TheBecks

I requested this from NetGalley based on two things:
1) The fact that I really enjoyed The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
2) That cover. So deliciously creepy.

And I really enjoyed these two stories, despite reading them in snippets and bite size pieces over the course of forever.

I loved the creeping foreboding feeling of these stories. I loved the way that the everyday life went on around these... phenomena, and that lent even more eeriness to it.

The second story was by far my favorite, though I really liked both of them. Dolly was just scarier to me, (I think if I had to name one irrational 'fear', it would be creepy dolls), and I loved it for that.

I also really liked the layered qualities of these stories. Honestly, neither story was what it seemed, and both involve the ghosts of our own lives - though sometimes we don't know it, or refuse to.

I think if I had any complaint, it's that Dolly's ending seemed off. Not in the ending itself, which was great, but just the abruptness of it. The story carried on past what could have been great endings, and then I expected it to carry on past further than it did. It took me by surprise when it ended, and not really in the best way. I wanted just a little more.

Very good novellas, and highly recommended, despite that, though.

I'm actually somewhat surprised by my own rating of this book. Several months ago, I received a copy of this ebook (in a roundabout way - through a blog that I contribute to sporadically) for review. I accepted it, despite it having only one rating of 2 stars. Not exactly a shining endorsement. But, I like horror, and I like short stories, and this was very short, so I figured I wouldn't be investing much time if it did stink after all.

And then I read it, and found that it didn't.

There were some editing issues - a plethora of missing commas, mainly. Though there were some other little things I noticed, general editing clean up items such as improper capitalization, etc, they didn't really detract from the story as much as the absentee commas did. There's a big difference between "We have a basement, Detective," ("Detective" used here as a title in lieu of name, so it should be capitalized) and "We have a basement detective," which is what was in the text. The former advises the detective being spoken to that the speaker has a basement; the latter could be implying that there's a detective housed in the basement, or they staff a detective who specializes in basement work.... who knows?

But, editing aside, I quite liked the stories. They were short, but much longer, and they wouldn't have worked. All were contained in this gray zone of Info The Reader Doesn't Have, and it was good that way. We don't know what the creature in "Smoke" is - just that it's hungry and old, and its been crouching above the smoker's room at the office for a long, long time, feeding on the illness it can smell there. We don't know who - or what - the Other Beryl of the story is.

These stories are little snapshots in time - a format that I've come to discover I like more than a little bit - and around them is the void. The reader is left to fill in the whys and hows. The story is just the story and we live in that little bubble of time until it collapses with a popping noise. There's a little twist with each of the stories, and they weren't hard to spot, but still enjoyable.

"Smoke" - This one was a surprise to me, and sticks in my mind for a few reasons. First, because it was the first story in the book, and it grabbed my attention with the vague-but-vivid imagery. Second, it's not really a proper story, with a plot or anything, it just is... Much like what is described in the story. It's kind of like how poetry doesn't always have to rhyme, or that... stuff... called "free verse" (*shudder*), short stories can vary in their content and still be really good stories. Like this one.

"Milton Hobbs and the Price of Serenity" - This story was familiar, because it's been done many times before. It's your typical "Deal with the Devil" story. But what I really liked about it was Milton himself, his chutzpah... There's also a bit of an inevitability, which I liked.

"Other Beryl" - I liked this story quite a bit, though it was the one with the most need of editing. I liked how we're thrown right into the midst of this man's fears for his safety, and as the details slowly come to light, it becomes clear that his concerns are valid, but too little and too late.

"Post" - This is my favorite of the lot, if only for the perspective and the confusion. It's not often that we see this perspective in this type of story, and usually when we do, it's a kind of romanticized version. The reader is supposed to understand before the main character does, which creates this sense of dread - though we're not quite sure who we're supposed to feel for yet. What does the memory signify, or will instinct take over? When the main character finally understands, it's over and done... But the ending switches perspective again, and restarts the dread cycle... This is possibly the shortest story in the collection, but it was well done.

"Kimmy's Not Welcome Here Anymore" - This was reminiscent of Stephen King's story "You Know They Got a Hell of a Band", though this one also had themes of coming of age, and recognizing when one needs to leave a toxic relationship behind to save oneself. Quite good, actually.

Overall, I did enjoy this little collection much more than I expected to. I'll be keeping my eye out for more from this author.

This book took me a little while to read, though not through any fault of its own. I've been in a not-reading place for the last several weeks, and I haven't read much of anything at all. This book is actually a very quick read (when I don't find myself distracted by other things), especially considering the epistolary format. The letters lend to the feeling of super speedy progress, and there's enough back and forth that it feels like a breeze to read.

I will admit that I felt that the two main characters' 'voices' were very similar, and were it not for the addressee/signee on each of the letters, and the content of many of them, I may not have always known who was writing. Perhaps this was intentional, to show how similarity of interest allowed their love to blossom through the letters, but it did feel a little TOO similar at times, despite, or maybe even because of their personalities being so very different.

I actually identified a lot with this book. I could have been Elspeth if I were born in a different era and place... well, and if I didn't hate poetry. What I mean is that my boyfriend and I met through the correspondence of our time - the internet. He and I are very different people. I'm something of a homebody, bookish, responsible girl, and he's something of a social and artistic whirlwind of activity. I like quiet and solitude, he likes noise and chaos.

