Review: Misery

Misery by Stephen King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Bruhhh this sh*t was INSANE.

That Annie Wilkes lady is CRAZY.

Every time I read a Stephen King novel I have a similar reaction: 'THIS is why they call him The King'.

The man truly is a master at creating atmosphere.

Plot: Paul Sheldon, writer, is rescued from a car accident by his Number One Fan. She's going to look after him HER way, and being a Stephen King novel you know that way is not going to be a whole lot of fun for Paul Sheldon.

Describing this story to another person just simply doesn't do it justice. The horror is in the small moments and the pauses in between. The storytelling does all the work here and it is GOOD work.

I was captivated from start to finish, visibly cringing in places and even knowing what was coming (I've seen snippets of the film) didn't help soften the blow when it came.

There's not much to say that hasn't already been said so I must just agree that this is one of Stephen King's best, crafted masterfully to evoke spine tingling and bone chilling.

Highly recommend for horror fans, but also to writers wanting to develop their craft.

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Review: The Raven Boys: The Graphic Novel

The Raven Boys: The Graphic Novel by Stephanie Williams
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read the books years ago and, while I enjoyed it, it didn't quite live up to the hype for me. I liked the characters for the most part but the story was confusing and kinda messy.

Sadly, I felt very much the same about this graphic novel adaptation - if even more confused.

There's no time taken to build the setting or the characters, so what we get is mostly a mess of things happening. I've read the story before and I STILL found it hard to follow.

On that note, I don't know how well this will be read by those who haven't read the books. This very much strikes me as fan service; it banks on the popularity of the books rather than trying to build a story that will grab new readers.

The artwork, while cute, didn't reflect my interpretation of the characters, and some parts of the action were too muddled to follow. Some interesting techniques used but it really didn't work for me - the style strikes me as childish and more frivolous than the tone of the story calls for.

I think, sadly, the graphic novel just doesn't hold up to the novel. There's too much nuance in the book that gets missed in this format, and for grahpic novel fans that have no experience of the book, I think this one is just too 'out there'.

I wouldn't recommend it to the uninitiated, but fans of The Raven Boys should be happy just to have more, and to see characters they love brought to life.

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Review: Wolf Hall

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Such mixed feelings!

It felt brilliant but contrived, slow yet action-packed, dull yet fascinating.

It's a lot of words, and a lot of deeds.

The writing is convoluted and the kind of style where you want to give yourself a gold star every time you figure out what its saying.

When I paused around the 400-page mark to read some other stuff, I didn't really want to pick it back up. But when I forced myself to I didn't want to put it back down???

What a mystery.

In general, the story follows the mechanations and manipulations of Thomas Cromwell, a man who began life as a blacksmith's son and eventually rose to become the king's righthand man.

There's a whole mess of characters that are hard to keep track of - particularly as everyone seems to have multiple names/titles - but there is a list at the front of the book to refer back to.

There's definitely plenty in this book that I didn't follow - it's a lot, and the writing is such that the author goes out of her way to make us work for it. But the general gist of what's going on gets easier as it goes along and we finally start to figure out who is who.

There's also no real goal - it's a portrait in time, following the big players of the English court during the early 1500s. Cromwell has his own status and power which continues to grow, but there's no real goal stated. I found it difficult to follow along at first with no purpose, but then I also found that I never wanted to put it down. Somewhow this mess of characters had sucked me in.

It was a strange experience for me - I was desperate to be done with it because it was such a tough slog, but at the same time I never wanted to leave it unfinished. I still found I wanted to know what would happen, and now I'm keen to move on to the sequel (after a well-earned break!)

This is not an easy read by any means, but fans of historical fiction will be well-rewarded if they persevere.

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Review: Imagine: 7 Visualizations for Greater Clarity, Confidence, and Calm

Imagine: 7 Visualizations for Greater Clarity, Confidence, and Calm by Deganit Nuur
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Narrated by Deganit Nuur and Tim Murphy
Presented by Brilliance Audio

Wow I actually LOVED this.

This is a self-help book that requires nothing but self-reflection and imagination. Hello hi I am HERE for that.

So often, I find these self-help books ask me to write things down, or spend x amount of time doing this one thing, etc. Bro I'm reading a book, I don't want to stop for all of that stuff! So this was PERFECT for me.

I found it particularly useful in the audio format - I could be out walking and still practice these visualisations. It was quite relaxing, actually!

They seem ridiculously basic but that is what makes them so practical. These are all such small practices that trying them out is easy - there's no down side to giving it a go, and the worst that can happen is absolutely nothing. So I really warmed up to the exercises and appreciated their simplicity.

I truly love how the mind works sometimes.

The only downside for me really was the pace of the narration. I found I had to listen to it quite fast and there were still some long pauses that took me out of it. The narration itself though was clear and energetic, and as its narrated by the authors you can hear the belief in their voices. It added a lot of authenticity to this that was quite essential.

