Tag: 2 Stars Page 4 of 9

by Sarah Pinborough

Hardcover, 306 pg.
Flatiron Books, 2017

Read: February 21 – 22, 2017

David and Adele have just moved to London to try to get a fresh start — she’s a stay-at-home wife, gorgeous, and seemingly frail — most of all, she’s deeply devoted to her husband. David’s a psychiatrist who might be a bit too fond of his drink, and doesn’t seem to be as devoted to Adele as she is to him. From the get-go we know there’s a few things really wrong with their marriage, and you can tell that finding out just what they are (and if the drinking is really as bad as it seems) is going to be interesting, to say the least.

Louise is a single mom who needs something fun in her life — things are going well for her ex and his girlfriend, and her son is going away for a month with them. Louise doesn’t have a lot going on in here life other than her son — she has pretty much one friend, a part-time job, and a social life that mainly consists of Netflix, cigarettes and wine. She’s our point-of-entry character, the reason we care about anyone else in the book — she’s relatable, she’s fun, she’s real. On a rare night out, Louise meets and kisses a man (David) who later confesses to be married and leaves.

Naturally, the next day Louise meets her new boss — David. They pledge to forget that night and move on professionally. Soon afterwards, Adele runs into Louise and a friendship develops between them — Louise carefully never admitting that she knows Adele’s husband.

Yeah, up to this point, this could be the fodder for a comedy — something that Jennifer Weiner might write, but with a little more edge, and involving people in London. So maybe it’s a dark Helen Fielding feel. Anyhow, Louise’s relationships with each get deeper. And as that happens, the tone gets darker and darker — everyone involved has secrets, and at least two of the people in this triangle aren’t who we think they are. And before you know it, you’ve left Women’s Commercial Fiction and turned the genre corner into Crime Fiction. There is evil or madness — maybe both — at the core of this story, and it’s dark. But the book never goes as far as it could into the darkness — it’s careful about showing it. Just lets it out every now and then, so you know it’s lurking out there.

The story is told from Adele’s and Louise’s perspective — with flashbacks to earlier in Adele’s life. Adele clearly has some problems, but it’s unclear what they really are. It’s tough to know whose perspective on things is more realistic — particularly their competing ideas about David. Eventually, we start to see that one of these women is manipulating the other two in the triangle and their plans are pretty serious.

Pinborough does a masterful job of drawing you into the story, the characters, their destinies — you can’t help but care, and even before things become a psychological thriller, you’ll find yourself very invested into what’s going on with these people and what will happen. Once things become perilous . . . forget it, you won’t be able to tear yourself away from this book. I loved the tone, the character development — Louise is one of my favorite characters of 2017.

Now, for the first 290 pages I was enthralled and was about ready to call this the best thriller I’ve read in months — maybe years. You can understand the hype about this book — why Two Crime Writers and a Microphone devoted an episode to this book, etc. But the last 16 pages . . . I just don’t know. It’s impossible to really discuss these pages without defying my “no spoiler” policy. Let me put it this way, if you can swallow X — you’ll dig the last 16 pages, and your jaw just might drop in the final 6. Me? I choked on X, and was fed up with the last 6. Since I finished it, I can understand what Pinborough was trying to do — and can even make a decent argument defending it. But I don’t like it — and think that even the best argument in her defense is codswallop.

Behind Her Eyes is a really strong book that will grab you, keep you entertained and will give you a conclusion that you’ll talk about for days (at least).

What I want to give it after the last 16 pages:

—–

2 Stars

Buuuut. . . . I think it really deserves this:

—–

4 Stars

2017 Library Love Challenge

The Gift-Knight’s Quest by Dylan Madeley

By HCNewton

On December 31, 2016

In Fiction

The Gift-Knight’s Quest

by Dylan Madeley

Kindle Edition, 289 pg.
Matador, 2015

Read: December 29 – 30, 2016

I typically try to be thoughtful and at least semi-thorough when I write about a book here — even (maybe especially) those I didn’t care for. I don’t think I have it in me for this one.

