The Outcast is about exactly that, an outcast. Lewis, whose life the book follows, is deeply disturbed after an eerily unfamiliar and mysterious and lThe Outcast is about exactly that, an outcast. Lewis, whose life the book follows, is deeply disturbed after an eerily unfamiliar and mysterious and life-changing event. Once it happens, he doesn't know how to deal with it. A parent who refuses to give him the love and affection that children expect and need and a small village where everyone looks at him as the outcast, lead to bad things in his life. And then, more bad things. And finally, a really bad thing that is foreshadowed almost from the first few pages of the book itself when his dad says "Dicky pitched in to rebuild it exactly the same way".
This is somewhere around the end of the second part of the book, and there is a whole 30% of the book after this and don't go through that expecting anything happy to happen. Except for the first 5% and the last 5% everything in between is very depressing and hopeless. This was a very real book about how life in a small town goes about: the frightening similarity of it year after year, the hold that a few people have on this routine, the feeling of being powerless when all you are is normal. Coming out from a college campus after 5 years of no movies and the same 10 restaurants, I was in a unique mood to deal with this book.
I would give this 4/5 if only it didn't drag on every time I thought the climax had occurred. It was painfully long towards the end and the hopelessness got a little bit too much to be real for me. I had to finish the last 15% of the book in two days because I was done with this and wanted to move on. That said, this book has some really good writing and a great treatment of loneliness and general outcast-feelings.
Some highlights:
She held him and hugged him hard. She stroked his hair. Her blouse was slippery on his face, her skin was warm, and her pearls dug pleasantly into his forehead. Her breath smelled familiarly of cigarettes and what she’d been drinking and her scent was the one she always had. He heard her heart beat and felt absolutely at home.
She was the first to admit her painting wasn’t very good and although she loved doing it, it’s hard to stick at a thing if you’re aware you’ve an unshakeable mediocrity.
Lewis craved their company so as not to be alone all the time, and then craved being alone just to be away from them.
He understood people’s previously mystifying attachment to the world of work – it got you out of all sorts of things.
It was an odd feeling, a looking-glass feeling, that he had, that all his life he had been on one side of the glass with everybody else on the other and now the glass had broken and the thick, broken pieces were at all of their feet.
Her hair was loose. She stopped in front of him and glanced over her shoulder, like a schoolgirl out of bounds, and breathless with not knowing how to say what she needed to. They looked at each other, and her face, with all its need and hope, went straight to him, as it always had. He felt something like love.
Writing this review without giving away any of the plot is hard. I am going to try anyway, because I really liked this book. This book takes a surrealWriting this review without giving away any of the plot is hard. I am going to try anyway, because I really liked this book. This book takes a surreal view of life. One in which the future is obvious, but not clear. You keep expecting something spectacular to happen, only to be reminded that life isn't told in a series of spectacular events, but as a million other small events that coalesce together.
There is a sense of impending doom throughout the book. You always feel like the worst is going to be on the next page. Kathy is going to have a big fight with her friends, she is going to discover something devastating about her life, about who she is and why she exists. If you are anxious about not finding out anything even after finishing the book (like I was, when I started the book), don't be. Everything is explained in detail towards the end. Of course, "detail" is relative, because it isn't clearly explained, you have to piece together the different things that you learn.
Two things that I really liked about this book:
1. Ishiguro's use of the "master analogy" that runs throughout the book: it's hard to like the book if you don't like this analogy. It's a very simple one and makes a lot of sense. The terms that Ishiguro uses are hard to get out of your head once you realize their logic.
2. The switching back and forth as a narrative device: The story doesn't run linear, but it's not non-linear enough to confuse you. It's just confusing and clear enough to make sense and yet make you feel like you are standing in a room whose size you have an idea of but can't really see because there's smoke all around. To go to an analogy that I really love: It's like walking down your apartment building's corridor in winter with fog and mist all around, you know where the stairs are, of course you do, but you can never be sure.
TL; DR I really liked the book, but I can't really talk about it without giving away spoilers. But I really liked the book though.
