Book Review: The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson

Publication Date: 1952 in US
Format: Paperback

Synopsis:

Lou Ford is the deputy sheriff of a small town in Texas. The worst thing most people can say against him is that he's a little slow and a little boring. But, then, most people don't know about the sickness--the sickness that almost got Lou put away when he was younger. The sickness that is about to surface again.


Joshua's Take: 4.0/5☆

Why I picked up the book: because I love me a good, hard crime novel and the recent movie adaptation got me all kinds of giddy to read this original cult classic. Oh, and it has a blurb from Stanley Kubrick, I mean come on, what more do you need?


The serial killer genre has always been a popular one especially in books, where the average citizen for a few hours and days can look inside the mind of a killer, live inside, and yet peacefully go back to their ordinary daily lives with a flick of the wrist, the closing of the front cover, f it ever got to be to much. Anthony Hopkins brought the world to a standstill in 1991 with his terrifying portrayal of everyone's favorite cannibal Hannibal Lecter. And in that same year, Brett Easton Ellis brought everyone's mind's to a frenzy with American Psycho, and then with 2001's movie adaptation which made Christan Bale into one of the most charismatic, outrageous and apologetically tragic "hero's" in recent memory. Then came HBO's Dexter, and now it seems like rooting for the serial killer has become chic, become popular culture. But if one were to ask me, what is one of the greatest example of a serial killer novel, a work written from the POV of the character, I would have to say it would be Jim Thompson's 1952 cult classic, The Killer Inside Me.

I'm not going to talk about the story since I don't want to give anything away. Just go into this with an open mind, blind to all the twists and turns, and you'll be begging for more. This is an amazing read, one that is so realistic, so relentless, so unflinchingly cruel and paranoid, a work with words that literally crawl inside your ears, pounding away at your ear drums in a rhythmic staccato of mayhem, that you have to wonder, was Jim Thompson this brilliant or this demented? Thompson's prose is almost staccato, brilliant bursts of short, clipped sentences that make the story and the lead, Lou Ford, all the more terrifying, like each word is brooded upon before said.

The greatest thing a writer can do is make the reader feel like they're inside the mind of the characters, and Jim Thompson does that so convincingly that you wish he wasn't as great of a wordsmith. Director Stanley Kubrick once said of the novel that The Killer Inside Me was, "probably the most chilling and believable first-person story of a criminally warped mind I have ever encountered" and I couldn't agree more. What's so frightening is that Lou Ford appears like the everyman, the country hick that's in every small town down throughout the state-lines. He's somebody you would feel comfortable asking for directions, even feel pity for his lot in life. From a distance, Lou's crimes would be horrific but tempered, however inside the mind of Lou, the only narrator of a sick play, that's when you move on from horrific to mind-altering. Even better is that with Lou being the only narrator, with every crime and murder being told only by him, you have to question how truthful the whole story is, how far can you take his words at face value and even if you want to. I can only imagine outcry there must have been when this book hit stands back in 1952.

Here is a brilliant work of fiction that perfectly fits what the term "noir" is, a term that feels watered down as every publisher and movie studio looks to coin their works "noir." It's a short read, one that I read as I traveled back and forth to and from Houston, 8 hours total, a short work that will stay in your mind for years to come.

I'm really looking forward to watching the movie adaptation which got a very limited release back in June and stars Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson and Jessica Alba. Just thinking of those actors in the lead roles sends my mind to endless fancies.

Here is a story where every character is tragic and one where sadly everyone gets theirs, a powerful and painful look into the mind of a killer, who realizes what he's doing is wrong, even wants to stop, but can't, because of the "sickness", a sickness that could very well be breeding deep down inside all of us if we ever choose to look. A must-read.

Book Review: The Windup Girl by Paolo Baciqalupi

Publication Date: 2009 in US

Synopsis:

Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen's Calorie Man in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok's street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history's lost calories. There, he encounters Emiko...

Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; instead, she is an engineered being, creche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok. Regarded as soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in a chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe.

