Dark Places by Gillian Flynn Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“The truly frightening flaw in humanity is our capacity for cruelty - we all have it.”- Dark Places, Gillian Flynn

Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.” She survived—and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, the Kill Club—a secret society obsessed with notorious crimes—locates Libby and pumps her for details. They hope to discover proof that may free Ben. Libby hopes to turn a profit off her tragic history: She’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club—for a fee. As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started—on the run from a killer.

For the past few months, I've been test-driving, so to speak, popular thriller writers, looking for one that fits me. It's a yearly search at this point, and in the past I've both read and rejected writers like Paula Hawkins and Chevy Stevens before finding Tana French. However, in April, my search was reignited as I realized I only had two more of her books left and needed to find a new thriller writer I liked maybe not as much, but close enough to keep me happy until 2018, when hopefully the next Murder Squad book will be released. I've had some success so far with both Jilliane Hoffman and Robert Dugoni (though I haven't found the time yet to pick up more of their stuff) and some disappoints (see Megan Abbott and Laura Lippman), but despite purposefully searching out and reading some of the biggest names in the genre I still hadn't yet read a Gillian Flynn.

Well, that's not quite true. I did get about 20 pages into Gone Girl before losing the will to go on, but it occurred to me that perhaps Gone Girl wasn't the best Flynn novel to start with- the subject matter didn't even interest me all that much- and instead I should attempt a book whose subject content appealed to me more. Like Dark Places. 

So. Gillian Flynn, take two.

Unfortunately, with her I think the hype got to me. So many thriller lovers, many whose opinions I trust, adore her. And hell, a lot of thriller writers want to be her. I mean, after Gone Girl literally all a publisher had to do to sell a new thriller is put "for fans of Gone Girl" on it and boom, instant best seller. And everyone appears to love her other books too, calling them dark and gritty explorations into the deep minds of unlikable people. So I went into Dark Places expecting to be wowed by the fucking Monet of thrillers. I wanted greatness, dammit.

As predicted by my aborted Gone Girl reading experience, this book and I started out on a rough road as I was struggling to not let my mind wander off and was trying to get invested into the characters, to have them become real for me. After about an hour or two of reading, I was dismayed to discover just how little of this good sized (not large but by no means tiny) book I had actually read. My point is, it doesn't automatically hook you. Now, I don't mind it when contemporaries or historical fictions novels meander along at the beginning, but I demand it from my mysteries. The middle can drag a bit and I won't kill you, but the beginning has to catch you right from the get go, get you invested in the mystery so you don't just put it down early. This book, well, didn't. 

If I was Flynn, I would have started this book off the way the movie Capote did. I would have painted a picture of this cold winter's morning in this dying Kansas town and then zoomed in to this failing farm, where we, the readers, encounter the dead bodies of the wife and children. And I would have done likely through the eyes of Libby. I wouldn't have started it off with the children's song cliche, that's for damn sure.

Instead, we get introduced to Libby. From what I gather from my research into Gillian Flynn's writing (read: watched three Booktube videos that mention her, also read a Goodreads interview) her shtick is to write unlikable heroines. I'd probably like that idea more if she didn't frame it as a politically based decision, and instead admitted that she just wanted to write miserable bitches, but hey, at least she's doing it. And yes, I suppose Libby is pretty unlikable, but frankly I feel like I never really got to know her. I didn't get any insight into her dark and twisted mind, and it did feel like some of her negative personality traits- stealing, low temper- were tacked on because, again, Gillian Flynn's shtick demands it. But I did end up kind of liking Libby, liking her in the begrudging way I like characters that are so obviously characters, and I didn't mind living in her head for a bit.

The best character in the book, hands down, is Lyle. I found him endearing in a way I didn't expect to, kind of like a nervous, overexcited puppy. I especially liked that Libby ended up coming around to him and by the end of the book, they had a genuine friendship.

However, I was not thrilled with the rest of the characters. They were disappointingly cliche, something that, yes, I would have been annoyed at in any mystery writer, but in this case it came off almost like an insult. We have the martyr mother, the tough aunt, the deadbeat dad, the dick cop/loan guy. I expected more nuance from a thriller writer of this caliber. That being said, the women in the Free Day Society made me laugh, and I think I felt more sadness for Magda's son Ned than anyone else in the book put together.

I will say this, though, this book is the kind you need to read all at once to enjoy it best. I found I liked it more when I actually sat down and read it as opposed to just reading little bits here and there. When I took the long solid periods of time approach, the characters got, well, flatter, but less annoying, her writing seemed better, and the mystery more engrossing than prior, when I just read little increments of it.

The mystery took a while getting there, but when it did get there it was suitably interesting. It was a fun, turn your brain off kind of mystery, which probably wasn't what Flynn was going for, but I ended up liking it more that way. When I tried to look at it as, I don't know, commentary on the sorry state of the rural economy? On what poverty does to the mind? It fell dramatically flat. Flynn's plot lacked the subtlety for that to truly work; she tried to pile way, way too much into the last day of the Day family that it just came off as ultimately unrealistic and again, not subtle at all. Compare this novel to Tana French's Broken Harbor, the book I thought the most about while reading this one. I think both this book and Broken Harbor are trying to say the same thing, but the subtlety and almost mundaneness of how French portrayed the effect financial ruin has on a family blows Flynn's heavy-handed approach out of the water.

Flynn's writing was decent enough. Nothing mind blowing here, and there were a few odd metaphors and descriptions, but I liked it just fine. That being said, it surprisingly wasn't very original, just kind of generic thriller writing. I suppose the novelty of Flynn lies in her plots and heroines.

Also, the ending. For one, implausible. She should have decided on who exactly she wanted the killer to be, or perhaps her editor should have forced her into making a decision. Also, I think it went on a bit too long. I don't think Flynn knew how to end the book, and when it did end it was kind of clumsy and like she just put a period at the end of the last sentence and hit send. It reminded me of those awkward phone calls where neither party knows how to end it and the conversation goes for a beat too long and even then the call seems to end in mid sentence. It would have been better, I think, if she put the last Libby chapter right before the last Ben chapter and have the Ben chapter end it. I mean, it still would have been awkward, but it would have felt more like an actual ending.

