Reviews by Kyle Ellis

Stephen King once said, "Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a darn. She's not very good."
I couldn't agree more, Stephen. With that, we shall kick this off with a joke:

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Heh.

This re-reading is brought to you courtesy of Project: Hindsight.


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I'm sorry folks. I just could not get through this shit book another time. However, since I've already read it a few times, I feel extremely confident in skipping to the review. But first, can someone please explain to me why this book is 563 pages?! Seriously, how is it possible a book with almost no plot can be so long? When I first read New Moon back in 2008, I didn't like it. In fact I'm not even sure why it had three stars because I remember being super frustrated. Even though Edward and Bella's relationship deeply disturbs my soul, Bella is so incredibly boring without him. I'm not even sure how Stephenie Meyer managed 563 pages. Truly, I'm amazed because I can sum up New Moon in one big picture:

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But let's get on with it, I'll go into some detail for ya.

The book starts off on Bella's 18th birthday, a day she has been dreading for months only because in her mind she will be one year older than Edward. So, she makes a huge production about people not celebrating her birthday, but the Cullens ignore her and Alice plans a party. Before Edward forces her to attend they watch Romeo and Juliet (the book's supposed theme) and they have merry little conversation about Edward's contingency plans once Bella dies. Now, let's not forget they've only been dating for a few months. Yet, here they are making out and talking about killing themselves in the event of the other's death. How romantic. Don't even ask me the logic behind how they can even kiss when his teeth are supposed to be "venom coated." Stephenie Meyer gives some bull shit excuse she must have learned from ass-grab 101. But I digress...

Finally, they make it to the birthday party. Bella gets a paper cut and Jasper almost single-handedly ends this series on page 29.

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Unfortunately, to my dismay his attempt was foiled by Edward. Eddie pushes Bella out the way and she crashes into the glass plates, slashing up her arm. Pause, let's think about that scene a bit: Who's bright idea was it to have glass plates? With a human. In a room full of vampires. That drink blood. Isn't Alice psychic? Why didn't she see Bella cutting her finger on the wrapping paper? Wait, don't think about that because if you spend all your time contemplating the stupidity, we'll never get through this review.

Obviously, Eddie is not happy with the events that went down at his place and Bella further irritates him by apologizing for...wait for it...being human. Bella, you know you've been hanging out with mythical creatures too much when you start thinking your humanity isn't normal. But anyway, Eddie does what any loving boyfriend would do after their girlfriend is attack by their brother: he ignores her. And because Eddie is "Alpha Male Edward" and Bella is "Submissive Mary Sue Bella," she doesn't confront him about it. Instead, she waits for him to be ready. On the third day of ignoring her, he drags he into the words and chucks up the deuces. The exchange goes a little like this:
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Alpha Male Edward tells Submissive Mary Sue Bella firmly, "No, I don't want you to come. You're no good for me." And she pretty much agrees realizing how much of a waste of space she is. Then Edward just pours salt all over her open wound and tells her:
"Don't do anything reckless or stupid," he ordered, no longer detached. "Do you understand what I'm saying?...I'm thinking of Charlie, of course. He needs you. Take care of yourself--for him."
I nodded helplessly.
Wow. Relly? You're just going to let him order you around like that? How about you look after yourself FOR YOU first, everyone else second? Awesome Bells. Can I call you Bells? Not only do you have ZERO self-preservation skills, but also no self-confidence. Just awesome. There's only about a million or so girls looking up to you as a role model. No pressure to be a strong female character. You could have walked away from this with grace, but no, instead all your dignity flies out the window when you pull a bitch move and run after Edward through the woods.
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Then, she defaults back to "Fuck my life" mode and slips into a depression for four fucking months. I find it kind of funny her depression was longer than their actual relationship. Heh. But this wasn't just any depression, it was some serious shit.
I always had nightmares now, every night. Not nightmares really, not in the plural, because it was always the same nightmare. You'd think I'd get bored after so many months, grow immune to it.
Or how about this:
Even my outsides looked different--my face sallow, white except for the purple circles the nightmares had left under my eyes. My eyes were dark enough against my pallid skin that--if I were beautiful and seen from a distance--I might even pass for a vampire now.
Once again I find myself asking the question: Where are her parents?! Why did Charlie let this go on for FOUR months?! She should have been in counseling or something. But Meyer thinks she can just pacify readers by Renee sending a random e-mail here and there or Charlie just suggesting she seek help, only to be shot down by Bella. Fail. So much fail.

All that considered, that's not even the biggest problem I have with this book. Bella soon figures out she can conjure up hallucinations of Edward if she does something reckless or suicidal. This is where Jake comes into play. Bella uses Jake (like everyone else) to get what she wants by asking him to fix up two motorcycles she found and giving her riding lessons. She figures it will be the perfect thing to help her see more of Edward. I suppose she simply forgot how big of a klutz she is and once the bikes are fixed the lessons commence. The first time she gets on she falls off and Jake (the only one with common sense) thinks they should call it a day before she gets hurt. But Bella thinks this is BK and she can have it her way, and gets back on the bike.
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Chick has gone batshit crazy and she promptly busts her ass. But she doesn't care because her mission was a success! She got to see and hear Edward! Her next brilliant idea is to throw herself off a cliff during high tide. The first time I read this I was secretly hoping she would drown, but the other two books already were published, so it was a hopeless wish. Oh and I almost forgot to mention the actual plot. LOL. Funny how that happens when there isn't one, huh? LOL. The She-vamp, Victoria, is scoping out the area trying to get to Bella. But her part is VERY small in this book (like the plot), so we don't really need to talk about her. I suppose the wolf pack is worth mentioning: They're pretty much a bunch of wannabe werewolves that run around with their shirts off.
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That's all you really need to know about them.