What Happens when calories become currency? What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits, when said bio-terrorism's genetic drift forces mankind to the cusp of post-human evolution? Award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi delivers one of the most highly acclaimed science fiction novels of the twenty-first century.

Joshua's Take: 4.5/5☆

Why I picked up the book: because it's winning every speculative fiction award, and I have enjoyed some of the author's previous work. Seriously check out his short story collection, Pump Six. It'll blow your mind.

There are some books that after reading the first 25-30 pages, a reader can sit back and go, "yeah this a damn entertaining read." You just know it, you feel it in your bones as the words fly by, you sitting alone with a Cheshire grin on your face. However, there also some times, far more rarely, some books that after just reading the first 5 pages a reader can sit back and go, "wow, this is amazingly well written. I'm about to embark on a really special journey here." Paolo Baciqalupi's The Windup Girl is such a book.

Winner of numerous awards including most recently the prestigious Hugo award, when I first sat down to read The Windup Girl I thought I was prepared- prepared for a dark dystopian story of a poor robotic windup girl and the world she lives in. What a joke. I wasn't prepared for anything that came. The Windup Girl is an amazingly well crafted read. It's dark, brutal, poetic, imaginative, both terrifyingly tragic and yet somehow hopeful and unlike most anything you've ever read. It's words just get under your skin, it's characters stand just outside your sight-line. You can smell the streets of dystopian Thailand featured in this book, you can see the stagnant and grimy air as people walk around doing anything to survive, because in the world of The Windup Girl, survival is the best anyone can hope for. It's entirely science fiction, a world of Steampunk and what many are now calling Biopunk (environmental and biotechnology science fiction). It's easy to see why this book has been nominated and has won so many awards, deservedly so, and yet as I closed the book, as I took out my bookmark and looked at the cover for a final time, lovingly caressing it, the one thought that kept popping up in my head was, "this is easily one of the best books I've read all year and I doubt I can recommend this book to most people. Who can I recommend this too?" Why did such thoughts swim around in my head? Because this is one damn uncomfortable read.

The story here is split into four main narratives: one of the calorie man spy in Anderson Lake, a white foreigner or farang, looking for a new strain of fruit so his company can further use it to subjugate humanity. Another in a fallen man from Malaya called Hock Seng, a yellow card, one refugees of the lowest of the low in Thailand who once had it all, but had it all taken away when his family, his tribe were wiped out in a religious cleansing. Another, a Thai hero and "whitshirt" named Jaidee who just wants his country to reach the heights he believes it deserves. He is like a blind avatar living in a kaleidoscope world. And lastly, the heroine, our one and only true hero in Emiko, the windup girl, a Japanese robot companion abandoned on the tepid and humid streets of Bangkok, with no owner, a toy, a being no one considers human, who is forced into prostitution by her new owner, a freak show in a freakier world. Who finds hope in the solace that there is a place for her kind, a world with no owners. All four narratives intertwine, as each character's world constantly collides with one another, changing each others futures and fortunes forever.

The one thing I can say about this book is that it isn't a nice read. If this were a film I think I would have turned and looked away numerous times. It's just has some truly unpleasant scenes, horrifyingly so, and yet it's prose is so captivating, it's tragedy so tragic that you can't look away and continue to read on. In the end you have to wonder if anyone really got what they deserved, because it's a world where all the characters are evil, although it's a more evil world that begets evil, and the only truly good, honest and hopeful character is the poor windup girl, and in the end, does she really get everything she deserves? There's just so much here, so many questions about humanity, about greed, about what it means to be a thoughtful and caring soul, about being human, so many things that will keep readers glued, keep them coming back to sentences, re-reading, just a damn amazing read, and one so brutal and honest that I'm sure many will be turned off, disliking it. That's fair. It's clearly not for everyone's tastes. But if you have an open-mind and a high tolerance for pain (I literally found myself sweating as I read sentences from time to time, the prose is just that invasive), then I think you will be greatly rewarded by one of the truly amazing works in recent speculative fiction. But all that brings me back to the original question I had after I had just finished with the book, "who can I recommend this too?"

