[Book Review] Women's Murder Club Books 1-4

In my defense, it was either this or talking about music and writing some more like I did on this week's vlog.  It's not pretty but feel free to go ahead and watch it if you want to.  So, a book review.  Oh, but not just one book, four of them!  It's a series and I gobble them up in a span of two to three days (James Patterson has a gift y'all), so why not talk about more than one?  Makes sense to me, makes sense to you, and makes sense to the rest of the world.  Or at least I hope it does by the end of you reading this post.

So the books are, in order, 1st to Die, 2nd Chance, 3rd Degree, and 4th of July.  If you notice, they all have numbers in the title and all listed by the "number in title" part of the 2015 Reading Challege.  He's up to book 13 in the series and I said that I was going to read all of them this year.  I'm praying hard that he doesn't come out with a new book in the series this year.  He could.  James Patterson is known for being the Speedy Gonzales of the writing world.  He has five active series and this year will see... Wikipedia says three books.  I say someone hasn't updated the article considering last year he came out with seven books.  For all I know he might be slowing down but I love the fact that he can do so much in writing all these different series.  It is something that I aspire to be in my writing.

Back to the books themselves, they are an insanely fast read.  I could read them faster, if I just sat and read, but I do have other things to do with my life.  It's set in San Francisco, which is a place that I would like to visit but won't cry tears over if I don't, and there's one main character, Lindsey Boxer, and the three major characters - Cindy Thomas, Claire Washburn, and Jill Bernhardt (later Yuki Castellano) that orbit around Lindsey.  This is shown in the first book, the introduction to the series, and then cemented into place in the second book.  It's more commonplace by the third and fourth book, continuing on through the rest of the series.  You get their personal issues, to feel more attached to the characters, rather than just the case that they're working on.  For example, in the first book, Lindsey has a life threatening medical issue that is the entire secondary plot line of the book.  In the second book, you get to see Cindy more in a relationship with someone who they thought was targeted by the killers they're looking for and so on.  I think it's one of the hooks that work well with the series and I do hope that it continues on.  I'll chime in later reviews if it doesn't.

So that's the nutshell of the books - there's a case and there's the personal lives of the club that revolve around the case.  It's interesting because I know, in a later book, that something happens where Lindsey's personal life and professional life collide in a not good way and she misses a promotion.  It'll be interesting to read due to, at this point, having her be nearly all about her job.  She's got a boyfriend who is in the FBI, but other than that, it's really the job.  I mean, she's got a dog, which was a nice touch instead of a cat, but her life is very one note at the beginning.  It works because these are mystery/thriller and not straight up literature or chick lit.  It's nice that there's a closeness and it blurs the line a small bit sometimes between mystery and chick lit but still stays mystery.  It's not as bloody as, say, his Alex Cross series (Along Came a Spider is the first book of that series, also a movie) but it has enough to make it a mystery series.

So, I highly recommend them, especially if you're looking for a quick read.  The chapters are small, the writing is tight and you want to know what happens next, and you'll enjoy yourself.  None of them are creepy and yes, you might find them get formulaic, but they're worth it.  My favorite type of brain candy as it's smart enough to keep me reading and yet candy enough to make me feel like I'm having a delicious literary treat.

Review: Neither Here or There

Title: Neither Here or There: Travels in Europe

Author: Bill Bryson
Genre(s): Travel
Image from: Goodreads

Rating: 2.5 / 5






When I found this book on my shelves, I was excited.  For one, I do love Bryson's writing as I'm currently reading At Home which is something else I'll review if I ever finish it.  I seem to be slow reading when it comes to non-fiction these days but, like the title says, that's neither here or there (groan here).  This is his fourth published book, third in travel, and I was keen to read it.  For one, I love the idea of Europe and really want to go back there one day.  I've only been to Paris, which is lovely, but there is so much more to Europe than France and Paris.  I've heard Germany is lovely, as is Rome, so I was really liking the idea of reading about places that I really dreamed about going to.

On principle, this is a lovely book about Mr Bryson's travels through the place.  If you know where he is, then you can see them in your mind.  If not, then you're a bit a fish out of water.  However, there were a lot of points where I felt like I was in the bar with him and drinking with him.  That was nice and cozy.  I liked that a lot and felt his pain when he was in Yugoslavia when he was spending so little to have so much.  The social interactions were what made the book sing and I just wished that there had been more of them.  I felt myself cheering at the end when he's at the edge of Europe and decides to go home instead of going onto Asia.

