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84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff: Book Review

Writer and bibliophile Helene Hanff strikes up a friendship through correspondence with the staff of a used bookshop in London. I think my expectations were too high. I remember other readers telling me, "Oh, if you liked The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, you will absolutely love 84, Charing Cross Road." Well, I absolutely loved Guernsey, so there wasn't really any room for me to like something more. Disappointment was inevitable. Letters were obviously left out, and I found myself wondering what was going on in between the published letters. There would be a reference to "your last letter" and I wondered what had been said in it. I was a little taken aback by how quickly the author took such a familiar tone with the reserved "Brits." I can't imagine writing "WHAT KIND OF A BLACK PROTESTANT BIBLE IS THIS?" in my second letter to a business. Not if I was truly upset, and definitely not in a teasing manner. I thought it got repetitive. "Do you have this book? Why not? What's that in dollars? Glad you liked the food I sent. Maybe I'll get over there someday." That's about it. I don't think I've read, or even heard of, most of the books that the author wants to buy. I appreciate that she's a voracious reader, but we apparently have 0 books in common. It was hard to stir up much interest in that. I did like that books united such far-flung people. I'm sitting here thinking about a quote by Emerson that says something like "I can't be truly alone when I'm surrounded by books." He was using that as an argument to get out in nature, but that can be a comforting thought as well. Not only am I as a reader sharing…

‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King: Book Review

Author Ben Mears has returned to the town of Jerusalem's Lot, Maine, where he spent the best years of his childhood. He had a traumatic, horrifying experience there, and he wants to write it out of his system at last. Around the same time, two other men move into town, R. T. Straker and Kurt Barlow. They buy and move into the local house that has haunted Ben for years. And then people start disappearing... Parts of this felt a little familiar. Little Mark Petrie reminded me of Jake from The Dark Tower series and the kid from The Talisman. Ben reminded me of someone too, I just can't put my finger on who. And then there's the name Susan. I wonder if there's a Susan in King's past. That slight familiarity aside, I did enjoy this. I think part of what gives me the willies when reading King's work is that he doesn't back away from using children in his horror stories. He kills them off when he has to and he turns them into evil little beings too. He uses children to chilling effect in this novel. One of the subplots that I really liked was Father Callahan's struggle with faith. Maybe that's because I did read The Dark Tower series first, but I enjoyed "meeting" Father Callahan and learning more about him. His part in this book comes pretty late, so I'll refrain from discussing him more. I want to re-read his part in The Dark Tower now that I know more about him! I really liked that the vampires in this book were real, true, evil vampires. Granted, this was written in the mid-70s, well before the current vampire love story craze (not knocking it at all), but it's still refreshing to read right now. This…

The Ruins by Scott Smith: Book Review

Two American couples, fresh out of college, decide to go to Cancún for a little R&R before starting grad school in the fall. They end up venturing into the jungle, looking for some Mayan ruins and a fellow traveler's brother. They're completely unprepared for what they find there. I really, really want to give this two stars. That doesn't seem to be quite fair though, when I seriously read most of the book in one sitting, in bed, without even thinking about getting sleepy. The short sections instead of chapters, rotating through the characters' POVs, and the desire to see what happens next all combined to keep me rapidly turning pages. But the characters! Oh, the characters. They shouldn't have even had names. We could have called them Mr. Boy Scout, Miss Moody, Mr. Comedian, Miss Spacy, Outsider #1 and Outsider #2. That's about all the personality they got. What little they got beyond that was just enough to make me dislike them. I'm not sure if I was supposed to be happy when the first character died, but I was. "Yes! No more of THAT one, anyway!" is what I was thinking. Mr. Boy Scout was okay, but I don't think I was supposed to like him. It didn't seem like anyone else did. And the women! Useless, mindless, hand-wringing, complaining, argumentative, and just plain stupid. The guys were bad enough, but the girls were offensive to women everywhere. This next complaint might not make a lot of sense without spoilers, but I'll give it a try. There were some things that had to happen for the plot to play out the way it did, but they were frustrating. I was sitting there (well, lying there) railing, "If you don't want this to happen, why are you doing things…

