Kiwiria's January Jaunts

[kiwiria]

The Nothing Man - Catherine Ryan Howard, 3.5/5, 270 pages
Really interesting concept. It's rare to read a "true crime" book from both the victim's and the unsub's POV. I found it a fascinating way to give the audience both sides of the story.

Unfortunately, the "book within the book" wasn't all that well written (and really? Thanking the author in the acknowledgements of the fictional book? That made me roll my eyes super hard), and especially in the beginning there was far too much exposition. I get why, but it did mean that I found "Jim's" sections a lot more interesting than "Eve's". Fortunately that changed as we went along, and I ended up not being able to put the book down. I didn't find the ending entirely believable, but it worked alright within its own universe.


Anxious People - Fredrik Backman, 3/5, 360 pages
A hard book to review as the writing style definitely took some getting used to. The first 70 pages took 2.5 months - the last 290 pages took 2.5 days!

Once I got used to the writing style and jumping back and forth in time I did quite enjoy it, and wanted to know what happened next, and how everything would get sorted. It's not as realistic as the other books I've read by Backman (or as I had assumed), but the characters came to life, and - fools or not - I grew to care for many of them.

Not Backman's best (that's still "Britt-Marie Was Here"), but not his worst either.


Life's a Beach - Portia MacIntosh, 3/5, Audiobook ~8hrs
I was fairly well entertained by this, but it had some pretty significant issues, which subtracted two stars.

First of all, I absolutely hate it when the main conflict could have been - if not avoided, then at least diminished significantly by two people just communicating with each other. I fully get why the conflict arose, but good grief! Two words a bit earlier on in the book would have solved everything.

And the worst thing was that Peach didn't learn anything from it! Conflict #1 was exaggerated because of no communication, then by all means, let's not communicate when conflict #2 rolls around either!

Gah. That plus the extremely moralizing tone suddenly assumed in the last chapter made me roll my eyes and bring the rating down a notch.

But apart from those things, I did actually really enjoy the book. It wasn't nearly as good as "Honeymoon for One" (which I'd still recommend unreservedly), but took place on the same Italian island, which is never a bad setting for a book. Also, with a few exceptions I liked all the characters, and loved seeing the growth in some of them! And that what I had assumed was supposed to be the main plotline/conflict ended up being only a minor detail in the end.


The Christmas Invitation - Trisha Ashley, 4/5, Audiobook ~15hrs
A sweet Christmas story that's every bit as charming as I have come to expect from Trisha Ashley. I really enjoyed reading about Christmas at the Red House, and found it SO satisfying that Carla had backbone enough to stand up to pretty much everybody, so certain people didn't get to steamroll over everybody.

The plot is nothing special, but there were some twists and turns I hadn't guessed ahead of time (although some slightly more deux ex machina'esque than others), and as always the charm of Trisha Ashley's novels comes from her characterizations. I loved Carla, Henry, Meg and Teddy especially.


Den tavse enke - Sara Blædel, 3.5/5, 352 pages
(The Silent Widow)
I can't quite explain why, but the atmosphere somehow seemed off. I still enjoyed reading about Louise Rick, but her interactions with... well, pretty much everybody else actually, seemed stilted and forced - as if Sara has gotten tired of writing about them.

She's still a really good writer though, so once I got properly into the book, I had a hard time putting it down.


The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle - Stuart Turton, 4.5/5, 505 pages
Absolutely brilliant concept - and fortunately really good execution as well.

A bit slow to start. The book is told in first person (for obvious reasons) and in present tense - both of which make sense and are definitely necessary for the book to work, but it does mean that when the main character is clueless... so are we as the readers! - so it took a bit of time for the book to set the stage and get properly into the action. But once that happened? I did NOT want to put it down again and would have finished much faster if it hadn't been for those pesky things called "work" and "sleep".

A time-traveling detective is not something I thought I needed in my books, but it absolutely works. Imagine "Murder on the Orient Express", but instead of Poirot interrogating all the suspects about the night of the murder, he experiences it over and over again from different viewpoints. In fact, the atmosphere was SO Agatha Christie'esque that I felt very vindicated when the author admitted to her being his inspiration in his afterword X-D

(But give this a shot even if you aren't a fan of Agatha Christie. I'm not, and it totally worked for me!)

There are a lot of characters to keep straight (which is harder than usual, thanks to all the jumping around!) so I very much appreciated the list of characters in the front of the book, and returned often to both it and the map of the house.