So, finally Alice shows up in chapter 18 because she thought Bella was trying to commit suicide (close enough Alice). And through a nice little exchange of "he said, she said" BS, Edward is off to Italy to kill himself. This causes Bella to go into "hero" mode and race to Italy and save Edward. I really don't care enough to give my thoughts on the race to Italy. That entire part was rushed and anti-climatic. There isn't even a fight scene. Instead here is a timeline courtesy of Reasoning with Vampires (Thanks for the link Cait and Jen!):

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Anyway, they get back to good old Forks and Bella composes a vote on everyone's thoughts of her joining team undead. Edward is at a steady "no" along with Rosalie. But everyone else says, "Hell yes!" Like becoming a vampire is a party or something. Funny thing is when Bella asks Jasper he goes:
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And she's all:
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Hmm, yeah, that's not weird at all. Not the least bit creepy.

In the last few pages Edward and Jake have a little pissing contest and Edward proposes to Bella. The End. Yawn. Thank God it's over.

Now where's my fuckin' chocolate?

My Twilight Review can be found here.


***BONUS***

Oh, yeah, bonus time. 'Cause what's a review without one?

Quick! If I were to light Edward on fire what would he become?

(view spoiler)


More reviews and more at Cuddlebuggery Book Blog.

"You gave it three stars?" she asked me, biting her lip and holding her breath.

"Yes," I finally answered with my marble lips, cold yet strangely comforting, even warm. "Stephenie, don't forget to breathe."

"Oh, of course." A storm seemed to rage in her for just a moment.

"I gave it a three. It's good." I would never lie to her, could never lie to her. Yet, somehow, she felt it was a lie and brooded in stillness for a moment that seemed to last an eternity.

Finally, I broke the aching silence. "I gave it a three because the vampire lore was that good -- the extended plotline and the setup for a decent fourth novel were all enjoyable." There, I said it. Would it be enough for her? No, it would never be enough.

"But you absolutely hated the tent scene with the [spoiler removed:], and you wanted to send Bella straight to vampire hell for her self-absorbed, self-indulgent, self-obsessed self-ness by the end."

We paused and I noticed sobs erupting from deep inside her.

"Stephenie, breathe, and stop biting your lip, it's getting really annoying. Quit with the crying already. Yes, all of those things are true, and if I could release myself from your books, I would. But-"

"But?" she asked longlingly, her fingers caressing my face while my fingers caressed her face and somebody else's fingers were somehow caressing both our faces because you can never have too much face-caressing going on -- whose fingers are those, anyway?

"But despite how much I hate Bella by now, I really want to find out more about the Volturi and the process of becoming a vampire and whether Bella is somehow part of an ancient bloodline that stirs up all the vampires and werewolves whenever she's around. That's why I gave it three stars, and that's why-" I gasped, she gasped, we both forgot to breathe and bit our lips, "-why I will be reading the fourth book as soon as it is out."

Finally, I remembered to breathe and stopped caressing her face, looked into her eyes and with my godlike, cool, marble lips, asked, "Satisfied?"

Smiling, she answered, "Yes, very."

____________

Notes from James: If you like this one, you will probably also get a kick out of my original review of Book 1. Enjoy!

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Okay, I have to say that I picked this book up partly due to all the hype (and partly because it's involved two of my favorite genres)... I mean, so many people had recommended it to me and I finally got sick of hearing about it, so I picked it up and read it... or as least tried to.

Let me first say that I am a huge romance and vampire/supernatural fan, so when I first heard about the book I was really excited to read it because it combined two of my favorite genres.

But, I really regret ever buy

If you had not read The Shining already, the 2013 publication of Doctor Sleep, the sequel, presented an opportunity to revisit one of the best ghost stories of our time, a perfect justification for stepping through those bat-wing doors for the first time.

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1st Edition cover – Published January 28, 1977 – 447 pps

It has been a lifetime since I read The Shining for the first time, over thirty years ago. I enjoyed it then for its effectiveness in telling a scary, no, a very scary story. Reading it now is colored, as is all of life, by our accumulation (or lack of accumulation) of experience. We see, or appreciate colors, textures, shapes, structures, and feelings with more experienced, educated eyes. We have seen, or are at least aware of real world things that are scarier than any fictional spectres. So, what does it look like through old, cloudy lenses?

It remains a very scary story. The things that stand out for me now are not so much the deader rising up out of a bathtub to pursue a curious child, although that is still pretty creepy, or the mobile topiary, which still works pretty well at making the hair on one’s neck and arms stand at attention. But King was using the haunted house trope to look at more personal demons. And those shine through more clearly now.

