BOOK (Fiction) – Charlie And The Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl
Title: Charlie And The Great Glass Elevator
Author: Roald Dahl
Publisher: Puffin Books
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-0-141-32269-8
Book Type: Fiction
Category: Children’s Book
Pages: 208
Format: Paperpack
Cover Price: £6.99
Publish Date: September 6, 2007
Rating: 3/5
Link: Puffin Books; Wikipedia
Synopsis: Charlie Bucket has won Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory and is on his way to take possession of it. In a great glass elevator! But when the elevator makes a fearful whooshing noise, Charlie and his family find themselves in splendid orbit around the Earth. A daring adventure has begun, with the one and only Mr. Willy Wonka leading the way.
————————————————–
I knew of Roald Dahl when I first read Matilda a long time ago. I’ve loved him since. Then I watched the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie and I don’t like it. The wickedness has gone too far in that story I think. Later I read The Best of Roald Dahl and then The Witch and was determined to read his books as many as I could. So when I caught Charlie And The Great Glass Elevator and Boys and Going Solo at my local bookstore (for a bargain price) I didn’t hesitate to get both.
You get the same Roald Dahl flavors here: the characteristic vocabulary, the educational meaning, a bit of madness and cruelty. But, for some reasons, I didn’t enjoy this one. The story telling remind me too much of the dreadful experience I had with Alex Shearer’s (read The Hunted): I knew what was going to happen next, yet he was still dancing around and not moved forward. Also I don’t like either Willy Wonka or Charlie Bucket so I was impatient with both.
It was still a decent Roald Dahl’s read, but not one of his strongest. If you like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory I think you’ll like this one. If not, maybe just skip it.
BOOK (Fiction) – Hour Game by David Baldacci
Title: Hour Game
Author: David Baldacci
Publisher: Pan Books
Language: English
ISBN-13:978-0-330-41173-8
Book Type: Fiction
Category: Mystery & Thriller
Pages: 736
Format: Paperback
Cover Price: £6.99
Publish Date: June 03, 2005
Rating: 4/5
Link: Amazon.co.uk, Pan Books
Synopsis: Following their collaboration in Split Second, ex-Secret Service agents Sean King and Michelle Maxwell have gone into partnership and are investigating the robbery of some secret documents at the residence of the incredibly wealthy Battle family. It seems like a straightforward case of domestic burglary, but soon they begin to suspect links to larger, more terrifying events now shaking the prosperous town of Writghtsburg…
The unidentified corpse of an attractive young woman turns up in the woods; two high school kids, one shot in the back, the other in the face, are found dead in their car; a successful lawyer is discovered stabbed to death in her own home. A serial killer is on the loose. The murderer kills in the manner of famous killers of the past but takes care to leave a stopped watch at the scene of each crime – corresponding to the victim’s position on his hit list.
As the killing spree escalates it seems that the fractured Battle family are somehow involved and Maxwell and King suddenly find themselves racing to solve an intricate puzzle, one that is full of tantalizing clues but barren of solid evidence, and one that is leaving even the FBI confounded. And all the while, the body count is rising…
————————————————–
Firstly I must admit that it’s been more than a year since I finished Hour Game so my opinions have kind of faded and less detailed than usual.
Hour Game is the second book in the Sean King and Michelle Maxwell series, preceded by Split Second, which I haven’t had the chance to read yet.
Together with The Architect, this one is my favorite for being a very well-crafted mystery thriller. The book is notably thicker than most I’ve read, but not necessarily hard to read at all. It was a joyful ride. The whole 736 pages are packed with details for a crime that had clues leading to everywhere and nowhere but in the end everything tied together neat and well without a single loose thread. Both Sean King and Michelle Maxwell proved to be likable characters. There were balance in the couples, being one man and one woman, being former professionals but now retired into private investigators, being level-head but at the same time sentimental. All of that made their journey to the truth plausible and believable.
I think writing a good mystery thriller is difficult. You’ll need the details, the knots, the revelations, the twists, the ending and most importantly the pacing to make things work. Tie the knots too soon and it becomes rushed. Reveal too late and no one cares anymore. Hour Game managed to stay neat and strong and well-paced, despite its length. Highly recommended.
