Ok wow, this book was surprisingly entertaining. I was expecting something miserable like Twilight or those god-awful Laurel K. Hamilton books, but I...moreOk wow, this book was surprisingly entertaining. I was expecting something miserable like Twilight or those god-awful Laurel K. Hamilton books, but I read this happily.
Great literature it is so obviously not, but it's a love story/mystery about vampires so let's be realistic.
This is a vampire book, yes, but not the dark variety all gothic with the capes and romance and Romanian accents. Thank you Anne Rice, but we are kinda done. I'm not sure when this modern type of vampire arrived on the (chick-)lit scene, but it's everywhere: the mostly-human vampire who is trying to assimilate into the human world and probably falls in love with a human who's "slightly different" in the process. The just-trying-to-make-a-living dead.
It DOES have a lot in common with Twilight... almost uncomfortably so. But this came first, so let's not compare. Boo Twilight!
Basically what you get is a pretty good beach read with consistent characterization, slightly over-the-top drama, and enough talk of erections to keep the lonelyhearts beating. Yeah, it's hammy. Yeah, it's predictable. Yeah, you should probably check it out if you like silly vamp fiction. Ok bye.(less)
Man, I haven't been on this website in almost 3 months, and it's all different now. Ummm... I read this in November, and it was one of the best things...moreMan, I haven't been on this website in almost 3 months, and it's all different now. Ummm... I read this in November, and it was one of the best things I read all year. I kinda criticize it at the end of my blog review (http://www.bookyooky.com/?p=38 ), but I still wanna give it 5 stars. (less)
**spoiler alert** Just finished this one a few minutes ago on the train, and it was pretty engrossing, though after reading it I can unequivocally say...more**spoiler alert** Just finished this one a few minutes ago on the train, and it was pretty engrossing, though after reading it I can unequivocally say that it's definitely not 1977 anymore.
The problem with setting the standard in a genre is that your ideas become tropes. Then the tropes become clichés. Suddenly your book doesn't fare the same in a contemporary reading.
When you approach The Shining, you have to keep two things in mind:
1. You already know what's going to happen. Even though the movie is drastically different from the book, the basic elements are all there: hotel, hinterlands, "Here's Johnny!"
2. Even if you don't know what's going to happen, you will a third of the way through the book. This is because of what I said before. This story has been told 1,000 times since.
That said, The Shining is pretty much not that great anymore. Now I've only read Stephen King's older works so far, but from what I know, though he's a good storyteller, he wasn't a great writer in his early years. There are awkward moments in this novel where the writing does something so ridiculous it takes away from the tension. One example that stands out is when Wendy (the mom) was creeping down (or possibly up) the stairs terrified. I don't remember why; who cares? Anyway, King was counting steps: "ten steps, a dozen, a baker's dozen..." ...really? A baker's dozen? You portray the chillingly slow passage of time and suspense with a cutesy phrase like that?
That's symptomatic of the main problem I had with this novel. Oh, this is the **SPOLER ALERT** paragraph. I never liked the Kubrick movie, so I was excited when I read that in this book King was trying to move on from the naked evil of his previous novels to a sort of psychological horror that comes from more fleshed-out characters, particularly Jack. But then Jack's problems were all "father issues" this and "alcoholic" that, and it wasn't a particularly stirring portrayal of alcoholism at that. So King had moved from one form of unsophistication to another. And this was all made moot at the end when it's not even Jack's complex past that pushes him over the edge. They may have set him up for it, but it was the evil hotel's fault.
The Overlook Hotel as a character suffers from a similar contradiction. Years of history and memories have accumulated in this place, and like with Jack, the reader is never sure whether the place's evil history has built up into this manifestation or whether the manifestation was there all along and caused the evil history. This would have been a great question to play with, but at the end it's basically clear that the hotel was evil all along and collecting people through insanity and murder. So much for complexity.
I criticize because I care, though. Were this book not so universally (and if I may say uncritically) praised, I wouldn't have to much to say. This is by no means a bad book. But some amateurish moves, poorly-chosen imagery, and thirty-five years of horror media make it not that great either. To its credit, it did prove to me how miserable that movie adaptation was.
Anyway, I've probably pissed enough people off. Until next time!
Oh, P.S. I'd like to request that none of you ever bring up those asinine hedge animals ever again.(less)
This is a light, fun, entertaining novel that doesn't ask much of its readers. A welcome break from some of the gushy, overbearing vampire stuff on th...moreThis is a light, fun, entertaining novel that doesn't ask much of its readers. A welcome break from some of the gushy, overbearing vampire stuff on the teen market today.
Gotta love a book where the happy ending comes halfway through, and the remaining 300 pages have the protagonist talking about how happy she is.
Happy,...moreGotta love a book where the happy ending comes halfway through, and the remaining 300 pages have the protagonist talking about how happy she is.
Happy, mind, that she got to marry the guy that lied to her over and over, violated her privacy, wrote to her parents about how well she was being treated, and locked her away with a housemaid that verbally and physically abused her and later held her down as this guy attempted to sexually assault her.
But for some pretty dresses, mansions, servants and... more money than I can count.... yeah maybe I'd put up with that too.(less)
Same comments as for vol. 1. More like a cartoon than a real world, but still very cool. Still hate the Amazons and hope they get written out after th...moreSame comments as for vol. 1. More like a cartoon than a real world, but still very cool. Still hate the Amazons and hope they get written out after this.
Anyway, this was a pretty awesome, quick read. I like punctuation more than I thought I would, and I owe it a...morePeople suck at punctuation SPOILER ALERT!
Anyway, this was a pretty awesome, quick read. I like punctuation more than I thought I would, and I owe it all to Lynne Truss. I still skeeve it up like I always have, but now I appreciate the mistakes I make and call them irony. I just hope she never writes a book on the misuse of that word.
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