Why I cheered is a bit twofold.  While this book did help with the want to go to see more of Europe, it is also fell down in the same manner.  There were a lot of stereotypes throughout the book, which Mr Bryson relied on heavily throughout the entire book, and made reading less enjoyable.  I was done with the stereotypes by the time he got to Denmark and found myself wishing to be done wanting to speed read the rest by Austria.  Another part where Mr Bryson fell down was actually describing the places.  Sure, we could look them up via Google to see where he went, I didn't want to do that.  I wanted the places he visited to be shown instead of told.  The way that he writes is explaining where he goes but, save for when he visited the Vatican in Rome, I had no sense of space on where he was.  Yes, he talked about all these walks and what were on the walks, but there was nothing to bring me to where he had been.  There was nothing to draw me into the place where he was walking and that annoyed me more than anything.  It's the reason that I was very happy when the book came to a close.

In ending, the premise of the book is wonderful.  If you've been to the places where he has, then you'll probably enjoy the book more than I did.  That is not to say to not read it, but more of a reason why I will probably not be giving this book a re-read next year.  However, as in all interesting experiences and books in life, you should try it at least once.

Review: Never Let Me Go

Picture this.  You're at the library and you're thinking "man, I want a book".  However, you don't know what kind of book you want.  You're not sure if you're into a book that is in your wheel house, like fantasy or sci-fi, or if you want something like a chick lit or romance.  Then you find this book that seems so strange.  There's a picture of people running on a deck and, on the back, just reviews about how good the book is.  How it's his best since Remains of the Day and you have this hazy memory about how it's a movie about something historical and bits of romance.  So you're all "oh, okay, I'll try it.'

And then you get home and you're 50 pages into it when someone asks "so, what's it about?" and you realize you have no idea.  There's a mystery about this book with no summary on the back or inside the first few pages.  All you know is that you have to figure out what Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy are learning.  How they're all connected.  What donors, carers, and this school is all about.  You think it might be about cancer patients and how it's about working through cancer.  However, you're proven wrong when you go to wikipedia and it says it's a dystopian science fiction story.  The appeal of the mystery is so strong that you don't want to read more of the article or the mystery will be broken.  So you just go back to the book to try to figure out what the hell is happening.

Here's a picture of the book so you know I'm not putting you on.  Also, after this, I get into spoilers for the book.  So, if you don't want to know any more until after you've read it (or seen the movie), I'd stop reading after you see the pictures.

Alright, everyone got that?  Starting the spoilers in 3...

2...

1...

Okay, spoilers.  The book is divided into three acts that go childhood, teenager/transition into adulthood, and adulthood.  It follows, for the most part, three characters: Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy.  They all go a school called Hailsham and the story is told from the memories of Kathy.  She's the main character in the end and the story is told in first person from her.  So we're getting her memories and, for the most part, she seems like a reliable narrator.  She's a carer, which does sound exactly like the title, and she's looking after donors.  Until you get more into the book, it seems like it's about people doing something nice for others which is what we think about when we see the name donor.  Or at least I do because you usually donate a kidney to someone who needs it.  Or you donate blood.  However, this seems to be a lot worse since people donate for what seems like a max of four times before they "complete".

We'll get to what complete means in a moment as I want to go back to the characters.  So, we start out seeing them as children in a school.  The teachers, for the most part, drop hints about what the characters are going to become.  I was kind of dense, as I didn't fully understand what they were really talking about until much later in the book.  There is one teacher, called Miss Lucy, who does try to spell it out for the kids.  However, due to this being child memory from Kathy (and Ruth a bit), it's not a good explanation.  So they have this nice quiet school life where they learn and do art where it gets taken away by Madame for her collection (again, explained later).  Tommy comes in as a child who doesn't / can't hold onto his temper.  Kathy, when she comes Tommy's carer, believes it's because of the fact that, on some level, he knew about what was coming.  So, there's kid problems and things with teachers, and you get the connection for the book title from a cassette tape called Songs After Dark by Judy Bridgewater (fictional artist).  We also have a scene where Kathy is dancing to the song while holding a pillow and Madame, the one in charge of Hailsham, watching her and crying.  When Kathy (along with Tommy) find Madame after Kathy becomes a carer, they have two different views of the scene.  Kathy thought Madame was crying because Madame couldn't have children.  Madame was really crying because she saw it as a young girl trying to hold onto an innocent world where there was little to no innocence in the world (paraphrasing here).  Now, before the end of the first part, Kathy does lose the tape and there's no finding it.  It's important for the next part, I swear.  So, that's childhood, from the memories of Kathy, Ruth, and a bit of Tommy.

