Best Review Contest (Spring 2015)

[Dlmrose, Moderator Emeritus]

This is the thread where you can submit reviews for the Best Review contest. The thread is open for submissions and will close at Midnight EST on May 16, 2015. Voting will start the next day and run until the end of the GR day on May 31. The person whose review gets the most votes will get to design a 20 point task for the Summer Challenge.

To be eligible for this task opportunity you must have achieved at least 100 points on the Readerboard by Midnight EST on May 16, 2015.

Just a reminder that each person can only submit one review - but you can make edits to your review up until the end. The review does not have to be any particular length and doesn't have to be a positive one (i.e. you can choose to review a book you didn't like).
Please include your Readerboard Name.

PLEASE DO NOT comment on people's reviews in this thread - this is for submissions only - you will be able to comment when voting begins.

SPOILER ALERT!- These reviews may include spoilers.

[Trish]

trishhartuk

The Godwulf Manuscript, by Robert B Parker

From the Task 20.5 description: Optional: If you have never read Parker or Plater you are doubly-blessed and I would love to read any book reviews by newcomers to their writing.

ChrisEverest, I accept your challenge!

I first heard of Robert B Parker through a British Daily Telegraph list of “Fifty crime writers to read before you die” (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/bo...), back in 2008. So he’s been on my TBR list for a while. He was the bonus “51st” writer, described as “an unrivalled pulp stylist who may be the best crime writer you've never read”. Chris’s task means I’ve finally got around to correcting that.

Being the sort of person who always starts a series at the beginning, I went for The Godwulf Manuscript. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but after I read the first line - “The office of the university president looked like the front parlour of a successful Victorian whorehouse” - I thought this guy’s style owes a lot to the likes of Chandler and Hammett, and being something of a fan of the old noir writers, I realised that Parker was probably right up my street.

The similarities continued as I got further into the book, with many of the classic noir components. The stubborn PI with the bottle of bourbon in his desk; the lady in distress who may or may not have committed murder; the angry father; the obstructive client who tries to get the PI off the case (which the PI chooses to ignore, of course); the inevitable Mob ‘warning off’ and so on. It was familiar territory, and Parker managed to evoke the era of the 30s greats, while at the same time making it clear that his narrative was a product of the early-70s.

The sarcastic and entertaining PoV narration channels the style of the Philip Marlowe books (IMHO, at least: I’d argue that “I could tell he was impressed with the gun in my hand. The only thing that would have scared him more would be if I’d threatened to flog him with a dandelion” definitely has echoes of “We looked at each other with the clear, innocent eyes of a pair of used car salesmen”!).

The dialog is snappy, the pace is decent, and the plot is nicely tangled. In fact, it quickly becomes clear that the Manuscript of the title is more of a MacGuffin than anything else.

The descriptions are detailed - especially the clothing, which more than anything else sets the timeframe for the story - and Parker obviously had the knack for observation of both people and things, and writing it down. And yet, Spenser is definitely his own person. A likeable character with his own way of doing things and his own quirks (I can’t offhand think of another hardboiled detective who’d settle down and cook himself a supper of Scallops Jacques!).

I definitely plan to read more in the Spenser series, and it will be interesting to see if the mood and style changes as the books become more up to date. Mind you, with getting on for forty books in the series, it might be a while until I get to the cellphone age!

[Sarah]

Shiraloo

The Legacy of Lost Things by Aida Zilelian (read for challenge 25.9)

**

I have a soft spot in my heart for novels that reflect the immigrant experience. I’ve traveled a lot and met a lot of interesting and displaced people, and the questions that always seem to come up in conversation involve how families change as they try and assimilate into new surroundings and a new way of life. There are often tensions there, as Zilelian reflects in the descriptions of Sunnyside’s Armenian community where her characters life. There are multi-generational pressures, religious pressures, social class pressures, compounded with the pressure of understanding and embracing American life.

But this book is more than just an “immigrant” novel. It’s about feeling lost, lost in place, lost in your family, and lost in the world. The theme of desertion and being alone runs throughout, first starting with the main conflict: Araxi, the oldest daughter of Tamar and Levon, runs away. The novel begins with her having deserted her family and we get a glimpse into how this desertion has affected everyone, from Tamar, who withdraws into herself, to Levon, who becomes angry and sullen, to dear young Sophie, the youngest daughter, who feels deserted by everyone in her life, including the first boy she’s ever liked. But we also see Araxi’s side of the coin, and how she figures out life on her own in places where she has no family, no friends, and no real connection to a home.

