This Week in Books | 14/03/18

This week I'm joining in with Lipsy @ Lipsyy Lost & Found to talk about the books I've been reading recently!

Now | Considering I only gave the first two books in the Mistress of the Art of Death series two stars, it's a wonder I'm reading another book in the series. Usually if I don't love a series I won't bother with the rest of the books, but this particular series is a really easy read and, while I don't think Franklin was the best writer around, I do enjoy her characters and I'm never going to let the chance of reading books centred around women in the 12th century pass me by. I'm actually really enjoying Relics of the Dead so far, especially as this book is set in parts of the UK that I'm familiar with and includes legends I'm familiar with, so it's strangely comforting for a book about potential murder...

Then | For the first time in years I read some Middle Grade and I loved the experience of it. I need to read more children's books and now I have a small selection waiting for me to make my way through this spring. Gaslight was another one that was comforting and familiar, being a Victorian era novel set in Cardiff, the city where I used to work. Look out for my review!

Next | Carrying on with the historical theme - because let's face it, when am I not reading historical fiction ? - I'm feeling myself drawn towards Mistress Firebrand at the moment. Sometimes I like to indulge in a bit of historical romance, and this novel, set during the American Revolutionary War, follows a playwright who once wrote comedies and now writes plays for the Rebels under a pseudonym that have landed her on a British hanging list.

What have you been reading recently?

Review | Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

Sharp Objects

by Gillian Flynn

My Rating: 

When two girls are abducted and killed in Missouri, journalist Camille Preaker is sent back to her home town to report on the crimes. Long-haunted by a childhood tragedy and estranged from her mother for years, Camille suddenly finds herself installed once again in her family's mansion, reacquainting herself with her distant mother and the half-sister she barely knows - a precocious 13-year-old who holds a disquieting grip on the town. As Camille works to uncover the truth about these violent crimes, she finds herself identifying with the young victims - a bit too strongly. Clues keep leading to dead ends, forcing Camille to unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past to get at the story. Dogged by her own demons, Camille will have to confront what happened to her years before if she wants to survive this homecoming.

I was bitten by the Flynn bug.

If you saw my review of Dark Places you'll know I finally read some Gillian Flynn, and that I didn't love it as much as I'd hoped I would. On reflection, however, I'm thinking of bumping Dark Places from a 3 star read to a 4 star read because I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since I finished it, and I do genuinely think that Libby Day is one of the best heroines I've read in a while.

Naturally, when I realised I had actually enjoyed Dark Places more than I thought, I decided it was about time I picked up Sharp Objects. I'm not all that interested in Gone Girl, but as Sharp Objects sounded like the kind of small-town, Southern Gothic story that I like to read I was really eager to dive in. And I really wasn't a fan.

Unlike Dark Places I don't think this is going to be a case of me misjudging my feelings, because I haven't thought about Sharp Objects other than to think 'man, that was effed up'. Seriously if you're feeling a little fragile, do not go anywhere near this book. It's so depressing!

Obviously I wasn't expecting sunshine and rainbows. There were lots of depressing bits in Dark Places too, but in Dark Places they felt like they were there for a reason. Sharp Objects, perhaps because it's Flynn's debut novel, simply feels as though it's been written fucked up for the sake of being fucked up. I found this story so difficult to believe.

Sharp Objects reminded me a little of Carrie in that it's set in a small American town with a freaky, obsessive mother and her abused daughter, but I actually found Carrie easier to believe. It's a book about telekinesis, and I don't even like Stephen King's work that much.

I was hoping for so much more from this book. Parts of it were interesting, such as Camille being a journalist who hated having to do a lot of the things that journalists find themselves doing, such as hounding bereaved family members for quotes after a murder has occurred, but I couldn't quite understand why she also had to be a fairly poor journalist. Why couldn't she be a brilliant writer who didn't like the nitty gritty parts of the job, because as someone who doesn't like being a journalist and also isn't the best writer around I struggled to understand how she still had a job. Her boss feeling sorry for her just isn't a good enough reason for me.

And then there are her mother and her terrifying younger sister. Her mother was a fairly decent villain, but her sister made no sense to me whatsoever. How the hell has this kid gotten away with her behaviour? One minute she's playing with a doll's house and the next she's taking drugs, and while part of me liked that juxtaposition between childhood and adulthood, I just couldn't believe that any town would consider it normal for 13 year old girls to go to house parties and have sex with several 18 year old guys.

It's worth mentioning that if you don't like to read books that feature underrage sex and/or sexual assault, I wouldn't recommend you go near Sharp Objects. There's nothing particularly graphic, but there's also no way that any 13 year old girl can give any kind of consent.

Honestly this was almost a 1 star read for me because, after Dark Places, I just didn't like it at all. I only ended up giving it 2 stars because Flynn, unlike Camille, is a brilliant writer. I mean, hey, I still finished the book, didn't I?

I feel like you really have to suspend your disbelief to enjoy this book, and I'm not quite prepared to do that with my crime novels. I want my crime novels to freak me out because I believe they could happen, not because the protagonist's sister reads like one of the twins from The Shining.