So, I don't know if I'm exactly in a hurry to continue my Gillian Flynn reading experience. Gone Girl's probably never going to happen, but maybe Sharp Objects will? All I know is, there's something in me that refuses to write Ms Flynn completely.

7 out of 10

Popular Authors I Haven't Read Yet

This was originally going to be a list of popular books I haven't read, but once I actually got to that part, I didn't know what to write about. I mean, I haven't read books like The Mortal Instruments series, but I also haven't read anything else by Cassandra Clare. Every time I came up with a popular book I haven't read yet, I would think to myself "oh, mind as well just put down the author because it's easier". So this basically turned into a list of authors because if I read one book by a specific popular author I will usually read another book. Quality control and all. So this basically turned into a list of 10 authors I haven't yet read. Each are in one of three categories: definitely going to read, someday probably going to read, and probably not ever going to read.

Gillian Flynn
  This one is one that's definitely going to happen soon, since I'm currently in the midst of reading one of her books. However, I haven't actually completed a Gillian Flynn novel, so it counts. I know she's a widely beloved thriller writer, but her stuff isn't usually the kind of thriller I pick up. Also, I was kind of turned off of her after I attempted Gone Girl, which couldn't hold my attention at all (of course, I only got about 20 pages in). But so many thriller lovers love her so I am giving her another shot, but that's why you haven't seen any real references to Ms Flynn's work pop up in any of my thriller reviews.

Sarah J Maas
  Unlike the above, I think I can safely say this one will probably never happen. Probably because my definition of hell is a long ass high fantasy novel. No, I don't care that what she writes is technically "fantasy-lite" or whatever all you fantasy fans say, if it takes place in another world, it's high fantasy. And honestly, her books seem pretty generically fantasy, too. Of course, that's probably just me being stupid in the genre, because to me, the majority of fantasy out there all sounds the same. Again, if you like her stuff, all the more power to you, but personally, no matter the hype, I'm not going to pick up a 400 book and be bored meaningless because it's apparently really good and addictive fantasy when I don't even like fantasy in the first place.

Cassandra Clare
  This is another one I'm pretty sure will never happen. I mean, this chick has managed to write like a million books about the same goddamn thing. I mean, I guess I can't blame her for writing the same thing but kind of different because people keep buying them, but I feel like she kind of dug herself into a hole there because now she'll can never publish a serious book because she'll be known as the Shadowhunter writer forever. And that's not even a good thing, because let's all remember that The Mortal Instruments started because of a Harry Potter fanfiction. But yes, all her books sound the same- hell, even the titles of the series are basically interchangeable. Also, I have serious issues with the fact that if I even think about picking up Lady Midnight I have to slog my way through like five other series just to read one goddamn book. So at this point my boycott of Cassandra Clare is one of principle, which always sounds better than her books just not appealing to me at all.

Kasie West/Jenny Han/Morgan Matson/Stephanie Perkins
  These writers get grouped together because they're all the same really. Cutesy chick-lit authors who like to write about sweet romances. I don't have a problem with this per say, it's just not my taste in reading material. Not to mention, their plots just never really appealed to me, and honestly with the case of some of them- Morgan Matson and Kasie West- they write so much I wouldn't know where to start even if I did want to read them just to see what the hype is all about. Especially Kasie West- I swear to God she puts out a book every six months, they all look like, and their summaries just blend together into the same exact thing. The only one I'd be tempted by is Jenny Han, since she does write some things that are the fun, Mean Girl-esque kind of chick lit that I don't hate the idea of, and I know how widely beloved her To All the Boys I've Loved Before/Lara Jean trilogy is. Of course, I don't think I'd read it any time soon. The funny thing is, I do casually enjoy drama fueled, fluffy books when I read historical fiction, but that's probably because I just like being transported to a different time period- hence my liking of Anna Godbersen.

Rainbow Rowell
  For some reason, I've never had any real desire to read anything by Rainbow Rowell. Eleanor and Park I've stayed away from because I don't want to read any books I know I'm going to hate, and I also kind of resent that whenever I want to listen some Joy Division or XTC or whatever on Youtube half the comments are "Eleanor and Park brought me here" or odd references to the book. Also, Fangirl never appealed to me because I'm not really given into fangirlish tendencies. Also, her adult books don't really look that interesting either, so there's that. I don't know. This one might happen eventually.

Stephen King
  I hate that I haven't read the King yet. I want to read him really badly, hell, I even have a collection of his short stories sitting on my Kindle account, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Also, I don't even know where to start with his stuff. His pseudonym stuff from the early 70s like Running Man? His detective fiction? Hell, maybe I should start out huge and just read It or The Shining. Or Carrie. I am tempted on Carrie. I think that's my problem, though, especially when authors have a ton of work and everyone's got their own idea as to which book to pick up first, to get the ultimate Stephen King experience.

Libba Bray
  I don't know about this one. I'm not a historical fantasy fan, and I feel like I'll end up nitpicking the hell out of it. While I'm probably never going to read Beauty Queens, that's just not going to happen, and I'm also probably not going to read her most famous trilogy- the Gemma Doyle books- since I'm not really that into books that take place during the Victorian times- I prefer the 20th century. However, The Diviners does intrigue me because, you know, the 1920s and all that jazz. At the same time, I'm wary of falling in love with a series only to find that the next book is on, like, a permanent hiatus. So yeah. This one may happen, it may not.

I mean, there are other popular authors that aren't on here, but I didn't want to make this list really long. These are really just big ones or ones that it might be shocking that I haven't read yet. So what about you? Any popular authors you have read yet?

