Book Title: Two for the Dough
Author: Janet Evanovich
Pages: About 320
Grade: B-
Buyability: 4/10
Status: Owned (bought)
Summary: After reading a fair bit of high-brow and chick lit lately I decided to finally read the second book in the quite popular (By my records) Stephanie Plum series. I surprisingly liked the first one, about a New Jersey thirty-something turned bounty hunter who is dealing with a flirty cop/childhood menace Joe Morelli, a crazy traditional family, and a bucket full of weird cases. Anyway this led me to pick up the second book and I was appalled by how awful a lot of the writing was! That being said, I'm still a fan of the series - they are fast-paced and interesting, just the kind of junk novel that passes by in a few hours.
I think the reason why I didn't like this book quite as much as the first was well for one, you have a better idea of what'll happen and when...the first book I'm like "bounty hunter eh?" and had no idea what was happening. This one I had a better idea of how to pick up clues and so on, but even then the story was kind of broken up and jarring, and there was a ridiculous amount of grossness in this book given a big portion of it revolved around a funeral home. Still the story was interesting, the relationship between Morelli and Stephanie was very well written, and the ending was exciting. All the good makings of a fluffy read for spring (and soon summer) days! Will I buy another one? Hmm only if I can find them for super cheap. Otherwise it's library time for me.
Showing posts with label mystery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mystery. Show all posts
Friday, March 30, 2007
Monday, March 19, 2007
Book #10: The Book of Air & Shadows
Book #10
Title: The Book Of Air & Shadows
Author: Michael Gruber
Pages: 464
Grade: A
Buyability: 7/10
Status: Owned (freebie)
Well at first glance, at least by the book's description, you might think, as I did, that this book is a Da Vinci code rip-off with a literary focus. And yes it's in the same wave - an intricately woven novel of suspense, mystery, and history mixing up a lost Shakespearean play with the stories of two men trying to get their lives on track. But Gruber refuses to fall into the that trap by creating fully realized, dynamic characters, using a lot less user friendly but more literary prose, and designing a book that doesn't read like a movie, but like a book.
The story alternates between the first-person perspective of Jake Mishkin, a sexaholic corporate lawyer whose background is in copyright law, and the third-person perspective of Al Crosetti, a late-twenties slacker who is stuck in a basement cataloguing antique books while he dreams of moving out of his parents house and going to film school. The two men's lives become intertwined upon the discovery of a set of letters from the 1600's that unlock some secrets to William Shakespeare's life - including the potential whereabouts of a hand-written Shakespeare play that was never produced. The twist? Well everyone and their mom (including Crosetti's mom) appears to want to grab a hold of the letters and subsequently the play - including the Russian mafia, the Jewish mafia, a number of professors including one who is tortured to death, librarians, historians, cryptographers and many many more!
Although I was at first overwhelmed by certain elements of the book - Mishkin's overbearing persona, the olde englysh (ha) of the Bracegirdle letters which mark the end of each chapter and the rather complicated act of encrypting the text - I eventually just got drawn in. The lengths of the chapters are appropriately spaced so reading one feels like a good bout of information, you can take a break, mull it over, and then come back. It was rare that I wanted to stop a chapter midway, and rare that I was able to consume more than 2 at a time.
I liked the massive number of questions that popped up as well - the book was not solely about the hunt for this manuscript, but a million other things as well. The payoff, as such, as not just about whether or not they found the manuscript and whether or not it was authentic either. The characters all had their own intriguing storylines and sub-plots that compelled me to read along - minor or major. I also liked the fact the book took style cues from a variety of genres - such as old mystery novels with last names, action books like The Da Vinci Code, literary fiction and so on...
My only warnings would be to be prepared to involve yourself a lot more heavily than you would have to with something written by Dan Brown. This is not exactly a book of light reading, but one of rewarding and enjoyable reading. The story manages to flow lightly and feeds you clues to the puzzle throughout making for an enchanting story that I quite literally could not put down last night just to finish it! My only other complaint would be the last three or four chapters seemed a bit rushed. There was so much slow boiling to the climax that it felt cramped with action of the movie variety.
All in all a great book and I look forward to seeing the response it receives from the reading community - Gruber is one to watch, that's for certain.
Title: The Book Of Air & Shadows
Author: Michael Gruber
Pages: 464
Grade: A
Buyability: 7/10
Status: Owned (freebie)
Well at first glance, at least by the book's description, you might think, as I did, that this book is a Da Vinci code rip-off with a literary focus. And yes it's in the same wave - an intricately woven novel of suspense, mystery, and history mixing up a lost Shakespearean play with the stories of two men trying to get their lives on track. But Gruber refuses to fall into the that trap by creating fully realized, dynamic characters, using a lot less user friendly but more literary prose, and designing a book that doesn't read like a movie, but like a book.
The story alternates between the first-person perspective of Jake Mishkin, a sexaholic corporate lawyer whose background is in copyright law, and the third-person perspective of Al Crosetti, a late-twenties slacker who is stuck in a basement cataloguing antique books while he dreams of moving out of his parents house and going to film school. The two men's lives become intertwined upon the discovery of a set of letters from the 1600's that unlock some secrets to William Shakespeare's life - including the potential whereabouts of a hand-written Shakespeare play that was never produced. The twist? Well everyone and their mom (including Crosetti's mom) appears to want to grab a hold of the letters and subsequently the play - including the Russian mafia, the Jewish mafia, a number of professors including one who is tortured to death, librarians, historians, cryptographers and many many more!