The book goes into part two, where the characters (along with others), go to what is called the Cottages.  They meet two major characters there called Chrissy and Rodney, who are a tight knit couple.  The three mains - Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy - are together but also growing apart.  Tommy and Ruth became a couple in the last bit of being at Hailsham and it carried over to the Cottages.  Kathy, on the other hand, has a lot of one night stands and it was refreshing to see a female character do so without any sort of stigma attached.  Well, aside from Ruth, who was only doing it because she broke up with Tommy during that time and didn't want Kathy taking Tommy away.  During this time, the idea of "possibles" come to mind.  The "possibles" are the original version of the characters as you start to understand that they are actually clones.  It was probably given away before this time, but this is when I got hit over the head with it.  Chrissy and Rodney tell Ruth that they've found her "possible" working in a nice office building.  Funny thing is that Ruth had gone on and on about wanting to work in an office building.  So they go to Norfolk and search out the possible, and it seems likely, until Ruth goes off on a tantrum (seriously, that's the way it read / felt) about how they're not from those kind of people.  That they're from the trash of society and it just turns the entire visit sour.  So, while Chrissy, Rodney, and Ruth go off to meet a carer friend of the first two, Kathy and Tommy go off to find Kathy's tape.  They do find it, even thought Tommy wishes he could have found it first, and you get the first instance where Tommy has more feelings for Kathy than Ruth.  Which leads back to the idea of Ruth talking about Kathy's one night stands and her urges for sex being horrible because.. well, Ruth doesn't want to give up Tommy.  It's after the trip to Norfolk that Kathy decides to start her career as a carer.

Which leads into the third part of the book where we're a bit out of memories and more into what's happening in the present.  Ruth has done two donations and it seems to really take a toll on her but it seems normal to Kathy and Tommy.  Since it's never really said what the donations really are, it's kind of strange to think of someone dying from them.  I could see that if it was organs but, until that point, I really thought it was blood or marrow or something on a smaller scale.  However, it seems more like organ donation because of the toll shown on Ruth.  This is shown the best when they go out to see a boat that someone got caught in a marsh.  Nobody knows how, but it's the great attraction for miles around (don't ask, I don't get it either).  So you see Ruth having problems with breathing and Kathy being worried.  Ruth, at the end of the visit to the boat, tells Kathy she's sorry for keeping Tommy and Kathy apart.  Shortly after that, Ruth "completes".  

Quick note, because I said I'd get into this, but I'm not sure I like the word of "complete" being used for death.  For one, it doesn't make sense to me to talk about it this way unless you're making it nice.  For two... well, I just don't like it.  It feels uncomfortable and like you're skirting around the real issue.  That folds into the first issue I have with the word but I'm not the author and he went with it.  It's pretty good, unless you have issues, which I seem to.  Okay, tangent over.

So, after Ruth completes, Kathy goes to be Tommy's carer.  She's more than a carer, which makes me happy because it's a great "finally!" when it happens, but it comes with a price, of course.  That price goes into the last plot point of the novel, where they go to find Madame to try to get a pass for Tommy for his fourth donation.  See, the fourth donation usually meets he'll "complete", and, in a way, neither of them want to let go of what they have (woo, tying back into the title).  They go to meet Madame, thinking that she has this magical way of looking at the art from when they were children to show their souls are comparable to show they're really in love, which is the only way to get around the next donation.  Yeah, it would be a nice and magical ending, but this is dystopian so it won't go that way.  It turns out that the gallery was to show others that the clones have a soul and that they shouldn't just be used for spare parts.  After World War II, they found out how to clone and it turned into a way to cure cancer and other horrible diseases.  Who would really want to give that up, but Madame and the other teachers at the school were trying to show that it should be different.  It didn't go that way and, in the end, the school got shut down due to a scientist trying to make the clones into children that were better than the originals / possibles.  That was so not kosher and, due to this one scientist, the movement to show clones = humans too was shut down.  After that, everything does downhill with Tommy pushing Kathy away and Tommy having his fourth donation and then completing.  The novel ends with Kathy just wondering about what happens next and what will happen to her after she's done with being a carer in 8 months.

Now, this is a well written book.  If you don't look for certain clues, then you really don't know what's going to happen in the end.  Even after the ending, you don't know what's going to happen but you can guess.  I usually hate books like this (see the This is Where I Leave You review from November 2014) because I want definite endings.  However, I did like the fact that you didn't know what truly happened in the end.  I think the most common guess is that Kathy, like the others, turns from carer into donor.  I have a different guess.  I'm thinking that her possible doesn't get sick and she just spends out the rest of her days as at a center.  Or perhaps she does small donations but nothing that makes her complete so early.  I like the idea of a long life for her.  The movie, from what I'm reading on the Wikipedia page, goes in a different direction.  I doubt I'll see the movie, unless I happen to come across it somehow on cable, but I might go looking for it.

So, that's the book based on the cover.  Who knew that thinking that it was going to be this romance book turn into something completely different?  I think it might be something about like calling to like, due to the fact that one of my genres is sci-fi/fantasy and dystopian isn't all that bad either.  I might try this picking only on the cover thing again sometime and see if the same thing happens.  If I do, don't worry, I'll report back.  