So yeah, I identified with the characters in this book. That helped me to appreciate it, I think, because I'm not really much for romance reading. I wanted more of the grittiness of the wars that Elspeth and Davey lived through mixed in to their love letters. I wanted to really feel that they were affected - but they seemed to sit right outside it. There were parts of this book that were gut-wrenching, and I will admit that it got me to tear up a few times. They had their hits, but it felt like they got off extremely light at times.

I also liked how the past and present letters were used to progress the story. The use of present-day letters to foreshadow the past was done very well, and the transitions between the sections of past and present were paced perfectly to create suspense and urgency. Very well done there.

Overall, this was a lovely story about how one can love a person they've never even seen based on their mind and heart. It's true, it happens.

Thanks to Random House for offering pre-release copies of this book to my Historical Fictionistas group.

I don't really know what to say about this one. It had all the usual Sanderson benchmarks - the religion, the epic quest, the I-have-only-one-purpose main character trying to free his people from slavery and oppression, the girl who is awesome...

It had all this, but I just couldn't really get into it. It took me weeks to read this (despite what my review says - that's just when I added the book as officially currently reading, in an attempt to jump-start the whole reading thing and actually make some progress). This is like 100 pages long. I should have finished it in one sitting.

I don't know what was missing - either from me or the story - but it just never really gelled for me. It felt... unpolished, a trend I've noticed with Sanderson's shorter work. This is unfortunate, but some writers are meant for bigger and greater things. Sanderson is one of them. He's meant to write epic scope stories that sweep me under and then wash me up on some shore I don't recognize as home because the journey there and back has been so life-changing.

That's how I felt after reading The Way of Kings. This? Not so much.

I wanted to like it - no, I wanted to love it. I still think of BSands as an author who can do no wrong - but little chips are forming in that opinion with every short that doesn't quite hit the mark. So I'll revise: BSands can do no wrong when writing as he's meant to: epically.

The characters were good here, but not nearly as fleshed out as I've come to expect. We're thrown into the story and then we learn as we go with Siris and Isa. I liked them, but that's about all.

I wanted more world-building, more info about the technical structure of things. There were parts that felt like... Technology that has advanced to the stage of creating gods and then faded and become ancient while civilization eroded and turned medieval again. THAT was what I was hoping the twist was. I was waiting for it. It wasn't.

*Sigh* I guess I just expected more out of this. I liked it, but that's about all.

I feel like I've been reading this book forrrreeeeevvvveeeerrrrr. It's short. On my Nook it was less than 200 pages. But I just really could not work up any interest in the romance aspect of this book. I just find romances, at least those I've read (which is admittedly few) to be predictable in the worst way. I knew from the moment I learned who the dude in the palanquin was what would happen - it was just a matter of the details. I probably would have known before then if I'd read the book description... but I don't read those, usually.

Anyway. I actually thought that the Chinese political situation and process of finding an empress were the most interesting parts of the story, and I wish that these aspects comprised a bigger portion of the book. For all Ji Yue's abilities in observation and "being a political wife" - the political stuff was extremely limited. Saves room for talk of "jade stalks" and "dragon organs" I guess. You know, the important stuff. (Psst... Those are euphemisms for "penis".) *wink*

I also was bothered by the whole OMG-it's-so-amazing cherry pop scene. These girls have guarded their virginity like their lives depended on it (which, I guess, in a way, was the case), haven't even SEEN a penis, let alone know what to do with it, and then Ji Yue, after having learned to give a blowie just the day before... "sits" on Bo Tao's Dragon rod or whatever like it ain't no thang. No pain, not even discomfort, and she just goes to town. I mean, it just rubs me the wrong way (geddit?) when fiction portrays the first time as this wonderful, amazing experience, especially for the girl. It's not. It is not a rainbow sunshine daisy unicorn experience. Usually it's painful, then uncomfortable, then messy, and then it's just over. And then there's the second time, which isn't much better. It takes time and repetition and practice to get to the OMGYES sex. It don't just happen when that hymen breaks.

Anyway. This was OK. Predictable, cliche, unintentionally humorous at times, but nothing special. I wish the history and politics were fleshed out more, as well as the characters' personalities. Their euphemistic sexy times parts were fleshed out quite enough.

Disclaimer: I received an e-copy of this book for review from NetGalley.

I was recently browsing around on NetGalley after, oh... Two years of inactivity there, or so. I saw this book, and it looked really intriguing to me. I loved the cover, and the book description sounded fantastic - a story about India's turbulent recent history, the assassination of Indira Gandhi... Intriguing stuff.

I really wanted to love this book. I was hoping that it would speak to me and allow me to learn something of what it was like to live through such things. I was hoping for this book to be beautifully written and expertly told. But unfortunately, almost immediately, I struggled with this book.

I ended up giving up on this at 20%. I just couldn't get into the story. I couldn't follow the narration - it jumped around, not only in time and memory, but between random, unconnected thoughts and observations. There are sentence fragments, sentences that seem out of order, and jumbled phrases that just don't make sense to me.