Although I was at first overwhelmed by certain elements of the book - Mishkin's overbearing persona, the olde englysh (ha) of the Bracegirdle letters which mark the end of each chapter and the rather complicated act of encrypting the text - I eventually just got drawn in. The lengths of the chapters are appropriately spaced so reading one feels like a good bout of information, you can take a break, mull it over, and then come back. It was rare that I wanted to stop a chapter midway, and rare that I was able to consume more than 2 at a time.
I liked the massive number of questions that popped up as well - the book was not solely about the hunt for this manuscript, but a million other things as well. The payoff, as such, as not just about whether or not they found the manuscript and whether or not it was authentic either. The characters all had their own intriguing storylines and sub-plots that compelled me to read along - minor or major. I also liked the fact the book took style cues from a variety of genres - such as old mystery novels with last names, action books like The Da Vinci Code, literary fiction and so on...
My only warnings would be to be prepared to involve yourself a lot more heavily than you would have to with something written by Dan Brown. This is not exactly a book of light reading, but one of rewarding and enjoyable reading. The story manages to flow lightly and feeds you clues to the puzzle throughout making for an enchanting story that I quite literally could not put down last night just to finish it! My only other complaint would be the last three or four chapters seemed a bit rushed. There was so much slow boiling to the climax that it felt cramped with action of the movie variety.
All in all a great book and I look forward to seeing the response it receives from the reading community - Gruber is one to watch, that's for certain.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Book #2: Yankee Doodle Dead by Carolyn Hart
Book #2
Title: Yankee Doodle Dead
Author: Carolyn Hart
Pages: 300
Grade: D
Buyability: 0/10
Status: Owned (gift) - giving away
I know I should not be allowed to judge a book based on its cover, its age, or the fact its part of a mystery series I've never read. But this book was just awful. I went into it not that excited, it was an uncorrected proof that somehow ended up being my book that I got on Xmas eve this year. I have a hunch my mom snagged it from the Winnipeg Public Library book sale - no wonder it was on sale is all I have to say.
The story essentially follows a sleuthing couple with no credentials to be detectives - the girl, Annie I think?, owns a murder mystery book shop (um yeah, cause that would fly on a small tourist island), and her husband Max helps people 'find stuff' or 'figure out stuff'. I can't even put into words how many cliches popped up in this book. I'm not a massive mystery fan, but I appreciate a good one and this story didn't have any good twists. Essentially a much-disliked newcomer to the town is murdered on the fourth of July and a young, well-liked teenager accidentally finds the gun in the woods, fingering him as the suspect. Annie & Max and a small ring of help band together to interview one of 10 key suspects - but that is a whole lotta suspects and none of their motives were particularly strong or interesting. So needless to say a secret twist does happen...but it's a genuinely stupid one.
I don't really have much else to report on this book. I found it confusing, clunky, and utterly hard to get through. Perhaps you are a fan of the series (I can't think of the author's name right now) but I definitely don't plan to read another book by this author. So turned off of mysteries right now. The only thing this book did was give me inspiration for a certain style of a short, short story I had to write this week where it is 26 sentences long and each sentence begins with the next letter of the alphabet (ex: sentence one begins with the letter A, sentence two with B and so on). And even I wrote it better.
Title: Yankee Doodle Dead
Author: Carolyn Hart
Pages: 300
Grade: D
Buyability: 0/10
Status: Owned (gift) - giving away
I know I should not be allowed to judge a book based on its cover, its age, or the fact its part of a mystery series I've never read. But this book was just awful. I went into it not that excited, it was an uncorrected proof that somehow ended up being my book that I got on Xmas eve this year. I have a hunch my mom snagged it from the Winnipeg Public Library book sale - no wonder it was on sale is all I have to say.
The story essentially follows a sleuthing couple with no credentials to be detectives - the girl, Annie I think?, owns a murder mystery book shop (um yeah, cause that would fly on a small tourist island), and her husband Max helps people 'find stuff' or 'figure out stuff'. I can't even put into words how many cliches popped up in this book. I'm not a massive mystery fan, but I appreciate a good one and this story didn't have any good twists. Essentially a much-disliked newcomer to the town is murdered on the fourth of July and a young, well-liked teenager accidentally finds the gun in the woods, fingering him as the suspect. Annie & Max and a small ring of help band together to interview one of 10 key suspects - but that is a whole lotta suspects and none of their motives were particularly strong or interesting. So needless to say a secret twist does happen...but it's a genuinely stupid one.
I don't really have much else to report on this book. I found it confusing, clunky, and utterly hard to get through. Perhaps you are a fan of the series (I can't think of the author's name right now) but I definitely don't plan to read another book by this author. So turned off of mysteries right now. The only thing this book did was give me inspiration for a certain style of a short, short story I had to write this week where it is 26 sentences long and each sentence begins with the next letter of the alphabet (ex: sentence one begins with the letter A, sentence two with B and so on). And even I wrote it better.
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