February in Books

~ Veselin ~ 2 Comments

The challenge to blog daily got me motivated to read more and shorter books. I read 15 last month, which I’ve not done since the day(s) I read The Chronicles of Amber. I didn’t blog about most of them, though. Didn’t feel right.

The best books for the month were Five and Six by Janet Evanovich and the two Thraxas. Number Seven is already lined up in my phone, and the next two Thraxas arrived as a paperback from a second-hand shop.

The worst by a wide margin was David Baldacci’s Memory Man. I awarded it 3* but it doesn’t sit well in my memory. The way I remember it, it’s already a hard 1*.

Death by Hollywood – Steven Bochco

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

I did it! I successfully read a book with a Goodreads rating of 3/5. Given that most people give 5s by default, the 3 is a pretty big deal. It’s like an IMDb rating of 4 for a movie.

What grabbed my attention was the writing style of the first few pages. It sounded like the writer knew the world he was describing very well, and I wanted to learn more. A screenwriter witnesses a crime and decides he’ll write a script based on it instead of reporting it to the authorities. He inserts himself into the lives of the victim, the killer, and the detective. A world of corruption, sin, and hypocrisy uncovers where everyone is greedy and nobody is spared.

The book is not linear. It has a dog named Bob. Half of the books I read in February feature a prominent canine supporting character Bob. Is that even a reasonable dog name? Bob is a very clever dog, so clever that the book leaves the realm of crime and enters the urban fantasy. Bob makes this book a 5 rather than a 4. 4 would be fair – the book is fresh but not that fresh – there is not much to like, except for Bob. It’s difficult to finish and the non-linear nature introduces 2 or 3 brief throw-away-the-book moments. I bet this is what happened to most people who voted 3 or under – they just gave up at the first difficult moment.

TL;DR – 5/5 but the book is unusual and many didn’t like it. It keeps on giving if you don’t give up. Goodreads link