The writing and the style just didn't work for me. It's told in first person narrative, and I found it extremely hard to get into the main character and narrator's head. In fact, I didn't even know his name until around the 19% mark. (It's Raj.) Not that that's a requirement for me, but it does help to get to know the person I'm supposed to be closest to in the story. It also felt distant and cold, as though Raj's own history meant nothing to him. He describes witnessing a mob of men throw a tire over his teacher - his friend - and set him on fire as though it was nothing. He tells the story as though he's describing paint drying.

And intermixed in all of this is information about Raj's work in rheology - the science of flow.

But there seems to be no flow to this story. It's not fluid or smooth - it's choppy and jumps around seemingly without rhyme or reason. There are many words, and it's possible, even likely, that they'd come together in the end and form a cohesive whole, but even getting to 20% was a struggle for me.

Here's a quote to illustrate, from 8%:

"I shall never forget my last visit to his office. The 19th of October, a faultless day like any other. The laburnum quivered in the sun, I recall, so bright they hurt my eyes. I placed the borrowed item on his heavily cluttered desk; sheets and memos spilling over, glacial mountains and ice fields of exam papers and clogged lava flows of lab reports. Still weak, recovering from jaundice, I was in a way rediscovering the world; everything around me felt new and alien. Even the smells I took for granted in the past, and the dewy brilliance of objects. Without wasting words he checked if I had the energy to walk back to the hostel. I nodded. But he insisted on driving me in his white Fiat, which he drove slowly for my sake. On the way we talked about Maxwell's demons, he was also curious about my recently formed opinions and thoughts on Levi. I was unable to express myself properly. I said something about Levi's dark sense of humour. How he made use of snake droppings once to manufacture lipstick! Then we discussed briefly the chapter that left a huge impression on me. How the author had dealt with hunger. What really happened inside the 'concentration' camp. Up until that day the words 'dilute' and 'concentrated' were simply connected to the density of molecules in solutions (and not human beings). The writing had disturbed me, pushed me out of my comfort level. Those pages were set in a world I did not know."

This paragraph is just all over the place. It's random, and vague. It left me confused and didn't add anything to the story.

I'm sure that this book is amazing, or could be amazing, for the right reader. I don't think that I'm that reader. I no longer have the patience to wade through jungles of words to try to piece them into a story. I need more cohesion.

It's also possible that this is not the final copy as well. I am not able to find anything saying for sure whether this has been corrected yet, so it is likely it has not. If that's the case, further editing may resolve some of the things I struggled with. But as it stands, I just don't think this book is for me.

So... This is not one of my favorite King books. The first time I ever read it, I did so without realizing that it was a collection of inter-related short stories, and not having read The Dark Tower series (though, Ted wouldn't have made an appearance in that series way back when anyway, so...), but either way - it didn't really do much for me.

On subsequent reads, the confusion regarding the format is not there, but the stories just don't really grab me like I want them to, and how I'm used to King's stories grabbing me. I will say that they are much better appreciated by me now, at the age I am, and with the experience I now have, than it was when I first read it as a teen.

The first story is by far my favorite, and the one I always think of when I think of this book. It's the one that speaks to me the most out of the whole collection. I love Ted Brautigan's character, and seeing him in his little "vacation" to Connecticut is always interesting - but definitely more so now that I know where, and to what, he's taken by the Low Men in the yellow coats. I like Ted's interaction with Bobby, and I like the way that the story kind of feels like a nightmare that's just getting going - shifting between confusion and horror (Liz's experience, the Low Men, etc), and normal summer reality for an 11 year old.

I also really liked Bobby, and I both liked, and pitied, the way he lost some of his innocence that summer. He stopped seeing the world through a child's eyes, and as a result, his whole life shifted. His relationship with his mother became a wary tightrope walk, when before it was simply Liz Rules The Roost. Now Bobby has an understanding of things... and though he still needs her, and loves her in his way, he doesn't like her much, and certainly doesn't respect her. And she knows it.

I do pity Liz, though... to a point. She's raising a son on her own in a world where women are tolerated in the workplace - allowed to get men their coffee, and answer the phones, and they better not complain if there's a little bit of a roaming eye or hand from the boss... not if she wants to keep her job, that is. I am sure it was hard. But my grandmother did it... and she had six kids to raise on her own. That woman made miracle dinners from canned peas, butter, and crackers. She made it work, and so, while I do appreciate that Liz was in a hard spot and I could understand her miserly ways - I could only feel sorry for her to a point.

And then she completely ruined any pity that I had for her by being... well, Liz. She's judgmental, hypocritical, manipulative, greedy, and cruel. She jumps to conclusions, and doesn't care if she's wrong, and her fear and anger lead her to make decisions that she should regret... but probably doesn't. She's too selfish to regret on anyone else's behalf... even her son's.

I do like how the story mirrors, in parts, The Lord of the Flies by William Golding. It has a certain tone that causes dread, even if you don't know why yet.

The other stories... well, they just don't really do much for me. There are characters that we recognize in each of them, and honestly, the subject matter in the remaining stories (except the very last) should speak to me more than it does. These are stories about the Vietnam war, and protesting it, and how that war changed an entire generation of people. It should feel important... but I found it just dragging on.