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From Allyn Scura’s blog

He had some drinking issues at the time he wrote the book, when he was 30, and concern about that is major here. Jack Torrance is an alcoholic, no question. He also has issues with anger management, not that the little shit he clocks while teaching at a New England prep school didn’t have it coming. He did. But one cannot do that to a student, however deserving, and expect to remain employed for long. His little boy, however, most certainly did not deserve a broken arm. Jack is very remorseful, and wants to make things right. He manages to get a gig taking care of the Overlook Hotel in Colorado over the winter. It will offer him a chance to get something right after a string of getting things wrong, offer a chance to save his marriage, and offer an opportunity to work on his unfinished play. Risky? Sure. But a gamble worth taking. And his wife, Wendy, agrees, despite having serious misgivings. There are no attractive alternatives.

Of course, we all know that the Overlook is not your typical residence. Odd things happen, sounds are heard, thoughts from somewhere outside find their way into your mind. Jack is targeted, and boy is he vulnerable.

But five-year-old Danny is the real key here. He is the proud possessor of an unusual talent, the shining of the book’s title. Danny can not only do a bit of mind-reading, he can also see things that other people cannot. And for a little guy he has a huge talent. He also has an invisible friend named Tony with whom only he can communicate.

It is difficult to think about the book without finding our mental screens flickering with the images of Jack Nicholson in full cartoonish psycho rage, the very effective sound of a Big Wheel followed by a steadicam coursing through the long halls of the hotel, and the best casting decision ever in choosing Scatman Crothers to play Dick Halloran. By the way, the hotel is based on a real-world place, the Stanley Hotel, in Estes Park, Colorado. And the Overlook’s spooky room 217 was inspired by the supposedly haunted room 217 at the Stanley.


This image is from the hotel’s site – they clearly embrace the spectral connection

The room number was changed in the film to 237, at the request of the Timberline hotel, which was used for exterior shots. There is so much that differentiates Kubrick’s film from the book that they are almost entirely different entities. The differences do require a bit of attention here. First, and foremost, the book of The Shining is about the disintegration of a family due to alcoholism and anger issues. How a child survives in a troubled family is key. The film is pretty much pure spook house, well-done spook house, but solely spook house, nonetheless, IMHO. There is considerable back-story to Jack and Wendy that gets no screen time. You have to read the book to get that. Jack is a victim, as much as Wendy and Danny. You would never get that from the slobbering Jack of the film. The maze in the book was pretty cool, right? I liked it too, but it does not exist in the book. I believe it was put in to replace the talented topiary, which is the definition of a bad trade. There is significant violence in the book that never made its way into Kubrick’s film, but which very much raises a specter of domestic violence that is terrorizing real people living in real horror stories. There are a few lesser elements. Jack wielded a roque mallet, not an axe. Danny is not interrupted in his travels through the corridors by Arbus-like twin sisters. And the sisters in question are not even twins. There are plenty more, but you get the idea. An interesting film, for sure, but not really the most faithful



interpretation of the book. King saw that a film that more closely reflected what he had written reached TV screens in 1997, with a six-hour mini-series version.

Irrelevancies of a personal nature
The opening shot was filmed on the Going–to-the-Sun Road in Montana’s Glacier National Park in Montana. I have had the pleasure (7 times in one visit) and recommend the drive wholeheartedly. It is a pretty narrow road though, so you will have to drive carefully. Bring along the appropriate musical media for the best effect, Wendy Carlos’s Rocky Mountain, and dress warmly. It was below freezing when I reached the top of the road, in August. Some exteriors for Kubrick’s film were shot at the Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood in Oregon. I visited but did not stay there back in 2008. Sadly I do not have any decent personal photos from the place. I can report, though, on a bit


This shot was found on Wikimedia

of kitsch. There is a place in the hotel where an ax is lodged in a block of wood, with HEEEEERE’s JOHNNY on the ax, a tourist photo-op. And yes, I did. Sadly, or luckily, the shot did not come out well, so you will be spared.

Back to the book, Danny’s talent is a two-edged sword. He is afflicted with seeing more than anyone his age should have to see, but on the other hand, he has a tool he can use to try to save them all. Whether he can or not is a core tension element here.

King is fond of placing his stories in literary context. He peppers the text with references to various relevant books and authors. I expect these are meant to let us know his influences. Horace Walpole, author of The Castle of Otranto, a Gothic classic, is mentioned, as is Shirley Jackson, of Hill House fame. King had used a quote from this book in Salem’s Lot. A family saga rich with death and destruction, Cashelmara is mentioned as are some more contemporary items, like The Walton Family, the idealized antithesis to the Torrance Family, Where the Wild Things Are and novelist Frank Norris. The primary literary reference here is Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death, which is cited many times. There had been a costume ball back in hotel’s history and it is the impending climax of that party, the unmasking, that looms here. And toss in nods to Treasure Island and Bluebeard for good measure.

