept going and I don't feel any better for doing so. I'm sure some people will find some meaning in those last 500 hundred pages but I am not one of them, in fact, I might never read again.
Not, as I was unreliably informed, the journey of wool from sheep to cardigan via my Nan's knitting needles. It is in fact a story about the survivors of some (unknown) cataclysmic event who live in a silo underground. Outside is bad, and if you think or speak bad things you are set outside to clean the sensors with...... wool? The original Novella (book 1 of my version) is brilliant, the other bits just don't live up to that although some of the reveals are pretty cool, large parts of it are just tedious.
Fun unfact : Wool is mentioned just 25 times during the book.
Decent gothic mystery. One of those books that perhaps gives too much away too early resulting in a tepid ending and a feeling of meh. I guess if you like the gothic then there is enough here to tickle your fancy lace bonnet. If you don't really like the gothic or are just a dabbler I would look elsewhere.
I think this is better than VOX. The idea behind it is more terrifying, Eugenics is real and there are people out there who believe in it and there are people out there who are talking about it right now. The first half of this book is REALLY strong but it does peter to a largely unsatisfying ending.
Parish priest, single mum, chain smoker, exorcist.... Satanists are planning something really evil in Hereford and, with the help of her daughter Jane, shy folk singer Lol and grumpy Yorkshireman and head exorcist Huw, its up to newly appointed deliverance (exorcist) minister Merrily Watkins to stop them. Slow placed and complex with some brilliant characters. Don't be put off by the very average tv adaptation, they only used about a 3rd of the book and although Anna Maxwell Martin was a really good pick for Merrily, for me Merrily will always be Nicola Walker.
Absolutely loved this paranormal crime mystery thriller romance novel about love, loss, loneliness and home made chocolates. Home made chocolates, something I had completely forgotten about until I read this book. Mrs Gresley, my Nans neighbour used to make them and they always smelt of flowers and were generally unpleasant but you had to pretend to like them because being nice and all that was important, even though they tasted like devils anus. My favourite theory about what happened to the men was that they all fell in love with each other and ran off to live in one of those lovely little chalets they have at Fitties campsite in Cleethorpes, it wasn't that though. Do read this book because it's very good.
Great fun, this is the kind of sci-fi I like, not too tech heavy, an adventure into the unknown with lots of unexplained stuff, and the promise of lost alien civilizations. Ending was a bit naff to be honest because we never quite found out who was responsible for those strange monuments. Somewhere between a 3 and 4 but I always go up.