BOOK (Fiction) – The Stolen by Alex Shearer
Title: The Stolen
Author: Alex Shearer
Publisher: Macmillan Children’s Books
Language: English
ISBN-13:978-0-330-39892-3
Book Type: Fiction
Category: Children’s Book
Pages: 272
Format: Paperback
Cover Price: £5.99
Publish Date: April 04, 2003
Rating: 2/5
Link: Amazon.co.uk; Panmacmillan
Synopsis: Meredith is a new girl at school. An orphan, living with her elderly granny. She must be lonely – or so Carly thinks, trying to be nice.
But sometimes nice doesn’t work. Sometimes people are worse than you could ever imagine. And Meredith has a secret – a story Carly can hardly begin to believe. About a girl with no future and someone else’s past. A vicious old lady who refuses to die. A young life stolen. For Meredith is not Meredith at all…
————————————————–
If Tins had somewhat recovered my faith for Alex Shearer, The Stolen threw a straight punch into my face and pulled me back to the reality that I just can’t get Shearer’s writing.
The story, as always, is very good. It’s even better than Tins or The Hunted, considering the morality in it. It makes you think, and questions yourself. I believe it can give the kids (and me) a good lesson about treating elderly people nicely.
What I don’t like, again, is the unnecessarily dragging narrative. You can say that the book was narrated in first person by a little girl, so her way of talking is that of a kid and kids say whatever they have in their mind at the moment. But it’s just plain annoying, especially at the beginning where the story hadn’t picked up yet. Context-wise, I even find the part where Grace told Carly about her situation is handled poorly. I can’t understand why a person who is in a hurry to tell a secret while she doesn’t have much time can overly describe the situation in its trivial details. It totally broke the flow in my opinion because Carla, as well as the reader, is listening to a BIG SECRET yet the teller keeps telling things I’m not interested in. If she needs me to hear her secret fast, she ought to do it fast. Or maybe because I’m just to impatient.
Honestly, I didn’t really read the book, I skimed through it. It was totally my defeat as I couldn’t keep reading the details that I already guessed of and not interested in. No more Alex Shearer for me, although it’s a pity because the stories themself are very good.
BOOK (Fiction) – Tins by Alex Shearer
Title: Tins
Author: Alex Shearer
Publisher: Macmillan Children’s Books
Language: English
ISBN-13:978-0-330-43191-0
Book Type: Fiction
Category: Children’s Book
Pages: 256
Format: Paperback
Cover Price: £5.99
Publish Date: March 03, 2006
Rating: 3/5
Link: Amazon.co.uk; Panmacmillan
Synopsis: Fergal collects tins. He likes the bargain ones without labels: the contents are always a nice – or nasty – surprise. Then Fergal finds a finger inside one tin and the world HELP inside another… And what was just a screwball hobby becomes a deadly can of worms.
————————————————–
Okay, so my second attempt for another Alex Shearer’s book was actually not bad. In fact, I think I did enjoy it to some extent. Compared to The Hunted, the writting is less dragging and the details is less repeative. Book presentation is also more pleasurable, with a better font of choice and different typeset for different parts. I like that.
The story overall is appealing, and I think kids will love it. I myself of course found it a bit too fairy-tale-ish (dark fary tale actually) but don’t take that as a complaint (more like a comment really). Generally I can put up with the writing style. Nothing fancy, not many big words, a bit dull here and there but far more tolerable than The Hunted (wow, it seems that I hold quite a serious grudge against that title).
You can read this, to appreciate a little wicked story. At least, my time wasn’t a waste for reading this book. And somehow I wouldn’t mind more of this but I will be sure to check any Alex’s Shearer’s title more carefully in the future. Something like Tins – yes. Something like The Stolen – no, big NO.
BOOK (Fiction) – The Hunted by Alex Shearer
Title: The Hunted
Author: Alex Shearer
Publisher: Macmillan Children’s Books
Language: English
ISBN-13:978-0-330-43190-0
Book Type: Fiction
Category: Children’s Book
Pages: 288
Format: Paperback
Cover Price: £4.99
Publish Date: July 01, 2005
Rating: 2.5/5
Link: Amazon.co.uk; Panmacmillan
Synopsis: Tarrin is born into a world where both the dreams and nightmares of medical science have come true. People look younger and live for longer. But real children are rare. They are bought and sold, won and lost, and live in fear of being stolen – or worse.
So Tarrin knows what it is to have a price on his head. As one of the few natural-born children around, he’s something that science can’t make and money can’t buy. Every day he’s stalked by the terror of being taken. He’s one of the hunted.