This fantasy novel is full of political intrigue, secrets, revelations (not nearly enough of those), and deception — it felt like someone who wanted to write a streamlined George R. R. Martin novel. But here’s why Martin works — we care about the people involved (we may not like them, but we care what happens to them — even if that’s just them getting molten gold poured over them, we care that it happens). Speaking of Martin, his books are complex webs — this was a convoluted mess. It wouldn’t have been too hard to clear up things a bit — but it still wouldn’t have made it good, but it’d have been easier to read.

The characters were sketches, when not clichés. Chandra, the central(ish) character is close to an actual character that I can almost care about, understand and root for. Close, but not quite there.

Actually, that sums up the book — close, but not quite there.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion. This is overdue, and I am sorry about that, however.

—–

2 Stars

Sovereign’s Wake by Lee LaCroix

By HCNewton

On December 28, 2016

In Fiction

Sovereign’s Wake

by Lee LaCroix
Series: In the Absence of Kings, #1

PDF, 344 pg.
2015

Read: December 26 – 27, 2016

I don’t normally get into the nitty-gritty of the writing when I compose these posts — not because I don’t notice or care about it — but sometimes you have to. When I can’t make it past the first three paragraphs without the writing drawing attention to itself (not in the delicious way that Neil Gaiman or Don Winslow do so often), I feel like I’ve got to mention it.

In a different time, there was a forest that was as deep as it was plentiful. . .

That boy, Novas, possessed deep green eyes as verdant as the wild around him . . .

. . . He was taught that the land was just as alive as he was . . .”

That phraseology isn’t wrong — but it’s easy to overuse, and when you do it once in each of the first three paragraphs, you might was well be waving a flag to draw attention to it. Now, there’s no author that doesn’t stumble a bit, I can’t tall you how many times I’ve posted something here that I wish I’d rewritten a few times — I don’t want to pick on him, but wow, this kind of thing kept coming.

It wasn’t too much later that Garreth (I’ll talk about him in a bit) tells his son,

“Over my employment, many people tried to kill the King, and it was my duty to stand in between them. Instead, I put them to death…”

Uh, what?

Soon, Garreth and his son head to the capital, but we read:

In order to reach the capital of Amatharsus, their journey was not an odyssey of undertaking.

Editing is about more than just grammar and spell checking — it shouldn’t be less than that. I don’t know if I could find a page that didn’t have a problem with the writing.

Enough about that, I had a few more notes on that front, but no one wants to read it (I don’t want to write it). Let’s get on to story and character.

Garreth is a former guard of the king, who has taken a post guarding the forest. And, let’s be honest, doing something else, too. But LaCroix won’t reveal that until book three. We know nothing about his wife and/or the mother of his son. We’ll probably learn about Novas’ parentage in book three, too. Anyway, the two learn that the king is dead and that The Queen/Powers acting without knowledge and consent of the Queen/The Queen working with these Powers have decided to level the forest for economic reasons.

Garreth can’t believe this, so he and the boy leave for the capital to find out what’s really going on. Along the way, they learn more about the Blackwoods Company — the same people out to raze the forest — who are playing both sides of the law — thieving, pillaging and whatnot, while acting as enforcers for the authorities. The two join up with — and taking leading roles — in the resistance to the new order that has developed in the absence of a king.

Overall, this is a poorly written book. The story was adequate, but there was nothing about it that made you pay attention. Many of the characters had potential to be something, but they end up being something we’ve all seen dozens of times before in better stories. I can’t think of anything to commend this novel.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion. I really wish this had been more timely, sorry about that.

—–

2 Stars

To Kill a Shadow by Nathan Ronen

By HCNewton

On December 27, 2016

In Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

To Kill a Shadow

by Nathan Ronen

Kindle Edition, 269 pg.
2016

Read: December 19 – 21, 2016

(other than the author link, the links above don’t work, because I wasn’t given any and can’t pull up anything on google other than goodreads or amazon pages — I’ll fix them if possible)

Ostensibly, what we have here is an espionage thriller from the point of view of a Mossad operative, juggling intelligence operations, internal politics, revenge, and a messy personal life. I liked that idea, I like the concept, and think I could’ve liked this book if that’s what it delivered. Instead we get a collection of half-baked ideas, story snippets scattered around with an attempt made to squish them into a coherent whole.