King often includes writers in his work, avatars for himself.
I write about writers because I know the territory. Also, you know it's a great job for a protagonist in a book. Without having to hold down a steady job, writers can have all sorts of adventures. Also, if they disappear, it's a long time before they are missed. Heh-heh-heh. – from an AOL interview
Jack Torrance is a writer as well as a teacher. The play that Jack is writing undergoes a transformation that mirrors Jack’s own. In fact, there is a fair bit or mirroring going on here. Jack’s affection for his father as a kid was as strong as Danny's is for him. His father was an abusive alcoholic. While Jack is not (yet) the monster his father was, he is also an alcoholic with abusive tendencies.
I never had a father in the house. My mother raised my brother and I alone. I wasn’t using my own history, but I did tap into some of the anger you sometimes feel to the kids, where you say to yourself: I have really got to hold on to this because I’m the big person here, I’m the adult. One reason I wanted to use booze in the book is that booze has a tendency to fray that leash you have on your temper…For a lot of kids, Dad is the scary guy. It’s that whole thing where your mother says, ‘You just wait until your father comes home!” In The Shining, these people were snowbound in a hotel and Dad is always home! And Dad is fighting this thing with the bottle and he’s got a short temper anyway. I was kind of feeling my own way in that because I was a father of small children. And one of the things that shocked me about fatherhood was it was possible to get angry at your kids. (from the EW interview cited in Extra Stuff)
He’s right. I have had the pleasure and I know. Wendy gets some attention as well, as we learn a bit about her mother, and see Wendy’s fear that she has inherited elements of her mother’s awfulness.

Not everything shines here. There are times when five-year-old Danny seems much older than his tender years, even given his extraordinary circumstances. It struck me as surprising that there is no mention of anyone suggesting that maybe Jack might attend an AA meeting. But these are like single dead pixels on a large screen.

If you want to read horror tales that are straight up scare’ems, there are plenty in the world. But if you appreciate horror that offers underlying emotional content, and I know you do, my special gift tells me that The Shining is a brilliant example of how a master illuminates the darkness.

This review, with images intact, has also been posted on my blog

=============================EXTRA STUFF

Definitely check out the Wiki for this book – nifty info on the King Family’s stay at the Stanley, and yes, there was a Grady at the Stanley.

I also recommend checking out SK’s site if you want to learn more about him

An interview with King in Entertainment Weekly

BTW, here is a shot of the model snowmobile that Dick Halloran drives back to the Overlook


A few other SK's we have reviewed
Under the Dome
Duma Key
Lisey's Story
Doctor Sleep
Revival
Mr. Mercedes
Just After Sunset

jason, an old high school buddy, knew i was in manhattan for a few nights and asked to meet up for dinner. fuck it, i'm a sentimental guy, and it's nice to catch up -- even with a wall street douchebag. jason told me that lisa, another old friend, would be joining. here's the conversational breakdown at dinner:

20 minutes: comparing features on their new blackberries.
40 minutes: the new zagat guide and the city's best restaurants.
20 minutes: glib commentary on people we grew up with.

lisa leaves and jason asks me to walk a few blocks and check out his new apartment "fucking sick pad, bro, sick" -- unable to deal with any more of this shit without backup, i text the address to bryan and john; they meet up and we sit in jason's super large, super minimalist, picture-window-overlooking-the-city apartment shooting the shit and drinking johnnie walker blue label. jason is quickly bored and calls over two hookers. he hits the bedroom with the cuter of the two; me john and bryan sit at the living room table and drink blue label with the other one. five minutes passes and we hear this from jason's bedroom:

jason (screams): 'get off! get the fuck off!'

we're all wondering what it is, exactly, she is on that he wants her off of. and if we should go in there and see if everything's ok. and then again:

jason: 'get the fuck off!'
hooker: 'shut up!'

the door busts open and the hooker storms out with a very angry jason behind her ranting that she took a phone call while giving him head and carried on a conversation while licking his balls.

so it's a moment of hilarious revelation when we realize that what jason wanted her to get off of, of course, was her phone.

phone girl looks to blue label girl: 'you ready to go?'
blue label girl: 'you get paid?'
phone girl nods.

jason (angry): 'you're not going anywhere! i fucking paid for two girls! all we got was a half!'

the girls pause and give us the once over, i imagine, to gauge if we're the kinda guys to get violent or to let 'em just walk out with jason's money. they're professionals and know their shit. they walk out.

jason lamely chides us for not getting his back.
me bryan and john go down to von for a beer.


i recently re-read american psycho only a few weeks after returning from jason's (second) wedding in a vineyard in napa. they wouldn't allow any alcohol other than their own wine to be drunk, so everyone compensated with dimebags and eightballs. and i spent hours talking to all these coked-out shitbags (and, yeah, i guess i was a coked-out shitbag, but in an entirely different non-patrick-batemanesque way) -- here's the wedding conversational breakdown:


- new gadgets (iphones, stereos, flatscreens, cars)
- we are at the top of the system because we are the smartest and most shrewd and if obama is going to regulate us and put more money in the hands of the poor, we will be forced to prey on the poor… good job obama, you just fucked the poor in a way bush never could have.
- is jay-z the 'new sinatra'?
- vacation spots. (st. barts, maui, etc)
- can we get more coke?
- you know how much money greg has? fucking sick, bro. you know he took a fucking private helicopter here, right?
- jason's stepsister is kinda hot. you think i can fuck her?



easton ellis's book isn't really much of an exaggeration. what it is: controlled, hilarious, horrible, tragic, honest. and he employs some great little warholian tricks (whereas andy lined up pictures of mao, marilyn, & minestrone, easton ellis clobbers us with a quick repetition of interwoven, passive-voiced, flattened-out sentences about daytime television, anal rape, and fashion tips) to accent his truly mad book.