Book Review: Touched by an Alien by Gini Koch

Publication Date: 2010 in US
Format: Mass Market Paperback

Synopsis:

How can a sexy marketing manager join forces with an Alpha Centauri male in Armani to save the planet-using hairspray, a Mont Blanc pen, and rock n' roll? Easy...

She's Touched by an Alien

Marketing manager Katherine "Kitty" Katt steps into the middle of what appears to be a domestic dispute turned ugly. And it only gets uglier when the man turns into a winged monster, straight out of a grade-Z horror movie, and goes on a killing spree. Though Kitty should probably run away, she springs into action to take the monster down.

In the middle of the chaos a handsome hunk named Jeff Martini appears, sent by the "agency" to perform crowd control. He's Kitty's kind of guy, no matter what planet he's from. And from now on, for Kitty, things are going to be sexy, dangerous, wild, and out of this world.


Joshua's Take: 2.0/5☆

Why I picked up the book: because I love sci-fi and urban fantasy mash-ups and frankly the cover looks fantastic. I've wanted to read this book for a long time purely for the cover so to DAW, yeah, touche, good marketing.


They say a sucker is born every minute. Well I was born many minutes ago and it appears that I'm still an overall general sucker. I mean really, I should have known from the title, but then again, I'm a sucker.

Touched by an Alien is a mix of Twilight meets MIB. I'm a big fan of the MIB movies and well, I'm a guy so I don't really get the whole Twilight craze. However if anything this book has brought me closer to an understanding. This is the Twilight series for adults. Since this is for older readers, there are somewhat explicit sexual situations, lots of action and a heroine who is actually quite interesting instead of a shell like how Bella is written. There are also numerous references to how good-looking the alien guys are, I mean really good-looking and I mean a lot of references. I get it, this book isn't for me, it's not for anyone with a Y chromosome. I get it. But that's no excuse for repetitive and overall poorly structured pacing.

I have no problem when a novel wears its influences on it's sleeves, as in this case with classic B-movies and sci-fi cold war hysteria, but that's no excuse to literally repeat lines nearly every page. There must have been over 300 references to how good looking the guys are, 250 references to how the heroine Kitty is fighting the temptation to jump their bones, 200 references to swooning and 150 references to how Kitty is a modern independent and strong woman who is embarrassed by how cute she thinks everyone is. Again, I get it. This book is really not for me. It should have been shelved in the romance section of the bookstore and frankly that's also my fault since I shouldn't have just picked it up based on how nice I thought the cover looked.

What's frustrating about Touched by an Alien is that there's a really interesting plot here. Virtuous aliens battling parastic beings who can take over and be anyone, who's sole purpose is to eat people and to turn Earth into a literal hell- demonic aliens from who we get our "evil from the pits of hell" myths from. A fascinating heroine who is smart, courageous and brave enough to stand up for her fellow man instead of turning and running, who because of her courage gets initiated into this alien MIB-type organization. Teleportation, sonic guns, epic demonic battles- there's just so much to like here, such an intriguing plot. And its just all wasted on a really cheesy and sub-par romantic sub-plot that derails any type of momentum the story has or tries to have. Just a shame.

Again, this has all brought me a little closer to understanding the whole Twilight craze, how woman around the world can enjoy something that's not particularly well written but hits all the right romantic wish-fulfillment buttons for them. Hell, I like crap too. I mean I love me some sword and sorcery, swords and sandals, big guys fighting bigger monsters, saving the day and getting the girls, so who am I to judge right? Still, there was an interesting plot here, one that I truly believed would have been better suited and far more interesting if the romance sub-plot took a back seat, but then that would be a wholly different novel and one that perhaps wouldn't have been as financially successful. So yeah, it's getting great reviews from the women who read it so if you too are a woman and like your books with more romance than substance then by all means, Touched by an Alien is the perfect one for you. Man, what a terrible title for a book.

