Watcha Reading in September/October

[Michelle, Overrun By Pets]

It has been a wonderfully busy couple of months in the reading department. My hubby, serving as my personal audio book narrator extraordinaire, resumed The Shadow Rising. We are nearly 1/3 of the through the novel. Our rag-tag group of heroes are preparing to part ways and embrace their own separate destinies within the much larger, very complex plot.

We took a road trip to Minnesota during an extended vacation which allowed us to listen to several audio books. Our first endeavor was The Girl on the Train . The narrator was quite good, and parts of the plot really grabbed me, but I was left feeling a bit disappointed by the end of the book. In general, I wasn't a fan of the amount of violence perpetrated against women, or how women were primarily defined by their relationships with men.

Our second audio book The Girl with All the Gifts was an amazing hit! It is a wild and wonderful twist on a post-apocalyptic zombie infested world. The ending was an unexpected shock in a very good way. The characters were interesting and I enjoyed every minute.

We are midway through listening to The Whistler. I am a long-time fan of John Grisham, but this is my first attempt at an audio book version. The story and plot are quintessential Grisham, but the narrator leaves a bit to be desired. She often struggles with accents, mistakenly swapping them between two characters, which makes conversations hard to follow. I'm excited to see where Grisham's story of a dirty judge leads.

I read The Widower's Tale. I enjoyed the concept of the book more than the execution of it. We follow a long-time widower through courting a new girlfriend and allowing part of his property to be converted into a preschool. The book left me disengaged with most of the characters and ultimately feeling that the plot was too contrived in a soap opera kind of way. I give the author props for a less-than-tidy ending which was genuinely the most interesting part of this book.

I read Sharp Objects and thought it was a solid read. Some parts of the plot were predictable, but the unpredictable bits more than made up for it. I liked the main character who was damaged and just closed off enough to keep me wanting more. On several late nights I was compelled to keep reading far beyond bedtime.

I finished The Sun Also Rises which was a short, easy read. It quite made me want to travel around the world, drinking too much liquor and meeting interesting people. While the prose is simple and straight-forward, I do wonder if some of the ambiance of the book is lost on a modern reader.

[Andrew, Wound Up]

Slacker Andrew here with some quick catch ups (I won't relink M's books).

Girl on the Train was too preposterous and felt like a blatant rip off of Gone Girl. It was well written but I really didn't enjoy the horribly sexist story.

I also echo Michelle on The Girl With All the Gifts - a must read if it is something that interests you in any way.

Grisham's Whistler isn't doing much for me so far. I liken his books to romantic comedies - the main characters flail about for most of the story but in the end it all wraps up nice and neat. Unfortunately his characters aren't doing something as messy as falling in love (they tend to be lawyers prosecuting cases) and it feels really awkward when they act as intelligent as hormone addled teenagers. The audio narrator's inability to keep the characters straight significantly dampens my enjoyment.

The Magic of Recluce was recommended by a friend. I had originally told Michelle that I'd try a second book in the series but I'm rethinking that. The story itself is boilerplate fantasy with an interesting magic system that isn't very well explained. One of my major issues with the book was the main character's relationship with a female peer - within moments of meeting her he begins referring to her in his internal dialogues as a "bitch". This unfortunate word choice grated on me throughout the very long novel. On the positive side the world building and the main character's internal growth were very well handled.

I'm about 1/3 of the way through The Dead Mountaineer's Inn: One More Last Rite for the Detective Genre which is (so far) a ghost story at a remote Inn with a host of about a dozen interesting characters. I think I'll have much more to say in about a week.

The Sun Also Rises was superb and made me want to read more Hemingway - I'll be posting a book club topic with some more details.