Arik Bar Nathan is a Mossad agent — and apparently can’t tell anyone in his family that. His marriage and relationships with his son and daughter have been the major casualties of that. Not that his relationship with his younger sister and mother have fared all that well, either. Events conspire to get him to realize just how badly he’s messed things up, and some Oprah-level advice enabled him to start the process of rebuilding things with his kids. This is quite possibly the most successful part of the book.

The heads of Israeli Intelligence (and those close to them) and the Prime Minister all apparently have the emotional maturity of middle-school girls — they fly off the handle for no reason, have the shortest fuses you can imagine, yell and scream at the drop of a hat, and play petty political games dealing with pettier personal gripes. If people were this mercurial in the real world, the Middle East would be in worse shape than it is. Somehow, these characters are able to pull off a couple of major operations without major loss of life and stability.

There are a few other storylines, too. Like a love story that defies logic, and can only work because this super-spy is super-gullible when it comes to this woman, and because the reader is willing to suspend every once of disbelief.

There is no sense of urgency to anything, really. Well, I take that back — if there’s an event, say, Arik’s mother having a medical crisis, or someone being shot — there’s a lot of hustle and bustle surrounding that. But as soon as the immediate situation is addressed, the issue is put on the back burner and ignored. I understand that a lot of intelligence operations are about timing, patience, waiting for dots to be connected and opportunities to arise. But can you tell as story about that without seeming to ignore the issues while waiting for opportunities? Absolutely. If you know there’s an assassin in a small country targeting one man, you should maybe, I don’t know…hunt for him. Especially if the target is supposed to be a cracker-jack spy.

There is a subplot that shows up for one chapter centering on a secondary character and then disappear — other than offering a distraction from the story, there’s no purpose for its inclusion. Even that secondary character acts pretty differently in this chapter than he does throughout the novel.

Most of the characters are not much more than sketches — there’s no life to them. They’re almost well-developed, a few are almost complex — but Ronen leaves them at almost. Those characters at the beginning of NCIS or Bones that find the dead bodies to kick off episodes are better drawn than just about all of these.^*

I do think that Ronen had a bunch of cool things running around in his head — some to do with espionage, some to do with a spy putting his personal life back together, some to do with descendants of the Holocaust finding peace — but he didn’t know how to execute them in a narrative. I couldn’t connect with anyone or any story, but I really wanted to. I honestly didn’t know what I was going to say about this book when I started writing this post — I’ve been trying to come up with a reason to recommend this one, but I can’t.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for my honest opinion — it clearly didn’t impact things.

—–

^* That’s not a huge insult, really. They pack a lot of character into those couple of minutes.

—–

2 Stars

The Chemist by Alan J. Field

By HCNewton

On November 11, 2016

In Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

The Chemist

by Alan J. Field

Kindle Edition, 340 pg.
ThrillRide Media, 2016

Read: November 8 – 10, 2016

I don’t want to spend a lot of time talking about this — mostly because I just don’t care, but also because this is going to fall into the “if you can’t say something nice” category — but I told the author I’d say something, so here goes.

This is a dull, poorly written, cliché-filled, convoluted thriller that forgot the thrills. You have a mustache-twirling terrorist (atheistic, but willing to pretend to get what he wants); a couple of mustache-twirling CIA honchos (willing to sell out the Bill of Rights, CIA charter, and anything else to get the “bad guys”); a cosmetics executive that decides to try to sell chemical weapons; a drug-addicted chemist able to be a genius and do something no one’s done before while hallucinating; a CIA op-turned addictions counselor/vigilante; and a few other assorted mustache-twirlers, criminals with hearts of gold, and assorted special-ops types.