Book Review: Feed by Mira Grant

Publication Date: 2010 in US

Synopsis:

In 2014, two experimental viruses—a genetically engineered flu strain designed by Dr. Alexander Kellis, intended to act as a cure for the common cold, and a cancer-killing strain of Marburg, known as "Marburg Amberlee"—escaped the lab and combined to form a single airborne pathogen that swept around the world in a matter of days. It cured cancer. It stopped a thousand cold and flu viruses in their tracks.

It raised the dead.

Millions died in the chaos that followed. The summer of 2014 was dubbed "The Rising," and only the lessons learned from a thousand zombie movies allowed mankind to survive. Even then, the world was changed forever. The mainstream media fell, Internet news acquired an undeniable new legitimacy, and the CDC rose to a new level of power.

Set twenty years after the Rising, the Newsflesh trilogy follows a team of bloggers, led by Georgia and Shaun Mason, as they search for the brutal truths behind the infection. Danger, deceit, and betrayal lurk around every corner, as does the hardest question of them all:

When will you rise?

Joshua's Take: 4/5☆

Why I picked up the book: a story about journalism, zombies and blogging? Seriously, did Mira Grant write this book for me?

I am a journalist by study if no longer by trade and while the world of news no longer interests me as a profession, I am still fascinated by reading the news, or to more precise, how newsies go about their craft. And as we all know, especially you, purveyor of our blog and I'm sure countless others, most people get their news online or from television. The majority of people first hear about something from the John Stewart Show, Colbert Report, or watch news stream instantly online from any war torn area. Newspapers can no longer compete. It's a both sad and sobering thought because the truth is, bloggers don't have a filter. This is both freeing and cumbersome, the idea that now I can write as much as I want, about whatever I want to, unfiltered and unfettered, but I don't have an editor, someone to pare down the post to the essentials. I'm also my own fact checker now and that's scary. What I'm trying to get at here is- imagine a world where the zombie apocalypse has happened, and now the world has been saved and gets its information from everyday modern journalists who run their own blogs, no filter no fact-checking but their own- and god help us because that's the very definition of chaos.

I'm not going to lie, nothing brings me more pleasure than a good zombie and vampire story. I'm a sucker for the decaying flesh and blood sucking fiends, but while I do read a lot of their stories, I'm also very picky on what I consider good, because damn I read a lot of their stories and I want to be impressed. Mira Grant has crafted a fascinating world, post zombie apocalypse style. So many stories I read about zombies deal with the zombie infestation rather than the aftermath, the thought about the daily life of people who have to live with zombies shuffling around. Do people run and hide and cry? Sure, some do. But many others just go about their daily lives, just now in fortified cars, with guns and more watchful eyes.

Mira Grant is the pen name for urban-fantasy author Seanan McGuire who has penned two previous novels (Rosemary and Rue and A Local Habitation) both of which I have not yet read. But man, after reading Feed, I'm eager to read her other books. She has created something special with Feed. It's reality and horror though information, a story of how people can be at times even crueler than wave after wave of zombies, a story about a world rebuilding through politics and journalism, though faith and death, through virus and understanding. The zombies are here to stay, but we can survive if we have enough information on the hows if not the whys. We can all thank Mr. Romero for that one.

However, what really got me about Feed, what really kept me glued page after page, were the main characters, the Mason brother and sister, or to be precise, the sister, Georgia Mason. While Sean Mason is the balls to the walls, fun Irwin of the story (Irwins are journalists who go out and like to poke zombies for the viewing public's pleasure), Georgia Mason is part of the Newsies, journalists who give you the information straight as they see it. Her character reminded me so much of everyone's and mines journalistic ideal, Hunter S. Thompson, or more specifically, Warren Ellis's warped vision of Thompson, Spider Jerusalem from one of the greatest comic book series- Vertigo Comics, Transmetropolitan. If you want to read awesome, check out Transmetropolitan now!! I'll forgive you for leaving me mid-thought. So yeah, we have Ellis's Thompson personified dishing the news on zombies, all the while fighting for the political future of a post zombified United States. Seriously Feed is all about bloggers covering the up and coming Presidential caucus and the zombies that appear to be out to assassinate them and thepresidential hopeful they are following. God, is it any wonder I love this book so much?

