Review: The Ocean at the End of the Lane

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The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I venture that there are two types of people in this world: Those who love Neil Gaiman and those who hate him. There are no shades of grey here. He is a polarizing force... and I side with those who love his novels. I feel somewhat like a kid when I read his work - like my imagination is free to roam and my adulthood can hide in a cupboard for a while. There is something amazing about a book when you can picture yourself as a character and travel through wild, otherworldly settings with excitement at every word you read.

I'll admit that I'm not always sure what I've read when I'm done. I think sometimes his grand message escapes me but I found reading 'The Ocean at the End of the Lane' so enjoyable that the message was irrelevant. I think trying to explain this book to someone is also pointless as I don't have Neil Gaiman's talent at painting a beautiful picture with words.

'The Ocean at the End of the Lane' is one of the best quick reads you'll pick up this year. It is your chance to relive your childhood imagination as an adult... without feeling like you're reading a children's book. It was a quite brilliant read if you ask me.



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Review: The Devil in Silver

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The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I worked in a lock-down psych facility for several years so this story resonated with me probably more than the average reader. I would venture that Victor LaValle has spent some time of his own locked away in one of these wards... perhaps as a patient or maybe as staff... because there is no way he could have captured the atmosphere so completely without living there himself. From the desperation of Pepper and the other patients to the unfairness of their confinement, this story held as much fact as fiction. In fact, some of the scarier parts of the story are those which hold truth. Pepper is just one of many held prisoner in an ineffective system that harbors nightmares and demons.

I have read some of the negative reviews of this book and in my head I can hear myself saying, "you just don't get it." This was truly a brilliant read. It brought me back to my days when a tiny schizophrenic girl with 3 inch long nails violently attacked me, a 200lb+ man (with great success). I could imagine the halls full of patients shuffling around the floors in a drug-induced stupor because the doctor's didn't know how to manage them in their manic states. I can see people truly believing their were demons on the ward... or in my days truly believing they were giving birth to puppies.

It's amazing what our mind can convince us of and the story of how it is managed is truly a nightmare. Books like this make me shiver a bit to consider that one day any of us could find ourselves with our minds not quite cooperating....

The Devil in Silver is a brilliant story that may hit home for some people like me, but is a worthy and exciting read for just about anyone!



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Review: The Last Policeman

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The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Here is a case where I convinced myself that this book was one thing when it really turned out to be another... and the thing I wanted it to be was a better story. The premise is interesting enough - a policeman who is trying to solve a murder when he knows the world is going to end in about 6 months. Sounds like a great pre-apocalytpic story, right?

I love apocalyptic stuff. It drives me wild! What's more exciting than facing the end or being one of the few survivors after the end? Well.... that's not at all what this book is about. Seriously, that part of the story kind of felt like an afterthought. Really it's nothing more than a semi-decent whodunit. It honestly would have been almost the exact same book without the apocalyptic setting. And that, my friends, was extremely disappointing to me.

I'm not much of a crime novel fan (that's my wife) so this one kind of fell flat for me. The writing was decent and the plot turns were clever enough... but when I'm promised the world burning to a pulp, that's what I want to be the belle of the ball! This is more a story for James Patterson fans than those who were looking for something like Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road'.



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Review: The Husband's Secret

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The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I'll admit that the only reason I started reading The Husband's Secret was because it was on Amazon's 'Best Books of the Month' list in August. I was somewhat teased by this story of a husband holding some deep dark secret... but really I just wanted to be cool and read something that someone else around me may have picked up. Being a book nerd is always easier with cohorts.

Think of how surprised I was when the book actually turned out to be awesome! I'll admit that there were times when I felt slightly emasculated to be telling people that I was reading a book called 'The Husband's Secret'. Something about the title seems slightly feminine and the book cover doesn't help. And to be truthful, at first the author's voice felt overly feminine and I was convinced it would be a read meant to appeal to women... and perhaps it was... but I'll tell you, I went for an intense ride in this one too.

The Husband's Secret brought to life several interesting conundrums that caused me to have to think seriously about my own view on people and how we judge them. How would I react to a buried secret that my own wife had concealed? Does a good person stick by the people they love regardless of what they may have done? I'll tell you, this was a book that was hard to put down. There were plenty of nights when I had finally forced myself to put the book down and go to sleep where I'd just lay in bed contemplating what I would do if my life turned out like these characters.

It's hard to even review the book without wanting to spoil it and uncover the secrets these characters have buried.

All in all this was a phenomenal read... and not just one for the girls!





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Review: Doomsday Book

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Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Doomsday Book was my first taste of Connie Willis' writing. She is something of a staple in sci-fi and I was teased by regular references to her work. The premise of the book was tempting enough - in the not-too-distant future, time travel has somehow been discovered and a historian is sent back in time to one of the most dangerous periods in history and is entangled in the crises of the time while her modern counterparts faced a new plague. This sounded to me like a plot that would easily equate to awesomeness.

Unfortunately, the potential of the plot was overshadowed by excessive descriptions of boring events. As many other people have mentioned in their reviews, the book was 150-200 pages too long. The most exciting moments in the book took place in the last 15% or so but by that time I had lost every tiny bit of interest I had.

The most interesting parts of the story were easily those which took place in the past. It seems that Connie Willis put more time into the historical aspects of the story than she did the sci-fi stuff. Echoing what others have said, the future was so un-futuristic that it felt like Willis gave up on that part of the story. Technology and medical advances that already existed in the 90s (when the book was written) was somehow not available in the future world of Doomsday Book.

I felt like Doomsday Book just kind of dragged. It took me far too long to read it because I simply couldn't invest myself in the story. Kirvin's character and her experiences were interesting but the other half of the story was snore-inducing. If I try another Connie Willis book, it will definitely be one of her shorter ones so that I won't feel like I wasted so much time if it is as slow as this was.



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Always keeping a man down

Pin It It's hard to be a man.... and a superhero.

Review: Joyland

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Joyland by Stephen King

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



With Stephen King publishing 3-5 books a year, you'd think that they would come out as pure rubbish. I mean, how many great book ideas can an author have in a year, especially when many of them are of the epic length of books like 11/22/63 or Under The Dome? I almost hate to love everything he writes so much because no one should be THIS good. Naturally, even Stephen King puts out a book I hate (ex. Lisey's Story) but this was certainly not one of those times.

Joyland was, in a nutshell, everything I love about Stephen King. It was more than just a simple who-done-it or a horror, or any other book that fits in a genre. He pulled me in with complex, exciting characters and brilliantly depicted scenes. There was a coming-of-age element to the book that also felt somewhat refreshing and different from what I imagined I would be reading. There were times that I was creeped out, times when I wanted to cry, and times when I wanted to shout for joy. Joyland was such an immensely entertaining book that I can't recommend it loudly enough.

This is proof that 50 books later, Stephen King can still throw out a killer novel!



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