Review: At the Old Haunted House

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At the Old Haunted House by Helen Ketteman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I'm not sure it's totally fair for adults to review children's books so I'm going to attempt to see the book as my children see it. There's probably some sort of recipe to making a picture book that will be beloved by my chitlins but whatever that recipe is, 'At the old haunted house' seems to have hit it. This book is a huge hit with my kids. I won it in as a galley review copy from either Goodreads or LibraryThing.

It's a beautifully illustrated hardcover book which clearly had a lot of time and effort put in its production. When I read books to my kids I generally like them to be 1) short, and 2) rhyming. Don't ask me why exactly I like them to rhyme... perhaps it feels more like a game when I read the book to them.

I really think this is a great children's book. I can't rate a 5-stars simply because it doesn't stand up to my long-time favorites, however, if your kids like ghosts and mummies and other spooky halloween stuff, they'll love this book!



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Review: Trickster

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Trickster by Randall Potts

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Poetry is a very personal thing. There are times when a good book of poetry can sweep you away into a totally different world or drown you in a tidal wave of emotion. I don't consider myself extremely skilled at picking out skillful poetry but I still enjoy the romance and lyricism of a good verse. Perhaps the absence of lyricism and romance in modern poetry is often what makes me view it as lacking, but occasionally I fall in love with something new that hits me just right.

Trickster is an interesting collection of poetry. It feels disjointed at times -there are poems which feel like a random smattering of words. While I'm sure there was a goal in mind for those verses, I'll admit that I didn't really get it. However, there were other poems which were quite fantastic.

There was one poem in the book that I actually could have sworn I wrote at one point... but apparently I didn't. Perhaps it is proof that he was able to get inside my head and his words hit me close to home. This is a poetry collection worth reading but I can guarantee the whole collection will appeal to very few while a handful will hit you right where you need them.

I received this as a galley copy free of charge from the publisher as a kindle download. The formatting was a bit weird in ebook form so that may have affected my overall opinion. Still, I'd say it's worth a look!



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Review: Tomorrow and Tomorrow

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Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Thomas Sweterlitsch

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



This is one of those books that ends up not being what most readers originally expected it to be. Whether that is a failing or a triumph seems to depend on the reader. I can certainly say that Tomorrow and Tomorrow isn't what I expected it to be... but it ended up being much much more complex and interesting. The story is a potpourri of genres. It is a dystopian post-apocalypse of sorts but is also crime fiction and romance and tragedy. Thomas Sweterlisch created such a complex story with a terrifyingly realistic future of brain-implanted ad-ware and privacy invasion. His description of the future is only a slightly stretch from what is already a part of our everyday lives that it is completely believable and horrifying.

The story itself is not going to make everyone happy. I'll admit that it is kind of a dreary tale. I liked it for that fact but many readers will feel beat down by it. I thought it was fantastic though! The writing was impeccable and the narrator was incredible (I listened to the audiobook).



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Review: City of Refuge

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City of Refuge by Tom Piazza

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I think anyone who visits New Orleans leaves feeling like they belong there. I personally think there is a bit of N.O. in everyone. After spending a month in the city this last year the city called my name and my wife and I seriously considered moving there. That's the primary reason I scooped up City of Refuge. I wanted to remember a bit of what I felt when I was there. It's a book about Katrina and how it affected two families from very different sides of the socioeconomic spectrum but it's also about that magical thing you find in New Orleans that plants itself in your soul when you go there.

Tom Piazza is from New Orleans and his writing reflects that fact. His love and passion for the culture and city permeates through the pages and makes the story a pleasure to read. It is a very painful and heart-wrenching story but it is told in a beautifully poetic way.

I'm certain that a big reason I enjoyed this book so thoroughly is because of my time spent in the city soaking up the culture but it is simply a fantastic book. I highly recommend it to anyone - even those not particularly interested in reading about the events of Katrina.



