October Books

[dantheman23.livejournal.com]

Executive Power
by Vince Flynn

This series continues to impress. Mitch now has to balance the fact that he's married with his dangerous job and national security. I feel like Flynn does an outstanding job of giving his characters realistic feelings and thoughts; when Mitch and his wife have a fight he gives both characters' thoughts on it and why they think the other one is being unreasonable and it's exactly how a man and woman would think about it. Pretty good action in this one too. I wish my library was faster about getting me these! 4/5

Personal
by Lee Child

Let's have a moment of silence for the fact I am essentially caught up with this series (the only one I haven't read is the one that just came out). It was a good Reacher book, and I didn't know who the ultimate bad guy was until the reveal, although I did know one major part of the mystery from the beginning. It started out in the Seattle area; it would have been fun to have a Reacher book take place here but he was quickly whisked off to North Carolina, then Paris and London. 4/5

The Fate of Ten
by Pittacus Lore

I'm kind of ready for this series to be over with. It gets a little weirder with each installment and it's dragging out a little bit for more sales I'm sure. I still like it and find it interesting, especially the background stuff that's finally being revealed, but it feels like this series is reaching its natural conclusion. It seems like the next book should be the last, hopefully it can wrap the series up well. 3.5/5

Beyond the Setting Sun
by Colin Skinner

The true story of Colin deciding at a young age, after working in hospice, that he wanted to walk all the way across Britain and across the U.S. in order to raise awareness of it. He covers Britain pretty quickly in the book then spends most of the time in America. Fascinating premise for a book but it wasn't written particularly well and I had trouble getting into it. The end got a little better though, and it was fun reading about what and who he encountered along the way. Amazing how nice and hospitable people can be when you get them away from the big city and all the crap that comes with living too close together. He was totally unprepared for the trip and had no idea what he was getting into, but he had luck on his side (mostly) and the right attitude. Good story, mediocre writing. 3/5

The Smiling Dogs
by Kenneth Robeson

I was out of things to read so I asked a co-worker if he had anything I could read and he loaned me this, which he called his “backup book.” (“Don't you have a backup book?” he asked me). It's from a 40s pulp fiction series called The Avenger, a man who loses his wife and children when they are killed by criminals at the same time he is disfigured. He goes on to fight crime as The Avenger, a name feared by all who hear it haha. It was not bad, what you would expect from a 40s crime novel. Not going to run out and read the rest of the series, but it filled the gap nicely. 3/5

Rising Sun
by Michael Crichton

Well, better than the last book of his I read (Timeline), but still not great. I really liked the first two books of his I read, but now he's only batting .500 This one started off well and I was really into it at first but then it just dragged and dragged and it was one of those books where by the end I didn't even care about the big reveal. It was written in 1990 and is basically one big screed against Japan taking over our country. Not that I disagree with what he was saying, but he laid it on pretty dang thick. It also got tiresome hearing about the differences between Japanese and American culture over and over again. 2.5/5


Books for October: 6
Books for 2015: 61