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: Book Review

Forget the big, green, shuffling, moaning monster with bolts in his neck that we've all come to associate with Frankenstein. He does not appear in these pages. I wonder what book those old horror movie writers read? It wasn't this one. Frankenstein's monster is big, but the only other physical descriptions I really remember are flowing black hair, watery yellow eyes, and uncanny speed, agility, and tolerance for cold. Oh, and he's more eloquent than I could ever hope to be. Seriously. As for Frankenstein himself--a more self-absorbed, self-indulgent, self-explicatory character I hope to never meet. He was terrible! This was his story: "Oh no! Something bad happened!" *clunk* He falls over in nervous delirium and is bed-ridden for months. He wakes. He moans and groans and just generally doesn't deal. Then one day: "Oh no! Something bad happened! But it wasn't my fault!" *clunk* He falls over in nervous delirium, bed-ridden for months, blah, blah, blah, blah. That really is Frankenstein's story in a nutshell. I do realize that this story was supposed to be more of a warning about our science getting ahead of our morals, pride coming before a fall and all that. On that level, it completely worked. As I read this, the word hubris kept coming to mind, and I haven't thought that word since studying the Greek myths for months on end my sophomore year of high school. That was more years ago than I honestly want to think about. Anyway, Shelley absolutely did what she meant to do and her work is always going to be relevant. But as a reader, I need a character that I can like. I don't think it necessarily has to be the main character, just give me someone, somewhere, to root for. There wasn't one here. Clerval…

Horns by Joe Hill: Book Review

Ignatius Perrish wakes up after a drunken night with honest-to-goodness horns growing out of his head. At first, he thinks he's just going crazy. But as he ventures out into the day, he finds that other people can see them too; they're just too busy telling him their deepest, darkest secrets to really comment on them. Oh, and if they know him, they're telling him exactly what they think of him. That would be bad enough for anyone, but when you've been (falsely) accused of raping and murdering your girlfriend and the whole town thinks your famous father got you off, what people have to say to you gets real vicious real fast. I hate the name Ignatius. Even shortened to Ig or, heaven forbid, Iggy, it's just awful. And then to pair it with Perrish. I couldn't help but think of Iggy Pop. That aside... This was scary but not in a horror-y way. Well, not for the most part. There's the thing with the horns, but the real scare here is how this kind of thing happens every day. Again, not the horns, but the rape/murder of an innocent girl. And we always think it's the significant other who did it. Sure, most of the time it is, but what living hell the innocent ones must go through. Not only have they lost a loved one but they've been accused of doing it as well. *Shudder* Ig shows us exactly how little it feels that life is worth living after that. What makes this so hard to read is that Ig was about to have it all. He and Merrin have a fantastic relationship. They're high school sweethearts who look like they're really going to live the happily ever after. They're both pursuing their career dreams and then…

Cujo by Stephen King: Book Review

Do we all know the basic story of Cujo? Big, lovable St. Bernard gets rabies and goes on a rampage. That's it. Sounds so simple, and it mostly is, but King can tell one heck of a story. I read this without once closing it, in one 12-hour night shift, without even thinking about getting tired. In fact, I found myself idly wandering around the office, doing things that needed to be done, holding this book in one hand and working with the other. I seriously couldn't put it down. But it was a little weak. There was this little subplot where he tried to make the story supernatural. I thought it was silly and unnecessary. It was scarier for being something that I (in my complete ignorance of rabies) think could maybe happen, at least for a little while. And can I go on record as saying that I hate the name Tadder? If Tad is too short for you, why not move on to Theo? Your kid will not thank you for Tadder when he's being beaten up on the playground. I'm just glad I had finished this before my husband said, "How do you know he didn't mean it to sound like tater?" But the fact that almost all the "horror" elements take place in such a confined space with just three characters, one of whom is a St. Bernard, earns King huge points. This really should not have been a page turner, and yet it was. There is a reason the man is so popular. Reviewed October 21, 2009 Malaprop’s | Better World Books Friday Flashback Reviews are a weekly feature here on The Introverted Reader. These are old reviews I wrote on GoodReads. Thanks to Angieville and her Retro Friday Reviews for the inspiration and…