I will say that the book does drag a bit as sometimes the POV shifts back and forth, and I wasn't a fan of the final POV shift, although I understand it, but damn if I don't want to accept it. But yeah, while the book does get bogged down a bit with too much character exposition, with conspiracies on top of conspiracies that are just a bit to easy, a bit to transparent to figure out as you sit there screaming at the characters, "why don't you see it, you're smarter than that." However that by no ways takes any of the sheer fun out of the book.

Feed is the first in Grant's Newsflesh trilogy with the second book, Deadline, hopefully coming out soon. Seriously, Feed has it all- great action, poignant deaths (I mean come on right, this is a zombie book), chase scenes, zombies, more zombies, great heroes on the front line reporting the news so people can feel safe. This is what war journalism would read like if zombie's were the new and constant threat. Hide and be scared, but there's no reason to feel afraid and lost because the Mason siblings will do whatever it takes to bring you the news, even if it costs them their lives. A must read for any zombie or journalism fan.

Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges

Ficciones is a collection of short stories by Jorge Luis Borges, the preeminent Argentinian writer, essayist, poet.

Synopsis from Goodreads provides:
Reading Jorge Luis Borges is an experience akin to having the top of one's head removed for repairs. First comes the unfamiliar breeze tickling your cerebral cortex; then disorientation, even mild discomfort; and finally, the sense that the world has been irrevocably altered--and in this case, rendered infinitely more complex. First published in 1945, his Ficciones compressed several centuries' worth of philosophy and poetry into 17 tiny, unclassifiable pieces of prose.

Penny's Take: 3.75/5☆

I want to say most of that description is true. I'm not sure if my world has been irrevocably altered but I will say that this collection definitely made me uncomfortable and tested my patience and the limits of my imagination. And it may very well be that I haven't reached that level of enlightenment and why I am not singing the high praises of Ficciones. I found it difficult at times to follow as sometimes there's no logic to some of these stories and perhaps that's what makes them special. But for me, I think I needed more clarity. I won't say I didn't enjoy myself because there were definitely a few short stories that I found very interesting, especially ones that provided a "twist" or a reveal within the last paragraph or line (The Circular Ruins; The Garden of Forking Paths; The Form of the Sword; Death and the Compass). There were a few that had really interesting premises to begin with--Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius; Funes, the Memorious; Three Versions of Judas; The Secret Miracle. And there were some that weren't I didn't quite like (or understand) but what Borges did is quite unique, something I'm not used to--he told stories as if they were real reports or news blurb. In some instances he created a fictional review / essay on a fictional author or topic, one may think is real but in reality, it's straight from Borges' imagination.

This was hard for me to rate because 3.5 felt too low and 4.0 felt too high. I can't claim to be a book snob and I think this is a perfect example of why I can't. But if you are, then this may be the right book for you.

Book Review: The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa

Publication Date: 2003 in Japan, 2009 in US

Synopsis:

He is a brilliant math professor, with a peculiar problem — since a traumatic head injury, he has lived with only eighty minutes of short-term memory. She is an astute young housekeeper with a ten-year-old son who is hired to care for him. And between them a strange, beautiful relationship blossoms. Though the professor can hold new memories for only eighty minuets, his mind is still alive with elegant equations from the past; and through him, the numbers, in all of their articulate order, reveal a sheltering and poetic world to both the housekeeper and her son. The Housekeeper and the Professor is an enchanting story about what it means to live in the present, and about the curious equations that can create a family where one before did not exist.

Joshua's Take: 3.5/5☆

Why I picked up the book: because I had heard a lot about Ogawa's work and her Diving Pool collection of novella's sounded right up my alley, but since I couldn't find it, well, I picked up this book instead. It reminded me a bit of one of my favorite books, The Time Travellers Wife.