Some quotes:
So you’re waiting, even if you don’t quite know it, waiting for the moment when you realise that you really are different to them; that there are people out there, like Madame, who don’t hate you or wish you any harm, but who nevertheless shudder at the very thought of you – of how you were brought into this world and why – and who dread the idea of your hand brushing against theirs. The first time you glimpse yourself through the eyes of a person like that, it’s a cold moment. It’s like walking past a mirror you’ve walked past every day of your life, and suddenly it shows you something else, something troubling and strange.
So we went into the Woolworth’s, and immediately I felt much more cheerful. Even now, I like places like that: a large store with lots of aisles displaying bright plastic toys, greeting cards, loads of cosmetics, maybe even a photo booth. Today, if I’m in a town and find myself with some time to kill, I’ll stroll into somewhere just like that, where you can hang around and enjoy yourself, not buying a thing, and the assistants don’t mind at all.
Incidentally, it's a song on this tape that the book is named after:
I was still feeling a pang of regret that we’d found it so quickly, and it was only later, when we were back at the Cottages and I was alone in my room, that I really appreciated having the tape – and that song – back again. Even then, it was mainly a nostalgia thing, and today, if I happen to get the tape out and look at it, it brings back memories of that afternoon in Norfolk every bit as much as it does our Hailsham days.
On that journey home, with the darkness setting in over those long empty roads, it felt like the three of us were close again and I didn’t want anything to come along and break that mood.
But by the time people became concerned about … about students, by the time they came to consider just how you were reared, whether you should have been brought into existence at all, well by then it was too late. There was no way to reverse the process. ... There was no going back.
This is not a light hearted book about a woman who's bumbling threw life and then suddenly decides to re-invent herself because she met the man of herThis is not a light hearted book about a woman who's bumbling threw life and then suddenly decides to re-invent herself because she met the man of her dreams and wants to woe him. That's what I thought when I started reading this book and I was in for a huge surprise.
The first inklings are when Eleanor refers to her mother as "Mummy". A 30 year old woman calling her mom "Mummy" can only be recipe for trouble. It was weird at first, but as I saw the cover on the Amazon page, and the references to the scar on Eleanor's cheek and the fire increase, it became obvious that this was more of a psycho-thriller that was going to end with a flashback. Much like some of the Flynn novels, or The Girl on The Train (Hawkins).
The book is a great read, although I was a bit thrown by this change in gears. The book has humor in the first section, some heart wrenching writing in the second section, and a happy ending waiting at it's very end. It was a very satisfying story!
I refer to The Girl on The Train because the main characters in both these books are lonely woman who have, for years, not experienced contact with other human beings and use alcohol as their preferred support system.
There have been times when I felt that I might die of loneliness. People sometimes say they might die of boredom, that they’re dying for a cup of tea, but for me, dying of loneliness is not hyperbole. When I feel like that, my head drops and my shoulders slump and I ache, I physically ache, for human contact – I truly feel that I might tumble to the ground and pass away if someone doesn’t hold me, touch me. I don’t mean a lover – this recent madness aside, I had long since given up on any notion that another person might love me that way – but simply as a human being.
and
The strange thing – something I’d never expected – was that it actually made you feel better when someone put their arm around you, held you close. Why? Was it some mammalian thing, this need for human contact? He was warm and solid. I could smell his deodorant, and the detergent he used to wash his clothes – over both scents there lay a faint patina of cigarettes. A Raymond smell. I leaned in closer.
Her earlier references to Raymond use words as harsh as "pedestrian dullard", eventually she comes to not judge him and like spending time with him. One might feel that it was meant to be; whether that is true or not, it's hard not to feel connected to Eleanor. In that way, this character has been unlike many characters in psycho-thrillers. Honeyman has done a very good job with her first novel!...more
The book starts out slow and there are a ton of characters to introduce and get you acquainted with, so that takes a biAh, a good old psycho thriller!