I'd easily recommend this to others on a self-improvement journey, and just anyone that wants to play around with some perfectly harmless visualisation exercises that may improve your life.

With thanks to NetGalley for an audio ARC

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Review: Where the Crawdads Sing

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Very fancy words here - 10/10 for atmosphere!

Something about this kept me entertained, despite finding the story kind of dull. I feel like it went a little too long, and by the end it was really trying too hard to hammer home its message.

Still, beautifully lyrical; brilliant at setting the scene and Kya's place in it.

The story is about Kya, who is essentially an orphan living in a run down shack in the swamp. She spends her days feeding birds, collecting shells, and learning all about the environment around her.

Honestly, there's so much ecology here but it never got as dull as I'd expect - it was dosed out enough between the story that I didn't mind it so much.

The story however is kind of bland. It's broken family and first relationships and a murder mystery that takes a backseat to everything, really. Despite the setting and the glorious atmosphere, it's just another whodunnit.

I did have to force myself to pick it back up at times becausr there's nothing really driving the story. There was no curiosity that left me desperate to read more. Normally I'm a big fan of solving mysteries so the fact that this one did not really interest me at all shows how little importance it had in the story.

This is for slow readers who revel in atmosphere and things that are a little different. I can see why people hype it up, but I don't know that it's quite the standout I was expecting.

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Review: The Tokyo Zodiac Murders

The Tokyo Zodiac Murders by Sōji Shimada
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I actually found this a little dull right up until it challenged me to solve the mystery myself.

This detailed a 'locked-room mystery' in three parts - first, death of the patriarch, second, death of one of his daughters, third, the murder of his six other daughters and nieces.

The crimes are wild and I was certainly puzzled as to how they all connected.

This book lays out all the details - what occurred, all the clues, all the red herrings, and also blood type and star sign of each person. There are a LOT of details and it's clear this is designed to confuse things and make it harder to tease out what's important.

I found it fascinating, but at the same time nothing new is occurring which meant it was just two-thirds info dump. The case in question is decades old, so most of the relevant players have since died making it a confusing jumble of who's who. There's also not a lot of characterisation so again, hard to keep track of them all.

Still, when the gauntlet was thrown, I found myself going back to read the facts, study the details and the diagrams etc. I wound up solving the Who and the Why, but certainly came nowhere near the How. That sh*t was INSANE.

I really enjoyed the challenge at the end, and I think others will, too. Especially fans of crime who like to put the puzzle together themselves and make their own guesses.

Highly recommend for fans of the genre. Be patient with the overwhelming amount of detail and you'll have fun working the case yourself at the end.

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Review: The Ill-Made Mute

The Ill-Made Mute by Cecilia Dart-Thornton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Narrated by Kim Bretton
Presented by Leaves of Gold Press

The first 25% of this really dragged, but it picked up enough that I ended up rather enjoying it! It's long and chaotic but does end up having some fun ideas.

I tuned out a lot the first time and ended up going back and re-listening to soak in more.

It begins with a mutilated orphan who has no memory of who they are. A local woman takes the child in and we spend the first third of the book at this outpost sitting around listening to ghost stories while the 'ugly creature' is bullied mercilessly. The bullying is a tired old trope and, while the stories were entertaining enough, as the opening of the story it just made me settle in for dull.

Eventually, though, adventure begins and things pick up. There are definitely a lot of superfluous words used and it takes its time repeating things over and over, but the adventure is fun and the supporting characters are entertaining. Our main character not so much. Very dull.

Speaking of, it does feel a bit dated in the sense that so much of the story relates to how ugly our main character is, and their desire to be attractive. I don't think that would fly quite as well today, and it did grate on me a little. There's no message about accepting who you are as you are, it's all, 'damn this thing is hideous so it must be treated accordingly'.

I do feel like this one was a bit all over the place. It's not a short book and it wanders all over the place; it never feels like a cohesive, purposeful story. More like our main character is just following along for the ride. I found it easy to get distracted and often zoned out but was able to pick back up fairly easily.

My feelings towards the narrator were a confusing mess. At first, it sounded like AI narration which I didn't like at all, but bumping it up to x2 speed made that problem go away. Beyond that, the differentiation between voices was incredible and brilliantly done, to the point that it didn't even sound like the same person. I ended up being really impressed with it.

A side note: I do get frustrated when I hear wrong pronunciation, so hearing 'valet' as 'val-et' twice bothered me, but then I heard it again in a TV show?? Is this a new thing? Because I would swear on my life it's always been pronounced with a silent T, like 'val-ehy'. HELP PLEASE.

Overall, this was a rather average introduction to the series, and not enough to get me to buy the second book. There's potential here, but it does feel a little like a story cobbled together from others ideas and while I'm curious about the adventures that await, I'm not curious enough to put it on the TBR.

I'd recommend it for fantasy fans who are looking for something a little more old-school, but be patient with it.

With thanks to NetGalley for an audio copy

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