The Somnambulist's Dreams by Lars Boye Jerlach Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“Everything is never what it seems, but sometimes what you see, is so obvious that you cannot make sense of it.”- The Somnambulist's Dreams

A lighthouse keeper on the coast of New England discovers a small collection of seemingly deranged writings that have been left behind by his somnambulant predecessor. When he begins to read them, he swiftly becomes an unwitting participant in a nebulous narrative that not only defies time and space, but brings into question his own sanity.

Being from New England, lighthouses hold a special place in my heart. While I love all varieties of lighthouse, I admit my favorites are the ones on some small, rocky island off the coast of or seemingly in the middle of the ocean. Whenever I see a picture of one or pass by one in a boat, I like to imagine the people who lived and worked there, maybe even families, and wonder what drove them out there to essentially live a life of solitude.

Of course, I'm being romantic about it. Realistically, I know the life of a lighthouse keeper couldn't have been much fun. Being away from everyone else, a slave to the light, only company maybe a cat or dog and the passing ships. Having to wait for supplies every month or every two months, etc. I don't think I would have enjoyed that kind of life, myself.

And yet, any book that has to do with lighthouses I usually end up picking up (except The Light Between Oceans, funny enough, maybe that's because it seems like one of those novels in the Women's Fiction category alongside My Sister's Keeper or The Memory Keeper's Daughter). This book was no exception. A bunch of odd writings detailing the deranged dreams of the old lighthouse keeper? I never clicked buy so quickly.

And it was exactly what it was advertised as. From the first letter I was hooked. I enjoyed the trips I took in the grief twisted mind of Enoch Soule, and in particular had fun guessing where or who was in each dream of his. Some I got right away, like Poe or Bowie, but others I had to guess at a bit more. For instance, I can't tell whether the artist who did the chessboard is Marcel Duchamp (of the signed urinal fame) or Rene Magritte. I thought it might be Duchamp, because of the bicycle wheel on the stool, but then he said "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" which is Magritte. I don't know. I admit, I'm not as versed in this area of art history as I should probably be (though I am a casual admirer of Magritte's work- of course, I just like surrealism. Duchamp, on the other hand, loses me).

The writing is very Scandinavian. Even without a name like Lars, I could tell he was from somewhere up north. It reminded me a lot of the writing in Wolf Winter, a very simplistic, almost cold style of prose. It eventually grew on me, though was jarring after the last few books I read, which were all very purple. My favorite by far was the contrast between the simple sentences (he did this, he did this, then he did this) and the fanciful narrative of the dreams. By doing this, Jerlach exemplified the contrast between the unnamed lighthouse keeper's rather mundane regular routine and the dreams without ever telling us. 

I mean, there is some flaws. For one, the book feels self-published. I don't like self-published books because I believe strongly in the importance of an editor. It's not self-published and it is well-edited, but still. Just a pet peeve of mine. Also, the word "somnambulist" or some variation of the word appeared in the text too many times. Of course, these flaws are all just little things that bug me, and YMMV.

I would go more into the plot, but I went into this book mostly blind and ended up enjoying it more for it. This is one of those books best discovered and interpreted by oneself. So pick this one up one night, maybe put Space Oddity on in the background, and enjoy your trip in the mind of Enoch Soule.

8-8.5 out of 10

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“We are all alone, trapped in these bodies and our own minds, and whatever company we have in this life is only fleeting and superficial.”- All the Bright Places, Jennifer Niven

Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.
 
Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s recent death.
 
When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the “natural wonders” of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself—a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who’s not such a freak after all. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink.
 

Cutesy. Pandering. Derivative. Shallow. Fake. 

These are all words I thought of at various points during this book.

But let's start from the beginning, shall we?

This book is quite famous due to all the controversy it stirred up. Controversy I know very little about except its existence because I strongly believe in withholding judgement until I've actually read the goddamn book. That means not reading reviews about how problematic it may be. So while the controversy surrounding it did in fact make me actually decide to read it, I did my best to try and see if I actually liked it or hated it before passing judgement.

Also, can I just say the summary did give me some hope? Because I would have fucking loved it if this book turned out to be anything like Harold and Maude. I love that movie more than I probably should. Finch was the one that gave me the most hope, because if he ended up being anything like Harold, who's the reason young Bud Cort is one of my biggest celebrity crushes, I would have adored him. 

And I didn't like it very much. But not because I found it especially problematic (though some parts made me side-eye). It's just that this is one of my least favorite kinds of contemporary. It's cutesy romance disguised as a hard hitting contemporary. 

I don't really know why I hate cutesy romance so much. I mean, Jesus, I like cutesy things- see my long-lasting love for Nintendo games like Animal Crossing or Harvest Moon or other girly things like kitties and stuffed animals. But for some reason, I despise these sugar-sweet romances in books. There are some exceptions to this- I adored Graffiti Moon, for instance, but that book had exquisite prose and gave me the same aching feeling in my chest that I get when I read a Zusak contemporary. This book, well, didn't have that. Instead, I felt like I was getting force fed this couple, with the author using her prose as a means of pointing out how perfect they were together (look, they're quoting Virginia Woolf to each other! look, they're wandering around Indiana together! don't you see how much they belong together!) instead of working on character growth to let them develop chemistry more naturally over the course of the novel. I know I've mentioned over and over again how much I hate when two characters hate each other and then fall in love, but I understand and even commend the reasons why those authors use that trope. They don't just want to throw the characters together. And I think that works in some situations, like in Unwind or in Graffiti Moon, and I wonder if perhaps Niven should have taken that path instead of this strange, instantaneous connection.

I didn't particularly like any of the characters. Violet seemed bland, the generically beautiful, smart, broken heroine who was, of course, an exceptionally talented writer. I've read some version of this character in every single cutesy contemporary I've had the displeasure of picking up. Finch had the horrible home life it seems all love interests have, with an asshole father and a cool older sister. No ground-breaking material, there.