————————————————–
Let me get this straight out:
1. This is a children’s book
2. I’m no longer a child
3. It was a tiresome read.
If it hadn’t been for the fact that I was sorry for my money, I would have thrown the book away after ten pages. I bought three books of Alex Shearer, intrigued by all of the awesome summaries. Truth to be told, the idea behind is quite good, the summary dose it just (or not), but the execution feels horribly wrong (or not).
To put it bluntly, the writing is just like my writing: scattered, slap-in-the-face facts, repeating chunks of issue. I read through half of the first chapter and couldn’t see where I was going. I read through half of the book and only vaguely see where I was going. But basically the narrative is just so confusing. Supposedly there are A-B-C-D-E-F-G points in a chapter (each chapter is long, which obviously isn’t help in me being tired of it at all), the author would go like this: A-B-C-E-D-A-F-G-C-B-B-A. So generally we are going around without a clear point of where the destination is. As an admirer of clarity myself, I was greatly annoyed.
The 1/3 last book wasn’t bad, actually. It provided a pace fast enough to keep moving, mainly because a certain annoying character wasn’t there with his blabbing conversation anymore. It might be a way to portray the character, but the strong impression of characterization just wore out after the same type of conversation was repeated too many times.
The book also has a decent ending, not quite out of place as some certain books’, which certainly help making the whole story one piece in general. I’d say the the last one third of the book is decent, above average, while the first two third is just a pain. BIG PAIN. Overall writing is plain and it can’t convey the right invisible perception as well. It’s that image you project in your head when you read the text. But what I imagined wasn’t what I was supposed to see. The story took place some times in the future where technology was so advanced that people can halt their aging. Yet all I can ever saw was 18th – 19th century’s scenery and environment. Call me unimaginative if you might, but sorry, but magic just didn’t work for me.
The last small complaint is that the text font is very ugly and it did hinder my enjoyment (as a graphic designer, I just couldn’t ignore it).
It terrifies me to think that I still have two other books of Alex Shearer to finish. While The Hunted overall wasn’t too bad that you should completely stay away from it, the terrible boring and confusing slow start can just kill off any expectation you might have. You’re warned then.
BOOK (Fiction) – The Architect by Keith Ablow
Title: The Artchitect
Author: Keith Ablow
Publisher: Pan Books
Language: English
ISBN-13:978-0-330-44140-7
Book Type: Fiction
Category: Mystery & Thriller
Pages: 320
Format: Paperback
Cover Price: N/A
Publish Date: June 06, 2007
Rating: 4/5
Link: Amazon.co.uk
Synopsis: An extraordinarily talented architect whose clients are America’s wealthiest families. A sociopath whose search for perfection leaves a trail of murders he considers work of art. A story of obsession that opens doors to secret corridors of power – and into the private quarters of the White House itself.
West Crosse, educated at Yale, member of the ultra-elite Order of Skull and Bones, is a stunningly brilliant, strikingly handsome architect with a love of ideal beauty and commitment to achieving it at any cost. But underneath that facade lies a dangerous man who will stop at nothing to create the perfect dwelling and the perfect lives for his high-bred clientele – even if that means deadly rehab … As Crosse is about to embark on the master work of this creative life, the FBI puts forensic psychiatrist Dr Frank Clevenger on the case, and the ultimate cat-and-mouse game begins.
————————————————–
As of today, The Architect is Keith Ablow’s latest novel about Frank Clevenger, a forensic psychiatrist working for the FBI. A review on amazon says that it’s in one way or another is a series and therefore should be read in order. So what I review is what I see about the book without prior reading of the previous ones.
So far, of all the “impulsively bought” novels (ones that I bought without really knowing who the author was or what the story was about), this is my most favourite. This is a good read, hooked from the beginning, but the tension isn’t built strong. It doesn’t have much of the “thrill” factor but it’s attractive enough to keep on reading and it becomes attractive quite early, so you don’t have to read through pages of boring stuffs until the story finally gets better.
There’s not much of mystery either. Who’s the murderer is clearly indicated. It’s about the killer’s psychology that we get to know. Being a book with a main character being a psychiatrist written by a psychiatrist himself, The Architect provides some psychological reading of people’s reaction and behavior. I really enjoy scenes where Frank Clevenger questions the victim’s relative and adds his own thought on the hidden meaning behind each answers.
Like I said, the excitement isn’t built gradually. Basically after 2 or 3 chapters, you get into the story, and the attraction stablizes and it keeps like that thorought the book. It does go up and down occasionally, a little bit up towards the end but really no climax. Not really a complaint although it does make me feel something is missing.