The book starts out slow and there are a ton of characters to introduce and get you acquainted with, so that takes a bit of time. Something happened during the barbecue, for a major part of the book I believed that it was sexual, but then I thought it was worse, or not. It's very confusing to try to figure out what happened.
Without figuring it out, though there's a better understanding of the characters. They are all tormented by what happened, and although none of them are sure how exactly it happened, only 3 people really know when the end comes, they are all still blaming themselves. Every one of the 9 people blames themselves for what happened. Hell, even the kids blame themselves! That's the hook for this novel.
Erika is disturbed and had a bad childhood. Same with Oliver. Their childhoods define them so much that both of them have almost never been able to get past it. At one point in time, during therapy, Erika even offers to send her own psychologist links to articles she found! People go to therapy to not have control, with Erika, it's only to validate what she's already read. Being accountants is probably the best job for both of them. The certainty of numbers is soothing to both of them.
Sam and Clementine are the sweethearts here! With two cute little daughters and Clementine playing the cello, you want them to be fine, no matter what happens. Erika has been through stuff, she can deal with it. But not Clementine. That's what Oliver says at the end, and that's true. They were surprised because nothing bad had ever happened to them. The first bad thing that happened to them ruined them, broke them, in some ways. (I totally think Nicole Kidman should play Clementine in the adaptation that Reese Witherspoon and Kidman are planning)
Vid and Tiffany are the fun and sociable ones. Vid is an interesting character. With his perfect calm during a really bad situation, his ability to fit in any social situation with ease, his love of classical music (which seems so off-character) and how he met Tiffany. It's all really disorienting. Vid feels like a real person, and that's awesome! Tiffany is beautiful, I was able to find so many similarities between Tiffany and Celeste from Big Little Lies. Especially this one line when Tiffany says that she has to dance around the money she earned, because her own family and other non-working wives would want to brag about the deal they got on a dress, whereas she could pay full price for a dress without any remorse.
Celeste had this same thing with money, she had married up and she always had to dance around how much money she had, with her mother, with her friends. Interestingly, this doesn't bother both women. It's just how it is.
That was Erika's experience of fatherhood: the solid, silent weight of someone else's dad's hand on her shoulder. That was the sort of father Oliver would be.
The sunlight shone on the wall behind him and made his eyes look very blue in the shadowiness of his face. He looked simultaneously very young and very old, as if all the past and future versions of himself were overlaid on his face.
AHA! The book that Straw Dogs (2011) was based on. I really wanted to get this down, I knew it was a loose adaptation so I wasn't going to get a lot oAHA! The book that Straw Dogs (2011) was based on. I really wanted to get this down, I knew it was a loose adaptation so I wasn't going to get a lot of insight into Amy's mindset in the first part of that movie where she more or less just goes berserk, in her bet to provoke David into a passion about something, anything!
I really liked how the characters develop over the course of the book. The change in both George and Louise throughout the book is phenomenal and amazing to watch. Especially, after the Siege begins George's change from no violence to violence to outwitting Scutt to getting them all!
Apart from the main two characters, Bert Voizey is definitely the one I am most fond of. The moment George replies to Scutt with some confidence and tells him to clear out of the house, his behaviour comes out in this incredibly good line:
The third man - Bert Voizey - never felt comfortable in this kind of fancy house. Like one of his own ferrets, he had a natural instinct for creeping about in darker corners. He was not at ease with loud, confident people who stared you straihgt in the eye when they talked to you.
I can't get enough of that line and more that describe who Bert really is.
At 200 pages, I wasn't expecting to love the characters so much. (Psst, psst, so much so that I wrote a rather long blog post analysing George and Louise and their movie counterparts, Amy and David....more
I didn't expect this book to be as good, as dark, or as thrilling as it was. The synopsis betrayed hardly anything about the book or what the plot wasI didn't expect this book to be as good, as dark, or as thrilling as it was. The synopsis betrayed hardly anything about the book or what the plot was. I dived in and was startled to find out.