Also, have any of you read The Fault in Our Stars? I have (still regretting that life choice). And clearly, Jennifer Niven has too. Seriously. Its influence on this book becomes more clear as the book goes on- it's not as obvious in the beginning. I mean, All the Bright Places did go down easier than The Fault in Our Stars did for me- while Finch did give me strong Gus vibes Violet was far blander than HazelGraceLancaster was. Violet was also so obviously a fictional character, thus I couldn't actually feel anything for her. Same with Finch.

Which brings me to my next point nicely. This book was so shallow I couldn't even dip my toe into it. For a book that proclaimed to be about the opposite of shallow things I felt like all the emotions of the characters were written by someone who had no idea how to write emotions. The best example of this shallowness is Violet's parents. You never would have guessed they lost a daughter. The grief her parents felt only showed up when it was convenient for the plot. I'm not saying Niven needed to have a child or a sister die and feel this type of grief firsthand or even be a parent in the first place to write about it (I'm not) but she should have done research, read books or blogs by grieving parents (I like An Inch of Gray, myself). Or, and what I think she should have done in the first place, she should have changed it from a sister dying to a best friend dying. And Finch's family dynamics were horribly done. His father only hit him when it was convenient for the plot, making both (the death of a child and domestic abuse) seem drama fuel, nothing more.

The fake aspects come primarily from me being unable to believe that Finch's counselor wouldn't tell his mother that he was going to kill himself by jumping off a bell tower. Any school in America at least would report that immediately, not only to the parents but also to 911 and other emergency services. That is a neon warning sign, and not something any school would have swept under the rug. And you can't argue confidentiality, because self-harm and suicidal thoughts/actions don't fall under the rules of confidentiality. But I suppose Niven was thinking that it would be a nice meet-cute idea and screw reality. 

With all that said, the mental illness aspects make it hard to critique it, because the author and supporters can just hide behind the fact that "it's a mental illness book" and I have to support it because it makes such a taboo topic less taboo. However, I can't give mental illness books prizes for just existing anymore. Simply because, it's no longer a taboo topic. People are more and more open these days about struggling with suicidal thoughts and mental illnesses. I can openly say now that I struggled with thoughts of killing myself in high school and no one's going to shun me anymore. Hell, it's barely stigmatized anymore. We've come a long way from the days of suicide obituaries saying natural causes. 

So no, this book gets no brownie points from me for being about bipolar disorder and that's what separates it from being just another cutesy contemporary. Because at the end of the day, it is just another cutesy contemporary. Despite her probably protesting to the contrary, she is no different from Jennifer E Smith, whose sugary This Is What Happy Looks Like made my Least Favorites of 2016 list. Except, Jennifer E Smith probably doesn't try to be any different from what she really is.

3.5 out of 10

The Last Time We Say Goodbye by Cynthia Hand Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“This is going to sound trite, I suppose, but you never know when it’s going to be the last time. That you hug someone. That you kiss. That you say goodbye.”- The Last Time We Say Goodbye, Cynthia Hand

There's death all around us.
We just don't pay attention.
Until we do.

The last time Lex was happy, it was before. When she had a family that was whole. A boyfriend she loved. Friends who didn't look at her like she might break down at any moment.

Now she's just the girl whose brother killed himself. And it feels like that's all she'll ever be.

As Lex starts to put her life back together, she tries to block out what happened the night Tyler died. But there's a secret she hasn't told anyone-a text Tyler sent, that could have changed everything.

Lex's brother is gone. But Lex is about to discover that a ghost doesn't have to be real to keep you from moving on.

I don't know why I decided to read this book now, except I was looking for something to read at the library and finally bit the bullet and added All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven to the stack of books I was going to check out. So I got this one, too, because I have a tendency to read multiple books surrounding the same theme/subject at the same time, probably because I like to compartmentalize things like books so much.

Interestingly, I thought I would like this book more than All the Bright Places, given that it seemed to be a more serious/less fluffy attempt at tackling the heavy suicide/grief narrative. I mean, I started reading All the Bright Places, and I'm not a fan so far, but I didn't like this one nearly as much as I thought I would.

For starters, I hated Lex. She is the type of main character I can't stand- an overly rational, math and universe obsessed girl who constantly spouts off about the universe and how perfect numbers are and blah blah blah. I just can't relate to characters like that at all. Also, I'm just really sick of all these extremely intelligent main characters. Like, it seems like every main character in every YA novel I've read in recent memory is a genius who of course is going to every smart school know to man and gets into all of them.

Also, did you notice that all these mental illness/death books are the same, in recent memory at least? They all follow these ultra rational teens with strong pretentious streaks who go on and on about the universe and believe they're philosophers because they can recycle some canned quotes by astronomers. Is that really what teens want nowadays? 

But one of the reasons why I even thought this book would be better than All the Bright Places was because I noticed the author had a deep connection to suicide- the death of her brother, to be exact. Which was why I was so disappointed that this book seemed like every other YA grief book I ever read. The family dynamics were typical- cheating dad the scumbag who left the family for a woman half his age, mom the wonderful human being he left behind, and then a fairly typical (for YA novels, at least) sibling relationship with the brother and sister. Just an aside, why do divorced couples in YA novels always have to do with one partner (usually always the father) cheating? And why is the father always the one demonized? I feel bad for YA fathers. If they aren't assholes then they're dead; it's like the reverse of the Disney tendency to kill off mothers. I wonder if a lot of authors must suffer from daddy issues on pare with Sylvia Plath's. And the mother is always the wonderful saint who is a victim of the father's actions, of course. Please tell me someone else is as frustrated by this as I am.

I don't think this book told me anything different about grief either. I didn't underline anything or write any notes about how insightful certain points are. It seemed like Hand wanted to showcase how mourning a suicide is different from mourning a natural causes/accidental death, and there were glimmers of that in the text, but I would have dealt more with the anger surrounding his death. Instead of going with the generic ghost approach, I would have focused primarily on feelings like blaming him for the pain he caused to the family with his death, or feeling unable to mourn him because his death was his decision. Those are uncomfortable thoughts and emotions to deal with, and likely would have generated a ton of Goodreads reviews talking about how toxic that was for a person on the edge, but it would have been ultimately a very real approach, and one that many readers who have lost loved ones to suicide likely could relate too, especially given that it has become so taboo to even think about feeling that way towards a suicide.

