Catching Up On Book Reviews
By jimrob | July 1, 2008
I’ve fallen far behind on my book reviewing. While I doubt anyone out there awaits my book suggestions like those of Oprah’s Book Club, I still enjoy giving my thoughts on the books I’ve read.
The most recent book I’ve finished is Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill. It’s the story of an aging death metal singer, Judas Coyne, who unknowingly purchases the funeral suit of a past girlfriend’s dead stepfather (sorry for the spoiler.) The suit comes with an unwanted surprise, causing Jude and his girlfriend, “Georgia”, to embark on a cross-country trip to free themselves of its curse.
This book was one of my “buy a book by an author you know, and also one from an author you don’t” experiments. Unlike my last such purchase, that of The Missing, by Sara Langan, I really enjoyed it.
(To be fair to The Missing, it’s not that I didn’t enjoy the book per se. It’s just that I couldn’t get past the bit about the menstrual woman craving raw hamburger. An insignificant sentence in the book, I know. It was still enough to put me off what otherwise would have been a good read. Anyway, back to whatever I was writing about before I started rambling…)
There is much rock ‘n’ roll verbage and “trivia” mentioned into the story. To me, most of it seemed distracting. For example, there was a lot of name-dropping of 70’s and 80’s rock singers and stars that didn’t contribute much to the story. At times it did, like when Judas was in a morphine-induced haze and thought he was talking to some acid-fried 60’s singer whose name I can’t recall. He also has two dogs, one named Angus and one named Bon. I’ll leave it to you to get that one. If you don’t, quit reading my blog.
The book is a well-written, easy read. There were a few hangups that made me go, “ehh…..” but it’s rare that I find a book that doesn’t contain any. Take that for what it’s worth.
I would recommend Heart Shaped Box to those who like ghost stories, thrillers, action, or similar genres.
Another book I read recently was The Taking, by Dean Koontz. This was the first Koontz novel I’d read in a few years; I believe the last was Night Chills. I wasn’t expecting much, to be honest. For some reason I’d adopted the notion that Koontz’s books were sub-par and boring. Boy, was I wrong - especially when it came to The Taking.
This story tells us of an alien invasion, in which certain people are inexplicably spared a horrible fate. It’s hard to say much about it without giving away the plot, as the book seems to be one surprise after another.
What I liked most about this book was Koontz’s writing style, one which initially was reminiscent of H.P. Lovecraft. I really liked the mixture of sentence lengths, the story at times had a “prosey” feel to it.
I would highly recommend this book to everyone, especially those who enjoy apocalyptic suspense and post-disaster “getting on with it” stories. I really, really liked it.
Prior to The Taking, I read The Oath, by Frank Peretti. This is the third novel of his that I have read, and I’ve enjoyed all of them. My favorite thing isn’t so much the stories themselves (although I do enjoy them thoroughly), but that he can tell a tale with as much gore and violence as Stephen King without being so “blunt” about it.
The Oath is a story about a small mining town with a dark past, involving pacts with creatures man was not meant to contact. As with other books written by this Pastor, it serves as a fictional example of what happens when man flirts with sin and temptation.
My only disappointment with this well-written book was that he spoils the whole story in the prologue. Yes, it does help one understand the underlying message of the story. However, the whole first half of the book is about a man trying to discover if what these locals fear is real. It seems to me kind of pointless to follow a biologist around for the first 400 pages of an 800-page book as he plays Sherlock, trying to discover the existence of a creature the author told us exists before we even start the story.
From here, I get kind of fuzzy on what my prior read was. I think it was a Stephen King novel. Different Seasons, perhaps? Not much point in reviewing a twenty year-old book of short stories, really. I’ll skip to another one.
Let’s go to the man whose books I have a love/hate relationship with: John Saul. I “enjoy” his books, I can’t put them down, but good grief do they make me feel icky all over. It’s like he shoves an eggbeater down the back of my throat and scrambles my guts. I can’t even count the number of times I ask myself, “Why? Why did he have to take the story there?” as I continue reading.
I most recently read Hellfire. It’s an older book (what was I just saying about not reviewing 20 year-old books?) that I found down in my mom’s storage locker. It’s about a New England town with a vacated gilded-age factory with a very dark past. There’s several sub-plots that are interesting of themselves, and tie together quite nicely.
At first, I thought I was going to get through this one without the “Saul Effect.” I thought I might have found one that didn’t leave me feeling like an abused child. Then, at the very end of the book, in the basement… ugh. Why John, why? They couldn’t have just beat eachother up? Yeesh. Far be it from me, a G.E.D.-wielding internet hack with an incomplete formal education to criticize, but… ugh. That’s just… ugh.
Then at the very end, when I though that I may have found a John Saul novel with a happy ending, they set their newborn baby down at the picnic and I see I read yet another book leaving me feeling hopeless about the future of Earth as we know it. Thanks!
I have discovered, however, that reading a Frank Peretti book right after one by John Saul does wonders for relieving my case of “Saul Effect.”
I would recommend this book to people who enjoy John Saul, thrillers, and gory tales of murder, and those filled with agonizing despair who stay up all night pondering the hopelessness of mankind’s salvation.
There are a couple other books I read recently, yet didn’t review. It’s been so long since their reading that I’m hardly unable to review them, let alone remember what they even were.
That’s all for this edition of book reviewing. Take it for what it’s worth. Oh, if you do decide to buy one of the books I mentioned, click the linked book cover by its review. It’ll take you to an Amazon.com order page where you can purchase the book, and I can get 10% of what you paid for it in return. Don’t look at it as falling for my whoring-out of my opinion; look at it as adding forty cents to my book fund.
Topics: Books I've Read |
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