but the big question: is american psycho a book that hates women? i guess. I mean, it's about and for a culture that hates women, no? now, i don't really wanna defend the book against these charges; more fun to wonder what those who view american psycho as woman-hating or anti-feminist make of the dozens (hundreds?) of panty-sniffing television shows, movies, graphic novels, books, and video games that blanket pop culture?

consider, as a mild example, Law & Order: SVU.
here we have a show in which every episode is about an underage girl raped. or a coma victim raped. or an old woman raped. written, shot, and ingested as titillating panty-sniffing nonsense. less offensive because it takes itself so seriously? because one of the cops is a woman? or because it's able to take a preposterous and unrealistic moral standpoint in 'punishing' the crime/criminal by having them jailed or killed? or, in those rare occasions when the rapist isn't caught, we're given a profound & poignant & important commentary on violence and crime and the justiceblahfuckingblah.

or do CSI, SVU, COLD CASE, etc. get a pass because they're low art, light entertainment, 'not taken seriously'...? the shit's backwards, yo.

to be totally honest, i have a hard time seeing how one views (as so many do) american psycho as 'woman hating' or 'anti-woman' or 'anti-feminist' -- i suspect that easton ellis is so good at what he does, his depiction of violence so visceral, excessive, and demented that it literally pushes people to a point in which they must either reduce the book to a 'commentary on society and consumerism and capitalism' (ugh) or to the point at which the excess drowns out any point easton ellis imagines he's making.


and then there's a complaint best made by David Foster Wallace:

"I think it's a kind of black cynicism about today's world that Ellis and certain others depend on for their readership. Look, if the contemporary condition is hopelessly shitty, insipid, materialistic, emotionally retarded, sadomasochistic, and stupid, then I (or any writer) can get away with slapping together stories with characters who are stupid, vapid, emotionally retarded, which is easy, because these sorts of characters require no development. With descriptions that are simply lists of brand-name consumer products. Where stupid people say insipid stuff to each other. If what's always distinguished bad writing -- flat characters, a narrative world that's cliched and not recognizably human, etc. -- is also a description of today's world, then bad writing becomes an ingenious mimesis of a bad world. If readers simply believe the world is stupid and shallow and mean, then Ellis can write a mean shallow stupid novel that becomes a mordant deadpan commentary on the badness of everything. Look man, we'd probably most of us agree that these are dark times, and stupid ones, but do we need fiction that does nothing but dramatize how dark and stupid everything is? In dark times, the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements of what's human and magical that still live and glow despite the times' darkness. Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it'd find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it. You can defend "Psycho" as being a sort of performative digest of late-eighties social problems, but it's no more than that."


while i find his stance admirable and elegantly stated, there's so so so much i disagree with here -- i guess it all comes down to an ear-drum shattering 'NO!' i do not believe that 'in dark times the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements.' i believe that could be a definition of 'good art', but not the definition. norman mailer (who tried, and failed, to create an american psycho type book with his an american dream) complains that easton ellis offers no alternative to the 'flat, insipid' life of patrick bateman... DFW and mailer seem to suggest that we need two things from art:


1. we need to follow a traditional model of literature which presents the good contrasted against the bad (i.e. tolstoy, dickens, etc); an art which offers an alternative morality, a way out, a 'CPR', something better... this is, of course, reactionary nonsense. what's good for leo, charlie, dave, or norm ain't necessarily good for the gander.


2. we need a representation of the 'good' in our art to show the reader an alternative or a means to break free. bullshit: while orwell needed a winston smith in order to achieve the intended effect of 1984, i cannot conceive of an american psycho with a moral voice. the moral voice comes not from the narrator or characters within the novel, but from the reader herself.


and look -- most of the shit i dig tries to do just this: "illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it" -- finding a means to live with integrity in a world of shit is an underlying theme in most of the shit i respond to and/or create. but, again, this does not mean that it is the author's job (or the creator of 'good art') to proceed along those lines. in fact, what i most appreciate about easton ellis is his refusal to trace over pre-defined lines.


as helpful, at times, as it might be to read litcrit and reviews which approach the novel as a kind of book-shaped container meant to convey certain ideas, standpoints, or commentaries... as a reader (for me, at least), it's a killer. deadly. american psycho is a great book in that, yes, there's lots of serious shit going on in there that lends itself to term papers, academic essays, and the like; and, yes, it succeeds wonderfully in defining a particular point in american history... but also because it transcends all that. it creates (here goes my generalization), as does all 'good art', the ineffable feeling only able to be expressed through that particular work. no other contemporary writer (except, perhaps, delillo at his best) is able to infuse a work with such dread. the dread that easton ellis creates in this book goes far beyond DFW's simple assertion that american psycho 'does nothing but dramatize how dark and stupid everything is.'
transcendence through dread, baby.

3 1/2 stars.

This is going to be a hard review to write because I feel so conflicted about my final rating and just how much I actually liked this book. For one thing, I think the second half is a big improvement on the first half and, though this is my least favourite book by Ms Flynn, I can see in some ways why other reviewers see this as her strongest work.

