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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
"i was killed by curiosity like a finely tuned cat."
that was not, actually, one of the many similes this book is drowning in, but it may as well have been. some real examples:
"In my mind’s eye I could see her standing at a pay phone, scanning her surroundings, her eyes never resting, broadcasting fear like Radio Free Europe."
or
"She was thin as soup in a homeless shelter"
or
"For the third time in as many days I saw daybreak, an event I embrace as eagerly as Joe Montana welcomes an all-out blitz."
i don't even know what that means.
not to mention such general sparklers as:
"I had enough pharmaceuticals in me to numb the Iraqi army ..."
the iraqi army is an odd choice for a book published in 1998, though i guess it takes place in 1994. still, odd choice for a book that takes place in 1994. unless there was some iraqi army drug scandal i'm forgetting all about. or was the iraqi army the lasting symbol of "a big group of people who it would take a lot of drugs to numb" back in 1994?
it may be that i only read this book because i've been feeling really negative about almost everything i've read recently, and my reviews have fallen on a spectrum from cranky to brutal, which may or may not be fair. might as well read something that i know i would hate, right? the sad truth is that when i was bored last winter i watched some of the t.v. show bones, which is based on these books. smart science lady who is smart and says smart science-y stuff and figures out stuff in a smart way? (i am also smart, as is evidenced by the previous sentence.) sign me up!
but the "same" character in this book says things like:
"I watched him walk away, admiring once again the way he filled his 501’s."
and constantly comments on how she can't quite figure something out, there's something she's missing, there's a piece of the puzzle that doesn't fit. all the while, i'm screaming at the book, "i can tell you what you're missing! it's fucking obvious!"
also, this book would be half the size if any of these near-interchangeable characters actually told each other anything. they're supposed to be running an investigation. together.
or maybe a decent editor would have sufficed.
the final reality is that i just didn't care about anyone in this book. well, that's not true. i really liked the lead character's cat. so maybe i finished the book to find out what happened to the cat. or maybe i finished it so i could exorcise my book crankiness and take it all out on kathy reichs.
we'll see. watch out, [b:Woman in the Dunes|9998|The Woman in the Dunes|Kōbō Abe|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1361254930s/9998.jpg|58336]
that was not, actually, one of the many similes this book is drowning in, but it may as well have been. some real examples:
"In my mind’s eye I could see her standing at a pay phone, scanning her surroundings, her eyes never resting, broadcasting fear like Radio Free Europe."
or
"She was thin as soup in a homeless shelter"
or
"For the third time in as many days I saw daybreak, an event I embrace as eagerly as Joe Montana welcomes an all-out blitz."
i don't even know what that means.
not to mention such general sparklers as:
"I had enough pharmaceuticals in me to numb the Iraqi army ..."
the iraqi army is an odd choice for a book published in 1998, though i guess it takes place in 1994. still, odd choice for a book that takes place in 1994. unless there was some iraqi army drug scandal i'm forgetting all about. or was the iraqi army the lasting symbol of "a big group of people who it would take a lot of drugs to numb" back in 1994?
it may be that i only read this book because i've been feeling really negative about almost everything i've read recently, and my reviews have fallen on a spectrum from cranky to brutal, which may or may not be fair. might as well read something that i know i would hate, right? the sad truth is that when i was bored last winter i watched some of the t.v. show bones, which is based on these books. smart science lady who is smart and says smart science-y stuff and figures out stuff in a smart way? (i am also smart, as is evidenced by the previous sentence.) sign me up!
but the "same" character in this book says things like:
"I watched him walk away, admiring once again the way he filled his 501’s."
and constantly comments on how she can't quite figure something out, there's something she's missing, there's a piece of the puzzle that doesn't fit. all the while, i'm screaming at the book, "i can tell you what you're missing! it's fucking obvious!"
also, this book would be half the size if any of these near-interchangeable characters actually told each other anything. they're supposed to be running an investigation. together.
or maybe a decent editor would have sufficed.
the final reality is that i just didn't care about anyone in this book. well, that's not true. i really liked the lead character's cat. so maybe i finished the book to find out what happened to the cat.
Spoiler
nothing bad happens to the cat.we'll see. watch out, [b:Woman in the Dunes|9998|The Woman in the Dunes|Kōbō Abe|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1361254930s/9998.jpg|58336]
I'd actually give this a 2.5.
Two of the things that bothered me about it are personal preferences, so I'll get those over with. First of all, the book is told in the first person and for some reason, I've always preferred third person. That's not enough to lower my rating, though. Then, I thought it would be more like the TV show, so it didn't meet up with my expectations. Again, not the book's fault, as it was written before the TV show.
So, on to the rest of the book. I found most of it very unbelievable. Dr. Brennan seems to never work during the work day, she never calls the police for help when any sane person would, she picks up a ton of clues that the police have apparently missed and then they won't even listen to her when she's point out pretty obvious facts. She's afraid of a serial killer, but doesn't worry about the door to her building being left open on a couple of occasions, doesn't move out when he knows where she lives, etc, etc. And, the book takes place in Quebec and they call the FBI for help. Does Canada not have its own FBI type organization?
She is too in love with similes. I have nothing against similes. Some of them were pretty clever. They are often a good way of describing something your reader may not have experienced before. But, there were 3 similes on one page, and I'm willing to bed that if you counted all the words, like would be right up there with the word the. It was beginning to get distracting. I could only wonder if she used to be a Valley Girl.