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson: Book Review

Review of I Am Legend Several GR friends have read this and raved about it recently. I've been doing a lot of Halloween-related books this month, so I decided to give it a try. It somehow wasn't exactly what I expected, and I mean that in a good way. I've seen bits of the Will Smith movie (and what I've seen has very little in common with the book), I've read my friends' reviews, but it's still something that I think you have to experience for yourself to understand. I would definitely call it a horror book, but not exactly for the reason that I expected. There are the vampires, and there are a couple of intense scenes with them, but that wasn't what made the book scary to me. It was more about the absolute aloneness that Neville experiences. He truly is the last man in the world. How would you deal with that? Would you give up? Would you keep fighting? Would you start searching for others? Would you search for the reason behind the horror that has become your life? Matheson explores all of these avenues and more. Neville's reactions felt very real to me. I experienced all of his emotions with him. The vampires were scary at first, and then they just sort of become background noise. Then there's the rage, despair, curiosity, really the whole gamut of emotions that you would feel in that position. There's even one scene that just broke my heart. It's all in here, it all feels very real, and I am very impressed. Highly recommended. Review of the other stories I finished out the other stories and they were pretty good. They weren't on a level with I Am Legend, but there were some genuinely spooky pieces in here. My…

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

Rocker Judas Coyne thought it was a joke when he bought a ghost off the internet. Still, he's a collector of the arcane, so what could it hurt? An old man is haunting his daughter and granddaughter, so Judas might be helping them, but even if it's a joke, Judas can easily afford it. But the price is higher than he thought. What a creepy, twisted ghost story! It was perfect for Halloween! Judas and Georgia, the latest in his string of much-younger lovers, really don't know what hit them when this ghost shows up. The dogs know something is up and immediately react to the haunted suit. It starts out fairly innocuous, with the radio turning on in the middle of the night, a horrible smell in the house, and the ghost just sitting out in the hall, but this ghost quickly amps up his attack, and before they know it, Judas and Georgia are fighting for their lives. I loved all the twists this took. Just when I thought it was going to be a fairly straightforward ghost story, the ghost would get even more creative in his haunting, the stakes would be raised, I'd find out something about the ghost's abilities that made him terrifying, and then there's the ghost's agenda and past. I can't say that this book ever kept me awake or made me jumpy, but I'm surprised it didn't. This is one evil ghost. Highly recommended for horror fans. It's very well-written, and I am coming to realize that I love Joe Hill's style. I'll be seeking out Horns soon. Read an excerpt. Find author Joe Hill on his website and Twitter (he's one of my favorite authors on Twitter). Buy Heart-Shaped Box at Malaprop’s | Better World Books I have an affiliate relationship…

East of Eden by John Steinbeck: Book Review

Synopsis from GoodReads: In his journal, John Steinbeck called East of Eden "the first book," and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California's Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families--the Trasks and the Hamiltons--whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. Adam Trask came to California from the East to farm and raise his family on the new, rich land. But the birth of his twins, Cal and Aron, brings his wife to the brink of madness, and Adam is left alone to raise his boys to manhood. One boy thrives, nurtured by the love of all those around him; the other grows up in loneliness, enveloped by a mysterious darkness. First published in 1952, East of Eden is the work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. A masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years, East of Eden is a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis. I am surprised by how much I liked this book. I had to read Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath for school, and I pretty much hated them both. Of course, I hated almost everything I had to read for school, so I don't know if that says more about Steinbeck or about me. Either way, I was left with bad memories of Steinbeck. I have several friends on GoodReads comment on how much they love this book, so when I found this edition with this cool…

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer: Book Review

Nine-year-old Oskar Schell adores his father, Thomas. Oskar is something of a genius, so he never fits in at school, but his dad sort of becomes everything to Oskar. And then Thomas Schell dies in one of the towers on 9/11. Two years later, Oskar still isn't handling this well. Snooping around his dad's closet one night, he finds an unusual key. Oskar becomes obsessed with finding the lock the key opens. His dad used to set up complicated scavenger hunts for Oskar, so this is sort of one last game they can play together. But for Oskar, it's really more than a game. He's hoping to find some answers about his father and maybe even finally find some peace. I don't think I would ever have picked this up had it not been chosen for one of my group reads GoodReads. But I'm so glad I read it. I was in love with Oskar within the first five pages or so. He's too smart for his own good, he's funny, and he's broken. What a combination. He's every bit as endearing as Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird or Reuben and Swede from Peace Like a River. He really makes this book. So I'm reading along, and I'm thinking, "This book should really be called Extremely Funny and Incredibly Heart-Breaking." That's how it was. Oskar would have me giggling out loud one minute and then he would talk about how he's invented a bird-seed shirt, so that if you're ever falling off a skyscraper, the birds would all come get you and fly you to safety. Just heart-breaking. But by the end, for me, anyway, it just got to be all heart-breaking. That's why it only got four stars. It was really, really, good, I loved Oskar, it handled…