Let me ask this question: is it possible to be objective when writing a book review? Can a book ever be objectively "good", even though some people might not enjoy it so much? To use quite an extreme example, I really struggled to read Proust's Swann's Way and can't say I enjoyed it - but that doesn't make it a bad book. Surely I cannot begin to claim that Proust is anything other than a literary genius? I wouldn't want to try.

I don't think I need to tell you that Flynn is not quite Proust. But some of the same old ideas kept popping into my head while I was reading Gone Girl because I think this is the book that most showcases Flynn's talent for writing. And for exploring the dark depths of psychology. Sharp Objects and Dark Places are wild, gritty, nasty books that pull you in, engage you and poison your mind. You don't devour them, they devour you. I read both of Flynn's previous novels in a day or two. Unlike Gone Girl, which I tried to read about five times and gave up, then when I finally came back to it, I took a week to get through it. To put it in perspective, I read War and Peace in the same time it took me to read Flynn's latest work.

But it's good, isn't it? How can I not praise a book that so cleverly pulls apart the minds of a husband and wife? In terms of writing, creativity, originality... this is her best work to date. In terms of enjoyment... I struggled a lot. Gone Girl is much slower than Flynn's first two novels, which is both a strength and a weakness. It allows for a slow, cleverly-painted picture to build up of this marriage and its many secrets, of Amy and Nick's state of mind. It is intense and brilliant. But I think it all comes down to the fact that I didn't care much about the background story of the couple's financial hardship. I think this is why I found the parts where they whine about how awful their life is - moving from a huge house in New York to a slightly smaller one in Missouri* - quite tedious.

I am used to Ms Flynn giving me the dregs of society, the lowlifes and the majorly-troubled, giving me characters with genuine reasons to complain about life. Spoilt, rich people do not pull at my heartstrings. But, objectively, this is a really great book.

*The trolls have started descending on this review because I got the house sizes mixed up - apparently the house in Missouri was bigger (how this makes a difference other than to further prove my point, I do not know). I'm very sorry if I have influenced you to read/not read this book with false house size information.

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I once read a book by a former alcoholic where she described giving oral sex to two different men, men she'd just met in a restaurant on a busy London high street. I read it and I thought, I'm not that bad. This is where the bar is set.

oh, yeah - this one is going to be a must-read for those people looking to find their next Gone Girl experience. it's an incredibly fast-paced and engrossing psychological thriller, and i was on board as soon as i read the editor's bit of ARC-copy, even though i know that writing those things is part of the job and not at all unbiased. but it's hard not to be swayed when you read:

Within days of my introducing the manuscript in March, people from every department were regularly pulling me aside to testify to how much they loved the read, how they couldn't put it down. At a recent meeting, a colleague who was twelve pages from the end was secretly reading them under the table because she could not stop. Another had the manuscript propped up next to her phone so she could read between calls, and last week in the elevator, people around me suddenly started competing over who'd read it fastest, and who was more surprised by the ending. You know you have something special when it becomes watercooler talk for months on end.

it would take a very stubbornly cynical person to see that as anything other than genuine enthusiasm.

and the book definitely delivers. it is an absolute page-turner with a number of unreliable narrators ranging from the self-deluded to the spotty memory of the blackout drunk.

i am too busy reading on my daily commute to notice my fellow passengers unless they are smelly/behaving in an unstable manner (frequently), or exceptionally attractive (MUCH less frequently), but apparently this is a thing that commuters do - notice their fellow travelers, making up stories about their lives, speculating about what they do when they're not in the in-between moments of their day. and rachel does it more than most. rachel is blisteringly lonely, drowning the sorrows of her failed marriage with grim determination and canned gin and tonics and endless bottles of wine. she has lost her job because of her perpetual drunkenness, but rather than tell her flatmate, she keeps taking the train into london every day, pretending to go to work, but actually just getting drunk in various places, and happily fantasizing about the young couple she watches every day from her train window; a couple who live a few doors down from her old house, where her ex-husband tom still resides with his new wife and baby girl.

still reeling from tom's infidelity to her, she nonetheless would love to be back with him, and in this golden couple she observes and imagines, calling them "jess and jason," she sees the life she could have had with tom. one day, while commuting/gazing voyeuristically, she witnesses "jess" on her front lawn with another man, in what appears to be a romantic clinch. she is outraged at this display, as personally offended as if the infidelity were being committed against herself. shortly after this episode, she learns that "jess," actually named megan, has disappeared, and feeling connected to this couple she has never actually met, she insinuates herself into the investigation, meeting with both the police and megan's husband, actual name scott.

the story is told from three perspectives: rachel's, megan's, and tom's new wife anna, and covers all the traditional viewpoints of the typical domestic drama: the jilted lover, the other woman, the cheating wife. all three of these women are simultaneously sympathetic and repellent, which is tricky to pull off. and as for the mystery of megan's disappearance itself, well that path splits and splits again in a wonderful head-spinning journey where not a single character avoids suspicion (except MAYBE tom and anna's infant daughter); i think there are seven characters in total who appear to be the culprit at one point or another, and each seems as plausible as the next. it is a fantastic ride, and hawkins does a great job with both the mystery elements and the character development, with great attention to detail, and fully established backstories and motivations. even when you cringe at some of the choices, they completely make sense for the character. it is a lot of fun, and terribly addictive. much better than a meeting, i kid you not.

come to my blog!