I will say that King writes an amazing story... even when I'm feeling the drag and not really feeling the story, the words on the page still paint a vivid picture and I can see it clearly in my mind. I love that aspect of King's writing... I'm never at a loss when it comes to seeing what he wants to show me, it's just that sometimes I'm not as interested as I feel I'd need to be in order to fully appreciate it.

I remember watching Star Trek with my dad when I was a kid. It would come on after school, and I loved it. The adventures, the crazy escapes, the close calls... It was good stuff.

I had SUCH a crush on Will Riker when I was younger. Not baby-faced Riker, but more mature, bearded Riker. Man I loved him. (And to this day, I love a man with facial hair. But that's beside the point. LOL)

As much as I loved the show, I'm not much of a tie-in fiction reader. I love Star Wars too (yeah, I swing both ways) and but struggled through the tie-in story collection I read. And I read a Firefly tie-in and thought it was OK. I haven't really tried any others though... Maybe I will someday, but it's generally not a "genre" that calls my name.

So a friend chose this book for a group of us to read, and I enjoyed it. I didn't love it, and I think that there were times when things felt a little much, especially the romance, but overall, I did like it. I think that the characters were true to the characters that I've loved from the show, and I enjoyed seeing them here.

The story was a little more complex than I expected, in all honesty, and jumped around quite a bit. It was a bit hard to follow, considering that the ebook formatting was atrocious and there weren't line or chapter or section breaks where they should have been.

The last 50 pages of the book were by far my favorite. I liked the humor here, and the way that things came together. It was a little too perfect, but... enjoyable. I'd recommend it...

4.5 stars

My oh my, what a difference time and format can make. I remember the first time I read this book. It was probably 2005, maybe 2006, and I was working in the "Consumer Relations" department at my customer service job. Basically, I was the helpdesk, tech support, and the person you talk to when you call somewhere pissed off about something and ask for a manager, but you aren't connected to a manager - you're connected to me. (Believe me, we hate that just as much as you do - we got all the shit and none of the pay. But I also hope you believe me when I say that usually talking to me was the better option. Not all managers know or can do customer service. Just sayin'.)

Anyway, I remember that we had a really slow period, and one of my co-workers had this book on her desk, and so I read it between calls.

And... Meh. It was OK. I could see why some people would really like it, but for me, it just didn't do much. Now, I should mention that the copy she had was the American version with only 20 chapters. I'm not sure if that last chapter would have really made a difference to me way back when... but I think it does now.

So, when this was selected for my bookclub for May, I was actually really excited to read it again and see if I felt the same way, or if maybe reading it in fits and starts while at work had been the problem, or if maybe getting back into an appropriate mental place after getting yelled at on a call had given me trouble. Who knows? Back then, I was 23 and I likely assumed the fault was in the book, not in my reading of it.

This time, I also made sure to get the author's preferred version with 21 chapters, and opted for an audiobook. Of course, I still listened to it at work, but I have a different job now, and interruptions are less frequent and much less angry. ;)

I think listening this time allowed me to really experience the story in a way I hadn't before. Nadsat was hard for me to wrap my head around when I read this before (though that could have had to do with HOW I was reading it), so I probably skimmed, and probably didn't get as much out of the text as I could have. It was like there was no connection there between the slang and the meaning, and I didn't take the time to put them together. But listening, I couldn't skim. I listened to every word, and in context, it was perfect. It no longer felt like work to figure out what Alex was saying. It no longer felt awkward at all - it was just this boy telling me his story, and me drinking it in.

I will say the reader read extremely slowly. I understand this, actually, because if I were to read this book out loud, it would be a catastrophe. The language just doesn't roll off the tongue easily - it's like a tongue twister in another language. So he took his time reading it, and I can't blame him for it, but it was hard for me to listen like that. Thankfully though, I could adjust the play speed to 2x. At that setting, it was maybe just a hair faster than normal talking speed, and sounded SO much more natural for Alex, him being, like, used to the lingo and all.

If it was only Alex that was read so slowly, I'd think it was intentional to make him seem more relaxed, more in control and sure of himself. He's the brains and the leader of his little band of droogs, and even at home he speaks and others listen... if they know what's good for them. But, the other characters in the book were read at the same slow pace, so I think it was more a concern for reading clearly and not tripping over the Nadsat.

Anyway, moving on to the story itself, I was really impressed this time around. (Fair warning, I discuss the plot from this point on.) The book jumps right into showing us Alex in all his unapologetic depravity. He's a real shit. And at only 15, it's frightening to think of how long his reign of terror could go on if it weren't for his friends turning their backs on him and turning him in. Let's be honest here, he's a little naive in thinking that his leadership is absolute - but he is extremely smart, and had the potential, if he were only a little more observant of human nature, to put down the quiet plot against him and continue in his ways for as long as he cared to. But his way has always been one of smash and grab. Take what you want, don't ask, and it doesn't matter if the person doesn't like the taking - strength and audacity are key. Subtlety is lost on him, except in music, and to him, it's impossible that any of his group could be harboring resentment toward him for anything - or if they are, that they'd ever act on it.

