2014 books: 5-8

[the_siobhan]

    

Goodnight Nobody by Jennifer Weiner One of the things about getting a lot of books from other people - like the box of proofs that we retrieved from our neighbours for example, or the box I snagged from Freecycle when I want one specific title in the lot - is that I end up reading a lot of books that I otherwise wouldn't go out looking for. Goodnight Nobody definitely falls into this category. A young woman who grew up in Manhattan finds herself living in a small town in Connecticut with a mostly-absent husband and three children under five. She dispairs of ever fitting into the yuppie homogenous organic perfectionist suburban lifestyle of her neighbours and then she finds one of those neighbours dead on her (the neighbour's) kitchen floor with a knife (also the neighbours) lodged in her back. She starts trying to figure out who the killer is because the murder is, as she puts it, "one of the most interesting things to happen in Upchurch since her neighbours broke ground for a guesthouse and cracked their septic tank".

This is a fast read. The story flows smoothly and it kept me engaged and entertained right to the end. However, part of that entertainment involved picking the book apart while I read it. The biggest defect for me is that the characters are all such stereotypes - the scattered, funny and insecure main character, the shallow but loyal socialite best friend, the idealized first love, the perfect mother with the hidden troubled marriage. It's a good thing that the husband is mostly not around because it spares the writer the trouble of having to come up with a personality for him.

Also, the scene where he husband gives her the frowny face because his dry cleaning is falling behind made me want to reach into the book and punch him in the fucking head. Seriously.

So anyway, cute but definitely lightweight. Not worth keeping.


    

Zombie Jamboree by Robert Merkin According to what is written on the inside of the cover, I bought this book in 1990. According to the sticker on the outside of the sleeve, I paid $2.99. I don't know if I had any idea what it was about or I was drawn in by the title. It turns out it is about the experiences of two men in the US Army in 1970 when the country was embroiled in the Vietnam war. The title turns out to refer to a conversation they have in a bar early in the book where one of the men says that the US is going to lose the war, and that loss will be blamed on the grunt soldiers who have the least power to change it's outcome. They are already dead, just zombies who are just copying the motions and rituals of the living.

It has a Catch-22 feel. The main characters almost but not quite entirely unsympathetic and the characters around them are equally unlikeable. In spite of that I started getting really engaged with these guys - they really just are a pair of rootless 22 year-olds caught up in a machine that has no compunction about grinding them up and spitting them out. The book ends up being about thier friendship more than anything else, and in the end I really enjoyed it. Definitely the best of the new batch.


    

Devil Bones by Kathy Reichs I have absolutely no idea where this one came from. So apparently Reich's novels are the basis for the Bones TV show, which I have never seen but I hear is pretty popular. And you know, it reads like a book that would make a great premise for a TV show. That's not necessarily a criticism, but it does mean that she does some things that work well for an episodic medium that I hate in books. Like she leave hints at the close of each chapter about what's coming next, "Little did she know that it was about to get worse," or "Making that connecton would have saved a life." A technique that can keep the viewer engaged when used in a TV show. MAKES ME WANT TO THROW A BOOK ACROSS THE FUCKING ROOM whenever I encounter it in text.

Anyway, basic plotline is that the heroine works in a lab doing analysis on bones found at crime scenes. Somebody finds a Vodun ritual site containing a human skull, a headless body with Satanic symbols is found near the lake and a Wiccan gets implicated. Protagonist tries to figure out how these things are related. I will give the writer a lot of credit for presenting the various religions in a factual way.

The story is good enough if you like investigative police mysteries, I just found the writing really flat. Giveaway pile.


    

Bliss by Peter Carey This is a re-read. I love this book. The plot follows the main character, Harry Joy. In the opening pages he is dead, having just had a heart attack in his garden. He is revived by paramedics and has heart surgery, but gradually becomes convinced that he died for good on the operating table and is now in Hell. There are a few "real people" who are in Hell with him, but almost everybody else is an actor playing the part of family members, co-workers and neighbours. He decides that his only salvation is to do Good and thwart the forces of evil around him. Everybody else, of course, thinks that he has lost his ever-lovin' mind,

I love everything about this book. The prose is sardonic and lush at the same time. The story is both ridiculous and heart-rending. Every person in the book is presented as a human being riddled with flaws, prejudices and weaknesses yet he somehow manages to make me not hate any of them.

I think this one has to go into the "keep" pile. Sorry Axel.

Comments

[jo]

I think I've read every single Kathy Reichs "Bones" novel. The earlier ones - the pre-TV show ones - are definitely better. The character in the novels bares next to no resemblance to the TV show Brennan. I used to quite enjoy the books, esp. the ones set in Montreal (since in the books, the character, like the author herself, works both in the US and for Montreal's forensic sciences lab). She would insert these observations about Montreal that only insiders could really appreciate - like the total absurdity of the City's parking signs. Her later novels have become EXTREMELY formulaic. Like, I'm sure she has stock paragraphs at the ready and just inserts them into every single novel - sort of like a mail merge thing. I read them now mostly because they're such fast reads - fine for subway commuting because it takes no effort to get into them. They were never great novels, but they've really gone downhill since the TV show started. Also the reason why I get the ebooks via the Pirate Bay - certainly not worth paying for.

[the_siobhan]

Yeah, I can see it being good brain popcorn. I treat the Terry Pratchett books in much the same way.

[greylock]

I have a friend who is mainlining the TV series right now (coming off doing the same with Castle). She says its great because she can leave it going and do other things. Or nap.

I take that as a high recommendation.

I've only seen one episode, and it sounds a lot like the plot of the book.