I once read a book by a former alcoholic where she described giving oral sex to two different men, men she'd just met in a restaurant on a busy London high street. I read it and I thought, I'm not that bad. This is where the bar is set.

oh, yeah - this one is going to be a must-read for those people looking to find their next Gone Girl experience. it's an incredibly fast-paced and engrossing psychological thriller, and i was on board as soon as i read the editor's bit of ARC-copy, even though i know that writing those things is part of the job and not at all unbiased. but it's hard not to be swayed when you read:

Within days of my introducing the manuscript in March, people from every department were regularly pulling me aside to testify to how much they loved the read, how they couldn't put it down. At a recent meeting, a colleague who was twelve pages from the end was secretly reading them under the table because she could not stop. Another had the manuscript propped up next to her phone so she could read between calls, and last week in the elevator, people around me suddenly started competing over who'd read it fastest, and who was more surprised by the ending. You know you have something special when it becomes watercooler talk for months on end.

it would take a very stubbornly cynical person to see that as anything other than genuine enthusiasm.

and the book definitely delivers. it is an absolute page-turner with a number of unreliable narrators ranging from the self-deluded to the spotty memory of the blackout drunk.

i am too busy reading on my daily commute to notice my fellow passengers unless they are smelly/behaving in an unstable manner (frequently), or exceptionally attractive (MUCH less frequently), but apparently this is a thing that commuters do - notice their fellow travelers, making up stories about their lives, speculating about what they do when they're not in the in-between moments of their day. and rachel does it more than most. rachel is blisteringly lonely, drowning the sorrows of her failed marriage with grim determination and canned gin and tonics and endless bottles of wine. she has lost her job because of her perpetual drunkenness, but rather than tell her flatmate, she keeps taking the train into london every day, pretending to go to work, but actually just getting drunk in various places, and happily fantasizing about the young couple she watches every day from her train window; a couple who live a few doors down from her old house, where her ex-husband tom still resides with his new wife and baby girl.

still reeling from tom's infidelity to her, she nonetheless would love to be back with him, and in this golden couple she observes and imagines, calling them "jess and jason," she sees the life she could have had with tom. one day, while commuting/gazing voyeuristically, she witnesses "jess" on her front lawn with another man, in what appears to be a romantic clinch. she is outraged at this display, as personally offended as if the infidelity were being committed against herself. shortly after this episode, she learns that "jess," actually named megan, has disappeared, and feeling connected to this couple she has never actually met, she insinuates herself into the investigation, meeting with both the police and megan's husband, actual name scott.

the story is told from three perspectives: rachel's, megan's, and tom's new wife anna, and covers all the traditional viewpoints of the typical domestic drama: the jilted lover, the other woman, the cheating wife. all three of these women are simultaneously sympathetic and repellent, which is tricky to pull off. and as for the mystery of megan's disappearance itself, well that path splits and splits again in a wonderful head-spinning journey where not a single character avoids suspicion (except MAYBE tom and anna's infant daughter); i think there are seven characters in total who appear to be the culprit at one point or another, and each seems as plausible as the next. it is a fantastic ride, and hawkins does a great job with both the mystery elements and the character development, with great attention to detail, and fully established backstories and motivations. even when you cringe at some of the choices, they completely make sense for the character. it is a lot of fun, and terribly addictive. much better than a meeting, i kid you not.

come to my blog!

Even for someone who has watched the HBO series, George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones is an engaging and enjoyable read! The strength of Martin’s writing shines through in these pages. Each chapter is well-crafted. You know exactly how to picture the setting and you feel the desires and discontent of each chapter’s (POV) character. Watching how Martin develops characters, with all their flaws, keeps the story going as much or more than the ‘game of thrones.’ If you’re looking for new information in the book; however, you’re not likely to discover much. Definitely nothing that one could really classify as a surprise.

In fact, it distracted me (for a while) that the two were so remarkably similar (scenes, dialogue, action all seemed to match). When there was a small conflict with the series, I found myself noting the difference. This often had to do with the age of the characters (they are younger in the book) or the description of a few of the characters such as Tyrion. In the end, however, I was swept up in this epic story! I liked the pace produced by the shifting perspectives. The one drawback to this approach (for me) came at the end. It somehow didn’t feel like I’d finished anything. The last chapter was a good one, but because there are so many perspectives and everything is still in motion, (despite the deaths) you don’t feel that anything has really ended. In fact this is true; the ending of book 1 is really just the beginning of Martin’s epic. 4.5 stars!

"A Jedi can't get so caught up in matters of galactic importance that it interferes with his concern for individual people"
It's had a permanent space on my top books of all time, and there is a reason. Considered by most Star Wars fans to be the best Star Wars Expanded Universe novel and the birth of Expanded Universe itself, Heir to the Empire takes off about 5 years after Return of the Jedi.
Han and Leia are married and expecting twins. Luke is a Jedi Knight. And the New Republic is in its beginning stages. But the Empire hasn't laid down to die yet. A new threat arises, in a hidden Grand Admiral, Thrawn. He has enlisted a mad Jedi Master clone, Joruus C'baoth, in his quest to destroy the Rebellion once and for all.