But they do, and Alex finds himself caught, and now on the receiving end of the brutality. And here's where things get impressive for me - because I knew I was being manipulated to feel certain ways, but I couldn't stop it from happening. I started to feel sorry for Alex, and want to stand up for him, especially when it comes to the Ludovico treatment. Actually, I'm not sure if it's Alex specifically, or human nature and choice and freedom, that I felt this way about. Alex was just the representative body showing the extremes... as well as the danger of an uninformed decision.

It was kind of heartbreaking for me to watch his reconditioning being flaunted and praised, because his freedom of thought was taken from him. He had no choice, and even thinking of defending himself against the man they hired to attack him, or having sex with the woman they hired to entice him, made him so sick that he felt like he was dying. That's a much worse fate than simply being in prison. At least there, your mind is still your own.

And it bothered me, a lot, that he was basically told not to complain about the process or the horrifying fact that the music he loved and appreciated would carry such awful associations and cause such sickening physical reactions (though he couldn't express it in those terms), because "he made his choice". Ugh. It probably seems ridiculous, considering some of Alex's crimes, but for me, this was one of the most horrifying concepts in the book. That they wouldn't tell him exactly what he was signing up for, and that they'd use the process on a teenager, is criminal in itself. Yes, he is a criminal, and one of the absolute worst because he does it for fun. His M.O. is random mayhem and destruction of lives, and that's unforgivable. But the adults, the doctors who hold his whole future in their hands, are the ones who really frighten me.

And if you consider the implications of music being used, it really hits home just how terrible this could be. Hearing music isn't something that one has control over. It's not a conscious decision, robbing someone, or beating or raping them. There's music everywhere, and using a popular classical piece of music that one might hear in a store, or museum, or in a movie or any other innocuous place or event is just short sighted and horrific. Even if the treatment worked, and Alex completely retrained his thought processes to avoid triggering the sickness, he could be subjected to it time and again, without warning or any means of prevention.

And of course, what happened is pretty much exactly that, only used purposefully against him rather than him just encountering it accidentally. In that situation, his only means of escape was to try to kill himself.

Is it any wonder that as soon as he was healed from his attempted suicide he'd go back to his old ways? He wasn't cured of anything - he was just tortured every time he thought. Of course he'd want to go back to "normal" after that! Stanley Kubrick ended his movie there, and for American editions of the book, that's the end of the story. That some people are unable or unwilling to change and are unrepentant and irredeemable.

But Burgess's story doesn't end there, and Alex does grow out of his rampaging ways. He just loses the "mood" to tear things down. This epilogue, for lack of a better word, seems almost too abrupt for such a change of heart. But I didn't think so. He likely wouldn't have had it if he hadn't gone through the Ludovico Fiasco, but he did, and I think it made him see pain in a new way - not as something done for fun to others and never thought of again (as he'd likely always seen it before), but as something that can ruin lives - including his own. And I think that seeing the grovelling, begging thing he became in the midst of his Ludovico sickness made him feel too close to his victims, and it was no longer fun.

I'm just speculating at Alex's feelings here - the final chapter is brief, and really all that happens in it is that Alex meets his old droog Pete, and Pete's new wife. He visualizes himself married, and has a vision of his own son, of what it would be like to be a father, trying to teach your kid right and wrong, and realizing, I think, how his own father must have been frustrated by his failure to do so. But he embarks on this new chapter in his life anyway, which, I think is rather commendable and wise for someone only just turned 18 and so used to the ultraviolence on the streets. Sometimes, it just takes a little perspective to make a change, not being forced into it.

Go figure that.

This was a lovely little story that brought me right back into the Tufa's world, despite having read The Hum and The Shiver well over a year ago. I love the simplicity of Bledsoe's writing - at least in his Tufa stories. (I haven't read any of his others. Yet.) There's a... I don't know how to describe it, really. A confidence, perhaps. It doesn't need to be loud and showy and boisterous, because it's good and it knows it. I like that. And I love the musicality of these stories. The way the characters live through music is one of my favorite aspects.

This story has a rather religious overtone, and most of the time, I just really can't stand that. But I love how Bledsoe walks with one foot on the "traditional" Christian side, and one foot on the "I just really don't know" side of the question. It never feels preachy.

I like the moral of this little story as well. In a way, it does give an answer to the "Does God exist" question... but in a "He works in mysterious ways" way, which is to say it's something of a non-answer... depending on your interpretation. But the theme of inclusivity and acceptance and love, despite huge differences, is a nice one, and I quite enjoyed this little story.

I finished this book this morning, determined to complete it before I did anything else today. I wanted it to just be over. I read the last 41 pages & then looked at the additional 15 unnumbered pages of pictures at the end, and now I sit here rather annoyed. I don't know how to communicate my disappointed sighs via text.


I really wanted to love this book. It was given to me by a friend who loved it - someone whose opinion I trust. I didn't get around to reading it for a long time though, and now that I have, it is my sad duty to report that I didn't like it at all. This should have been a moving story about grief, a little boy searching to find out why his father died, and learning to let him go. But it wasn't anything. There was no plot, no point, and I just didn't get it. There was exactly three sections of this book that made me feel something other than confusion and frustration. These three sections probably add up to about 10 pages, all together. And then one of them was a lie, so back to the confusion and frustration on that one.