Because most of my problems with this book relied on the fact that I had a hard time feeling her pain. I felt like I had read those same emotions surrounding a death- being mad that her brother's friends seemingly had moved on, frustrated by the lack of acknowledgment about her brother's death, all those things are typical in the grief subgenre in contemporary. Which all sounds so horrible, but it's the truth. That being said, I thought her mother was done quite well at depicting a woman whose heart was likely torn to pieces, and I wished her father was more fleshed out. For some reason, the grief of fathers are rarely touched upon, or when they are it seems that most authors don't really know how to depict their grief. With mothers it's easier- often, they mourn openly and aren't afraid to talk about how they feel, to the point where most child grief blogs are written by women. Fathers are more shut in, though they do grieve just as deeply, which is probably why authors rarely show them at a funeral or seem to skip past them. 

Before I wrap this up I'll mention a few little things that bugged me. Like the fact that I can't stand when one character lectures another about smoking. That's probably another reason why I hated Lex. Like, Jesus, that lecture she gave to the boys is something a mom would say, not a fourteen year old girl. Disclaimer: I don't smoke. But I have no problem with someone else smoking as long as they don't make me do it. You want to trash your lungs, go right ahead. I mean, I wouldn't support them by buying smokes for them, but if they want to waste their own money, I don't particularly care. But people who lecture others about stuff like that and they aren't their doctor make me want to buy an entire pack of smokes, shove them all in my mouth at once, and light up. This may be juvenile, but it's the truth. 

My other thing is that I believe that Patrick and Damian should have been taken out. And I liked Damian. But Patrick's death was treated horribly, as well as Damian's "attempt". Both felt like they were remnants of an earlier draft, one with perhaps a suicide pact as the main issue. I don't know. What I do know is that they should have either been treated better, or taken out completely. 

Despite all my complaining, I didn't actually hate this book and thought some parts were quite well done- like the writing- but I wished others matched up. I would recommend this book as a book that I'm sure the target audience of teenagers would love, and if it does in fact help someone with their grief, hey, all the more power to it. For me, it just seemed like every other book dealing with a similar topic. What a shame.

5 out of 10

June 2017 Wrap-Up

Yet another month of not reading as much as I wanted to, but that's okay because I did a lot over the course of June including go on two trips in which I actually did stuff and not laze around all day reading. I also had a hard time forcing myself to read, which kind of sucks, but you know what sometimes I just want to paint or write or do something else. However, I'm doing jack in July so hopefully next month will be better, but I'm not counting on it. But here's a quick overview as to what I read in June.

Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli 3.5/10 (303 pg)

My Review: Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

  Oh boy, everyone's going to hate me for this one. I did not like this book. Yes, I know it's a very, very, popular YA LGBTQ book and fluffy contemporary and it's supposed to be sweet and relatable and in the past I have liked books along the same lines as this one (see Adam Silvera) but I did not like this one. Basically, this book was about a "not so out" gay teen who currently has an anonymous email relationship with another closeted gay teen, but is being blackmailed by another guy who discovered the email correspondence to help the blackmailer get with one of Simon (the gay guy)'s friends. If you think that summary sounded nuts, it's okay, because all that shit was barely in the book anyway. Well, at least the blackmail parts. In hindsight, the reason it didn't work for me is obvious, maybe so obvious I shouldn't have picked this one up in the first place, because I typically don't particularly enjoy books billed as sweet or relatable. Typically, I think "relatable" books age horribly (does anyone else think about how a book will age as much as I do? Please say yes), and, while I can take some sweet and cute books, most of them make me feel vaguely sick. I don't think Becky Albertalli is for me, so I doubt I'm even going to attempt to pick up The Upside of Unrequited (Christ, even the title makes me gag). But, again, all this is probably just me.

Blood Family by Anne Fine 6/10 (291 pg)
My Review: Blood Family by Anne Fine
  An utterly forgettable impulse pick up that I had a hard time recalling even during the process of writing my review (I typically write my reviews a few hours to a day after reading so everything is still fresh in my mind- the only exception to this is when I'm on vacation). I'm sure it had a great message, but it felt very middle grade, so much so it was jarring when violent things or swearing would show up in the text. Eh, I wouldn't recommend, even if the story does sound interesting- about a boy who was essentially held prisoner in his house from the ages of four to seven and then has to cope with looking like his father, the man who held him and his brain-damaged mother prisoner.

This Is Our Story by Ashley Elston 4/10 (312 pg)

My Review: This Is Our Story by Ashley Elston

  This was one of those books that the more I thought about the more I hated. Honestly, looking back this book kind of sucked, really. It was about a group of rich boys who all went on a hunting trip in which one of them ended up dead, and our heroine, who works as an assistant to one of the ADAs, wants to find out who did it. The main character had so many different angles I had a hard time keeping up with them. She wanted to find the murderer- until evidence appears that might convict her boyfriend. She wanted the guys to not get off thanks to their influential parents- until, again, her boyfriend was put on trial. You see a trend here? She also does other things like almost destroy the career of her mother's boss, who, if I have to characterize him, it would be if Atticus Finch was a prosecutor. The only reason I picked this one up in the first place is because I thought it would have more crime elements than your average YA mystery. And I love crime fiction. So naturally, I thought that I might like this one more than I usually like YA mysteries because of those crime elements. Those were the only good and original parts of that book, by the way. Everything else, pretty generic YA mystery. Would not recommend.