First and foremost, the subtlety that over rides the whole book is GOOOOOD. What is Denker? What did he do? Why does Monica not mind Todd calling her "Monica-baby"? Why is Richard the way he is with his son? Why are Richard and Monica always formal and matter-of-fact around their son? Why is the only real conversation that Richard and Monica have about Richard's boyhood and how they should not worry about Todd and not the other way around
Those are all questions that I have still only partially answered. It's not like there's a sinister subtext to everything that happens, I refuse to believe that. I think the answer lies in how the characters themselves were constructed in Stephen King's head when he first came up with the idea of an "apt" American boy of 14 going wild and turning out to be someone else, within the course of just one summer.
The characters in this book were all a little over done. I wonder if that was intentional. Making Rubber Ed wear ONLY Keds. Making Denker / Dussander drink Ancient Age and smoke almost incessantly. Making Monica an overly hot suburban house wife. Making Todd a creepy, cold young teenager who could put on whatever air he chose. You can smell the fiction in the story, but that only serves to make the story better.
I read the last 150 pages in a single day. After about every 30 pages, I was wondering What story could possibly be left? There's enough plot here, and it will leave you more thrilled than you were with King's writing. Certainly did that for me.
As a parting note, perhaps I should address this: This book is a dark reminder of the insane tragedy that were the Holocaust and the Nazi concentration camps. While in daily life, several jests might be made about these in a light-hearted manner, what happened there was abominable. Reading this book only serves to increase the horror at how Todd behaves. Especially towards the end of the book where he almost starts treating himself as unbeatable.
Todd and Kurt D are both seriously screwed up. Kurt D was trying to get past it, while Todd had no idea of what would happen when you purposefully on a sleeping tiger's tail. In this story, the tiger didn't eat him up, oh no. The tiger invited him into the sinister cave and showed him what it felt like to be a tiger in a jungle filled with "lesser" beings.
Despite this, I breathed a legit sigh of relief when Kurt D was finally able to leave. I think that is where the genius of Stephen King lies....more
This book was well worth the effort of getting through the first 20%! The book is really slow to get started and is incredibly stagnant introducing chThis book was well worth the effort of getting through the first 20%! The book is really slow to get started and is incredibly stagnant introducing characters that mostly just sleep and lounge around (Allison, not their cat). But then, when the book introduces Loyal Reese and Eugene Ratliff, everything changes. The book gains some pace that it desperately needs and we finally get to see the people who will form the rest of the book.
The book is arguably about Robin's death. But it's more about how Harriet dealt with it as a toddler who doesn't remember much from that time (although she can come up with memories that are so uncannily true that everyone else is shocked). Harriet grows up in a dysfunctional household where she has to deal with this herself without any support. And like almost every single child, the one thing she cannot know is the one thing she is obsessed to find out. The mystery part of the book ends almost as soon as it begins and she writes down the name of her "first" suspect: Danny Ratliff.
I felt bad about what Danny went through himself when he narrates the story of his life with an abusive father, a psycho elder brother, a discouraging grandmother who is always hovering everything that is going on in the cramped trailer (my skin crawled at the description and I felt claustrophobic just reading about their living arrangements!) Nonetheless, as a child, he does something most children do: get attention by becoming notorious. It's really strange that this comes back to haunt him almost 20 years later. Also, he is implicated in the church fire by Ida Rhew, but that isn't given much importance at all, not even Harriet seems too concerned about that. The line in which Danny confesses to doing something he didn't understand is heartbreaking:
As an afterthought, he drew himself in the picture too, off to the side. He’d let Robin down, he felt. Usually the maid wasn’t around on Sundays, but that day, she was. If he hadn’t let her chase him off, earlier in the afternoon, then Robin might still be alive.
Farish is an interesting paranoid guy on drugs. Eugene is interesting because of his constant see-saw game with right-wrong. Loyal is feverish about his devotion. Hely is happy-go-lucky and the guy who got out at the right time. Harriet is ... Well, Harriet is just a 12 year old with a free summer on her hands.