The ending makes sense (much more so than The Devil’s Labyrinth by John Saul), in some ways, but quite anti-climax. I was waiting for a showdown but it just ends up without any big encounter at all.
I enjoyed this book. Not immensely but I certainly enjoyed my time. The emotions are quite balanced. Not too thrill so you can stop when you want to stop, without having the urge to continue reading when your eyes and your general body’s functions are going against you. Yet it’s attractive enough for you not to forget about it and keep continuing whenever you have free time. For someone like me who couldn’t afford finishing a book in one go or go through more than 3 chapters a day (in my previous free time before bed), this isn’t bad at all.
I don’t know how reading the previous books will affect my reading of this book, but I plan on hunting down other novels in the Frank Clevengers series. I like this book so maybe you should try out as well.
BOOK (Fiction) – The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Title: The Secret Garden
Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett
Publisher: Sterling
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-1-4027-1459-7
Book Type: Fiction
Category: Classic
Pages: 248
Format: Hardcover
Cover Price: $9.95
Publish Date: October 01, 2004
Rating: 4.5/5
Link: Amazon.com; Sterling; Wikipedia
Synopsis: Born in India, the unattractive and willful Mary Lennox has remained in the care of servants for as long as she can remember. But the girl’s life changes when her mother and father die and she travels to Yorkshire to live with her uncle. Dark, dreary Misselthwaite Manor seems full of mysteries, including a very special garden, locked tight for 10 years. With the help of Dickon, a local boy, Mary intends to uncover its secrets.
————————————————–
This is my first try on reading all the oh-so-well-known famous classic novels (especially with Sterling’s releases of hard-cover editions with beautiful book cover and a cheap price). One thing I don’t like about reading classics is that the vocabularies and grammars are so strange (I’m avoiding the word “difficult” here), which certainly hinders the enjoyment when you can’t understand fully the story. On the other hand, the great thing about classics is that the story is very well told, with all details. Characters portrayal is especially crafted beautifully. I don’t say the story itself is particularly great or anything (depending on what kind of story you like) but I can certainly say the narrative stays over the top.
That’s enough for the ranting, now to the book itself. Since it’s been some days since I finished the book, I kinda lost my feelings now so I’ll keep this short.
If I have to sum up everything in one word, it would be “lovely”. Truth to be told, even though I myself am not a person who’s fond of kids (especially the disagreeable one – like Mary at the beginning), as the story progressed, as I saw Mary slowly transformed, I started to think maybe kids are not that horrible. I really like the childish conversation between Dickon, Mary and Colin, their actions, their way of thinking, etc. They are really children, and lovely ones.
Lots of dialogue are written in Yorshire dialect, which I can feel but not understand well. The people who speak Yorkshire are kind-hearted, open-minded, generous and very loving.
The book has a soothing effect that can make you feel light-hearted. Life is not that bad and everybody can changes for better. And deep down inside, everybody longs for love and affection, whether they really realize that or not. Highly recommend. Yorkshire may be an obstacle for readers whose English is not their mother-touge (like me) but eventhough you might not understand well, I’m certain that you can feel well. Feel the generousity in people who spoke Yorkshire, feel their kind-heartness, feel their broad personality, and feel the transformation of a little girl.
BOOK (Fiction) – The Devil’s Labyrinth by John Saul
Title: The Devil’s Labyrinth
Author: John Saul
Publisher: Pan Books
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-0-230-70218-9
Book Type: Fiction
Category: Mystery & Thriller
Pages: 448
Format: Paperpack
Cover Price: £6.99
Publish Date: June 20, 2008
Rating: 3/5
Link: Amazon.com; Pan Books
Synopsis: Teri McIntyre has enrolled her 15-year-old son at St Isaac’s Catholic boarding school, hoping this venerable institution will have a calming influence on him. But Ryan arrives to find the school awash with rumours of violent death, mysterious disappearances, and a growing incidence of disturbing behavior within its hallowed halls.
Things begin to change after Father Sebastian joins the faculty, bent on an extraordinary mission to prove the power of exorcism. Willing or not, St. Isaac’s most troubled students become pawns in Father Sebastian’s one-man war against evil — a war so surprisingly effective that Rome itself starts taking notice.
