Tag: Books

What I read in August

~ Veselin ~ 7 Comments

August was a fine month for reading. I managed to finish 8 books, mostly thrillers and fantasy.

Best books for the month

  • Frieda McFadden’s The Housemaid – Best book of the month by a wide margin. The novelty of reading something very different from my usual picks hit me hard, and I loved it. ★★★★★
  • The Sword of Kaigen – although I rated this overly dramatic epic fantasy with 4/5, it seems to age well and my memories about it are improving over time. ★★★★☆
  • Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? Nicci French got a 4/5 and could’ve been a 5 without the slow first half of the book. It features a new and promising detective Maud O’Connor. ★★★★☆
  • Never Lie by Frieda McFadden – Another claustrophobic thriller, ★★★★★ in the moment, but it slips to fourth place because other reads feel more significant.
  • The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa got a 4/5 review and a blog post. I have a signed copy, the print is high-quality and sits well on the shelves. I also read the continuation, which gave a bit of entertainment and a bit of eye rolls. ★★★★☆

Worst books for the month

  • Nightshade by Michael Connelly – surprisingly weak from Connelly. A disappointing ★★☆☆☆.
  • I also read the book Traitors in Space – My first sci-fi about a parasite that spreads by touching people’s foreheads. Above average for a Choose Your Own Adventure book, so ★★★★☆. Sure, the hand-to-forehead infection method feels questionable, but I’ve also read two vampire stories this month where they survive on a few drops of blood a day without breathing. Who am I to judge?

Daily Harvest

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

This will be a tough one to read. I’m still half-way through the last one but the buy 2 get 4 books promotion by the local publisher Artline was too good to miss.

  • The last Ronin – I plan reading one chapter per day with the little one (already completed two). It features one surviving ninja turtle and the elderly badass April O’Neil but it’s mostly for the sub-10 audience
  • Lore Olympus – another graphic novel, which I’ve not unboxed yet
  • Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky – in case I’m meeting the guy next month, I’d like to have that completed
  • To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christofer Paolini – I have to admit that I got that for the cover because they add up nicely with the one above. I’m not sure if I’ll ever read it. The author is well-known for his series Eragon.

Goodreads Brings Back Friends’ Reading Challenges

~ Veselin ~ 1 Comment

One of my favorite parts of Goodreads used to be seeing how my friends are progressing toward their annual reading goals. It was fun and a little competitive in a good way.

Last year, Amazon decided to clutter Goodreads with about a hundred new challenges while somehow hiding the only one that mattered to me. For a while, seeing friends’ challenge simply disappeared.

Well, good news: it’s back. If you’re using the mobile app, you can find it under:
Settings → Reading Challenges → More frien…

I’m thankful it’s back so I can keep an eye on what my frien… read again.

Nightshade by Michael Connelly, Book Review

~ Veselin ~ 6 Comments

Michael Connelly is one of my favorite crime/thriller authors. I’ve read almost everything he’s written (probably everything but I’m not sure about one book). He is producing high quality books pretty consistently. However, he has flops. Nightshade is one of the books I did not like.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Detective Stilwell has been moved to Catalina Island, after a series of questionable life choices. Within the book, he has three tasks:

  • Investigate the murder of a protected buffalo
  • Get statements from some suspicious character who hit a police officer with a bottle
  • Keep his partner Natasha happy

This is not what he does, so in a sense, he continues with the questionable life choices and is surprising that the police didn’t transfer him to the North Pole. He jumps in to investigate a murder, and of course, one murder leads to another, so there are many murders.

Had the killer or the multiple killers stayed put, none of the book would’ve happened as Detective Stilwell’s entire game is to find clues in the exceptional overreaction by the suspects, giving them away over and over. Remove that and there’s no book. The original clues get compromised or are mostly ignored by the detective. For example, the body found in the beginning of the book – the book itself makes it very clear the first body should’ve been found elsewhere or never found.

Now, Natasha. Detective Stilwell is in love, according to the pages. He will manipulate, lie to, and ignore Natasha “Tash” Dano over and over. His treatment towards her is reckless, irresponsible, and borderline abusive. Although it is completely fine to describe an abusive relationship in a fiction book, the term for what we see is fridging. Fridging is when a character is introduced for the sole purpose of being killed and placed in a fridge, so the detective has business to do. I felt that the female protagonist only exists to increase the difficulty level to Detective Stillwell. The character development for her felt superficial but it is like that for the rest of the characters as well, except maybe the main victim, whose life and dreams we’ll explore in greater depths.

The best part of the book is the cover. It is beautiful and was one of the reasons to read it last week.

I rated Nightshade with 2*/5. One of the stars is a bonus for the cover and the whole Catalina idea. The content is perhaps the worst I’ve read by Michael Connelly.

The Housemaid by Freida McFadden, Book Review

~ Veselin ~ 3 Comments

I didn’t know what to expect from this book, but it definitely surprised me. The story follows a young woman who has just been released from prison and starts working as a maid for a seemingly unhinged housewife. She’s given a tiny closet to live in. Looks like it could only be locked from the outside. This instantly sets a claustrophobic, unsettling atmosphere and it only gets worse from there.

The book is short, and for me that’s a big plus. If it were longer, I probably wouldn’t have rated it five stars. It’s quick, intense, emotional, scary, and I really enjoyed it.

5/5

BTW, I only purchased it because the author’s first name is Freida and I wanted to read more Frieda Klein. It’s not quite the same first name but it is close.