Universal Harvester by John Darnielle 8.5/10 (214 pg)
My Review: Universal Harvester by John Darnielle

  Universal Harvester was kind of an impulse pick up, since I wanted something that reminded me of Twin Peaks, and decided this book would do. And I'm glad I did. Basically, this book was about a guy who worked in this video store in the late 90s and discovers that some of the tapes have strange and disturbing videos taped over parts of them. And then a whole bunch of other creepy stuff happens and honestly, you just have to read this book to understand it. But hey, if you love kind of strange horror/suspense, read this.

A House at the Bottom of a Lake by Josh Malerman 9/10 (118 pg)
My Review: A House at the Bottom of a Lake by Josh Malerman

  This novella is about a girl and a boy who go on a first date to this secret lake- the boy intending for it to be all romantic and shit- but instead discovers this other, more secret lake, well, more of a swamp really, and the house at the bottom of it, hence the title. The two find themselves drawn to this house more and more as time goes on, refusing to ask themselves why and how it's possible for the house to even be there in the first place. This was a really great horror-suspense novella and one I admit, I don't have much else to say about it other than the fact that I just really enjoyed it.

What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman 6/10 (370 pg)*
My Review: What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman

  I feel like I read some of these books back in May, not June. This was one of them. I'm still surprised it's only 370 pages because it felt like it was longer than We, the Drowned, my longest book so far this year at almost 700 pages. This book was packed with drama with an annoying heroine, a pair of parents with the typical parental issues, and all kinds of other contemporary shit crowding my nice crime thriller. This book was about a woman who, in order to get out of a car accident charge, claims she's one of the Bethany sisters, a pair of girls who went missing back in the 70s. More specifically, she claims she's the younger one. However, there's something strange (and really goddamn irritating) about her that makes the police believe she isn't who she says she is. While I thought this book was rather dull, especially the parents' drama, and didn't really like anyone except two or three characters, I'm sure fans of Jodi Picoult or Gillian Flynn would enjoy it more than I did.

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams 9-9.5/10 (104 pg)

  Tennessee Williams is probably my favorite playwright, if not one of my favorite writers in general. His family tragedies are gripping and, well, tragic. This play was a masterpiece, and I think I liked it even more than Streetcar. I wish I could see it on Broadway.

My Sister's Grave by Robert Dugoni 8/10 (401 pg)*
My Review: My Sister's Grave by Robert Dugoni

  I thought I would hate this book. Mostly because, for the first half or so, I did. I hated the main character, I hated how she was basically destroying the lives and careers of people she knew for a long time, I hated her the way I hated the main character of This Is Our Story. But then the twist, and things started to get dark and twisted and fun. And I honestly really liked how this book turned out and, looking back, I also really liked the town setting and how the characters seemed to have different from every other rural noir book. This book was about, by the way, a Seattle homicide detective who is called back to her hometown after the body of her sister, who disappeared in the 90s, is discovered. She believes that this is the perfect time to reopen her sister's investigation, starting with getting the guy off who is currently in prison for the case, as she doesn't believe he actually did it. I still don't know if I'll keep reading the Tracy Crosswhite series, but fans of crime fiction should definitely pick this one up.

Life: An Exploded Diagram by Mal Peet 8.5-9/10 (400 pg)
My Review: Life: An Exploded Diagram by Mal Peet

  This book knocked it out of the park in almost every way for me. It was original, it was historical, it had likeable characters, the whole shebang. This book is billed as a historical Romeo and Juliet-esque romance following a boy from a working class background and a girl from a rich background as they fall in love over one strawberry summer with the background of the Cuban Missile Crisis. But don't be fooled by that. It's not really a romance at all- it reads like a Bill Bryson memoir, more specifically The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, a nonfiction favorite of mine. It's funny, it's sad, it's all around lovely. Clem Ackroyd, the main character, has been added to my list of fictional loves, and reminds me of several Zusak heroes I have loved before. History lovers should pick this wholly original story up.

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov 9/10 (315 pg)

  Anyone who has ever taken an English class in their lives would surely appreciate this one. This book was a ton of fun to read- once I figured out how to read it. Because I wasn't going to follow anything Kinbote said, I had to actually look up online the best way to read it, before deciding on reading it canto by canto. Which means I basically read one canto, and then the commentary, kept going until the book was finished. I enjoyed Kinbote's off the wall commentary and the tenuous connections he made to the history of his doomed country- one that might not even exist. And honestly, I just liked the poetry too. For some reason, the way Shade wrote reminded me of TS Eliot, though I couldn't quite put my finger on why. While I didn't love this book as much as I loved Lolita, I still want to read Pnin, the book I think is the logical next step in my new quest to read everything Nabokov has ever written, a more daunting one than my read everything F Scott Fitzgerald has ever written goal.

Dead Little Mean Girl by Eva Darrows 5.5/10 (250 pg)
My Review: Dead Little Mean Girl by Eva Darrows

  I thought this book was a thriller. It was not. I thought this book was supposed to be an insight into the mind and life of a mean girl. It was not. Point is, I thought this book would be a lot of things that it didn't end up being. That being said, this book had a strangely addictive quality that made it easy to get sucked into, even if I was hating most of it thanks to the abundance of stereotypes, and the first 200 pages flew by fairly quickly with all your typical mean girl Heathers-esque drama. Except without all the murder and suicide and corn nuts. The last 50 pages tried to have a moral about never knowing who the mean girl truly is because we all just judge her anyway- a good moral, but one that was a bit too late in the story to be as impactful as it could have been. If you couldn't tell from the rather descriptive title, this book is about a girl who finds her mean-girl step sister dead in her garage, and has to deal with the idea of grieving someone who perhaps wasn't the nicest person on Earth.