Danny Strong (yes, a bit of Buffy-fan pandering), is called out of retirement to help save the world — because he’s the only one who can. He needs to convince a hot young chemist to give him the most deadly toxin ever created to him before it’s sold on the black market in an effort to save her mother’s cosmetics company. Oh, and the chemist does enough coke and heroin to kill a middle school’s worth of kids — yet she does something no one else can duplicate. There are multiple conspiracies afoot here — some never explained well — but that’s the core story. Naturally, he falls for her (in something like 10 days) and is able to finally free himself from grieving over his murdered wife.

There’s a misguided, but probably well-intentioned, Castle tribute here that just annoyed the tar out of me (and I’ve watched every episode at least once, so I’m not complaining about a Castle tribute — I just hope Fillion, Katic, etc. don’t read this novel).

There are so many storylines and details that go nowhere and mean nothing, so many plot points that just don’t work, inconsistent narration, scenes that are impossible to follow (and not just because the book desperately needs a couple of copy edits, see below) that transform this book from a bore to a bad novel.

Now, I know when you self-publish a book, there’s going to be more typos and whatnot in it than your typical book (or, at least, there are bound to be) — but even stuff put out by the Big 5 contains errors that cause copy editors to lose sleep, so I generally don’t hold that against a book. But this was just ridden with spelling and grammatical mistakes — any drinking game invented along the lines of tracking them would leave me unable to write for a week. Repeated sentences/paragraphs, many homonyms (e.g., “hear” instead of “here”), wrong pronouns, sentences that aren’t really anything, simple misspellings, and more. Too often I’d have to stop what I was reading and spend time examining a paragraph/section for a while to see if I could suss out the meaning. Now, I have no problem doing that when something is beautiful or thought-provoking — but when it’s not worth it? No.

I didn’t actively hate this book — but man, there’s just nothing to say to recommend it.

Disclaimer: This book was provided to me by the author in exchange for my honest opinion — he clearly didn’t bribe me. I thank him for the opportunity,

—–

2 Stars

The Farthest City by Daniel P. Swenson

By HCNewton

On October 28, 2016

In Fiction

The Farthest City

by Daniel P. Swenson

Kindle Edition, 432 pg.
Daniel P Swenson, 2015

Read: October 21 – 22, 2016

So this takes place in some distant future Earth — the history (how accurate or not) as humanity understands it is parceled out to us in tiny bits, I could fill you in, but Swenson had some sort of plan in the way he throws crumbs. Some sort of Insectoid alien race is waging war with humans while taking over the planet. The war has been going for years and humans are slowly losing. This book traces two last-ditch efforts to get help from a Robotic race with ties to humanity in the days following World War 3 (or one of the wars after that).

Kellen is an artist (because even when the world is ending, we want graphic designers?), which turns out to be part of a Mythological Quartet to bring the robots (“Chines”) to Earth’s aid. With a Digger, Singer and Lighter, they can bring the Chines back to help. Exactly how, I don’t know — I’m not sure they do either, but they seem to have a better idea. They do meet with some sort of success — but it’s not at all how they expected, and at great cost.

Sergeant Sheemi Tanamal, is grieving her brother (killed in battle) and gets volunteered for an interstellar gamble by her father, a general. The military has a few ships capable (they hope) of interstellar flight, and they’ve got a kooky idea or two about how to find the Chines and ask for help. To say that Sheemi is unfit for this kind of mission is an understatement, but somehow she not only survives (when many others don’t), she somehow flourishes.

The main problems with this book are in execution: the way Swenson reveals information is so scattered, so like Scrooge giving to the poor, he withholds when he should explain. Mostly, I think he opts for complicated when he should aim for complex — it may seem like a fine distinction, but it’s a vital one. Yes, his dialogue is wanting, his characters are flat and unrelatable (but don’t have to be) — but it’s the writing that fails here, not his imagination.

Swenson tried, clearly tried to do something here — and he almost succeeded. But the way he failed just tarnished the good he did. This ends up being a dissatisfying mess.
Disclaimer: I received this book from the author in exchange for this post — probably not his favorite move this year.

