weekly book review: sharp objects, by gillian flynn

Firstly, it's been a bit since I've posted on what I've been reading, although that is in no way a reflection of my recent reading habits. I've actually read quite a bit this month. I just haven't written about any of it. So, in order to catch up I'm planning on posting shorter, more frequent reviews for the next couple of weeks or so. I'm talking, like, straight to the point reviews. No messing around. 250 words or less. (And if your response to that is, "About time, windbag!" then, well, that's a bit mean, don't you think?)

I'll begin with Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects, a book which, to put it mildly, disappointed. I normally try to be especially kind to first-time novelists, but this book really pissed me off for some reason. No, scratch that. It pissed me off for several, very sound reasons. To list: I hated how Flynn, a woman, wrote about women - like she had to make them extra gritty, boozy, troubled, violent, and hypersexual in order to prove she can attract male readers. Even for a pulpy murder mystery, the characters risk absurdity in their level of caricature. It's sloppily edited, entirely too heavy-handed in its use of "sharp objects", and the plot twists are both absurdly convenient and glaringly obvious. In fact, I had the murderer pegged by page 37, but read the other 235 pages anyway in the hopes that I was wrong. Unfortunately, I wasn't. The plot really was that clunky and obvious, and yet Stephen King gave it a very favorable blurb. (Because Flynn and King both write for Entertainment Weekly, perhaps? Book politics. Blech.)

I have no doubt that Sharp Objects could make a passable made-for-T.V. movie, but that's hardly a compliment, and although I realize that saying all this makes me sound a bit cruel, I feel obligated to tell you the truth. This book did more than just disappoint me. It insulted my intelligence. I'd like to spare others a similar fate.

Sharp Objects

Gillian Flynn

2006, 272 pages

weekly book review: the soul thief, by charles baxter

File this one under "showed promise."

Baxter's anticipated follow-up to the highly acclaimed The Feast of Love started off well enough, I suppose. Nathaniel Mason, narrating awkwardly in the 3rd person, is a graduate student in upstate New York and on his way to one of the smarmiest parties ever put to ink. It's there, amongst the hipsters and faux Marxists, where he first meets Jerome Coolberg,"The Soul Thief." Coolberg is purported to be some sort of genius, however Nathaniel is quick to note that nearly everything spewing from his mouth is stolen material.

Though he first seems harmless enough, it doesn't take Nathaniel long to realize something about Coolberg is a bit...off. Still, Nathaniel can't seem to help from forming an uneasy friendship with Coolberg, and that's when things take turn for the creepy. Nathaniel's apartment is burgled, his clothes go missing, and Coolberg somehow seems know very personal things about Nathaniel - things Nathaniel doesn't recall ever sharing with him. The issue is forced to its crisis when he catches word that Coolberg has taken to passing Nathaniel's history off as his own. His excuse? He's writing a book, and Nathaniel's a major source of inspiration. From here the story takes several twists, the biggest one being, of course, the ending. Which was awful.

As I stated earlier, this novel certainly had potential. Annoying opening party scene aside, the first act read like Hitchcock at his best - full of ominously mysterious characters with undefined motives. In fact, the book even begins with a reference to Psycho, a reference the reader will later recognize as a major clue. And even though I *loves* me some Hitchcock, I most certainly didn't love this novel.

Why? As the plot unfolded I was bothered by several things, but I could have looked past the pedantic dialogue and unlikeable characters had the ending delivered better. And when it comes down to it, it's the ending that ruined The Soul Thief for me. I'll be vague for the sake of anyone who may still want to give it a shot, but after all the allusions dropped throughout, I was geared up for the ending to be as classy and smart as a Hitchcock film, when instead it felt cheap and gimmicky. Baxter my man, you could have done so much better.  

I have no doubt that Charles Baxter is a great writer, however I'm not sure one would be able to discern that on this strength of this novel alone. Hardcore Baxter fans will probably still want to check it out, but for everyone else...maybe don't bother. It wasn't the worst way to spend a few hours, but it was hardly the best.