Tartt does the thing that she has done in both her other books: She starts out slow and gives an explosive climax. As an added advantage, this book's climax is a dark comedy in which Farish and Danny come to blows over things that happen solely because Harriet exists. In their drug-fueled haze, even a turned leaf appears as an ominous sign of impending doom. Danny and Harriet are connected in the most abstract way possible and Danny spends most of his time in the climax figuring this out:
No, it wasn’t his imagination: the girl had vanished off the face of the earth in the weeks after Gum’s accident, when he’d driven the town looking for her. But now: think of her, mention her and there she was, glowing at a distance with that black Chinese haircut and those spiteful eyes.
Sadly, I don't think he even knows that Harriet was Robin's sister at the end of the book. Somethings, like who killed Robin, are simply unknowable.
Some quotes from the book:
“What’s your problem, Harriet?” It grieved Hely that she never did what he wanted to do. He wanted to walk through the narrow path in the tall grass with her, holding hands and smoking cigarettes like grown people, their bare legs all scratched and muddy. Fine rain and a fine white froth blown up around the edge of the reeds.
It was something like a small black goblin—scarcely three feet tall, with orange beak and big orange feet, and a strangely drenched look. As the car went by, it turned in a smooth tracking motion and opened its black wings like a bat . . . and Danny had the uncanny sensation that he’d met it before, this creature, part blackbird, part dwarf, part devilish child; that somehow (despite the improbability of such a thing) he remembered it from somewhere.
It was pathetic now, to think back on how he’d looked forward to his release from jail, counting the days until he got to go home, because the thing he hadn’t understood then (he was happier not knowing it) was that once you were in prison, you never got out. People treated you like a different person; you tended to backslide, the way people tended to backslide into malaria or bad alcoholism.
Coming from Eugene, this really surprised me: (probably signaling the weight shifting back to the other side of the see-saw)
There was no point in hanging around upstairs and calling attention to himself. He would go back upstairs once that painted-up whore went off shift.
Finally,
A weight lay upon her, and a darkness. She’d learned things she never knew, things she had no idea of knowing, and yet in a strange way it was the hidden message of Captain Scott: that victory and collapse were sometimes the same thing.
Well, I love Celeste. Her character is so honest, honest to a fault. Just like her husband Perry. This particular line that Celeste says in one of herWell, I love Celeste. Her character is so honest, honest to a fault. Just like her husband Perry. This particular line that Celeste says in one of her internal monologues (which occur pretty often) describes her character really well:
She noticed that she was putting on a well-bred private schoolgirl sort of voice and tried to stop it. She wasn't a private schoolgirl. She'd married up
This book also talks a lot about a parent's love for their children. It's the raw emotion that Moriarty manages to convey, throughout the book, that makes this such an intense read. It all starts with:
Madeline saw Jane's body react instantly, instinctively, like the sudden rear of a snake or pounce of an animal. Her back straightened. Her chin lifted. "Ziggy doesn't lie"
Or with Madeline's inner monologue about Abigail
Just come back home, Abigail, come back home and stop this. He left us. He left you. You were my reward. Missing out on you was his punishment. How could you choose him?
The relationship between Perry and the twins is adorable. Perry admiring Ed and Madeline is cute! There's so many little things that Moriarty just nails! Now that I think about it, it's these little things that are there in every chapter that makes this book memorable. It's not the over-arching story that's important, it's literally the build-up to the climax itself.
The whole book is delightful.
This book is a murder mystery with suspense that is broken in a spectacular climax, and it is peppered with the inner monologues of some really diverse and GREAT characters. Definitely 5-stars!...more
This book is great, the ending is really explosive and more or less unexpected. It just happens, the suspense is there all the time, and there are no This book is great, the ending is really explosive and more or less unexpected. It just happens, the suspense is there all the time, and there are no big revelations at any point in time, the whole thing is revealed slowly. The first time that a topic is touched, it's extremely confusing, I found myself reading paragraphs again, believing with certainty that I had missed something, but then a few paragraphs down the line, the full explanation comes and then you are floored!