—–

2 Stars

Scattered Screams by C. A. Huggins

By HCNewton

On October 28, 2016

In Fiction

Scattered Screams

by C.A. Huggins
Series: The Disruption: Book One

Kindle Edition, 141 pg.
Captain of My Ship Publishing, 2016

Read: October 26, 2016

Zombies. Why’d it have to be zombies?

I just don’t do zombies — with very few exceptions. This came close to being one of them, but just couldn’t overcome the genre.

Marcus, Ali (his son), and Vic (Ali’s friend) are in California visiting colleges when there’s a Zombie outbreak. Now, they’ve got to cross the country with only their wits, strength, and unlikely allies to return home and rejoin their family. Many of the characters they encounter on their journey are pretty interesting, and you can see why the trio would trust and work with them. By the end, some of the characters are almost well-rounded — given another 30+ pages, they might have reached it. But on the whole, they’re flat, but with potential.

The monsters are (basically) the easiest kills I’ve seen — teenagers are taking them out with a swing of a makeshift weapon? I do like that there’s variety in the monster — it’s not one Zombie race, but at least three strange variations of monster.

It was on the last 2 pages (screens, I guess) that something happened that really interested me. Not enough to get me to grab book two, but there’s some real promise there.

Honestly, if you like Horror/Zombie books with a touch of Urban Fantasy, this might be your thing. I can’t recommend this, but I can see why many could really get into it.

Disclaimer: I received this book from the author in exchange for this post — sorry.

—–

2 Stars

NYPD Red 2 (Audiobook) by James Patterson, Marshall Karp, Edoardo Ballerini, Jay Snyder

By HCNewton

On October 14, 2016

In Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

NYPD Red 2

by James Patterson, Marshall Karp , Edoardo Ballerini (Narrator), Jay Snyder (Narrator)
Series: NYPD Red, #2

Unabridged Audiobook, 8 hrs, 8 min.
Hachette Audio, 2014

Read: October 6 – 7, 2016

Yeah, I was underwhelmed by NYPD Red, but thought that maybe this series would pick up a little, with everything established in the first. Wow, was I wrong.

This is basically a Dexter retelling — murderers who got off thanks to good lawyers, bad prosecutors, etc being kidnapped, tortured and killed. Before they’re killed, they record a video confession to their crimes, which is uploaded to YouTube shortly after their body is discovered.

Of course, one of the victims is the campaign manager for a mayoral candidate, and the body is discovered 8 days before the election — making the whole investigation a political issue in addition to a pressing crime. Given the prestige and notoriety of the latest victim, the case is bumped up to the NYPD Red team.

From there, it’s pretty much a paint-by-numbers affair — I called the whole thing, even the twists, early on. There’s so little to commend in this book that I can’t think of a positive way to finish this sentence.

I guess I understand why you’d have two narrators for the audiobook — one for the first person detective narration, one for the other perspectives. But I think we’re all smart enough to follow things with just one voice. Both narrators did a decent job, but nothing remarkable. They probably did the best they could with the flat prose and dull dialogue.

Dull, predictable plot with personal side-stories that made me like everyone less. Both authors are capable of such more — I don’t know why they aren’t delivering with this series.

—–

2 Stars

The Heart of Henry Quantum by Pepper Harding

By HCNewton

On September 26, 2016

In Fiction, General Fiction/Literature

The Heart of Henry Quantum

by Pepper Harding

eARC, 288 pg.
Gallery Books, 2016

Read: September 15, 2016

“It’s funny—the day started with me thinking about distance and the speed of light—I mean, about how far away from us everything really is, and how it’s impossible to ever truly experience anything in the moment, even yourself. There’s always the mediation of time, of space, of something that comes between the self and everything else. It kind of depressed me. . . . And the thing is, this morning all I could think about was that terrible, terrible distance. And then I ran into this old friend, this old girlfriend actually, and the same feeling came over me—that distance times time equals impossible, if that makes any sense.”

Henry Quantum — there’s a name that just screams for interpretation, doesn’t it? A lot of this book seems to do that — aim for interpretation, for reviewers/readers to talk about the language, the imagery, the science metaphors, etc. It could be argued (I think it’d be wrong, but it could be argued) that more attention was given to that than to plot, characters, and whatnot (i.e., what most people read books for).