The 2015 Reading Challenge: The List (aka the Master Post)

So, along with the rest of the WriYers Read Too community, we're doing a challenge to read books that fit a category on a list.  Here is the list from PopSugar but I remember first finding it on Facebook and I started sharing it with others.  Or Tatra/Ana found it first and she started sharing it and then I shared it to others.  Either way, we found it on Facebook and decided to take the challenge and bring anybody else who wanted to read it along with us.  Feel free to join in, readers, and send me the link to your list in the comment section.  I'm going to share mine - it's not complete, so feel free to recommend books too - and you might see books that I've mentioned before.  Or, if you follow me on Goodreads, you'll see I've read them before.  I don't mind re-reads and there's nothing in the challenge against them, so I put them in.

The re-reads that are on here - Prayer for Owen Meany, the Elfquest books, Dragonsinger - are there because there's a comfort to reading them.  It's like speaking to an old friend after not speaking to them in a long time.  Or a nice cup of hot tea on the darkest day of winter or ice tea on the hottest day of summer.  I like comfort and going back to things I've done before.  I think we all do on some level, but I'm getting off track.

Below is the list of my books that I'm reading.  I'll link to the reviews as I do them / do them later in the month if I happen to read a bunch of them, as in the case of the ones with numbers in the title, but that'll be on the rare side.  Bold means that the category is done.  Books that are striked out are ones that could not be finished for some reason or another.  They'll still get reviews and, who knows, I might finish them, but for the most part, they're DNF (Did Not Finish).

So, the list.

2015 Reading Challenge

• A book with more than 500 pages: Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett; The Stand by Stephen King
• A classic romance: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen; Little Women by Louise May Alcott
• A book that became a movie: If I Stay by Gayle Forman; The Maze Runner by James Dashner; Paper Towns by John Green;
• A book published this year: I Was Here by Gayle Forman; Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins;
• A book with a number in the title: 1st to Die by James Patterson; 2nd Chance by James Patterson and Andrew Gross; 3rd Degree by James Patterson and Andrew Gross; 4th of July by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
• A book written by someone under 30: Looking for Alaska by John Green
• A book with nonhuman characters: The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien; The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien
• A funny book: Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Prachett
• A book by a female author: A Long Fatal Love Chase by Louisa May Alcott;
• A mystery or thriller: Birdman by Mo Hayder
• A book with a one word title: Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey
• A book of short stories: Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger
• A book set in a different country: Neither Here or There: Travels in Europe by Bill Bryson;
• A nonfiction book: At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson
• A popular author’s first book: Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice; Irish Thoroughbred by Nora Roberts; The Thomas Berryman Number by James Patterson; Odds On by MIchael Crichton as John Lange;
• A book by an author you love that you haven’t read yet: Cider House Rules by John Irving; The Shinning by Stephen King; Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman;
• A book a friend recommended:
• A Pulitzer Prize-winning book: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
• A book based on a true story: Black Mass by Dick Lehr and Gerald O’Neill;
• A book at the bottom of your to-read list: The Stand by Stephen King
• A book your mom loves:
• A book that scares you:
• A book more than 100 years old: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
• A book based entirely on its cover: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
• A book you were supposed to read in school but didn’t: Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy;
• A memoir: Wild by Cheryl Strayed; Blind Courage by Bill Irwin;
• A book you can finish in a day: Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey
• A book with antonyms in the title: Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
• A book set somewhere you’ve always wanted to visit: In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
• A book that came out the year you were born: Life, the Universe, and Everything by Douglas Adams
• A book with bad reviews:
• A trilogy: Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
• A book from your childhood: Fire and Flight by Wendi and Richard Pini
• A book with a love triangle:
• A book set in the future:
• A book set in high school:
• A book with a color in the title: The Green Mile by Stephen King; The Thin Red Line by James Joyce;
• A book that made you cry: A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving;
• A book with magic
• A graphic novel: Kings of the Broken Wheel by Wendi and Richard Pini
• A book by an author you’ve never read before:
• A book you own but have never read:
• A book that takes place in your hometown: Grave Peril by Jim Butcher
• A book that was originally written in another language: Beowulf by Seamus Heaney
• A book set during Christmas: Hercule Poirot’s Christmas by Agatha Christie
• A book written by an author with your same initials: Soldier’s Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point by Elizabeth Samet
• A play: Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
• A banned book: Looking for Alaska by John Green
• A book based on or turned into a tv show: The Black Echo by Michael Connelly (Bosch - Amazon Prime); A Clash of Kings by George RR Martin (Game of Thrones - HBO)
• A book you started but never finished: Magic’s Price by Mercedes Lackey