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Review: The Girl with All the Gifts

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The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I'm having a hard time coming up with a way to review a book that I don't want to ruin by giving away a single detail. The book sleeve duped me, as it did many others, leading me to believe that it was about some little genius girl in a secret prison facility. And, I guess it was.... but that's not even the start of it. The author did something very interesting - and quite brilliant - by not really letting the reader know what we were getting ourselves into. The cover shows nothing but a yellow background with the silhouette of a young girl with her arms outstretched. It could have been about anything. I was so drawn by the lack of explanation that I put aside my long list of other books I need to read and put this one next to my bed.

The book is absolutely brilliant! Without giving away the story or even the genre, let me just say that this is a book that totally rejuvenates a subject that has been beaten senseless over the last few years. It is so original and refreshing that I was like a giddy little kid, or perhaps like a teenager getting to first base for the first time, while I ravaged its pages. I gobbled this story up with fury!

The story is terrifying (as it promises) in so many ways... and none of those ways will I speak of because it will be your pleasure to discover them when you pick it up and read it the first time!

After reading 'The Girl With All The Gifts' I was so excited that I immediately had to scramble online to try and discover who the real man is behind the pseudonym M.R. Carey. The author's biography on the last page makes it seem as though he is trying to be uber-secretive about who he is... and as a comic geek, I needed to know who this man is (as the bio claimed that he is a Marvel and DC comic writer). After a very short search, it appears that my mission was unnecessary as M.R. Carey isn't much of a pseudonym at all. The author is Mike Carey (whose middle name I assume starts with an 'R').

Let's just say that this is sure to be a huge hit when it eventually hits shelves in June 2014! It proves that tons of life can still be squeezed out of a genre that has been worn pretty thin. I can't even express how much I loved this book!



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Review: The Goldfinch

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The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



When you look at this brick of a book your first impression, as mine was, might be: "Holy crap this better be good or I will use it as toilet paper for the next 10 years of my life!" The Goldfinch is a 771 page behemoth of a book (or in my case, a 36 hour audiobook joyride!) but it is one of the most incredible pieces of fiction I've read in a long time. I was travelling a lot in the last few month so I decided that it would be easier to tackle an audiobook of this scale than to hack away at a few pages at a time.

I would consider it to be primarily a book of "literary fiction", not clearly fitting into a subgenre that I generally read. It's one of those books that is built upon fantastically crafted characters and beautifully written prose. The writing is simply impeccable. Donna Tartt did something that is rare in books with a great concept - she executed it perfectly.

I have to admit that I have a great love for tragic characters (perhaps this says something of my own life) and The Goldfinch is chock full of them. There's something about Theo Decker that I think almost anyone can see in themselves. Many of his decisions are those that I could imagine myself making in such tragic circumstances. I found myself regularly on the edge of tears. I felt much like the boy in The Neverending Story movie who is so involved in the book that he can literally be heard and felt by the characters.

In my opinion, this is one of the best books of the year and should be read by everyone. It is surely a modern classic.

(Just a quick note on the audiobook version: The narrator, David Pittu, was one of the best I've ever experienced. I think that can often make or break a good book.)



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Review: Red Rising

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Red Rising by Pierce Brown

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Giving Red Rising a 5-star review is likely one of the easiest things I will do today... and I plan to sit around and do not much more than take a long nap. In a sea of dystopian fiction, Red Rising has managed to stand out as something much more interesting. People are jumping quickly to compare it to The Hunger Games, Enders Game, etc. but that's such an unfair generalization of an incredible book simply because it has similar elements that are common in most dystopian fiction. Hunger Games is a kids book. Sure, I enjoyed it, but it was fluff. Red Rising is gritty and dark and adult. No, there's not much sex or profanity... but there plenty of violence. Bloody, ruthless, constant violence. And it's brilliant!

Red Rising is a combination of science fiction, dystopian fiction, and action/adventure. It was a sprinkling of all the best stuff about those genres packaged into an amazing nerdgasm!

I only really have one complaint in Red Rising: it's written in 1st-person. In general I hate this method of writing. It seems juvenile. Pierce Brown manages to make it work very very well but I still wish he would have chosen a different perspective. A minor flaw in the overall picture, I suppose.

This is arguably one of the best dystopian novels I've read. It takes all of the elements of a good story and combines them into an action-packed novel. There are very few series that I continue with but this one I will be waiting for impatiently.



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