Okay, so The Housekeeper and the Professor is nothing like Audrey Niffenegger work, but while short, it's an incredible sum of its parts, a world where mathematical equations can express the very essence of the stars and the beauty of a falling cherry blossom. The title directly translates from Japanese as The Professor's Beloved Equation and Mrs. Ogawa's voice here is a breath of fresh air, a first person narrative surrounded by a wonderful cast of characters who are ingeniously never named (I leave it up to you to figure out what that means thematically), from the tragic Professor who only remembers things from before his car accident in 1975, who must awaken anew each day afraid, wondering where he is, to the Housekeeper, a young single mother with her own deep problems, who takes care of the Professor and forms an unlikely friendship that gives her both strength and courage, and of course the Housekeepers son Root, given his name by the professor since the top of his head looks like the square of a root sign, and his own felt inadequacies since he has to grow up rarely seeing his mother or feeling the warmth of a family. All three characters are given so much life in such a short amount of time, all given a reason for being through math, oh and baseball!! Just amazing.

Granted I was a bit turned off that Mrs. Ogawa used actual math problems in the books narrative to mirror whats going on internally within the characters rather than use math in an abstract sense. I've never liked math, much like the Housekeeper remarks when the Professor first gives her math lessons, but I have to admit as the story goes on, I became wholly invested, absorbed in the mathematical problems along with the characters. The author has created something truly amazing, she has created a world where math is the poetry, math is the allegory to the character narrative. As a reader, as I read along, figuring out the problems along with the Housekeeper and her son, I became more invested, cheering along with their triumphs and feeling dismayed with their setbacks. It's truly an amazing thing, an amazing world, Ogawa has created.

In 2006, this book was adapted in to a film with the Japanese translation, The Professor's Beloved Equation and directed by Takashi Koizumi who directed the beautiful 1999 film, After the Rain. I have not seen the adaption, and while I hear its a bit different I also hear it's quite good. As long as it stays close to the original source material I'm sure it's a deeply moving and profound watch, so I look forward to having the chance to see it soon.

The Professor and the Housekeeper is the kind of book that people read because they love books and publishers publish because they too love books. It turned out to be something different than what I was expecting, a fantastic look at what it means to be a family through friendship, and while I only read this book because Mrs. Ogawa's Diving Pool wasn't available, I'm glad I did because it opened up the work of Yoko Ogawa for me, moving and surprising me in many ways and I can not wait to read more from her.

Book Review: Travels in the Scriptorium by Paul Auster

Synopsis:

Travels in the Scriptorium was first published in 2007 by Paul Auster. This fairly short novel focuses on an older gentleman by the name of Mr. Blank. He is disoriented and suffers from memory loss. He is 'trapped' in this minimalistic room with a bed, a desk, a chair and an adjacent bathroom. He has visitors that come and go throughout the day; all the characters were previous Auster characters from other works, all but Mr. Blank himself.

Penny's take: 4/5☆

This probably should not have been my first Auster book since as I mentioned, it featured some of Auster's characters from his previous works and if I knew those characters a little more intimately, I may have had a greater appreciation and/or understanding of the story as a whole. But nonetheless, I actually really enjoyed Travels in the Scriptorium. It's hard for me to pinpoint what exactly I liked about it but I'll try.

• I won't say the story was easy to follow because you are never quite sure what is happening. Mr. Blank, as I said, has huge chunks of his memory missing. But what I liked about it was the element of trying to piece everything together with Mr. Blank as he's trying to make sense of things. Though at times, pieces of memory will come back and the reader doesn't really understand what it all means or how it fits.
• The characters all seem to serve Mr. Blank and to what capacity, you can only guess. This is when I wished I read more of Auster's works to perhaps understand each person's motive and back story. The characters, for me, were individuals who I wasn't sure if they were genuine but they provided some intriguing conversation and actions.
• Mr. Blank--you feel sympathetic because he seems so helpless though it seems that he at one time wielded some power and stature.
• The end was simply delightful.

I recommend this book, perhaps after you've read a few of Auster's works first.