The Soul Thief

Charles Baxter

210 pages, 2008

monday book review: child 44, by tom rob smith

How do you stop a serial killer operating in a State where one of the fundamental pillars is that crime does not exist? Set in Stalin's Soviet Union, Child 44 - part political thriller, part murder mystery, and part horror story - is the gripping exploration of that very question.

Leo Demidov is a high-ranking MGB officer who has dedicated his adult life to rooting out enemies of the State, and in the process is responsible for sending innumerable innocent citizens to the Gulags or marking them for execution. A loyal member of the Party, it never occurs to Leo that these people may be innocent until one particular arrest and subsequent interrogation causes him to call everything he once believed into question.

With this one crack, the foundation of Leo's life as a rich, powerful and respected State Security Officer begins to crumble. No longer certain of his work, his confidence weakens and all past cases become shadowed in doubt, in particular that of little Arkady Andreev, the son of one of Leo's MGB subordinates, whose mangled, lifeless body had been found discarded along the railroad tracks. Despite eyewitness evidence suggesting the boy was brutally murdered, Leo - working in a system that cannot acknowledge the crime's existence because to do so would suggest an imperfect society - labeled the boy's death an accident.

Leo's paradigm shift also makes him vulnerable to an ambitious enemy in the MGB, a man who manages to undermine Leo's credibility so much that he suffers a severe demotion and is forced to abandon a life of relative luxury in Moscow with his beautiful wife for a hovel in the depressed, rural village of Voualsk. It is here that Leo, now a low-ranking member of the militia, discovers that little Arkady's murder may not be an isolated incident, but rather the work of a very prolific serial killer. Conducting their own secret investigation, Leo and his wife soon discover that as many as 44 children may have fallen victim to a man the State refuses to admit exists. No longer willing to safely toe the company line, the Demidovs set out to find the killer and stop him themselves, despite the fact that doing so makes them political dissidents and prime candidates for the Gulags or worse.

Typically not my thing, I usually pass on political thrillers, but Child 44 was one of those titles that I couldn't seem to escape, so I was naturally curious to see if it was deserving of all the hype. And after tearing through all 400+ pages in a matter of days, I'd say yes, indeed it is. While it's true that Smith's simple prose won't exactly blow your mind, the compelling story he weaves makes for one gripping read. Although a beast in size, it can be tackled fairly quickly, and the entire time I was reading I couldn't help but think it would make for one terrific movie. (Turns out I'm not the only one who thought this. Ridley Scott committed to direct the film before the book was even published.) The novel does have its flaws, however. My enjoyment was lessened by a late twist that felt far too neat considering the complexity of the plot that had unfolded up to that point, and as I've already mentioned Smith's simple sentences are nothing to gush over. But hey - they can't all be high art, people.  As far as most literary thrillers go, it's far better than most.

In sum, it may not win any awards, but Child 44 is an incredibly ambitious debut from an author to watch and one terrific read. I highly recommend checking it out.

Child 44
Tom Rob Smith
436 pages, 2008

monday tuesday book review: winterwood, by patrick mccabe

Winner of the 2007 Irish Book Award of the Year, Winterwood is the chilling story of Redmond Hatch, a man who appears to have defied his troubled childhood by making a happy life for himself with his beautiful wife and the daughter he adores. The novel opens with Hatch, a journalist, interviewing Ned Strange, a local folk musician, for an article on the folklore and dying traditions of his native mountain village of Slievenageeha, Ireland. Despite the muddled perspective of an unreliable narrator, it doesn't take a reader very long to realize that Strange is very...well...strange, life in the Hatch family is hardly the little slice of heaven Red first makes it out to be, and little else is what it seems.

I read Winterwood in one sitting while trapped on a New York-bound chartered bus. It was a beautiful sunshiny day, the gorgeous Pennsylvanian mountains were rolling past my window, and the giggles of my very excitable students provided me a cheery soundtrack for my reading. But no matter. The supreme creepiness of McCabe's story was so intense that it easily managed to break past all these warm, fuzzy distractions and freak me right out.

