This was the first Michael Connelly book I’ve read, after hearing a lot about how good he is. I’m happy to say that there will be many more. I really enjoyed The Scarecrow.
I’m not happy to say that I didn’t realize this was a sequel until I was about halfway through. It’s really my only complaint about reading this book, which isn’t much to complain about.
So… this is the second book in the series about journalist Jack McEvoy, and as I understand it, it’s fairly similar: journalist and everyman uncovers a nefarious murder… danger ensues. You know, the typical thriller setup. But what made this one so good was Connelly’s writing. I was invested in McEvoy without even having read the first / set up book and missing some of his back story. And his dealings with The Scarecrow, a dangerous serial killer who is revealed to the reader before McEvoy can discover him, were equally well written. Not only that, but Connelly is very thorough. There were no plot holes at all, and he is meticulous and detailed in an incredibly interesting way. I will definitely be going back to read The Poet and will be reading (not just listening to) the Harry Bosch novels, arguably his most well known. So nicely done Mr. Connelly, I’m obviously hooked.
Basically I don’t have a lot to say about this audio book except that I really liked it, and I haven’t liked a thriller writer this much since I started reading James Patterson’s books.
4, maybe 5 stars. I’m pretty excited to read The Poet.
I think I’ve probably been reading this book over the course of the last several months. It’s actually kind of perfect for that, as it’s lots of short essays that can easily be put aside when a new novel comes in from the library. I can’t decide how I felt about this one though. It was a lot of hit or miss.
I’m pretty sure that I read one of David Sedaris’ books in college, and the fact that I can’t remember for sure probably says something about how I feel about his writing. Not that I don’t like it, but that then (and now) I didn’t find it very memorable, and the fact that I don’t feel the need to immediately search out his other books is also pretty telling. The bottom line is, some of the stories told in this collection were hilarious, and some of them I ended up skimming through because I was tired of them. And in this book there was more skimming than laughing.
I think also part of the problem is that I really WANTED to like this book. I had high expectations. Usually books like these are right up my alley (see: the review for Bossypants) and I am very excited to start the next one on my to-read list, Ellen DeGeneres’ new book, but in this case, a lot of the stories didn’t really land. I had a few laugh out loud moments, but I am ready to move on.
Hence, the three rating, and the fact that I don’t have a lot to say. This was worth the read, and enough of it was funny that I’m not annoyed about the time spent reading it, however, I don’t think I’ll be returning to Sedaris’ books for a little while.
First, full disclosure: I love Rob Lowe. I think if I was born a little bit earlier I would love him even more, not having seen the movies he is most famous for until later in my life. Sam Seaborn, Chris Traeger, these are just two of the characters that Rob Lowe has played in my lifetime that I love. Essentially, if it was shown in his writing (I assume it’s him, but am skeptical despite not seeing any credit to a ghostwriter) that he was even a fraction like these men, I was going to be happy with his book.
As Rob takes us through his life, in an order that was mostly chronological but with the occasional tangent, the first thing that really hit me was the sheer amount of stars he happened to know or just run into as a kid. The coincidences are unreal. In one chapter he meets and stars in amateur movies with a young Sean Penn and Charlie Sheen, then later meets LeVar Burton literally a week before he hit it big in Roots. Somehow he has a connection to the people who did the Star Wars special effects and saw the Death Star before the movie came out. He meets Jim Henson and Frank Oz from the muppet show. Frankly, it’s fascinating, if slightly unbelievable. I mean it makes sense, he was living in Malibu and trying to get into the business, but it just seems bizarre that he manages to run into so many celebrities before they were big.
Regardless, the look at Rob’s life was absorbing. I read this book in about four days, and found myself even more interested in his life than I had expected. I think my only disappointment was that he didn’t talk about The West Wing, or his more recent projects more. I know that most of his fans are more interested in his 80s, pre-sober life, but I would have liked to see more about working with the other actors that I recognized (Allison Janney, Martin Sheen, Bradley Whitford, etc) and the other things that I know him for. He touched briefly on his relationship with Aaron Sorkin and why he finally left the show, but in general glosses over all of the sketchy subjects of his life (being known as difficult, leaving The West Wing because of money, the backlash from his sex tape, his struggles with alcoholism). I think it would have been more realistic if he had focused on these things just a little bit more. The tough stuff that he did touch on rang a little bit false to me, and every once in awhile I caught myself thinking he was a bit pompous.
However, I still very much enjoyed the look at Rob Lowe’s life, and he is certainly still one of my favorites. This is another solid 3, not something I need to read again, but I’m glad I picked it up.
After reading Kite Runner, and being told over and over again for probably the last year that it was the better one and I had to read it (hi Lynn!), I finally picked up A Thousand Splendid Suns. She certainly has a point. A Thousand Splendid Suns was very moving and, while upsetting like its predecessor, was an incredible book.
As opposed to Kite Runner, which was about a privileged boy from Afghanistan and his relationships, A Thousand Splendid Suns focuses on the women of Afghanistan throughout the wars and political upheaval. I can certainly attest that the writing is realistic. It’s gritty, gloomy, and brutal. It’s as upsetting as the author’s first book, but perhaps even more so because of the sheer unfairness of nearly every situation. It’s the unfairness that strikes me the most. And I think this one was more upsetting because it’s slightly more relatable. Not that relatable though, because never have I appreciated the privileges of living in America more.
I suppose the realism and relatability are the book’s greatest strengths. I was significantly more invested in the plights of Laila and Mariam than Amir in the first book. Both are equally as jarring, however, in the Kite Runner, Amir had significantly more control over the events that were happening to him.
The power of A Thousand Splendid Suns would be diminished if everything had been tied up in a neat little happy bow, so I can appreciate the way that the author goes about writing the book’s events, but parts of it made me want to be sick. This is certainly a book out of my typical wheelhouse, I liked it all the same, but I think that I’m going to need some light reading for my next one. The one two punch of Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns was almost overwhelming.
I can’t decide whether this book is a 4 or a 5. It’s one that I would like to revisit in the future, but the upsetting nature of most of the plot makes it unlikely that I’ll be reading it over and over like I do with other books. For the purposes of rating and tagging, I’m giving it a 4, but know that it’s very close to a 5!