But as Ryan is drawn ever more deeply into Father Sebastian’s ministrations, he witnesses with mounting dread the transformations of his fellow pupils, and his certainty grows that it is forces of darkness, not divinity, which are at work here. For evil is not being cast out… instead, something unholy is being summoned. Something whose hour has finally come to bring hell unto earth
————————————————–
Here comes again a book which I had no idea what the story was about (except for the summary on the back), who the author was or how people reacted to it. Always fascinated by something mysterious, with a dose of supernatural-power and “fighting the evil” flavour, plus the setting is at some intriguing ancient building related to the Church (which always promises dark incident will happen at the place), I decided to try this out.
Let’s review it chronologically (as I read the book). I was uninterested after the first two or three chapters. Nothing picked up yet. And the story was narrated in clusters, which depicted different things happened at the same times at different places. Which means in one chapter you’re with a character and in the next chapter you jump to somewhere with a different character. This both has its good sides and bade sides. For once, I was pretty annoyed when I had to jump around between two line of stories, two set of characters that doesn’t seem to be related in anyway. Then as the story progressed, when I saw how those two lines would soon clash and join into one, I started to get curious and looked forward more to the story. However, after that, the story was clustered again and we were left with blocks of story and information which were more or less incoherent until later (on the good side, this also means you have this urge to re-read the book, now putting all the connections into places).
The book did a very good job in keeping my interest and my craving for more of the story until the end, but half way through I started to lose my enjoyment (although I still had this urge to continue on). The complexity of religious theme presented bugged me to death. Being nonreligious, I found myself groaned “No, not again” whenever the new chapter started with the Catholic priests or with the Muslims as I couldn’t see any holiness in their thinking and action.
When you passed half the book, you could pretty much guess what would gonna happen next. That was fine to some extent as the author had succeeded in making the readers notice “something is wrong.” But as the surprise was more or less taken away, it was not good either.
I find the story itself very good (although predictable towards the end). However, for such content, 448 pages is too long. It stretched and dragged the story on for more than its good. And what, the ending was not satisfying. It left a quite “huh, what?” feeling to me as I didn’t get to know what I expected I would have.
On the good points, the author is very good at conveying the atmosphere. You feel what you need. The disgust, the fear, the faith, anything that would make your spine chill. I would pretty much picture a movie when I was reading this. How the character and the environment would look, what the music and SFX would be, how the effects could be used to convey the confusing and unreal, delusional emotions. Would be nice to see a movie adaption of this, on one condition that the ending is re-written.
While this book certainly has some big flaws (the story being too dragged, the ending being too “open”, the story-telling being too incoherent to some people’s taste) I did enjoy it, all thanks to the thrill I got. I say if you want something to chill down your spine, one or two gory deaths (not that they were really “gory”) and a great deal of religion to pain your head, then try it. Other wise, consider what I had said about the flaws and think twice.
BOOK (Fiction) – The Witches by Roald Dahl
Title: The Witches
Author: Roald Dahl
Publisher: Puffin Books
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-0-141-32264-3
Book Type: Fiction
Category: Children’s Book
Pages: 224
Format: Paperpack
Cover Price: £5.99
Publish Date: September 6, 2007
Rating: 4/5
Link: Amazon.com; Puffin Books; Wikipedia
Synopsis: Witches really are a detestable breed. They disguise themselves as lovely ladies, when secretly they want to squish and squelch all the wretched children they despise. Luckily one boy and his grandmother know how to recognize these vile creatures – they can they get rid of theme for good?
————————————————–
I know I’m too old to be reading Children’s Book by now (but who says I can’t anyway?). Roald Dahl is one of few authors (if not the only one) that I know and whose works I adore, back from when I read Matilda (in Vietnamese) and The Best of Roald Dahl (stole from my friend). Both his story and the his writing style are very distinctive. They are wicked, sick to some point, mesmerizing, mixed with love, humanity and cruelty. I sometimes even think “Is it a bit too much of wickedness for children?”
Now, to the book itself. It certainly doesn’t stray (if it ever does) too far from what I just said about Roald Dah’s style. I wouldn’t say the depicted witches detestable. Instead, they are disgusting. You can feel the disgust and tension throbbing your throat when a witch (or The Grand High Witch) appears and attempts to catch the boy. That’s one great thing about Roald Dahl: he makes the audience feel. Feel the terrible presence of the witches, feel the smart energetic little boy, feel his and his grandmother’s love for each other, feel the hopelessness of Bruno Jenkin’s eating behavior, feel what the characters are feeling at the moment.
I find the plot itself a bit simple (in term of how the problem got solved) . It has a more “fairy-tale” vibe than a realistic drama. Not really a complaint though as it’s a Children’s Book but it still makes me feel anti-climax. On the other hand, I really love how the relationship between the boy and his grandmother was depicted. It feels so tender and dearly. You’d love to have a grandmother like that.
