I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
A psychological thriller with an unreliable narrator ( surprise) that's getting pretty buzzy ( surprise again). I had a lot of fun reading it, but I didn't find the conclusion ( which you read towards like a speeding train) to be all that satisfying or even well done. It definitely has a "Wtf?" ending, but I didn't find myself thinking much about it after I put it down. Possibly it's because I had no one to discuss it with. It's one of those books, where all of the fun is in the questions. In fact, the whole book is fueled by one very specific question, although what that question is varies from person to person ( I just looked up discussions online).
It's frustrating because to even really review the book would be to ruin it, but if you like high psychodrama and want to be very unsettled for an evening, you should give it a go. It's definitely entertaining and very original. I just dont think it's strong enough to be a cult classic like some suggest it will become. For me, I'd give the first 3/4ths an A- and the last part a C.
ETA: Sorry. I know that's one of the shittiest posts ever written about a book, but it seriously can't be talked about without giving everything away. You really need to be blind going into the book or there's no use.
Last edited by Adam; 05-19-2017 at 05:02 PM.
The Landslide Never Brought, Brought Me Down
I felt exactly the same way about it! It was one of the creepiest things I've ever read until the end which was just like, "Oh . . . really?" I expected so much more after how wonderfully eerie and almost Lynchian the rest of the book was. It may sound weird to say, but to me the ending was almost . . . predictable?
^ exactly! I was SO confused while reading it that I was expecting something much more strange and original than the ending we got. It's interesting you mention Lynch. What I love about him ( and what can creep me out like nothing else) is how the strange or unreality smacks up right against reality. It's that blurriness that intrigues me and it's that blurriness that I was wanting from the conclusion. I expected some parts of the book to be "real" and other parts to be manifestations of something else, but once the book quickly stepped away from any sort of plausibility, it totally lost me. I actually remember feeling so much disappointment ( do not read if you don't want the book ruined)
Last edited by Adam; 05-20-2017 at 05:10 AM.
The Landslide Never Brought, Brought Me Down
I'm reading Scott Sigler's Infected trilogy. Think Outbreak meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Deliciously pulpy and the depth of a Michael Bay movie but so much fun.
And also one of the absolute grossest, goriest books I've ever read. I mean, holy crap it's bloody and nasty and yuck!
post28!
Do Not Become Alarmed by Maile Meloy. The first half kept me up til 2am, but the second unraveled a little. A group of Americans, all close friends and whose kids are close friends, go on a cruise down the coast of Central America. One day, they go ashore for a zip-lining excursion, but their taxi gets in a wreck and in a bizarre series of events, the kids are separated from their moms and all hell breaks loose. It won't get as much attention as Paula Hawkins' new one, but the writing is better than hers (at least in Girl on the Train). Out June 6.
I've got this in my stack. I loved her kids series, and I want to get to this...Originally Posted by Sansa Spark
It's pretty good, just suspend your "really, that too?" disbelief earlier than you might think you need to.
I'm reading The Contortionist's Handbook by Craig Clevenger. Like most people, I read it because of Palahniuk.
The good is really good, but I can't see what's the relation with Palahniuk's books. Clevenger talks about drugs, but even Oliver Sacks wrote about drugs.
Maybe later I'll find some similarities, but so far it's a great book as it is, without Palahniuk publicity.
When he woke up, the dinosaur was still there.
Theft by Finding - David Sedaris' new book.
It was perfect reading for me right now, just a series of short, entertaining diary entries, spanning the late 70s through 2002. It's 500+ pages, but I read it (quite easily) in perhaps five or six sittings. Totally kept my attention.
His approach to diary keeping is rather brilliant. No feelings, no pontifications even, just observations really, frequently of the absurd variety, but just as often amusing, sad, or even mundane. Collectively they tell quite a story, without ever actually trying to. Makes me want to try it.
I'm almost finished with this too! ^ Some of it is laugh-out-loud hilarious, but some of it, as dry as the writing style is, was surprisingly moving. I'm thinking in particular of the home movies scene. I had to go back and read that entry twice because it was so simple and so heartbreaking.
Hunger by Roxane Gay
Difficult. Nothing but truth, as well as a lot of hurt. Absolutely brutal, beautiful read, but mind your triggers.
The new iOS borked my books. I did a restore and they all came back, but I was SUPER pissed last night, lying in bed to read and having nothing TO read. Like the books I was actively reading (and finished last night) were fine, but all my unread books just wouldn't open. Apparently it's a thing and I'm not alone. Luckily I fixed it, but I hate hate HATE iBooks. It doesn't work like other readers from a technical standpoint. If I understand it correctly, epub files are written in html but iBooks doesn't read ALL the html. It's a selective html reader. So when I wanted to make my Harry Potter ebooks have the Harry Potter fonts, it took AGES to figure out how to get them to display correctly. (It wasn't just a simple class in css. iBooks only displays its built-in fonts unless you go and really do weird ass stuff to your epub code.)
The last big update they did broke two column reading. You CAN read in two column mode, but you can only increase the font size a certain amount in that mode. It USED to work, now it doesn't. If I want one fucking word in each column I should be able to increase it that much. Grumble.
Anyway, I continue to use iBooks because it's the easiest way to sync to my devices and ACROSS my devices. If I read on one and want to pick up at the same spot on another later, my bookmarks are there and it's all good.
I think I'm done now. Clearly apple doesn't give it proper support. I need some recommendations for ebook apps. I don't necessarily mind paying, but I'd like something with at least a free trial/lite version. I don't want to use kindle because it doesn't read epub and I don't feel like converting all my books to mobi and it's a huge pain to load your own books to it (as opposed to ones you download from the kindle store). And when you do load your own books it doesn't display YOUR covers and I didn't spend all the time I did finding and installing pretty covers to have a library full of blank pages.
Anyone have a good reader they can recommend? I'm seeing Marvin, maybe Hyphen is good. I have Overdrive but it doesn't have automatic night mode.
Honestly, I use Google Play Books. I upload epub or pdf files to it and it works just beautifully, even on an iPad.
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy. Sublime.
Someone recommend me a crime series/novel please, I know next to nothing about the genre and they all look/sound the same. The covers all have these silhouettes of grim landscapes and CAPSLOCK TITLES on them, and I'm not risking a fiver on something that good be bilge. Help?
Oddly I like watching crime shows, and have read most of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie stuff- I have no clue what to go for.
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