This novel is the perfect example of how a glimpse inside a troubled mind is far more terrifying than any fictional beastie a writer can dream up. Furthermore, it's a great argument for how the horror/suspense genre can be accomplished in an intelligent and artful manner. With Winterwood, McCabe trusts the intelligence of his reader enough to make him work a bit; he's purposefully cryptic and vague for a wonderfully unsettling effect. I don't think I've read anything that has disturbed me this much since The Shining - book that easily belongs in the top five on the "Creepiest Books of all Time" list, assuming such a list exists. (And it should.) This was my first experience with McCabe (The Butcher Boy), but if his other works are anything like this then sign me up. He's a truly phenomenal writer.

Winterwood

Patrick McCabe

2007, 242 pages

books: in the woods

I am right pissed off.

In the Woods is Tana French's debut novel. Lots and lots of people like it. It's 400+ pages long and has two parallel story lines - one that's interesting and one that's not. Unfortunately, 75% of the novel was dedicated to the latter.

Mind you, I wouldn't have stuck with a 400+ page novel if I truly hated it. The prologue was excellent, the cover quite pretty, most of the time I appreciated French's writing style, and as far as crime dramas go I suppose this one had a bit more eloquence, substance and style than most.

However, I didn't really care who murdered the young ballerina because I figured it out about 100 pages in. With three quarters of the novel left to go, I stuck things out for that second story line. The one that wasn't paid nearly enough attention. The one that was never resolved.

So yes, if you like reading long-ish books that end in messy disappointments then I've got one to lend. But I actually quite like you, so maybe let's not.

Oh, bother.

Up Next: The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman

books: a good and happy child

A Good and Happy Child (Justin Evans' debut) begins with George Davis, a first time father, who finds himself incapable of holding his newborn son. This inexplicable repulsion for his own child and the considerable strain it puts on his marriage sends him to a psychologist, who encourages him to journal in the hopes of understanding his unusual hangup. Through the journals, which consume the majority of the novel's plot line, Davis begins to recall a strange moment in his childhood shortly after his own father's mysterious death while chasing demons in Honduras. The journals recount strange visions Davis had as a child, "accidents" that frequently occurred around Davis and that threatened to get him committed, and the help he sought from his father's mystic friends who convinced him that his visions were demonic.

Truly intelligent horror is such a rarity, and although my biggest criticism of Evans' debut is that it's more unnerving than it is scary, there were certainly quite a few scenes that got under my skin. I mistakenly assumed that this would simply be a story about demonic possession, but it turned out to be something much more interesting - a freaky, tight little tale that explores both demons vs psychology, rationality vs spirituality, and perception vs reality. I've read several reviews by people who found the ending to be a bit frustrating, and would agree that it was anything but neat while the book had a tendency to ask more questions than it answered; however, for me, anyway, those are all good things.

Bottom line, I thought this was a very smart, spooky and enjoyable read. If you like The Exorcist you'd probably like it too. Holler if you want to borrow.

Up Next (assuming B&N has it in stock): I Love You, Beth Cooper, by Larry Doyle

books: 17 down, 7 to go: the road

The Road (Cormac McCarthy) - in masculine, Hemingwayesque prose that is often poetic in its fragmented simplicity - tells the story of a man and his son tenaciously clinging to survival, hope and one another set against a post-apocalyptic landscape. This book has gotten an awful lot of hype as of recent (as both a Pulitzer and a nod from Oprah will tend to do) and I'm not sure what I could say that hasn't already been said by countless others, so rather than ramble on, allow me to instead include two passages that together encapsulate everything that I found The Road to be: brutal, violent, and haunting, yet beautiful and tender all at once.

They scrabbled through the charred ruins of houses they would not have entered before. A corpse floating in the black water of a basement among the trash and rusting ductwork. He stood in a livingroom partly burned and open to the sky. The waterbuckled boards sloping away into the yard. Soggy volumes in a bookcase. He took one down and opened it and then put it back. Everything damp. Rotting. In a drawer he found a candle. No way to light it. He put it in his pocket. He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the interstate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like groundfoxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.

There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common providence in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes. So, he whispered to the sleeping boy, I have you.