The reverse chronological structure is very very disorienting. While it might look great on screen in Memento, in a book that's about 370 pages long, it's very distracting and hard to keep up with. Towards the end, especially, the days get tangled up within each other, and the end of Day 2 is a few minutes away from the beginning of the chapter Day 3 that you have already read. Yeah, it's that kind of a book.
Totally worth it. And pretty easy reading too. Some platitudes which were mis-timed and over-used (especially, Tick-tock, Nic and Jump. The former is cruft, while the later might be justified)....more
To think this was the first book he wrote. I am not surprised with his work in The Shining any more.
This book is a lot of destruction, a lot of bad peTo think this was the first book he wrote. I am not surprised with his work in The Shining any more.
This book is a lot of destruction, a lot of bad people, a lot of Carrie being harassed by others. But surprisingly, it doesn't really get you down, because you know there's something big coming. Something that will perhaps get Carrie the revenge that she deserves, and then some.
The mystery is great. The excerpts from other fictional books, commissions etc is a very good way to tell a story. I loved that part!...more
This was my first horror book, and my first Stephen King book as well. It was good. Creepy in parts, a page-turner in it's pure form for the last 100 This was my first horror book, and my first Stephen King book as well. It was good. Creepy in parts, a page-turner in it's pure form for the last 100 pages or so. I could literally not put it down, because I knew what was going to happen, but I wanted to know how exactly they got to a point where Jack would become what he was prophesized (for lack of a better word) by Danny/Tony to be. The writing is clear and easy to read, and in the few vision sequences that Danny has, the scenes are easy to visualize. That's something authors like Thomas Harris really struggle with. (Especially with the geography of a room where she is held captive in Silence of the Lambs)
Wendy's character is the one that I would like to really get to know more. She's a protective mother, who puts Danny above everything, and would take it on herself if it was her and Danny against the world. But apart from this, there isn't much that is revealed about her. What books does she read? Does she like poetry? What does she think of Jack's work? Does Jack let her read his work, at all? There are so many answers to be answered about her character. I wish she was probed a little bit more.
This was a great start to the year, and to Stephen King too, I believe. I do plan to go ahead and read Carrie and Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, and the other 3 novellas, in the following year....more
This is a HUGE book, that's the second thing that comes to my mind when I think about this book. The first thing is the characters: Cassie, Ryan, JonaThis is a HUGE book, that's the second thing that comes to my mind when I think about this book. The first thing is the characters: Cassie, Ryan, Jonathan, Katy and Jessica, Rosalind, and Cathal. The plot is intricate, the killer IS revealed after about 450 pages of investigation that leads nowhere, but left me with an idea about who was fishy and who was not. I am not going to go about talking about spoilers here (because then I would have to hide the review, and I don't want to do that), but once you are 400 pages into an almost 600-page book, one of the things that keeps you going is finding out who did it. In this book, it was also wanting to find out what was really so SAD at the end that everyone was hit by it. I found out, eventually.
This book is sad, much like The Secret History. Before I started the book, I saw that almost each review said that the book was unexpectedly sad for a crime novel, and the characters unexpectedly deep for people who were detectives. Crime novels are about the crime, and the uncovering of the person who committed it, not about the people who are doing the uncovering. Atleast, THAT is the classical notion. Not here. If I have read one book that has remained with me ever since (almost 2 years), it's Secret History. The characters, I can remember why I liked some of them, why I didn't like some of them, why I felt sad when the book ended in a diabolical, almost cruel fashion. Few authors can write characters so deep and relationships so sweet that you know you will never have them. French certainly achieves that in this book. Cassie and Ryan make the perfect couple, but ...
My final piece of advice when you start this book is twofold. 1. Brace yourself for a long long book. I believe that you will only get through if you keep guessing who did it, thinking about everyone in the book, and eventually, you will KNOW. 2. It is a sad book, not for any of the reasons that you would be able to surmise from a look at the synopsis of the book. So, don't try to guess, just keep reading. I am pretty sure you will feel sad at the end.
Closure isn't something everyone can have.