There are 4 parts to this book — the first and last are told from Henry’s POV (while being third person, just to be clear), the second from Margaret’s (Henry’s wife), and the third from someone else we meet along the way. Henry’s a would-be novelist and executive at an advertising agency in San Francisco. Henry’s wandering mind is pretty easily distracted, but then will focus intently on something for a little bit, and then go frittering way in some other direction — so we’re told. This is a long-term thing, apparently, but much worse over the last couple of years. It’s December 23, and Henry’s decided weeks ago that the perfect gift for his wife is a bottle of Chanel No. 5, but he keeps neglecting to buy it. Why he doesn’t send an assistant/intern/whatever to do it, or order it online, we’re never told. So, come hell or high water, today he’s going to get the gift.

Just after he does this one thing, and then another, and maybe . . .

Henry’s so oblivious to things that he hasn’t noticed that every woman he’s not married to seems to be attractive and that the woman he is married to wants him gone that day. This is a problem. He’s also oblivious (at least at the beginning) to how bad the state of his marriage is — even though he’s had a lot of evidence,and has worsened the marriage himself. Frankly, I don’t like the guy (as a person, or as a character), I don’t respect him — and I don’t think we’re given much of a reason to see why anyone would. We spend the day with him — up until early evening — and I liked him less and less as the day went on.

Margaret is, quite simply, worse (and no, it’s not because I’m a guy — give the wife Henry’s character/characteristics and the husband Margaret’s, I’d think just as lowly of them). We only spend the middle portion of the day with her, and I was glad to see it end. Honestly, given the trajectory she’s on, her life is about to get much worse, and I don’t see it improving without some major changes. She needs therapy, or at least a good, honest friend (and a better job).

I actually liked the person in part 3 (identity to be withheld for story reasons), and wish we got a lot more time with the character than we did. I fear however, that given the events of the novel and their poor judgment regarding Henry that their life is about to start going in a bad direction.

Through these various points of view about the events of December 23 (wandering around a shopping area, being stuck in traffic, encounters at various eating establishments) we learn a lot about these point of view characters, and explore the heart of Henry Quantum.

Can Pepper Harding write? Absolutely. Are her characters well-rounded, do they seem like they could be more than just characters in a book? Yeah. Are they (with one possible exception) people I’d like to spend any time with? Are they characters I enjoyed spending time with? Nope and nope.

While I’m not going to actively discourage you from reading this — there are some pretty good moments, I’m not really recommending it. This book was a waste of Harding’s abilities and talent and I hope her next project is a better showcase for them, for her sake as well as her readers’.

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from Gallery Books via NetGalley in exchange for this post — thanks to both for this (really, I mean that, no matter what I thought of the book).
N.B.: As this was an ARC, any quotations above may be changed in the published work — I will endeavor to verify them as soon as possible.

—–

2 Stars

Small Wars (Audiobook) by Lee Child, Dick Hill

By HCNewton

On July 22, 2016

In Fiction, Jack Reacher, Lee Child, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

Small Wars

by Lee Child, Dick Hill (Narrator)
Series: Jack Reacher, #19.5

Unabridged Audiobook, 1 hr, 30 min.
Random House Audio, 2015

Read: July 5, 2016

Reacher is still in the army for this one, and is pulled from his assignment to take over for an injured MP. Major Reacher’s first job at his new post is to investigate the murder of one of the Pentagon’s fastest rising stars.

To help him out (and to help train his underlings) Reacher gets Frances Neagly assigned to him. This story turns out to be a great spotlight for Neagly, actually. She even gets the big fight! This case hits close to home and ends up revealing a lot more about the Pentagon and the victim than anyone expected.

Dick Hill’s performance was fine — there wasn’t a lot for him to do here, but what he did worked.

This one didn’t work all that well for me — the solution was unsatisfying, and Reacher’s reaction to it might even be worse.

—–

2 Stars