Merrow by Ananda Braxton-Smith 5/10 (DNF) (106/233 pg)

  I haven't DNFed a book in a few months and was actually going to keep reading this book. However, I just wasn't loving it. It wasn't what I wanted it to be at all, and I didn't know it was middle grade since it was in the YA section of my local library. Hell, the only reason I picked it up was because I like mermaids, and thought the Manx folklore in the book was interesting. But ultimately, it was a disappointment, so I ditched it. This book was about a girl who believes her mother was a merrow, this mermaid-like creature in Celtic folklore, but her aunt doesn't believe her and a bunch of other stuff happened- reminds me a lot of The Call by Peadar O'Guilin and also another book I read a long time ago called Forbidden Sea.

Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley 9/10 (257 pg)
My Review: Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley

  This would be my favorite book of the month if it hadn't been for Life: An Exploded Diagram. And I don't even know why I loved it so much- seriously, this book is about a boy and a girl who fall in love over the course of one night while the girl is searching for an elusive graffiti artist named Shadow, who paints the city at night, and the boy, who is actually Shadow, is trying to hide the fact that he is Shadow from her because he's scared she'd be disappointed by him. There's some other couples in it that are cute as a button, and honestly, this book seems to be consisted of every cliche I profess to hate- the boy and girl hating each other at first sight. The "liar revealed" trope (because it makes me anxious). How pretentious the art talks can be. And yet, I loved it. I loved the couple and really rooted for them to stay together. I loved their conversations about art. I even loved the title, and how achingly beautiful it is to me. This book is yet another Aussie contemporary that knocks it out of the park for me, and I definitely want more Cath Crowley. It's interesting, how the Australian contemporary I thought I would love- On the Jellicoe Road- I ended up feeling pretty lukewarm about, but the one I thought I would hate or at least feel pretty much nothing about- this one- I ended up loving. Again, I want to read Crowley's latest soon. I hope I'll love it as much as I loved this one.

At the Edge of the Universe by Shaun David Hutchinson 5/10 (485 pg)
My Review: At the Edge of the Universe by Shaun David Hutchinson

  Probably the most disappointing book of the month for me, given that I thought I would love it since I loved We Are the Ants. But this book came across like Hutchinson saw how successful We Are the Ants was and decided to do basically the exact same thing over again and bill it as a new story. But, as with all great ideas, it wasn't nearly as successful the second time around as it was the first, and was too long with too much filler. Often, I felt as if the same conversation was being repeated over and over again and wondered if one of his universe theories involved some time loop that I somehow missed. Kind of like the third installment of Submachine, an indie point and click game with a sizeable cult following I love (if you haven't played it you seriously need too). I always think of Submachine every time I read science fiction for some reason, that and that poem The End of Science Fiction by Lisel Mueller (one of my favorites). But anyway, I don't think I'd ever recommend this work over We Are the Ants, though I'm sure other more dedicated We Are the Ants fans or those new to Hutchinson's work would like this one immensely. This book, in case you're still curious even after that lukewarm recommendation, is about a boy whose boyfriend goes missing and no one else remembers him, so the boy becomes obsessed with finding him and has this idea about the universe shrinking. And there's all kinds of other drama, too, that gets pretty exhausting after awhile. It's also kind of pretentious. Just a warning.

The Secret History of Twin Peaks by Mark Frost 8/10 (362 pg)

  The fun I had reading this book is on par with the fun I had reading Illuminae. I'm not going to summarize it like I usually do because it's one of those books where I would only recommend if you are a fan of Twin Peaks or at least familiar with the original show. I don't think you necessarily have to watch Fire Walk With Me- I didn't and I was able to follow along pretty well- and you don't have to be in to the new series to read it, either. The new series couldn't hold my interest as well as the original show did- not to mention I kept feeling depressed every time the police station, the Bang Bang Bar, or the Double R showed up on screen- so I kind of dropped it. Though, again, if you have no idea what Twin Peaks is, don't read this book. You will end up confused and probably completely turned off by the idea of the show. I mean, the book isn't perfect and there were some strange continuity errors between the book and the show, but I'm fine with it. I only gave it an 8 out of 10 because, again, it's no work of literature, or hell, even a real book, it's a companion piece (not a fanwork, thank God, since it's written by Mark Frost so I assume everything in it is canon- if you care about stuff like that) to a show I happen to adore. Also, I couldn't stop smiling every time a character I loved showed up and it's even narrated (The Archivist, I mean, not the agent) by one of my favorite characters in the show. The Archivist, by the way, is actually pretty easy to figure out since that character has a very distinctive way of speaking and it's mimicked extremely well here. As not into aliens as I am, it was a fun, light read that occasionally made my head spin the way it does after watching too much David Lynch.



Page total: 4,288
Average rating: 7/10 (rounded up by not much)
Genre breakdown: 4 contemporaries
                 3 mystery-thrillers
                 3 horror
                 2 historical fiction
                 1 play
                 1 fantasy
                 1 science fiction
Of those, 6 were adult, 8 were YA, and 1 was middle grade

I read 15 books, my average, and honestly had a really great month. I think I gave more 9s this month than any other month before- so much so that I thought my average rating would be far higher than a 7 out of 10. But then I realized that every book I didn't give an 8 or 9 got a 4 or 5, so I guess that balances it out. Despite this being the lowest page count I read in a while, I'm still happy with this month, and looking forward to seeing how July (my birth month!) will be and the first review of the month will be out shortly.

*e-books

At the Edge of the Universe by Shaun David Hutchinson Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“It's impossible to let go of the people we love. Pieces of them remain embedded inside of us like shrapnel. Every breath causes those fragments to burrow through our muscles, nearer to our hearts. And we think the pain will kill us, but it won't. Eventually, scar tissue forms around those twisted splinters like cocoons. They remain part of us, but slowly hurt less. At least, I hoped they would.”- At the Edge of the Universe, Shaun David Hutchinson

Tommy and Ozzie have been best friends since second grade, and boyfriends since eighth. They spent countless days dreaming of escaping their small town—and then Tommy vanished.

More accurately, he ceased to exist, erased from the minds and memories of everyone who knew him. Everyone except Ozzie.

Ozzie doesn’t know how to navigate life without Tommy, and soon suspects that something else is going on: that the universe is shrinking.

