Steven E. Wedel's Blog, page 9
April 30, 2017
Review: Unteachable
Unteachable by Leah Raeder
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I wasn’t really sure what to expect with this book. The author was new to me, the “new adult” category was new to me. And the subject matter was … edgy.
Maize is an 18-year-old high school student who meets (and has sex with) an older man at a carnival. She ditches him, but guess what. Turns out he’s the new film studies teacher at her high school. So they have a real affair. Maize gets blackmailed, has a male best friend who betrays her, l...
April 26, 2017
Where’d My Horror Go?
So, I’m currently working on a short novel (maybe novella) called A Light Beyond. I left a Western novel called Badger’s Bend to work on this one. Before that I wrote another Western novel called Orphan. And before that was a realistic — or mainstream — novel called The Teacher.
What do all these (so far unpublished) works have in common? Not a whiff of the supernatural.
For 30 years I was all about the horror genre. The movies I watched, the books I read, and almost everything I wrote had we...
April 22, 2017
Review: The High Mountains of Portugal
The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is one of those novels where I know I was missing something. I could see that there was something bigger going on, but couldn’t quite see the big picture. I’m sure I’m still missing a lot of it, too.
The High Mountains of Portugal is a tale told in three parts, over three different time periods beginning in the early 20th century. Tomas goes in search of a mysterious crucifix, Dr. Eusebio Lozaro is visited by his dea...
April 18, 2017
Review: Hard Winter: A Western Story
Hard Winter: A Western Story by Johnny D. Boggs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Johnny D. Boggs has become my second favorite living Western author. His books are always interesting and unique, and Hard Winter was no exception. It grabbed me from the beginning and held my interest all the way through, despite not one single shootout.
The story is told by 50-year-old Jim Hawkins on a ride with his grandson to visit some old haunts from Jim’s younger days. He tells about leaving Texas after a harsh w...
April 12, 2017
Review: The Lonesome Gods
The Lonesome Gods by Louis L’Amour
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I had the same problem with this The Lonesome Gods that I’ve had with all of Louis L’Amour’s fiction. All of his lead characters are supermen and they know it. He rhapsodizes about their abilities without ever showing how they got those abilities (other than educating themselves in various vague ways).
This is the story of Johannes Verne. His mother is dead when the story starts. He sees his father killed. His grandfather leaves Joh...
March 9, 2017
Review: The Big Sky
The Big Sky by A.B. Guthrie Jr.
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
There were parts of this book I really enjoyed. I liked the beginning with Boone dealing with his Pap and running away from home and his trouble with the law. After that, though, it was hit or miss for me. Until the ending, which just sucked.
Young Boone decides he’s not gonna let Pap hit him anymore, so he steals his old man’s rifle, takes a cooked chicken his mom gave him, and sets out for the American West. The rifle is stolen by a...
March 4, 2017
Review: The Age of Odin
The Age of Odin by James Lovegrove
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This book is outside my usual genres, but I do love Norse mythology, and it was recommended to me by a good student, so I gave it a try. I liked a lot of it, but there were some plot issues that left me unsatisfied, which is why I gave it only three stars.
Gid was kicked out of the British army after an IED damaged his hearing. He tried working as a civilian, but mostly he got in fights and got arrested. His wife left him and he doe...
February 1, 2017
Review: Glory Trail
Glory Trail by David R Lewis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The eighth installment of David R. Lewis’s Trail series gets Rubin, Marion, and Homer saddling up to protect a wagon train of black folk as they wade through racism to get to Glory, Kansas, an all-black community.
I have to admit I wasn’t as engrossed in this one as the previous seven books. I just felt like the anti-racism message was hammered a few too many times, and then SPOILER … the marshals turn the wagon train over to other protec...
Review: Orbiting Jupiter
Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D. Schmidt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
In many ways this book reminded me of The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The narrator, the tone … It just put me in mind of the other book. That’s a pretty good thing.
Our narrator here is Jack, a sixth grader whose parents decide to foster Joseph, a troubled 14-year-old boy who’s spent time in juvenile detention after fathering a child with a rich girl the same age as himself. Joseph, of course, is not the thug most people think he...
January 5, 2017
Review: Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull, read when I was in 8th grade, was a real eye-opener to me at the time, and I re-read it every few years now as a reminder that we can be better than we are. The only other Bach book I’d read previous to Illusions was The Bridge Across Forever, which I also enjoyed, but not in that life-changing way of JLS. Many people said Illusions was as transformative for t...