This book was so damn gimmicky. I guess a lot of people would call that "style" or "technique" or something, but to me, it was just "LOOK AT ME! I'M DIFFERENT!" stage dressing that added nothing but irritation to the experience of reading this for me. I have a very low tolerance for gimmicks in books, and I feel that if an author is going to use anything at all other than words to tell his story, it had better fit and make sense, and add something. Nothing was added to the story or the experience for most of this stuff. Most of it was completely random - it literally could have been picked by the close your eyes and point method out of a table full of photos at an oddities shop. Or maybe this explains it:


Apparently, these are the pictures that are in Oskar's "Stuff That Happened To Me" book. Please, tell me, how did a picture of two turtles mating happen to him? A photo of a man on the ground during or after a tennis match? Two early Homo Sapiens walking together? When was he an astronaut? Or any of these: "a shark attacking a girl, someone walking on a tightrope between the Twin Towers, that actress getting a blowjob from her normal boyfriend, a soldier getting his head cut off in Iraq, the place on the wall where a famous stolen painting used to hang".

These things didn't happen to him, and I can't even see how they are even remotely related to him or anything he experienced - except perhaps in a symbolic or metaphorical way. But that doesn't fit. Oskar is extremely literal. He doesn't understand figures of speech, so I find it very difficult to think he'd have a scrapbook called "Stuff That Happened To Me" filled with symbolic or metaphorical pictures representing his feelings. If that's the case, why not just call it "Pictures Representing My Feelings"?

Oskar annoyed the hell out of me from the very beginning, and I just could not bring myself to like or identify with him. I tried. I mean, he's a little boy who thinks about things in a specific and ordered way, who needs stability, and his father dying pulled the rug out from under him. I tried. I just couldn't. I couldn't like this kid who can't see that his mother is actually grieving for her husband but notices things like the subway lines in New York only being above ground in "poor neighborhoods". I couldn't like this fucking selfish kid who tells his mother that he wishes he had a choice which parent died, who can't comprehend his mother or his grandmother having a life outside of him, who actually thinks things like "Why is she not waiting at the door? I'm the only thing that matters to her" about his grandmother.

Oh, but Oskar is such a charmer, you know, when he asks random women if he can kiss them, and tells them they are "incredibly beautiful". No, he means it. INCREDIBLY. BEAUTIFUL. All of them. He's the creepy fucking old man who stands too close on a train... just trapped in a 9 year old body.

And yet people just go with it. I know that Oskar's mom called around and told the people named Black that he'd be coming, but that wasn't until after he'd been around to a few, and still random people that he meets, all the people named Black that stalks tracks down on his investigation, they just go along with it, like it's not weird at all. Even if they were warned, I seriously doubt that every person would "play along". They act like they know that "heavy boots" means he's depressed rather than literally thinking that his shoes weigh a lot. They don't say "I don't kiss 9 year old boys" they say "It wouldn't be a good idea."

Speaking of which... Nobody EVER says what they mean in this book. Oskar says inappropriately honest things because he's literal and a child and probably has Asperger's, but when it comes to important things to him - his father - he shuts down. Incommunicado. Which is a huge theme in this book. Nobody talks to each other. Except of course for the perfect father-son relationship that Thomas/Oskar have.

Seriously, this was, I think for me, the most frustrating aspect of this book. It made me want to throw the damn thing across the room so many times. SO. MANY. TIMES. I hate, HATE, stupid people who suffer and cause other people to suffer needlessly because they are incapable of opening their fucking mouth, or getting a damn pen, or hiring a singing clown telegram, or a skywriter or communicating in SOME WAY with another person about their needs or fears or thoughts or... anything. Instead, these geniuses just close down, check out, and take ZERO responsibility for their own life, shirk EVERY decision and just refuse. Refuse what? Everything. Just fucking... GAH!


Half of this story is about Oskar's Grandma and Grandpa, and the shit's so convoluted and goddamn stupid that at the end I seriously could not believe that paper was wasted on this.

Ugh. You know, I was going to give you the Cliff's Notes version of the stupidity that is Oskar's Grandparents' relationship, but I actually can't bring myself to type it all out. So I'll just tell you that I literally hated reading about it, because they were both so stupid and I could not comprehend why they couldn't just TALK to each other.

Oh, but Grandpa doesn't talk. He writes everything down. One sentence per page. He singlehandedly kept the paper industry in business for 40+ years.

My overall impression of Grandma and Grandpa's lives: What a waste.

Anyway... Like I said. I wanted to like this book. I remember 9/11 and I remember how heartbreaking it was. I remember being glued to the TV and feeling almost physically sick. So I thought this book would be moving and beautiful and heartbreaking. But instead it was just frustrating. It was all over the place, gimmicky, and overall pointless, since Oskar's investigation had nothing at all to do with his father in the end.

What a waste.

I received a copy of this book from the author for review.

I haven't been accepting many books for review lately, because I dislike the feeling of obligation that accepting a book for review brings with it, especially the past chunk of time, with my reading so erratic and all.

But Therese emailed me, and I checked out the book and it intrigued me. The cover drew me in, and the description left me wondering, and both are good things. So I accepted a review copy, but then all that erratic reading happened again, and I sat on this one for over a month.

