Review: Troubles

Troubles by J.G. Farrell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Take Cold Comfort Farm, move it to 1919 Ireland, add a larger cast of characters and an author who wishes to educate at the same time he entertains and you have Troubles. The Majestic Hotel is one of the best buildings as a character I've ever read, and the family and lodgers who cross her crumbling threshold are gothic to the perfect degree. Farrell uses newspaper articles to keep the entire story from becoming farce, and those historical touchstones come at just the right frequency to remind the reader that no matter how loony the story, the Troubles were very real.



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Review: Gulliver Travels

Gulliver Travels by Justin Luke Zirilli

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Fun and light read that can turn to dark and serious in a paragraph. There's also a balancing act going on between true life and romantic fiction that is most noticeable with the fairy godfatherlike characters of Todd, the room mate and Sebastian, the website owner. But the places are well described and most of the plot all too believable, making for an interesting if not important read.



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Review: The Minstrel's Tale

The Minstrel's Tale by Anna Questerly

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This is a book I think I would have loved as a child, maybe up to about 8 or 9 years old. The original fairy tales told by Amos, the Minstrel, have the detail that not only keep the reader reading, but also would have held the interest of a crowd of villagers who had plenty of experience with well told tales. The actual Minstrel's tale, of taking on an apprentice with his own very interesting back story, works for a young reader looking for safe escapism. However, there's something uneven about the characters themselves, Amos and Richard, in that their life experiences and personalities seem to to weaken and strengthen depending on plot twists, that even a child might question. Also, the bookends of the tale, a young contemporary girl who discovers the manuscripts when she begrudgingly accompanies her parents on a vacation to France is totally unnecessary.



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Review: The Marlowe Conspiracy

The Marlowe Conspiracy by M. G. Scarsbrook

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



There were parts of this book I loved (the use of well researched details of theatre life and the Star Chamber courts), parts that made me cringe (yes, it's fiction, but fiction based on something as well documented as the time line of Christopher Marlowe's short life shouldn't play fast and loose with that time line). Parts of the book seemed forced (Shakespear's created involvement in the last day's of Marlowe's life came from being an extreme fanboy? ), while others made perfect sense (a man capable of writing what Marlowe wrote should have been able to figure out that he wasn't being invited for a friendly drink in Depshire. There are plot developments that are convenient at one moment and forgotten when they wouldn't be (why would a clever man like Kit risk sneaking into Scadbury again when a night watchman had caused so much trouble the first time?). But in the end, my over all feeling was that this was a fun, far better than average piece of real person fan fiction, and that averaged out to three stars.



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Review: The Likeness

The Likeness by Tana French

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I'm glad I gave French a second chance, as this book is much better than the first in the series. This time around, the cliched relationships are gone or at least used as part of the plot and French's ability to muddle her mystery just the right amount is even stronger. There is one giant suspension of disbelief, a plot point necessary to keep the story going longerbut so blatantly wrong in a book that otherwise would fit well as a procedural. If you can ignore a major character doing something to add a chapter or two to a story that didn't need it, I'd recommend this book.



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Review: The Accident

The Accident by Linwood Barclay

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



A fast paced mystery set in suburbia that doesn't have a bored single mom at the center of the story. That guarantees a book a two star rating from me! Add some decent research, good pacing (except for the big action scene that was obviously written for seeing rather than reading) and hardly any superfluous characters and you've got a decent contemporary mystery that successfully straddles the line between cozy and thriller. If you liked [a:John Katz|3166803|John Katz|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]'s early mystery series, you'll be happy to discover that the dark side of the suburbs has not lightened up one bit.



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Review: So Cold the River

So Cold the River by Michael Koryta

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



My Hoosier bias would have this as five stars: Koryta knows his setting! If, for some reason, a reader would like to immerse themselves in contemporary southern Indiana, this is the book to read. That is, if they want a creepy, haunted version of that part of the state. The living people are authentic, the not so living appear pretty much as you'd expect them. The thriller plot line goes on just a little too long and I thought the explanation for the grad student's heavy involvement was thin and cliched. However, there's a lot of originality in the rest of the story, enough to make me want to read another of Koryta's non-Lincoln Perry stories.



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Review: The Stranger's Child

The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Hollinghurst's ability to immerse a reader in time and place is all that kept me going to the end of this book. The selective omniscient point of view is used to drag out scenes that go nowhere while plot lines that might have been interesting (How did Jonah end up working for Harry Hewitt?) are teased and then dropped. There's also a tantalizing theme, almost buried in the soap opera passing as history plot, about how facts are only as factual as the person reporting them.



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Review: Nightwoods

Nightwoods by Charles Frazier

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Fantastic sense of place and amazing turns of phrases almost ruined by characters that are so flat and underdeveloped that I could not have cared less about the peril they are exposed to (and that includes the two kids!). I'll remember where this story took place a lot longer than I'll remember why it took place.



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Review: We the Animals: A novel

We the Animals: A novel by Justin Torres

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



A portion of the three stars is for author potential, something I very rarely consider when rating a book. If Torres turns out to be capable of writing an actual story rather than a collection of scenes that may or may not reveal a sad character arc, he will prove to be a gifted writer. Right now, he shows the ability to pull a reader into the heart of his characters, but he doesn't seem to know what to do with them once they are there.



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