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Post by Zeruis on Oct 19, 2018 3:31:06 GMT
dead thread in dead board One good thing about having so much free time in college is it's encouraged me to take out some books from the library and get back into reading. I read a few Isaac Asimov short stories, of varying quality. Waterclap is the only one of those I'd really consider brilliant all around, the others all had their own pros and cons. One had an interesting premise but a boring ending, one had a boring start but an interesting ending, one had an interesting backstory but a boring main plot, and one of them seemed like quite a generic dystopian sci-fi story and didn't really go anywhere with its ideas. I've also been reading some Agatha Christie short stories, pretty good stuff. One thing I really like is that even though the stories in the collection I'm currently reading are really short (one of them was literally 10 pages long, and that's with somewhat large font), they all have some twist to them that you have to try and guess. I guessed the twist correctly before the end in about two stories out of 9. It's amazing how critical I've gotten towards Christie in the last couple years after initially loving her. Having read a little more than a dozen of her works made me realize that she nearly always puts some kind of Devil's Proof or needless logic arguments at the end to "surprise" the reader. I will still say that And Then There Were None is the quintessential mystery novel, one that she didn't botch in its climax. My favorite mystery authors are Raymond Chandler, who writes noir police procedures, and I'm really loving Dorothy Sayers. Right now, I'm reading The Hotel of the Three Roses by Augusto De Angelis. Pretty nice.
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Post by Lyric 💗💜💙 on Oct 19, 2018 5:15:11 GMT
Read the first draft of a book called Approaching Beautiful and it was one of the most emotionally powerful books I've ever read but i should maybe wait for it to be published before fully forming an opinion? lol
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Post by Lyric 💗💜💙 on Oct 20, 2018 2:49:21 GMT
oh since I talked about Mr. Mercedes and Finder's Keepers here I think I may as well talk about End of Watch since I've also since read that.
Uh, for those who don't know, those three books make up the "Bill Hodges Trilogy", a series of hard crime novels by Stephen King. Except not really bc the third one, End of Watch, is a supernatural thriller lol. Just couldn't help himself, I guess.
I liked Mr. Mercedes, it's pretty good just as your average serial killer novel and it's got a really, really interesting main villain as well as some strong emotional beats.
Finders Keepers is a bit of a weird one bc it leans way more into being about the killer, presumably bc that was the unique hallmark of the first book, but it does feel a bit lost without Hodges around to ground the story.
End of Watch is.... if ever a book needed a trigger warning. So the killer from the first book is back but now he's got psychic powers and is using those to make people kill themselves. There are several graphic depictions of suicide throughout the book. I read this over the summer in 2017. To give you a snapshot of my mental state, I'd be suicidal for nearly the whole year, especially flairing up in the winter when seeing my best friend from highschool over winter break triggered a lot of dysphoria for me. By late spring/early summer I was trying out thinking of myself as non-binary(genderfluid/genderflux? I knew I wasn't a cis guy but was just trying out everything in my head while desperatley avoiding the whole idea of binary trans). I was still really, really unhappy and during the summer when I didn't see my friends as much, this all culminated in another period of intense suicidal thoughts. So while the book has heck all to do with gender... uh, well, kinda, there is a butch lesbian as one of the main characters and gender is kinda a thing for her. Anyway, point being, it's depictions of suicide really f-d me up and pushed me closer to actually taking my life than I've probably ever been.
And... none of that is the book's fault. Again, except for maybe lacking a trigger warning of some kind. I likely would not have read it during that summer if i'd been forewarned. That being said, I can't help but hate it. Melodramatic to say, but it really did nearly kill me.
Still, moving past that... I think the genre shift doesn't work. Really wish it had stayed grounded in reality. It also feels a bit flat as a conclusion to the series. The events you're epecting to happen happen, but without the impact they should've ideally had. So.. yeah, not... not a great book.
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