Up Next: No One Belongs Here More Than You, by Miranda July

books: 13 down, 11 to go: finn

As it currently stands:

Stress Level: Elevated
Empty Fridge Level: Starvation
House Dirtiness Level: Positively Disgusting
Annoyance at Freshmen Level: Severe
Ninja Threat Level: Risking Absurdity
Wizard Threat Level: (Thankfully) Negligible

..and to top things off, my dog ate my laptop. (Well, not exactly. Let's just say there was an incident with a ball on a rope and a tall glass of water and now I'm a snobby Mac owner who hasn't yet figured out basic commands like "highlighting text." Whatever. It happens.)

What I'm trying (and, thanks to four hours sleep last night, probably failing) to say is things are nuts, so I'm going to keep this short. I'm sure you won't mind.

Finn, by Jon Clinch, is a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with Pap Finn as the primary protagonist. Beginning with a flayed corpse floating down the Mississippi, the novel is clearly much darker than the original, quite risky in that it depicts Huck as a mulatto, and - in my humble opinion - a much more interesting read than the novel that provided its inspiration. But to be honest, I'm a bit biased seeing as I hate "Huck Finn" almost as much as I hate American Idol and uncooked mushrooms, which is a bunch.

But although I found Finn's concept intriguing - even if not particularly original - and found Clinch to be a solid writer who certainly can turn a phrase, I didn't love it, it never begged to be picked up after being put down, and would have no idea who I'd recommend it to.

So, in a word: Meh.

Up Next: The Raw Shark Texts, by Steven Hall (and the website I've linked to is pretty spiffy, so ya'll should maybe check it.)

books: 10 down, 14 to go: heart-shaped box

Heart-Shaped Box (Joe Hill) tells the story of Jude Coyne, an aging rocker (think Ozzy Osbourne without the DTs) who buys a haunted suit off an Internet auction site. Although he doesn't initially believe the spectral claims, Coyne soon discovers that the suit is, in fact, haunted by an extraordinarily determined ghost who is hell-bent of revenge. Since I really, really hate spoilers I won't say much more plot-wise, however, do trust that twist and turns abound.

So now to the review:

Let me start by saying that I cannot imagine what it would be like to be a horror writer who is also the son of Stephen King. To write from under the shadow of that giant must be absurd, and that would undoubtedly explain why he chose to keep his family tree a secret for the first eight years of his literary career. Nonetheless, now that Hill's identity has been "outed," it seems to be impossible to not make comparisons to his famous father, which I hardly think is fair since this is only his first novel.

But you know I'm going to do it anyway.

Because I'm terribly out of the loop of the publishing world, I had no idea of Hill's true identity until I was thirty or so pages into Heart-Shaped Box, yet I sensed it immediately. King has this "nerdy guy writing about cool guys" thing that I've always noticed yet found to be endearing, and Hill's writing has that same vibe. A few chapters in, I ran to the Internet to research my suspicions, and - low and behold - I discovered that I am the literary equivalent of Sherlock Holmes. It read like a Stephen King novel since it sort of was - a "son of the Stephen King novel" if you will. And that would be my biggest criticism of the novel - Hill hasn't completely found his own, unique voice yet.

Nonetheless, Heart-Shaped Box was a great read. A tautly-written, creepy little piece that was fun to read and terrifically difficult to put down. And if you're nice, I'll even let you borrow it.

Up Next: Finn, by Jon Clinch

books: 2 down, 22 to go - the ruins

Okay, so here's the real post.

Since approximately 25% of my readership has already completed The Ruins I'll keep this one short. I'd cite a passage to "hook" you, but I couldn't really find one that wasn't in danger of spoiling something for those who haven't read it yet. Basically, it's about a bunch of young fools vacationing in Mexico who, due to their naive sense of adventure, a fierce language barrier, and evolution run amok, find themselves in a world of nature-based hurt. (Sort of like my day trip to Morocco when a carpet salesman tried to convince Nathan to take the "Berber discount," which meant he could make a trade: me for a Persian rug. Okay, it's nothing like that at all, but it's a good story nonetheless.)

So anyway, back to The Ruins. It's good. Disgusting and disturbing, but good. You should read it. (Perhaps not while eating, however.)

Up next (and on the strong recommendation of no fewer than three fifteen-year-old girls): My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult