Review: Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants

Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants by Robert Sullivan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



The title tells you what you're going to read - the author's observations. These aren't only his observations on the rats in the particular alley he chose for his project, but also his observations about the people who make a living trying to get rid of rats when they are places that people don't want them to be. Each chapter attempts to deal with something related to the rats - rats and plague, how to trap a rat, rat diet, how the rat population of NYC was affected by 9/!!, but some times the author goes off topic or revisits a previous topic, giving the book a meandering feeling that can be frustrating to a reader who just wants to know what he discovered about the rats he observed.



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Review: Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants

Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants by Robert Sullivan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



The title tells you what you're going to read - the authors observations. These aren't only his observations on the rats in the particular alley he chose for his project, but also his observations about the people who make a living trying to get rid of rats when they are places that people don't want them to be. Each chapter attempts to deal with something related to the rats - rats and plague, how to trap a rat, rat diet, how the rat population of NYC was affected by 9/!!, but some times the author goes off topic or revisits a previous topic, giving the book a meandering feeling that can be frustrating to a reader who just wants to know what he discovered about the rats he observed.



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Review: A Discovery of Witches

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



I read this for a group challenge and boy oh boy, was it a challenge to finish this! It's not that this just isn't my kind of story, it's that there's the makings here for something good and the author ruins it with horribly characters that belong in the arrested development romance genre. For a really good review, I direct you to http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/158359633 , which I agree with 100%, minus the last paragraph.



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Review: Where Darkness Dwells

Where Darkness Dwells by Glen Krisch

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Definitely a 3 1/2 star book. Great sense of place, not only the oh-so-creepy tunnels, but also the above the ground town and surrounding country side. The plot is dense and twisted, maybe a little too much in the first third of the book, but when Krisch starts to bring everything together, he does so with just the right blend of exposition and action. So why not 4 stars? I think there are just too many characters in the book. There's George and Ellie's mom who makes a great monster, but only in what she does to the pregnant girlfriend of Jesse, who also doesn't add anything but shock and horror to the story. We're supposed to feel some empathy for Jesse discovering what happens to her, but given so little back story, the girl is a device, not a person. The same with the local "witch" and her son - they're side stories and devices and everything they do could have been done by one of the more developed and integral characters. These unnecessary characters got in the way of identifying with the central characters, and made the story just a little less scary when it could have been horrifying.



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