Review: Rodin's Debutante

Rodin's Debutante by Ward S. Just

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Four and a half stars for the setting - North Shore, South Side, Gold Coast, Hyde Park, even a name drop for Gary, all so alive that they are the characters that kept me reading this book. Two stars for the real characters, the main ones so flat and bloodless that they can move in and out of the story arc without being noticed. There's some beautiful writing in this book, but honestly, there's not a lot of story. Several small stories that would have made a great short story collection, but as literary fiction, it's only so-so.



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Review: A Clockwork Orange CD

A Clockwork Orange CD by Anthony Burgess

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Hard to believe, but this audio version was better than the movie. Magically, Hollander makes the nadsat dialect as easy to understand as your native tongue. This version includes the real ending to the book, the one edited out of early editions, read by Burgess himself. It is a better ending, but I'm sorry to say that it lost something being read by the author instead of Hollander.



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Review: Those in Peril

Those in Peril by Wilbur Smith

My rating: 1 of 5 stars






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Review: The Sherlockian

The Sherlockian by Graham Moore

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


It's unusual to find a real person historical fiction where the author doesn't put the historical figure on a pedestal. After all, they usually chose to wrote the book because they were so fascinated by that person they weren't satisfied with what is factually known about them. Moore doesn't hide Dr. Doyle's faults from the reader, though, and that's what makes this a more 'believable" bit of fiction. I think some of the dialog between Doyle and Bram Stoker sounded a little too modern, but who's to say that they really spoke in the same manner that they wrote to each other? The contemporary mystery is a simple and purposely unoriginal who-dunnit, providing just the right interludes of character driven story between the trips back in time to a tiny black hole in literary history.





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Review: Swamplandia!

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


There are two coming of age stories in this book, and it's unfortunate that it's the less interesting, less original one that is the focus of the blurbs and advertising campaign. Yes, little Ava goes on a harrowing and ugly adventure in hopes of finding her mentally ill sister who has run off to marry a ghost. She goes through through swamps and monsters on her quest. Interesting, but so lacking in detail and consequences (except a big one that made me more angry for lazy writing than what it did to the character) that it reads more like a bad fairy tail than a good tale. But then, there's the second coming of age story, Ava's brother Kiwi who goes on his own rescue effort, the kind that has far more chances to go in the wrong direction, one where he has to make actual choices and doesn't always make the 100% correct one. Out of the swamp and into a murkier world of contemporary living, Kiwi lives up to his quest is a slightly more believable way than his younger sister. Not only did Kiwi make the big (and totally precious) save in the end, he saved this book from being a waste of time.



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Review: If I Stay

If I Stay by Gayle Forman

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Some very nice stream of consciousness writing (pun intended), but so obvious about the outcome that even most young adults will know what's going to happen long before the protagonist does.



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Review: Under the Skin

Under the Skin by Michel Faber

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Great premise, great set up in the first half, but everything went so very very flat in the last half. Once the well written big reveal was over, there wasn't a lot left to the story but for a sad attempt at what I think was supposed to be romance but read more like fluffy page filler. Fluffy in sci-fi/horror? No thanks. It should make a decent movie, though.



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Review: Under the Bright Lights

Under the Bright Lights by Daniel Woodrell

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


The dialog is all dialect and idioms, the setting is heavy on ambiance and far too light on necessity. There's a decent story hidden under all the long winded insults and far too clever retorts, but cutting through the heavy handed noir-style makes for hard reading or fast skimming.



The best part of this book is that Woodrell got it out of his system early in his career and could go on to much, much better books.



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Review: Cup of Gold

Cup of Gold by John Steinbeck

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


To be a fair critic of this book, you'd need to not know who the author was before you started the book. As a first book, it doesn't deserve to carry the literary stigma of The Grapes of Wrath or Of Mice and Men. And it is a stigma, because any reader who has read those books will go looking for at least the seed of what was to become some of the greatest writing of the 20th century, and if it's a readers first Steinbeck, they're going to be expecting to see what is so great about his work. Unfortunately for this book, it just wasn't there yet. And of course it shouldn't be, how many really good authors do their best work first? That's not to say this is bad writing, rookie Steinbeck is still better that 50% of what I've read. The theme, a young man dreams of more, believes he can obtain it through hard work, and then discovers that life isn't that simple (okay, so there's that seed of future Steinbeck) is portrayed through a fictionalized version of the life of the very real pirate/privateer Henry Morgan. There's an odd sort of realism to the book, Steinbeck's pirates do have pillage and torture, rape is alluded to, they make use of the services of prostitutes, but there's no mention of them killing anyone when they do these things. Whole Spanish ships are captured through the use of fire and canonball, but there would appear to be no casualties. That lack of finality weakens the story tremendously, <spoiler>and when Morgan does kill two members of his own crew, one that he's grown very attached to, it makes the previous omissions of mortality all the more obvious.</spoiler>



I'd go with 2 1/2 stars if I could, but I'll bump it up because a)Steinbeck and b) Pirate.



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Review: The Girl Who Played with Fire

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I never would have finished this if it wasn't for the brilliant narration of Simon Vance. So much detail, so much set up and almost no pay off. This clearly is part one of a two part story. Don't expect any kind of solution or closure or anything that resembles the end of a story arc. However, if you loved the main characters of the first book, you'll love them even more this time around, because they are the same people, multiplied by a factor of 2.



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