I Liked:
Where to begin?
The Thrawn Trilogy (of which this is the first book) has been my favorite since I first read it way back when. But as you grow up, your tastes often change. I used to adore "I, Jedi" but when I reread it, there were some parts that I just couldn't enjoy as much as I did as a teen. So I wanted to reread Heir, to see if I still felt the same way, if the book was as good as I remembered, if it still deserved its first place slot in favorite books.
The answer to all three unspoken questions is the same. Yes, yes, yes!
Timothy Zahn is such an enjoyable author! I love the way he writes; in my opinion, it is perfect for a Star Wars setting. He is obviously knowledgeable about Star Wars (at this time, the only places he had to draw on were the Original movies, Splinter of the Mind's Eye and the Han Solo and Lando Adventure books) and it shows throughout. Some say he dwells a little too often on movie events, but I think it is great. The movies were such high points for the characters; no wonder they keep thinking of them as they go throughout this novel, as they experience similar (but not the same) events.
Zahn has also managed to absolutely nail Han, Luke, and Leia, what I like to teasingly call the Trinity of Star Wars Expanded Universe. Han remains the devilish scoundrel, but with more responsibility and maturity, like he was in Return of the Jedi. Luke was done perfectly, an excellent Jedi, yet not so omniscient (like too many authors have done in more recent novels) that he can't be caught by a simple trick. Leia is still stubborn, smart, and deeply in love with Han. All in all, Zahn didn't fail me one bit. As I read each one's point of view, it was easy to think I was in a Star Wars movie!
Zahn's original characters also shine. The devoted, non-power hungry Imperials, Paelleon and Thrawn, are well written. They aren't stupid Imperials out for a land grab for the sake of a land grab. They don't giggle their plots to everyone and his mother. They don't plot evil wicked plans behind closed walls while drinking purple tea (ten points for the one who guesses which villain that represents). They don't throw Star Destroyers pell-mell at the Republic with no plan. They plot. They scheme. They move logically and methodically. Therefore, since I happen to adore the Empire for some strange reason, I find they are probably the most competent Imperials in Star Wars Expanded Universe.
As for Zahn's neutral characters, Mara Jade and Talon Karrde, I was equally impressed. Mara Jade doesn't come off as a Leia clone nor does she strike me as a damsel in distress. She obviously is cold and calculating, but is far from perfect. Yeah, the red hair/green eyes combo wins her Mary Sue points, as does her angsty past, but somehow, she isn't annoying. The whole world doesn't warp to her desires, so I can live with it. As for Talon Karrde, again, we have a scoundrel, a mercenary who rises above the stupid villain caricature.
Goodness! All these words and I still haven't gotten to the meat of the book: the plot! Again, showing Zahn's grasp for the Star Wars world, Timothy Zahn has written a story that, I feel, could be made into a Star Wars movie with very little manipulation. It is that good. Heck, sometimes, I swear I can hear the music!! Our characters have motivations that make sense based on their characters (Leia being the diplomat and demanding to go to Bimmisari, Thrawn being thoughtful and calculating and ordering a three prong attack on Bpfassh to test C'baoth, Luke when dealing with being held captive by Mara Jade and Talon Karrde). People don't miraculously gain powers to suit the story's need. There are space battles, attempted kidnappings, switching ships, villains, antagonists, aliens, distant planets, seedy spaceports...all perfect elements of a Star Wars novel.

I Didn't Like:
This will get petty, I warn you.
The concept of the ysalamiri is best described in this quote from Talon Karrde (page 223): "[The ysalamiri:] seem to have the unusual ability to push back the Force--to create bubbles, so to speak, where the Force simply doesn't exist."
Well, based on the New Jedi Order (and the Yuuzhan Vong who didn't exist in the Force) and the Prequels (that say all living things have midichlorians, the building blocks of the Force), this seems rather odd. Not to mention...if the Force didn't exist around these guys, wouldn't Luke have been able to sense the void of the Force? However, I feel this "error" is more of an unclear view of the Force (Zahn wrote this in 1991 when Lucas probably had no clue what the heck the Force was) than a blatant disregard on the author's part.
Zahn also has a tendency to write dialogue in the following manner: "'Not here,' Ghent shook his head nervously..." Shaking one's head, nodding, or sighing are NOT ways to express dialogue (I want to know how to nod out a word or to sigh out an entire sentence). If Zahn had switched that comma to a period, then I would be sated and have nothing to complain about. But I would be remiss if I didn't bring it up, as it was a little distracting to me.
Lastly, I was not quite convinced with Zahn's characterization of Lando. Not to say he was bad, but just that I felt that it was a bit off from the way he was in the movies.

Dialogue/Sexual Situations/Violence:
I can't recall a single foul word!
Leia is pregnant? Does that count?
Well, there are space battles, an enlisted gets killed for an error, Thrawn is trying to kidnap Leia and Luke, and C'baoth is just a twinge mad...

Overall:
It's been a while since I read Heir to the Empire, and, to be honest, I was afraid it wouldn't be as good as I remembered.
Well, nothing to fear! Zahn truly captivated me all over again with this winning novel! If George Lucas could take advice from him, maybe the Star Wars prequels would have turned out better!
The only unfortunate thing is that the highest rating I can give is 5. So 5 stars it is! Thank you, Timothy Zahn, for making Star Wars come alive again!