P.S. If you haven't read The Secret History, then read it! If you liked this, you will like that book for sure. If you didn't, well that's not a crime novel, and there's no mystery in that one. So, that book starts out somewhere around the 450th page of this book....more
Reading this book in about two sittings was exhilarating for two reasons. Suzanne, Helen, Evie, her mom, dad, Tamar, and so on, each of the charactersReading this book in about two sittings was exhilarating for two reasons. Suzanne, Helen, Evie, her mom, dad, Tamar, and so on, each of the characters had an absolutely wonderful depth to them! Even the ones that you wish had no depth and turned out to be the blood sucking monsters that you want them to be, Russell and Mitch. And second, the ominous foreshadowing of something bad that was coming. The killing of a mother, a boy, and so on. I didn't know about the true incident that this book hinges around, which meant I was more or less in the dark about what was really going to happen. I knew something bad was coming, but never really exactly what, or what Evie's particular role in it was.
This book reminded me of two books that I have read this year, Girls on Fire and Dark Places. This book is set like Dark Places in reverse. All three have a lot of common themes, blind worshippers, eye-catching-ly beautiful and charismatic men and women, and characters that you are almost afraid of at times. Guy was probably the one character that you never really get because he doesn't feature much. Russell is certainly someone you don't wanna meet, and I think the author came across very well in conveying that.
This book was well worth the 250 odd pages that it has, and at no point did I feel like the author was simply rambling to add pages to the book. This book is probably not getting too much love on Goodreads, but I guess it will catch on soon enough....more
Well, well, well. Dr. Hannibal Lecter v. Will Graham! I haven't seen the Hannibal movie series, and a friend told me this book is worth a read. I agreWell, well, well. Dr. Hannibal Lecter v. Will Graham! I haven't seen the Hannibal movie series, and a friend told me this book is worth a read. I agree, wholeheartedly. After reading the final 150 pages on a single day while travelling, I am convinced that easy reading books can be good also. Especially, when it has a sociopath, a jailed sociopath and a law enforcement officer (maybe?) sociopath. The internal struggle that Graham has throughout the book about the certainty he felt when he nails the perpetrator kills him, and that's painful to read. Crawford is cute, as is Molly.
Coming from the heavy burden of writing that the classics possess, this book was particularly easy to read. The plot takes the center stage, and there aren't too many metaphors. There are some good lines, and cliff hangers that the author just casually drops in, but more or less it's about the Fairy, and catching the Fairy.
I might probably continue reading this series, and not start up on something as huge as Sense and Sensibility because I am tempted by how easy it was to read this book! TBD on that.
That said, one of these days, I would certainly love to see a book with a female sociopathic villain though. (Like say, Dark Places). I am certainly going to be out looking for one....more
take three teenage girls, one a crazy outsider, another a silent, introverted insider and the third a popular and controlling bitch. mix the last two take three teenage girls, one a crazy outsider, another a silent, introverted insider and the third a popular and controlling bitch. mix the last two with a boy, alcohol and devilish overtones. you have the mixture for a catastrophe.
next, mix the first two with a change of name, Kurt's music and un-ending drives to solitary lakes. you have the mixture for a self-destructive, over possessive friendship.
now, finally, mix all three in a confusion of wants, desires, bad things, horrible things and ugly things, and you will get the climax of this book.
absolutely unpredictable, great writing. almost *like* reading what goes on inside the head of a confused, teenage girl who wants everything and nothing, all at the same time.
P.s. I liked the "THEM" chapters most of all in the book. short and very few in number, somehow they have been masterfully written. in delicious third person, how refreshing that is....more
A psychological thriller. Hmm, a very good start of my dwelling into this genre.
Gripping book. The narrative style is very engaging and that was probaA psychological thriller. Hmm, a very good start of my dwelling into this genre.
Gripping book. The narrative style is very engaging and that was probably the part of the book that I loved the most, apart from the suspense and the creepiness that each character saw in the other....more
So, it took about an hour for me to complete this book. One *complete* hour of pure thriller. The book starts out with this Girl who is certainly on tSo, it took about an hour for me to complete this book. One *complete* hour of pure thriller. The book starts out with this Girl who is certainly on the wrong-ish kind-of a path, but wants to become better, and reads a lot.