Book Review - Percy Jackson and The Olympians (fiction)

Synopsis:
Percy Jackson & the Olympians is a series of fictional adventure and fantasy books authored by Rick Riordan. The series if you couldn't guess is geared towards young adults. The story and journey focuses around Percy Jackson and his demigod (half mortal/half god) friends in a world where Greek gods exist in modern day and all the mythology we learned in school were all true. As in the mythology, the gods mated with mortals and Percy is a product of one of these encounters. His father is one of the Big Three Gods--Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades, you find out who midway through the first book. Percy goes to many quests to retrieve something or fix a situation (again these quests are similar to the ones of other Greek heroes--Hercules, Achilles, Perseus, etc.). The overarching storyline that spans throughout the series is that there is an enemy who is trying to destroy Olympus, and there is the great prophecy that may or may not involve Percy and his friends in helping or deterring that enemy.

Penny's Take: 3.5 out of 5
You may remember my review of the movie Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief. Well, that movie was based on the first book of the five book series. I recently finished the entirebook series and now would like to review it as a whole.

Overall, I thought the book did a great job in educating readers about famous myths and Greek gods and how they are relevant today. The book made Greek mythology cool to the kids today. I liked how it infused modern day electronics like cellphones and iPods and current events but I also feel that because it infused 'trends' of today, it may not stand the test of time. I'm not a huge young adult reader but I have read The Chronicles of Narnia, His Dark Materials, and though I refused for the longest time, and ended up loving it, the Harry Potter series. And they all, to me, can stand the test of time because it wasn't too modern. But this doesn't mean that Percy Jackson & The Olympians isn't as good, it's lacks that timeless feel.

I thought the adventures and how the educational factor was infused was done well. The story was consistent though I question the background of three main characters--Annabeth Chase (daughter of Athena), Thalia Grace (daughter of Zeus), and Luke Castellan (son of Hermes). They came to Camp Half-Blood (a camp for kids who are demigods (half mortal / half god) together and I question if one or two aspects of the story were not fully fleshed out. I'll leave it at that since I don't want to give anything away. I still thought it was an enjoyable read.

Book Review - The Dark Storm by Kris Greene (fiction)

Publication Date: 2010

Synopsis:

Gabriel is a New York City college kid who loves to bury his nose in books, looking up stories of long-dead cultures, lost languages, and forgotten legends. He never imagined one of those legends would come looking for him—until a tough-talking girl named De Mona Sanchez thrusts an ancient weapon into his hands...and recruits Gabriel in a dark epic war he was born to fight.

Banished centuries ago by warrior knights, a demonic army is storming through a dimensional rift into our world. Stalkers are prowling the streets. Corpses are rising up to fight. And Gabriel—a descendant of one of the original warriors—has no choice but to drop his textbooks and start kicking demon butt alongside his new friend De Mona…who has a few secrets of her own. If Gabriel fails, humanity loses. If war is hell, this is hell on earth…

Joshua's take - 2/5☆

Why did I pick up this book? - because the cover caught my eye and I'm always interested in urban-fantasy novels where the main protagonist is male (since that's very rare), especially one from a female author. So that really peaked my interest.

The Dark Storm is the first book in a new urban-fantasy series from author Kris Greene and while it does have some decent writing, it is amazingly generic. It's almost like what if you took a bunch of stuff from other books- a world of demons, agents of light, vampires, goblins, knights, werewolves and mystical weapons of power, blended them all together and weaved the story around the template on "how-to" write an urban-fantasy novel. If this was any more by-the-numbers I would have sworn I'd read it already.

The main problem I had with this book is it's characterization, or lack there of. There's just way to many characters crammed into this slim work (the story constantly shifts through multiple POV's), that I felt like I was missing half the novel, like it was incomplete. There's a sequel to The Dark Storm as there generally is with this sub-genre, but that's no excuse to have such a flimsy table setter. I mean you want readers to come back for the rest of the series right? Also, the two "main" characters of the book, Gabriel Redfeather and De Mona Sanchez (and yes that's her real name!!) are so poorly formed as characters that they feel like they're cursory characters in the background, rather then the one's the whole series is based around. And they both whined and whined so much, especially Gabriel, that I had to re-read the earlier pages and remind myself that he wasn't a freshman in highschool, but already in college!!!