I picked it up last night, and I'll admit that right off the bat, I was a little apprehensive. This is written in 1st person present tense, which is honestly my least favorite narrative style. I thought right away that I was going to be constantly distracted by the narrative. I will admit that there were a few times that repetitive wording or phrasing jumped out at me ("If there's a choice, I don't see it" and "If I have a choice, I don't see it" both showed up within 9 pages of each other, for example), but once I got into the story, I was engrossed, and read the majority of the book in one sitting this afternoon. Which is pretty impressive, since, as I've mentioned, I have Erratic Reading Syndrome (ERS).

I am pleasantly surprised by how much I actually did enjoy this story, considering my first impressions last night. I thought that the characters were all well done, and understandable, if a bit frustrating. I truly felt as though I was trying to figure things out with Eliza as she went along - not just about the mystery, but also who Eliza is, or wants to be.

I got the feeling that Eliza had done a lot of growing up in a short time, even before the start of the book, and didn't yet realize it. Her interactions with Fiona just held that awkwardness of friends who are drifting apart but are unsure why or how. This is one of the things that I liked best about the book. We're not in Eliza's head a lot - just when she's actively questioning or piecing things together - but it never feels like there's any narrative missing. She is understandable and relatable, even if I don't always necessarily agree with her reactions, so it's easy to keep up with her moods and changes.

The story itself is interesting, and kept me reading through to the end to find out the answers to the questions, but also to find out what the repercussions of the answers would be.

I felt for Annie, after learning what she had gone through, and though the subject matter was grim, the writing was never manipulative or overly sentimental. I liked that quite a bit. Let the story speak for itself. If you've written a good one, it will. This one did.

Overall, I really enjoyed it, and I would recommend it to someone looking for a good way to spend a rainy afternoon.

I have a feeling that this is going to be a rambling kind of review full of leg-humps and drooling.

You've been warned.

But first, I want to get the non-leg-humpy stuff out of the way. Technically, I'm giving this 4 1/2 stars, because there were a couple things that just... didn't feel right to me. Forced, one might say. They were little things, in the grand scheme of the book, but they just didn't really work for me, and took me out of the story. I know why they were there, but knowing why someone painted their house fluorescent orange doesn't make it easier to look at. Appreciating a style of art doesn't necessarily mean one has to LIKE it.

So my first issue is with the carryover sentences from the end of one chapter, to the header of the next. These are abrupt cut-off sentences hanging in the middle of a page, and the header of the next chapter finishes them.

It took me quite a while to get used to this, and it had a tendency not to stick. I don't read chapter headings. This hinders me a lot at times, because, in a book like this, the chapter headings are vital to keeping up with the story. They tell the reader where, and when, we're at in the story. But I find that chapter headers are often times spoilery, or hinty, and this annoys me. I don't want the chapter saying "Hey, watch out for this thing to happen... it's gonna be good!" I just want to read the story and get to the thing when I get to it, and be surprised. I especially dislike the cutesy ones like "Chapter 7, In Which Character A Has Things Happen To Him And Then Learns A Valuable Lesson". Ugh.

So I stopped reading them quite a while back. Sometimes it means that I get a little lost in the story and backtrack, and sometimes it means nothing because the only thing I've skipped is "Chapter 3".

Back on point - As I mentioned, it took me a long time to get used to the end of the sentence being the beginning of a chapter thing here, but I also said it didn't really "stick". What I mean by this is that there would be gaps of several chapters that ended normally, no carryover, and so the next time I'd see it (usually when it was supposed to be suspenseful) I'd have to pause and remind myself to read the next header. And not only read it, but read it as part of the previous chapter's last sentence.

Anyway... Needless to say, it took me out of the story. I've now written more about this carryover thing than some of my full reviews, and I feel like I'm starting to sound like I disliked it a lot more than I did. I actually didn't really mind it so much except that I just had to take that moment and remind myself how to continue. But it DID serve the purpose it was intended to serve, which was to make the reader pause, to wonder where things would go... to create some suspense. And it worked well in my case, for all the reasons mentioned already. Probably better than intended, actually. I tend to... skim. Especially if I'm anxious for characters and need to know what happens.

I know that this seems to go against everything that I hate about spoilers and hints, but I don't see this as spoiling myself, because technically I am reading the page - twice. One quick skim to find out what happens, and then a rescan to pick up anything I might have missed on the first pass. I don't do this with every page, or even every book. But the ones that grab me, that have hooked me and know it, they are the ones that I'm likely to skim because I just have to know what happens. It seems contrary - you'd think that the ones that I don't like would be the ones I'm most likely to skim... but no. Those my cause my interest and desire to read to fizzle out and die, and they eventually are just abandoned. Or abandoned quickly depending on how hard I hated it.

Moving on... The second thing that took me out of the story was the unlikely relationship at the end. I'm not going to give anything away here, but it just didn't seem realistic to me. I feel like I understand it, but it felt forced and... wrong, somehow. Tacked on, perhaps. And that's all I'm going to say about that. (See, I can be brief!)

Moving on to the things I loved about this book... Oh, there are so many. It will be much, much harder to specify these, and much harder to explain just why I loved it... at least without giving anything away.