Miracles don’t have much of its share in this story. If you think whatever bad things the main character experiences will be recovered by the end of the story then think again. You receive a curse from the witch, and that’s the end. No one can do anything about that. It may sound depressing but it actually isn’t. You get a mix of all bad and good things happening. Whether it’s a happy ending that you desire or not, it all depends on you. But for all I know, the boy and his grandmother couldn’t have been more happy than that.
It’s a Children’s Book alright, but it doesn’t mean grown-ups can’t enjoy it. It’s not childish in the slightest and it’s full of wickedness which will easily glue you to the pages.
BOOK (Fiction) – What to Do When Someone Dies by Nicci French
Title: What to Do When Someone Dies
Author: Nicci French
Publisher: Penguin Books
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-0-141-04366-1
Book Type: Fiction
Category: Mystery & Thriller
Pages: 352
Format: Paperpack
Cover Price: N/A
Publish Date: March 5, 2009
Rating: 3/5
Link: Amazon.com; Penguin Books
Synopsis: ‘This is not my world. Something is wrong, askew. It is a Monday evening in October. I am Ellie Falkner, 34 years old and married to Greg Manning. Although two police officers have just come to my door and told me he is dead . . . ‘
It’s devastating to hear that your husband has died in a horrific car accident. But to learn that he died with a mystery woman as his passenger is torment. Was Greg having an affair?
Drowning in grief, Ellie clings to Greg’s innocence, and her determination to prove it to the world at large means she must find out who Milena Livingstone was and what she was doing in Greg’s car. But in the process those around her begin to question her sanity … and her motive. And the louder she shouts that Greg might have been murdered, the more suspicion falls on Ellie herself. Sometimes it’s safer to keep silent when someone dies…
————————————————–
In my attempt to come back to my reading behavior (if it ever were there to come back), I picked up a book that I absolutely had no idea about. I knew nothing about the plot, the author, nothing. I chose it simply because Books Kinokuniya was having an all-store off 20% promotion, because of “The New Bestseller” on the front cover and “Crime Fiction” on back cover. My brother scanned through some pages and suggested that the writing didn’t seem very great. I however still insisted on getting it because I could never judge a book (or a story) just by some lines of text and I could only either read it all or not read it at all. So here came my experience with something I didn’t know what to expect of.
Frankly, after a few chapters I didn’t like it. I regretted spending the money on it. I wished I had listened to my brother’s advice. I couldn’t seem quite understand why the main character behaved that way. And since I didn’t sympathize with her and her loss of husband, I couldn’t stand the overly-detailed description of what she did during her grief. I was poured with too many trivial things that I didn’t care while the main plot moved very slowly. I thought of giving up but I couldn’t let the money spent on this book go waste, so I forced myself to finish it, one chapter a day.
Then about half-way through, the wheel started to turn faster. I found myself reading 3 to 4 chapters a day, and that increased day after day. When everything began to form the picture, you would have the urge to read more. It wasn’t really thrilled to the point that I wanted to finish the rest of the book in one go. As said, I didn’t sympathize with the main character (and I’m the type who’s very character-oritented and plot-oriented and not so writing-oriented) so It wasn’t really a pleasure following all her mischief and mistakes. However, I did become curious about the plot. Near the end, everything turned more suspenseful and confusing. You could almost see the pictures, but there were still some key elements missing out. And the presented elements, some were fake as well. I finished the rest 1/4 in one go.
It wasn’t a waste of money. That’s the truth. But it’s also not something I’d call “bestseller”. The plot has some nice twists here and there and is really suspenseful at some points but overall not really impressive to me. The overly-detailed description is what I hate most about the book. It got better as the suspense took place but there were one portion of “details” near the end that almost made me go “WTF?”. I was enjoying all the great thrills and was eager to find out about everything thoroughly then suddenly I was thrown back into a chunk of text describing something that I clearly didn’t bother to read. Also, the plot-driven factors seem to rely too heavily on “coincidence” and “glimpse of random information”. Had the main character not found a certain piece of paper, had she not had a certain knowledge, had she not caught a certain slip of tongue of a certain someone, the plot could never have moved.
I had a nice time with the second half of the book, but not with the first half. The overall plot is decent but the writting both annoys me and thrills me. This is my first fiction after a long time so I don’t know which it’s better than and which it’s worse than. Clearly not my favourite, but not a waste either.