However, I did like the magic system with the witches, warlocks and mages all having different functions in the world, and how there are numerous classes and castes within each magical house. I also liked the back story of how there was a holy war centuries ago between the forces of light and the denizens of hell, and how the ancestors of both sides are fighting over the souls again years later. But man, the most important aspect of the story, the very foundation the world is based around, the magical weapons, felt the weakest in the entire story. Their characteristics and attributes are never fully thought out and explained, their powers appearing more as poor imagination rather than weapons that can control the very fabric of the world.

It's all just so generic that in 2 weeks I probably won't remember the story anymore and sadly I won't be coming back for the upcoming sequel Demon Hunt.

Book Review: Serena by Ron Rash (fiction)

Publication Date: 2008

Synopsis:

The year is 1929, and newlyweds George and Serena Pemberton travel from Boston to the North Carolina mountains where they plan to create a timber empire. Although George has already lived in the camp long enough to father an illegitimate child, Serena is new to the mountains--but she soon shows herself to be the equal of any man, overseeing crews, hunting rattle-snakes, even saving her husband's life in the wilderness. Together this lord and lady of the woodlands ruthlessly kill or vanquish all who fall out of favor. Yet when Serena learns that she will never bear a child, she sets out to murder the son George fathered without her. Mother and child begin a struggle for their lives, and when Serena suspects George is protecting his illegitimate family, the Pembertons' intense, passionate marriage starts to unravel as the story moves toward its shocking reckoning.


Penny's take - 4/5☆

I just recently finished the book, Serena by Ron Rash. I was interested in reading this book because Joshua informed me that this was going to be made into a movie starring everyone's favorite vixen, Angelina Jolie. The novel focuses on the Pembertons, a newly wed couple building their timber/lumber empire in North Carolina. They bully and coerce their way to the top, leaving a trail of blood behind them. When Serena (the wife) goes after George's (the husband) illegitimate child, who was conceived prior to Serena, things get complicated and very exciting.

I liked the backdrop of the story, pre-war, small mountain town in North Carolina. I also liked the characters. Serena is a very strong female character, who's knowledge of the timber business and hunting/training skills are unmatched by any man. George's position is difficult, he has a wife he loves and obeys but he also has a child he has a very, very mild soft spot for--the child not conceived with Serena however. The storytelling is greatly paced though I found at times a bit slow and that may only be because I don't care much about the tree cutting industry. This is a recommend.


Joshua's take - 4/5☆

Why I picked up the book - because I heard that director Darren Aronofsky's is developing a big-screen adaptation of this book staring Angelina Jolie as the main character Serena and I thought, "holy crap."

Stunning, simply stunning. Reading Serena is like watching a Hitchcock film, you have a sense of dread, you know somethings lurking just outside the camera vision, things break and tip, and your dread keeps building as Hitchcock plays with the filmatic devices at his disposal, prolonging the tension until the final nail comes down, bringing your emotions to a crescendo of relief and horror.

I'm not generally a fan of contemporary literature. I've always found them somewhat of a chore, as the narrative weaves in and out of heartbreaking sob story, to tragic family escapades. Give me a classic and you'll find a man in deep concentration with a smile from ear to ear. However author Ron Rash is an amazing writer. He's able to convey so much emotion in so few words, that his writing reminds me of Melville, or Rash's contemporary, Cormac McCarthy, sparse yet elegant. While I do find McCarthy a better writer than Rash, I find Rash's style lends itself to a more enjoyable read.

Serena is a beautifully tragic and heartbreaking story, however not in the way one may think. It's really the story of two young women living in the early 1900's and how they cope with the times. One raising a young child alone and penniless and another rich, stomping across anyone who gets in her way. It's about the duality of nature, of nurture and destruction. Serena is one of the most disturbing modern villains because everything she does, she does for a reason, with the unwavering belief that what she is doing is right and for the best. In truth, what I like so much about this book is that while it's written by a man, populated by men, the two women in the story are the one's who hold the most sway, hold the destinies of the other men in the actions that they take- fortunes rise and fall because of them.

This is a must read for anyone looking for a taut thriller with literary aspirations. Read it before the movie comes out