The pacing was way too slow in a lot of places, and I didn't even really care about what was going to happen until I got very close to the end.
On the positive side, I did like some of the characters, such as Brennan (even if she did bare no similarity to Bones) and Ryan.
Two of the things that bothered me about it are personal preferences, so I'll get those over with. First of all, the book is told in the first person and for some reason, I've always preferred third person. That's not enough to lower my rating, though. Then, I thought it would be more like the TV show, so it didn't meet up with my expectations. Again, not the book's fault, as it was written before the TV show.
So, on to the rest of the book. I found most of it very unbelievable. Dr. Brennan seems to never work during the work day, she never calls the police for help when any sane person would, she picks up a ton of clues that the police have apparently missed and then they won't even listen to her when she's point out pretty obvious facts. She's afraid of a serial killer, but doesn't worry about the door to her building being left open on a couple of occasions, doesn't move out when he knows where she lives, etc, etc. And, the book takes place in Quebec and they call the FBI for help. Does Canada not have its own FBI type organization?
She is too in love with similes. I have nothing against similes. Some of them were pretty clever. They are often a good way of describing something your reader may not have experienced before. But, there were 3 similes on one page, and I'm willing to bed that if you counted all the words, like would be right up there with the word the. It was beginning to get distracting. I could only wonder if she used to be a Valley Girl.
The pacing was way too slow in a lot of places, and I didn't even really care about what was going to happen until I got very close to the end.
On the positive side, I did like some of the characters, such as Brennan (even if she did bare no similarity to Bones) and Ryan.
I've been watching the TV show Bones on Netflix and hulu.com over the summer, and I wanted to give the books a try. Other reviewers are correct when they say "loosely-based" means the character name and profession and that's it. I like this Temperance Brennan a lot better than the TV version.
The gruesome descriptions in the first chapter alone were enough to turn my stomach (a problem I also have with the show). But either I got used to it, or she cut back as the book progressed. It took a while to get into, partially because of the gore, partially because the first few chapters seemed excessively wordy (but that was something else that also improved throughout the book).
I like seeing a crime series set in Canada for a change, rather than New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, or hell, even Boston. I would definitely give the next book a shot.
The gruesome descriptions in the first chapter alone were enough to turn my stomach (a problem I also have with the show). But either I got used to it, or she cut back as the book progressed. It took a while to get into, partially because of the gore, partially because the first few chapters seemed excessively wordy (but that was something else that also improved throughout the book).
I like seeing a crime series set in Canada for a change, rather than New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, or hell, even Boston. I would definitely give the next book a shot.
Having seen the show Bones, and being a lover of all things books/reading, I felt it was absolutely necessary to pick up the first book in this series about Temp Brennan and see what it was like. While I like the show, I was super excited to find that Kathy Reichs' writing style was fun, sassy, suspenseful, mysterious and passionate, a great combination for a good story. I enjoyed it and will definitely keep reading this series!
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
This book was just ok. I have only seen a few episodes of the TV show Bones that is based on the books. It the only inspiration is that it's a forensic anthropologist. The character in the book is nothing like that on the show. And I think I like the tv version better.
I really don't like books where the main character goes off on a hunch by him/herself, without telling anyone, with NO plan, in hopes of what? The bad guy just confessing and turning himself in on a street corner? Temperance Brennan does this about 4 times in the book. It's ridiculous.
The author loves to put in random sports analogies to describe Brennan's internal pep talks. She also spends a lot of time describing the condition of Brennan's stomach. It's filled with ice, it's churning, it's sinking.....
This counts as a book based on or turned into a TV show for the 2015 PopSugar Reading Challenge.
44/52
I really don't like books where the main character goes off on a hunch by him/herself, without telling anyone, with NO plan, in hopes of what? The bad guy just confessing and turning himself in on a street corner? Temperance Brennan does this about 4 times in the book. It's ridiculous.
The author loves to put in random sports analogies to describe Brennan's internal pep talks. She also spends a lot of time describing the condition of Brennan's stomach. It's filled with ice, it's churning, it's sinking.....
This counts as a book based on or turned into a TV show for the 2015 PopSugar Reading Challenge.
44/52
Not as good as her later books - you can tell this is the first! But still a delight to read.
Deja Dead is a run-of-the-mill mystery featuring a forensic anthropologist, Temperance Brennan, as the main character. I had a hard time getting into this book and found the character of Temperance to be unbelievable and unlikable. The authors depiction of Temperance was somewhat bipolar. Temperance A, the scientist was smart, engaging and downright likable. Temperance B, made very poor decisions and thought she could outsmart a serial killer single-handedly despite many, many warnings from her superior officers. The result, 532 pages and many lost hours hoping that the book would redeem itself in the end. Sadly, I have a hard time recommending this one.
I wanted more from this book. The TV show has a different feeling, with more action and things actually happen faster. So my problem was related to the pace of this book.
The investigation was actually different and I liked that it was in Canada, so it makes things interesting and a little fresh. I will try the next one on the series, but I'm not getting my hopes up with the way the author made it look so far.
The investigation was actually different and I liked that it was in Canada, so it makes things interesting and a little fresh. I will try the next one on the series, but I'm not getting my hopes up with the way the author made it look so far.