When Ozzie is paired up with new student Calvin on a physics project, he begins to wonder if Calvin could somehow be involved. But the more time they spend together, the harder it is for him to deny the feelings developing between them, even if he still loves Tommy.

But Ozzie knows there isn’t much time left to find Tommy–that once the door closes, it can’t be opened again. And he’s determined to keep it open as long as possible.

Believe it or not, I actually liked We Are the Ants. Sure, it was pretentious, and I'm really not into books that constantly muse about the Universe, but it was also beautifully written and felt original, and I ended up really liking both Henry and Diego and even found myself blinking away a few tears at the ending.

So with that positive prior experience with one of Hutchinson's books, I didn't expect myself to be so apprehensive picking up another. In fact, I wasn't even going to read this book at all, but I saw it in the library and walked past it like five times before deciding what the hell and adding it to my pile on the desk. 

By the way, this title/author name combination could give EverythingBeautifulIsNotRuinedbyDanielleYounge-Ullman a run for its money. I hate typing this one equally as much and I keep wanting to call it Across the Universe, which is a completely different book altogether and whenever I see it that Beatles song gets stuck in my head on a loop. Personally, I prefer long titles when the authors have a nice short name to go along with it- like The Tsar of Love and Techno or Grief Is the Thing with Feathers. But that's just me.

Fun fact before I actually begin. I started reading it when I was on vacation. I'm also petrified of flying. The flight to the place I was going on vacation to was just fine, and I was fine for the first two days until I started reading this book, and the plane crashed after Ozzie got off it. And for the rest of the vacation I couldn't read this book because I kept thinking about how the airplane I was supposed to fly home on was going to crash and I was going to die a slow and painful death. Obviously that didn't happen, but Jesus, I was doing just fine until this book. I'm not telling Hutchinson to put in a trigger warning or anything, though from what I know of his personality he probably would anyway. The only reason I'm bringing this up is to show that this book and I didn't exactly start off on the right foot. 

When I got back I started reading it again right from where I left off because I read Pride and Prejudice and also because I was actually kind of enjoying it- I just wish characters would stop bringing up that goddamn flight. I mean, it was already extremely pretentious and the theories made my head spin, but again, I read We Are the Ants and knew to expect a certain amount of that shit from his work and once I moved past it I could actually begin enjoying the book. And for the first 100 or so pages, I did. 

And after that, I started to get a bit bored and restless. I think Hutchinson bit off a bit more than he could chew. There was so much he tried to pile into this book-the word bloated comes to mind-, and all of it was to greater enhance his message, which is usually fine, but started to get really repetitive after a while. I got the gist of where he was going at the 250-300 page mark, and after that this book started to get exhausting. So much drama, so much time to angst over it constantly I wonder if Shaun David Hutchinson had all kinds of individual ideas for books and his publisher told him what the hell, just throw it all together. Lua could have been a book alone, as well as Dustin and Calvin and Warren. I wonder if this book would have been more successful if it was more of a collection of short stories, kind of like the aforementioned The Tsar of Love and Techno. It could have been billed as an interconnected collection of short stories, all taking place in the same town as We Are the Ants, and each would follow the whole universe-is-shrinking/look-forward-to-the-future message of the book, and the main story would be Ozzie and Tommy. Because, frankly, as a result of the overcrowding of stuff going on, I felt like I didn't really connect with anyone. I wanted more of Warren, more of his decision to join, and felt like his accident was tacked on and ultimately unfair to his character. I think Calvin's history of abuse and self harm could have been more developed. Hell, even Trent deserved more than what he got. 

Another issue I found with the book is that this book played way too many things way too safe. I did a lot of rolling my eyes and of coursing. Of course the father's a cheater. Of course the father's abusive. Of course coach is abusive. That's not even a spoiler, since anyone can see it coming from a mile away. Even the message wasn't anything new and original. 

All my complaints keep going back to one issue, that it was too long. I don't really know why I found this book way too long whereas We Are the Ants was roughly around the same size and yet I didn't have that issue. In this book, the prose that I loved so much in We Are the Ants started to grate on me from page 350 on, and I started fastforwarding a lot of the philosophical parts with Ozzie and Calvin because I felt like I had read that conversation again. And that writing style does not age well as it goes on. The quote I chose is a great example of the way Hutchinson writes. It's like he doesn't know when to stop. This is fine in a shorter novel of 300 pages, but when a huge novel is written like that it gets old quickly. I was beginning to wonder if Hutchinson's editor fell asleep.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not against long novels. It's just that he writes, well, he writes the opposite of Markus Zusak. For those of you unfamiliar with Zusak and the way he writes, his style is more on the beige side, but he writes like a poet. His work is filled with these short, simple sentences that manage to be poignant, and, in the end, say so much more in 7 words than so many authors can say in 30. I could read a 700 page novel of his because of those gorgeous sentences. What I cannot do or do not want to do is read almost 500 pages of pure purple. Again, that quote up there actually makes me a little angry, because I don't want to put a whole fucking paragraph as a chosen quote, but none of the individual sentences work well enough on their own.

The ending was a relief, even if it did end a bit too nicely with everything working out for all the characters. I guess I can't complain too much about the ending, because Graffiti Moon had the same "everything works out for everyone" ending and I loved that book, but I actually liked all the characters in that book and it was also the perfect length- not too long, not too short, just perfect.

I thought about Graffiti Moon a lot while reading this book, probably because it was fresh in my mind. It's funny, but if you asked me at the beginning of the month I would say that those reviews should have been reversed. The glowing, emotional and impactful one should have gone to At the Edge of the Universe, whereas the pretentious, overwrought, and tiresome one should have gone to Graffiti Moon. In the end, I don't like this one nearly as much as We Are the Ants. There is an audience for this book, a wide one, and I know I am probably in the minority for it. If you do read Across the At the Edge of the Universe, I hope you like it more than I did. 

5 out of 10