Review | Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

Dark Places

by Gillian Flynn

My Rating: 

Libby Day was just seven years old when her evidence put her fifteen-year-old brother behind bars.

Since then, she has been drifting. But when she is contacted by a group who are convinced of Ben's innocence, Libby starts to ask questions she never dared to before. Was the voice she heard her brother's? Ben was a misfit in their small town, but was he capable of murder? Are there secrets to uncover at the family farm or is Libby deluding herself because she wants her brother back?

She begins to realise that everyone in her family had something to hide that day... especially Ben. Now, twenty-four years later, the truth is going to be even harder to find.

Who did massacre the Day family?

I did it. I finally read a Gillian Flynn novel. I don't tend to read crime/thriller books that often, but whenever I do I always enjoy the process of reading them; there's something interactive about a thriller because you can come up with your own theories while you read, or, if you're like me, think of what you might do if you were in such a dire situation.

I'd been meaning to read something of Gillian Flynn's for a while, though in all honesty Gone Girl is the one novel of hers I'm the least interested in reading. I'll probably pick it up eventually, but Dark Places and Sharp Objects appeal to me more. Then I happened to find a brand new copy of Dark Places for only £1.99, so which of her novels I was going to read first was settled.

And? Well, I have very mixed feelings about this book, so much so that I'm still not sure about my rating.

Firstly, it's no secret that Flynn likes to write about unlikable people, and I don't have a problem with that; if an unlikable character is written well then I'll still care about what happens to them, and boy is Dark Places brimming with unlikable characters. But they're also very real characters for the most part. I know some people really didn't like Libby, but I loved her; she's written so well and I could understand how she is the person she is. In fact that's something Flynn does very well; Dark Places is full of characters whose lives were changed by one little thing, a simple lie at the wrong time and shit hits the fan, as it so often does in life.

I liked how we got to see from several points of view throughout the novel. We follow Libby, and then every other chapter we follow Ben, her brother, or Patty, her mother, through the day leading up to the murders. What I loved about this was how cleverly Flynn weaved everything together, so every now and then something would happen that I realised would lead to something terrible later on and I'd find myself saying 'oh no, don't do that!' If a book can make me react like that, then it's written very well.

I really can't fault Flynn's writing. She certainly isn't afraid to explore the darker, grittier, twisted side of human nature, and she does it very well.

Unfortunately, I just wasn't a fan of the big reveal at the end. When we finally find out what happened to Libby's family, and we do find out, I thought it was just too much, bordering on the unbelievable. It's very difficult to talk about without spoiling anything, and I know a lot of people love this book so I'm probably in the minority here, but let's just say I wasn't that impressed with the outcome. For me the ending was disappointing because I felt as though it came out of the blue; a few characters made decisions that made no sense to me whatsoever, but I know some readers will love that. Ultimately it's all subjective!

I'd quite like to check out the film adaptation, especially as it has the brilliant Charlize Theron in the starring role, and I'm definitely interested in checking out more of Flynn's work; I'm still not that interested in Gone Girl, but I'd like to read Sharp Objects at some point because I've heard it described as having elements of the Southern Gothic to it, and I love me a bit of Southern Gothic. Plus Flynn will be writing a retelling of Hamlet for the Hogarth Shakespeare series which should be a lot of fun.

I didn't love Dark Places, but I did enjoy reading it and I would recommend it. If you have a strong stomach.

Review | And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

And Then There Were None

by Agatha Christie

My Rating: 

First, there were ten - a curious assortment of strangers summoned as weekend guests to a private island off the coast of Devon. Their host, an eccentric millionaire unknown to all of them, is nowhere to be found. All that the guests have in common is a wicked past they're unwilling to reveal - and a secret that will seal their fate. For each has been marked for murder. One by one they fall prey. Before the weekend is out, there will be none. And only the dead are above suspicion.

This was my first foray into Agatha Christie, and I was a little bit naughty; I watched the recent BBC mini series before I read the book, meaning I already knew who the murderer was going into it. I didn't mind that too much, though, because from a writer's perspective it was really interesting for me to see how she'd written clues into her prose which, if I were going into it blind, I wouldn't have picked up on.

I also noticed that Vera, one of the main characters out of the ensemble cast, had a lot more agency in the adaptation than she does in the book. Perhaps I'd think differently if I hadn't watched the adaptation first, but I actually preferred the mini series to the book.

That's not to say Agatha Christie wasn't a great writer. I'll admit her writing style was a lot simpler than I was expecting, but there's no denying that this woman was brimming with ideas and I can see why And Then There Were None is considered to be her masterpiece. It's completely separate to Poirot and Miss Marple, and a lot more sinister. She deserves all the praise she gets for creating this story.

However, I felt as though this book could have been truly great if she'd spent a little more time on it. I don't think she rushed it - I don't know how long she spent writing it at all, perhaps it was years - but there were times when it felt as though she'd thought of a story that she didn't quite know what to do with. The way events plan out is clever, it's only when she tries to explain how everything happened that, to me, it felt a bit weak.

It was a quick, easy read, though, and if you like your mysteries and whodunnits I recommend giving it a try!