As the family figures out how to survive without Araxi, Zilelian provides context to the tumultuous relationship between Tamar and Levon and the violent repercussions that may have caused Araxi’s sudden disappearance. We meet Faris, Tamar’s starcrossed first love, and begin to understand why Levon harbors such anger towards her. As we learn how the two met, and the progression of the relationship, as well as meet their families and see how much their behavior reflects that of their parents, we begin to understand why Araxi left and we begin to see Tamar and Levon change.

That’s where the novel lost me a bit. I began to see Levon soften towards his wife as he realized the grudge he had been holding against her for loving Faris was for naught. I began to see him embrace his children, like the scene in which he comforts Sophie after she realizes her boy is moving away. I began to see Tamar understand why her behavior with Faris and her behavior towards Levon had created such a drama within her family. And yet, the characters had all of these realizations and didn’t change.

And I hate that.

I dislike when characters are given opportunity to grow and learn from all the history they’ve presented, and yet, at the end, they are still the sad schlubs with the missing daughter they were in the beginning. Sometimes, I have hope that after the words of the novel end, the characters will live on to grow and change and love. But this novel didn’t give me that sense. I imagine they are still stuck on the same plastic-covered couch, not talking, and not addressing any of the problems presented in the book.

As far as writing, this is Zilelian’s debut published novel, but she has been writing short stories and journalistic fiction for many years, and it shows. Her writing is pristine and she had the perfect balance of exposition and dialogue to keep me interested while also helping me to set the scene in my head.

My one criticism is the use of flashback as the start of a chapter. Multiple times, I started a chapter and could not figure out which era I was in. It often took me a few pages to figure out if I was back in Beirut or at the time of Tamar and Levon’s wedding, or in the present. This could have been easily remedied by putting a date stamp at the chapter head. That would have helped me frame the characters better as I was reading, especially since many times the flashback didn’t make sense to the unfolding of the story. Flashback was used primarily to reflect things going on in the present, but sometimes, those present things weren’t uncovered until a few chapters later which made the flashback seem out of place and not as important.

Overall, this is a novel worth checking out if you are a fan of the immigrant experience as I am. I hope to read more from Zilelian in the future.

[Meghan]

Meghanly
Review of We Have Always Lived in the Castle

From the same author who gave us The Lottery (you remember, that creepy short story you read in middle school about the town that stones people to death if they win the town lottery?), comes this creepy, claustrophobic little gem of a horror novel.

Fair point: this was published in the 60s, so you're not going to get Saw-like horror: limbs being amputated, creepy clowns, rape, etc. This is horror from a different time - the horrors that small-minded people and a mob mentality can wreak upon those who are different. The horror that a twisted mind can bring to an unaware family. The horrors that lurk behind the closed doors of our neighbors and friends.

Merricat, our narrator, lives with her sister and her feeble-minded uncle in the rich house upon the hill. The rest of her family was killed in an epic mass-poisoning years ago, for which her sister Constance was acquitted. The townsfolk - long kept from the stately manor and its grounds as much by large fences and locked gates as prejudices and suspicion - taunt and bully the girl when she comes to town. But Merricat has her own web of voodoo to keep evil from her house and her precious Constance - burying talismans, nailing mementos to trees, and uttering sacred words. When their long-lost cousin Charles comes to visit, the fragile web of denial the two sisters have woven around themselves falls apart, and sinister forces converge upon the house.

Forget Gone Girl. Forget The Girl on the Train. Shirley Jackson was writing the unreliable narrator before unreliable narrators were cool. The tightly woven story keeps you on the edge of suspense, with a building sense of anxiety that grows as slips of the family's story is revealed, gradually revealing the whole picture.

My only complaint - the ending was a bit anticlimactic for the story as a whole. But that's probably my 21st century sensibilities coming through - I wanted some explosions, or a car chase, or something. But if you keep your mind in the time frame - you won't be disappointed.

Four stars.