First, I'll just say that this book was not at ALL what I expected. One expects, with a title like NOS4A2 (Nosferatu, if you don't speak license platenese) that it's a vampire story. And it is, but it isn't. It's so much more than that. That sounds trite, but I don't know how else to describe it. It's a book about the mind, and the power of belief, and in belief in oneself, and parenthood, and the nature of innocence... It's really so much more than I expected, though I feel like I should have known better, considering how much I loved Joe's last novel, and the reasons I loved it.

To date, I've read everything that Joe Hill has published, with the exception of his Locke & Key series, which I'll be getting to very soon. I started reading him, obviously, because he's Stephen King's son, but I've KEPT reading him because he's an amazing author in his own right. His voice is unique from his father's, he has his own style, his own way of using words and images and music to bring a story to life, and I love that about him.

But in this book, there's a distinct shift. Joe's no longer striving to separate himself, it seems, but is now incorporating... There's a kind of linking of the universes. I absolutely LOVED stumbling across the references to other books (The knife Maggie mentions was one that I thought fit perfectly into this story, though not very subtle. :P), but especially from Stephen King's. I highlighted a lot of passages - ones that Constant Readers will recognize immediately. There were a surprising number of them.

In addition to that, I felt like this book felt more like one King would write, especially post-2000 King. Don't get me wrong, Joe Hill's hand is alllll over this book, and it's incredible, but I can see an influence here, that's all. One of the major contributors to this is how Joe writes children. Stephen King is known for writing children with perfection, and it's abundantly clear that the apple did not fall far from the tree in this aspect.

I want to say a little something about the characters... but I'm not sure what I could say without giving anything away. I'll go vague then. I thought all of the characters were perfectly done. Their lives and their hopes and fears were all handled perfectly and I felt like I'd known many of them for a long, long time. Vic especially. I felt like I knew her better than she knew herself. Or maybe I just had more faith in her. I'm not sure there's a difference. I loved her, her strength, her refusal to give in... she's one to admire, if only for her determination. Goodness knows there's not much else to admire there. She's flawed, hugely flawed, and that's what makes her beautiful.

Lou was another one of my favorite characters. I was surprised at how important he became to the story, and by the way it happened, but I almost immediately came to love him. He's the perfect guy to have your back, no matter what it might mean for himself.

Anyway, I'm not saying anymore. To say more will be to spoil. I highly recommend this one, as I do with all of Hill's books. They are all amazing, and should be read and loved forever. The end.

Just a quick review on this one: This was a re-read and this time around, it just didn't have the same awesomeness that it had the first time. Maybe it's because I knew what happens (mostly - I did forget a lot), but it just didn't hold my interest as much as it did the first time through.

BUT - In all fairness, this could be me, and not the book. I haven't really been in a mood to read much of anything lately, so this disinterest could be in my head. Probably likely.

Still, I'll say that I enjoyed this book, and I enjoy how Greek Mythology is updated to modern times. It's a fun story overall.

Alrighty... I'm having a really hard time mustering up any interest in this book, and so I'm calling it quits.

This was recommended to me by a friend who is really into the game, but it's just not really my thing. I've been told what happens in the second half of the book, and for me, it's not really worth sticking with it.

That pretty much sums it up.

This is the second short story that I picked up from Tor for free - again, I was drawn in by accolades - this was a Nebula Award nominee - but mostly I was hooked by the cover. I LOVE the cover... it's almost vampiric, like the taller woman is breathing the life right out of her victim. I love the haunted quality the woman in white has, and the way she seems to be basking in the theft of her. I love the kind of greedy sensuality of the cover.

These are the things that I thought when I picked this up. I didn't notice the paintbrushes, and despite the title, I didn't really think of this book being about art. I don't really read book descriptions much, and I didn't read this one. I read it while I was reading the story though, and I almost wish I hadn't, because even the one sentence teaser of a description caused me to assume things about the story. Which is why I don't like to read them in the first place.

I was not thrilled with the other free Tor story I picked up. It told everything and showed nothing, it lacked substance and meaning and just did nothing but disappoint me. In comparison, Portait of Lisane de Patagnia had all of that. The writing was evocative and descriptive, and the story was interesting and compelling. I wanted to know where it was going.

It seems like I've been reading a lot of stories about art as a method of creation, but not very many stories about art as a method of destruction. But really it wasn't so much about the art, this story. It was more about the relationship between this particular artist and her subject, between teacher and student, lovers. It was about the bitterness that can be created when hopes and expectations aren't met, and how that bitterness can create something new and powerful in its own image.

I really enjoyed this little story, though there were times when I was a little confused, because the narrative jumped around from present day to scenes from the past, and there wasn't always a clear delineation between them. But it wasn't difficult to keep up with the story, I just had to backtrack a couple times.

I can't say that I really liked the characters, but I could identify with them and I had no trouble understanding them. I am always a little impressed by this in short stories, because it seems to me that identifiable characters are hard for many to write even in full length novels, so to do so in only 32 pages makes me happy. There are only a few authors that I've seen write stories this short (or shorter) that have well-written characters, and they are among my favorite authors. I take this as a sign that I may need to search out more of Swirsky's books.