Halfway through the week, I started questioning whether I even like to read, since I’m hating everything lately. Things picked up big time.
I finished The Lifeboat, which did turn out to be kind of a dud. I’m still unsure whether it’s just boring by nature, or a decent idea badly executed. Regardless, this is pretty short yet still feels stretched and boring. I don’t know anyone who liked it and I would not recommend it.
Moved on to Mischling. I really almost never DNF a book, but I should have with this one. I knew from the very first page that I would hate it. I don’t know why I thought it might get better. It did not. This feels like it’s very in love with its own writing style; it is incredibly overwritten. Outside of the insufferable writing style, it is a paint by numbers story. I’m always drawn to WWII fiction, and I’m not trying to diminish its importance, I’m saying that this has been done better many many many times. This is a book that makes me quite sure I’ll never read this author again.
Did Dark Matter turn out to be that rare thriller that I actually like? Nope. This is kind of a hard one for me to review, because there’s obviously an assumed suspension of disbelief with a sci-fi thriller, however I felt like things didn’t make sense within the world that the author created. What the main character ends up trying to do is at one point compared to trying to find a single grain of sand in a massive beach, which is pretty accurate within the story. However, he not only accomplishes this with relative ease, so do a slew of other characters too. And what happens after that doesn’t make much sense either, and the writing is really annoying, and the love story is cheesy, and the ending is clearly a sequel set-up. Yeah, this wasn’t for me.
Mothering Sunday turned out to be quite the palate cleanser after that. This is a very slim book, barely more than a short story, but very charming and lovely. I don’t know how much it will stick with me but it makes for a very pleasant day of reading. I really liked this one.
Now I’m halfway through The Heavenly Table. I don’t know how this ended up on my shelf; none of my friends have read it, and it doesn’t really seem like something I’d be drawn to. It must have come up as recommended because I liked something else, I guess? Regardless, I am so very glad I picked it up because I am loving this. Great plot, great characters, great writing, at turns hilarious and horrifying. I can’t wait to get back to it, you’ll be hearing more about this one, for sure.
