Possessed children are creepy. This is an accepted fact throughout literature and film, as evidenced by The Exorcist, The Possession, and a plethora of other books and movies. What adds to the overall appeal of these sorts of stories is that they often claim to be based on fact. I won’t delve into a religious tirade regarding…
Ian Colmes is struggling to move on with his life following the brutal abduction and murder of his five-year-old son, Alex. Ian can’t seem to pull it together – he has trouble getting to work on time, his wife, Alina, has left him, and he keeps seeing his dead son throughout his empty house. Sure…
It is the early 1920s and Tom Sherbourne and his wife Isabelle live alone on the Australian island of Janus, where Tom manages the lighthouse there. It is a difficult life of isolation, and Izzy is heartsick for a child after suffering three miscarriages. Then, a boat washes up on the island containing a dead…
I love Cujo. I don’t take the word love lightly, and I rarely apply it to anything, let alone a book. Mind you, I do have a soft spot in my heart for Stephen King; sometimes I absolutely hate his work, but more often than not I am left with something to think about – Cujoleft me with a…
As suggested by the title, this novel made me amazingly hungry – as in my stomach growled the entire time I was reading it. Everyone in this book is hungry all of the time; and if they’re not hungry, they are gorging themselves with food to the point that you feel obligated to eat, for…
50 Shades of Grey opens with the virginal young Anastasia Steele – a reserved college senior majoring in British literature. James does not hesitate to emphasize the obvious comparisons to the loss of purity in Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles – and re-emphasize them, and then emphasize them again for emphasis. Anyway, our inexperienced heroine finds herself interviewing…
Never Coming Back is the American debut of British author Tim Weaver. Weaver’s protagonist, David Raker, is a missing persons investigator with a sorted past. What kind of sorted past, you ask? I would love to tell you, but I don’t know. While this is Weaver’s first American novel, there are three other David Raker books…
I was initially drawn to Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother because of an inside joke that I have long shared with my sister. For years, we have joked about our “strict Asian upbringing,” referring to our mother’s high academic expectations. Perfect grades were not an option, they were a requirement. At the time, my mother’s methods…
A good book, Marcus, is not judged by its last words but by the cumulative effect of all the words that have preceded them. About half a second after finishing your book, after reading the very last word, the reader should be overwhelmed by a particular feeling. For a moment he should think only of…
This cover is so beautiful and the book is great! Have you read it? James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Ferdinand Von Schirach’s The Collini Case aspires to be a John Grisham-y-type legal thriller. Note my use of aspires. The novel is certainly a fast-paced drama, but it is missing the level of suspense that would make it a truly entertaining read. Caspar Leinen is a young defense attorney who has just landed his first murder trial. The…
Did you know it is almost Christmas? I mean it’s July so Christmas is right around the corner! What is your favorite Christmas book? Mine is a classic: ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. Ps- when racking my brain about Christmas books I discovered there are a TON of books about the holiday. It is like…
Even though I was not the biggest fan of this book overall, the ending was a huge TWIST. We Were Liars by E. Lockhart