And then, the story begins. The creepy blood on the wall, the creepier little kid warning grownups, and then, the climax. Blown *away*.
Gillian Flynn does it again, a less involved, almost equally chilling Gone Girl in less than 70 pages. Read this!...more
Astonishing. The last book I read was Dark Places by Gillian Flynn. And she does it again. Some part of the plot was given away to me because of the AAstonishing. The last book I read was Dark Places by Gillian Flynn. And she does it again. Some part of the plot was given away to me because of the Acknowledgement at the end of Dark Places. SO, if you are reading that before reading Sharp Objects, don't read anything other than the chapters.
The book is a stellar thriller. The protagonist (as always in Flynn books) is a deeply disturbed woman, who tries to convince herself that she's not as bad as some of the people she knows now and compares everything that happens now with things that happened when she was a child and how she handled them.
This is a GOOOOOD book! Read right away. At 300 pages, and 1.5 spaced paperback, burning through the book is made extremely simple....more
Amazing. This book is hinged around an absolutely un-understandable crime. Right from the beginning of the book, the one thing I kept thinking about aAmazing. This book is hinged around an absolutely un-understandable crime. Right from the beginning of the book, the one thing I kept thinking about and wondering why was the "motive". It helps that things that form the climax of the book are dropped often, everywhere, throughout the book, but make sense when it finally all comes together. The name, the murders, and the person who did it. Yeah, it is revealed. So keep reading. Eventually, it will dawn on you. (Psst, psst, it's the only real sand explanation.)
Character wise, I loved Diondra and Trey. Probably the people ... No, I am not going to spill anything about these guys.
I loved Libby as a cute little child with red hair. I love picturing this little kid who's always been poor and it's sad, but I do think she would look cute still (perhaps the movie will solve that for us? There isn't a movie? Whaaaaa? Please make a movie!)...more
What are you thinking, Amy? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?
This book. Oh, this book. Where do I st
What are you thinking, Amy? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?
This book. Oh, this book. Where do I start?
I love the narration, I love the look inside beloved Amy's busy, working round the clock brain. Now, I had already seen the movie. So the biggest twist in the book, which if you don't know by now, you should stop reading right here.
No, seriously stop. Don't blame me when the movie is spoilt because you continued to read.
Anyway, the biggest twist in the book was known to me. But this didn't make the experience of reading the book even a little bit bad. If anything, it kept me on the edge, anticipating the start of the next chapter and Amy returning at any moment. Any moment.
A lot of the book is about Amy, and Nick. Some of it is about Go, and even less about Mama Maureen and Nick's Dad. The least is said about Marybeth and Rand. But after reading this book, and thinking about what really went wrong, I guess it's these two. The dream couple, the couple that never fights, the couple that has probably never made a mistake. Amy finds them disgusting and repulsive after really understand what the Amazing Amy books did to her. Nick sees in Rand the father figure he lacked all his life. I feel like they are the people who are really screwed up.
Through the books, it was almost like they were telling Amy how to behave, and she was exactly that. An unbelievably smart, alpha female who doesn't back down from a fight, and always must get what she deserves.
What's the point of being together, if you are not the happiest?
This fits her parents very well. They were together, they were never really in a fight, they always had their hands around the other's waist. And that's the image of marriage that has forever been etched in young Amy's mind.
The characters are all fetching, Boney is slightly different from the movie, she's a little bit more of a hometown girl, Gilpin is in the driving seat in a lot of the cases where in the movie it was always Boney who was driving the investigation.
This is one book that I will find hard to stop thinking about.
I am done with the review, but Amy must always have the last word.
I waited patiently - years - for the pendulum, to swing the other way, for men to start reading Jane Austen, learn how to knit, pretend to love cosmos, organize scrapbook parties, and make out with each other while we leer. And then we'd say, Yeah, he's a Cool Guy
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