This is definitely not a book you want spoiled, and while the back blurb is kinda necessary for the beginning to make sense, the less you know ahead of time, the better. THAT SAID... I'm really looking forward to reading it again - knowing all I know now and trying to put all the clues together faster. I can't remember when I last flipped this much back and forth while reading a book, trying to keep all the separate threads sorted.

Really, really well written. Highly recommended.


Lockdown on London Lane - Beth Reekles, 3.5/5, 352 pages
I was immediately hooked by the premise of this book - the first I've read that actually takes place in the time of Corona. One might wonder why I'd even want to read about that, but it is our new normal, so....

Anyway, I did have a few reservations about the initial concept (an apartment building has gone into lockdown with nobody allowed in or out for a week) - it didn't seem all that believable to me that residents weren't allowed back home into their apartments. But once I got past that aspect of it, I really enjoyed the book! You follow five different storylines of five different apartments with five very different groups of people, and much like in "Love Actually", while each storyline is unique, they still overlap or interact from time to time.

You have Ethan who's stuck alone as his girlfriend was out visiting her parents and weren't allowed to come home; Zach and Serena who start to wonder how much they really know about each other; Olivia who's hosting a wedding planning weekend for 4 friends; Isla and Danny who've only been dating for a month and suddenly have to spend an entire week together; and finally Nate and Imogen who were supposed to be having a one-night stand, until Corona intervened.

I'd be hard pressed to pick a favourite storyline, as they all seemed to ebb and flow as the week went along, and I really appreciated how REAL all the characters were. These were believable conflicts with (mostly) believable outcomes -- good, as well as bad.

So one star removed for my initial reservations, but the rest of the book made up for it.


The Break-Up - Charlotte Barnes, 3/5, 352 pages
Honestly.... I don't know how to rate this book. I had a hard time putting it down, but at the same time it didn't quite ring true to me. I have absolutely no problems believing that getting engaged could freak out somebody so much as to make the suggestion Rowan did - but to then turn around and become such an ass? I don't know - it seemed contrived. Also, the way Edi's friends talked about him even before the break seemed off. It seemed like the author went out of her way to make the reader dislike Rowan when the plot didn't really need it, and the end result could just as easily have been achieved by proper communication.

Also, the new romance didn't work for me. No way Edi would move on that quickly after having been sucker-punched by her fiancé. Even if it was originally just to get him back and show that what was good for the goose is good for the gander. And even though the book is listed as LGBTQ. I really didn't think this was explored at all. Sure, the new love interest is female, but except for a few sessions of Edi angsting "But does that mean I'm not straight???" (literally just keeping it to that one-liner), no page time at all is used on what made her go from Robbie to Fred. Is she bi? Demi? Some other form of queer? Still searching? It's just left there.

I did like Edi's friends. Their characterization was a bit too two-dimensional at times (Molly was ONLY focused on A, Betty ONLY cared about B etc.), but the group dynamics worked and seemed very realistic. And I absolutely love reading about a group of friends who are 100% there for each other - no hidden agendas, no backstabbing, no ulterior motives. Just girls propping each other up. So kudos for that!

So at the end of the day I'm left with a book that I enjoyed reading... but where I'd have to add several disclaimers before recommending it to anybody else.


Gerd og morbror Martin - Rigmor Friis*, 3.5/5, 87 pages
It's very likely more than 20 years since I read this book last, but it used to be a firm favourite during my childhood, so I got the urge to reread it. It's very clearly a childrens' book - rather superficial and glosses over several years very quickly - but still holds some of the same charm as it did back then.


And All the Stars - Andrea K. Höst*, 4/5, 199
The first time I read this I LOVED it and breezed right through it, so while I remember not being quite as blown away by it on my second readthrough, I was still surprised that it took me ALMOST NINE MONTHS to finish it this time around. Granted, some of that was a SERIOUS bout of corona fatigue that made me not want to read anything at all, but still...

I don't even quite get why... the plot is good and is right up my aisle, but something about the writing kept me at a distance, and I never got fully invested in the characters or the plot... and since I'd already read it before, I didn't have any urgency to see what happened next. But to be fair, I think that's got a lot more to do with my headspace while I was reading it, rather than the quality of the book itself.

Book of the Month: The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. Loved it!
Biggest Disapointment: None. I had a few 'meh' books, but none that I would go so far as to call disappointments.