I read 9 books in August. Pretty happy with that achievement, although two of these were very short.
Best books
The Dry by Jane Harper, and the series about Aaron Falk. It’s a quiet mystery — cozy and depressing — that doesn’t fit the usual mold. I enjoy books with a lyrical style, where the story is secondary to the writing itself. Jonathan Moore writes like that.
The Goblins Return by Lubomir Nikolov. It’s a fun and refreshing gamebook that touched my childhood memories. The book’s content aged well, though the pages were yellow and brittle.
Worst books
Six of Crows – a popular young adult novel where teenagers act like elderly gang members. There’s a 17-year-old leader with a cane who is too mature to have a girlfriend. Nobody has acne or other problems appropriate for their age. The storytelling was nice and smooth but the details felt dubious. I think the good execution compensates for the bad details and gave it 4/5.
Orconomics – some people walk around in a fantasy world and wait for the main character to awaken as The Red Beard. I’m actually looking forward to the continuation. The Red Beard was kind of cool and the absurd world can be a feature.
3 people died over the last years in a small but flourishing Australian town. It’s all written off as accidents but a body is missing and Aaron Falk will start digging. Most of the book it’s not even clear he’s investigating. He doesn’t do much other than enjoy the hospitality of his friends, and whenever he notices something, the writer doesn’t tell us what. However, he’ll find clues and solve all of the cases. It’s all hidden in front of our eyes.
The big issue? This town is way too good. Can Aaron go back to the big city as a federal agent after seeing how all these people live?
I give it 4*/5 and despite the sub-optimal score, I enjoyed it and would read a continuation if one is ever written.
The shelf naturally formed with other low-stress books like Travis Baldree’s Legends and Lattes, two Brandon Sandersons and 3 gamebooks. I have some reading ahead of me.
When I write book reviews, I often mention the level of realism. Imagine a scale from 0 to 10. 0 is complete BS, things that can’t happen, heroes that can’t exist, and a path from start to finish that’s like a fairy tale. 10 is a boring autobiography by a boring person who doesn’t lie to put themselves in a good light. Realism is not required to have fun, a good story can be 0 or 10 on the scale.
Let’s rank some pop culture on the realism scale.
0: Avengers: End Game – a complete disconnect with reality, written entirely to be like that. The characters are only visually human
1: Star Wars Episodes 4-6 – a complete disconnect with reality but some of the characters make sense, like Jabba the Hutt. I’d put here most of the fantasy I read like Thraxas, Joe Abercrombie, Raymond Feist, the LOTR universe, Robin Hobb, Brandon Sanderson, Harry Potter
2: Matthew Reilly, often featured here, writes about cars flying at a speed of 700km/h and crashing with no harm. Not far off from F1, although the characters are inhuman. I feel like he deserves the number 2 spot for himself.
3: Stephen King plugs in plausible humans and outcomes in impossible fantasy settings. His work is incredible and diverse work but let’s average it to 3. 3 would be fantasy with a possible story or with possible characters but maybe not both
4: The Foundation, Andy Weir – the classic sci-fi where the people look real and the events could eventually happen
5: Song of Fire and Ice – lots of that happened in medieval times, or at least people imagined it did. Not the dragon eggs but the other stuff that fills 95% of the pages. Realistic fantasy, dystopia
6: Alexandre Dumas. The Three Musketeers has a solid foundation in reality and the characters are likely based on real humans, perhaps from later periods
7: Cinderella. That probably happened and was later decorated with some magic
8: OMG ❤️, Stephanie Plum, Harry Bosch’s universe, Harlan Coben, the true crime stories
9: Historical fiction, books like Wolf Hall that are as connected to the real events as they could be, autobiographies with some level of commerce
10: Boring autobiographies
On that scale, Jane Harper enters the territory of boring autobiographies. There’s “No way” and “Oh, that’s why, yeah, damn”. Reading it is like reading the continuation of Cinderella, the happily ever after where the prince turned into a king, and the king was drunk and cheated.
So, I won’t tell you what the Force of Nature is about, but it’s sad and depressing in a beautiful way. Do not touch if you want an orthodox crime story.
The Fourth Monkey is a serial killer thriller where a psychopath avenges the past by murdering women. A team of dedicated police officers races with time to save a teenage girl who was kidnapped. Objectively, it’s a good serial killer horror thriller, although it’s unlikely that I’ll dare to read the sequel.
Here’s the TL;DR of the story and an honest ranking:
I achieved my goal of reading the first 10 books in the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. The series is about a hot formerly unemployed bounty hunter who chases evil folks and loses them 10 times per book to only capture them on the 11th attempt. This is usually funny and low-risk, with no drama.
The story evolved over the last 4 books.
Criminals are no longer inviting themselves to Stephanie’s apartment at the same rate. The ability to break 3 of the top 10 locks out there is not that common and people breaking in at a whim started getting annoying. I’m glad this part is gone, hopefully, to never be seen again
Characters who were captured in previous books reappeared either as allies or as adversaries
Janet Evanovich started developing some wicked love for donuts and cakes. All female characters eat sugar like their life depend on it. Truckloads of donuts, chips, and cake. On one occasion, truckloads of bacon.
Stephanie’s sidekick Lula developed the sit-jitsu battle skill where she would sit on a criminal and squash them as a bug
Stephanie’s two love interests Joe Morelli and Ranger are no longer translucent. Morelli is the cop and Ranger is the mysterious millionaire in love with the clumsy nerd. Both didn’t add anything to the story over the last 4 books and I wish they get assignments in Venezuela. They were better when they were translucent.
All in all, books 7 to 10 are all in the 4/5 territory. They’re fine and I may read a few more because reading about Stephanie Plum is comforting. I just hope she stops eating donuts. It’s bad for her and unpleasant for me. We don’t want the main characters to die from sugar poisoning.
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