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courtneydoss's reviews
777 reviews
What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
5.0
“What Alice Forgot” is a typical Liane Moriarty book in the sense that there is plenty of suspense centered around the minutiae of a suburban Australian life. The story wasn’t particularly fast paced, though I found myself caring about the characters and the secrets they kept quite a bit. For me, the true depth of this story is found in the ending; in the realization that a decade of memories can make all the difference in the world when it comes to who we are, what we want, and what matters to us. “Young Alice” is not the true Alice, as we are led to believe. Rather, the Alice that has been marred by the emotional cost of a decade; the one who spends the majority of the book being portrayed as a cynical, bitchy harpy, is in fact the real one. But then, even that is not necessarily correct because by the end of the book we see that Real Alice lies somewhere in between the two. As a woman reaching the reality of love and marriage and domesticity after a period of youthfully imagining it, this message spoke to me in a personal way. I quite enjoyed this book and I would recommend it to anyone looking for an easy book to unwind with.
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
4.0
Camille Preaker is not the most likable character I’ve ever encountered. She is incredibly flawed, and sometimes makes decisions that I disagreed with. However, I feel as though that is sort of the point of this story. “Sharp Objects” analyzes mother/daughter relationships, generational trauma, coping mechanisms, mostly of the unhealthy variety, as well as offering an interesting study in the toxicity of a small town and the feminine social hierarchy; the awful things women do to each other and to themselves in the name of popularity. Unfortunately for me, a spoiler from the TV show popped up in my periphery long before I even thought of reading the book, so I am unqualified to speak on the strength of the mystery. But I can say that even knowing the ending beforehand, I was surprised by certain elements. Overall, this was a decent story and I enjoyed reading it.
Lock Every Door by Riley Sager
5.0
Riley Sager writes good books. His stories are compelling, original, and full of realistically flawed characters. A true testament to his ability to write a compulsive page turner is the fact that I had the twist of this novel spoiled before I even began reading, and yet still could not put it down. The book was thrilling and scary and entertaining. It was exactly the type of book that I'm always in the mood for. Having finished Lock Every Door, as well as The Last Time I Lied and Final Girls, Riley Sager has secured a top spot on my favorite authors list. It's not even a question that I will devour whatever book he chooses to come out with next.
The premise of this book is simple; high class apartment sitting at an ultra private, ultra famous building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Jules Larsen has nothing going for her after getting laid off and finding her boyfriend cheating (on the same day), so she figures why not? This ritzy apartment building, also the setting of her favorite book, has offered her the chance of a lifetime. Who cares if the rules are a little much? She's not about to turn down such a rare opportunity. In true mystery/thriller style, though, nothing is as it seems. This seemingly harmless apartment building is loaded up on deadly secrets, and Jules is determined to figure them out.
Jules is a good protagonist, in the sense that she is far more likable than Final Girls main character Quincy and far less screwed up than The Last Time I Lied protagonist Emma. She has her dark past, as is practically required within the genre, but she has a good head on her shoulders and manages her trauma well, all things considered. She does make a few head-scratchingly awful choices, but blame that on age. She is the youngest of Riley Sager's protags, so her mistakes can be chalked up to lack of experience. She is also one half of the only example of positive female friendship within Sager's work. I appreciated that about her.
The strength of the mystery is beyond my ability to judge, as the story was spoiled for me early on. However, once I knew what would happen, I must say that the clues are pretty heavy handed in this novel. I wonder, if I were to reread other work by Sager, would it be a similar experience? Either way, I loved the book. I don't think I enjoyed it quite as much as The Last Time I Lied, though it is a close second, but I definitely liked it better than Final Girls.
The premise of this book is simple; high class apartment sitting at an ultra private, ultra famous building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Jules Larsen has nothing going for her after getting laid off and finding her boyfriend cheating (on the same day), so she figures why not? This ritzy apartment building, also the setting of her favorite book, has offered her the chance of a lifetime. Who cares if the rules are a little much? She's not about to turn down such a rare opportunity. In true mystery/thriller style, though, nothing is as it seems. This seemingly harmless apartment building is loaded up on deadly secrets, and Jules is determined to figure them out.
Jules is a good protagonist, in the sense that she is far more likable than Final Girls main character Quincy and far less screwed up than The Last Time I Lied protagonist Emma. She has her dark past, as is practically required within the genre, but she has a good head on her shoulders and manages her trauma well, all things considered. She does make a few head-scratchingly awful choices, but blame that on age. She is the youngest of Riley Sager's protags, so her mistakes can be chalked up to lack of experience. She is also one half of the only example of positive female friendship within Sager's work. I appreciated that about her.
The strength of the mystery is beyond my ability to judge, as the story was spoiled for me early on. However, once I knew what would happen, I must say that the clues are pretty heavy handed in this novel. I wonder, if I were to reread other work by Sager, would it be a similar experience? Either way, I loved the book. I don't think I enjoyed it quite as much as The Last Time I Lied, though it is a close second, but I definitely liked it better than Final Girls.
Austenland by Shannon Hale
5.0
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a sure fire way into my heart is invoking Miss Jane Austen. I, like so many others, fell in love with the stories of Miss Austen when I was a teenager, and I have never stopped adoring her. There is something so sweet and heart-pumpingly romantic about the constraints of polite 1800s society on a newly budding romance. The things left unsaid, the teasing of deeper feelings before the fireworks and passion of a grand reveal is just so. freaking. good. I love it.
Jane Hayes is like me. A devoted fan of Pride and Prejudice and a touch of obsession over the admittedly dreamy Mr. Darcy, Jane has a bit of a problem with getting ahead of herself. She tends to go all in with the wrong people, and then when they show their true colors (decidedly un-Darcy like), she ends up dejected and upset. In the beginning of the novel, Jane is ready to give up, which is why it is convenient when a great aunt's will bequeaths her three weeks of Austen-centric fun in the English countryside. Dressed in Regency clothes, forced to adhere to Regency manners, and allowed absolutely no technology, Jane finds herself knee deep in her favorite story, for better or worse.
This is a cute story, filled with the heart clenching dramatic irony that I LOVE! It is humorous and sweet, and just the right kind of story to get me into the romantic spirit. It was also a very fast read, taking only a handful of hours to finish. I would recommend this to anyone who has been spirited away by Jane Austen's broody boys, and wants a quick hit of imitation moodiness.
Jane Hayes is like me. A devoted fan of Pride and Prejudice and a touch of obsession over the admittedly dreamy Mr. Darcy, Jane has a bit of a problem with getting ahead of herself. She tends to go all in with the wrong people, and then when they show their true colors (decidedly un-Darcy like), she ends up dejected and upset. In the beginning of the novel, Jane is ready to give up, which is why it is convenient when a great aunt's will bequeaths her three weeks of Austen-centric fun in the English countryside. Dressed in Regency clothes, forced to adhere to Regency manners, and allowed absolutely no technology, Jane finds herself knee deep in her favorite story, for better or worse.
This is a cute story, filled with the heart clenching dramatic irony that I LOVE! It is humorous and sweet, and just the right kind of story to get me into the romantic spirit. It was also a very fast read, taking only a handful of hours to finish. I would recommend this to anyone who has been spirited away by Jane Austen's broody boys, and wants a quick hit of imitation moodiness.
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
5.0
I have never been more uncomfortable in all of my life than I was while reading Lolita. It was a very physical discomfort, the urge to squirm away from the creepy guy getting handsy on the subway, and yet the feeling of being trapped in that subway with no choice but to let it happen. Humbert Humbert was the perfect villain, self-righteous and self-aggrandizing exactly as you would expect a raging pervert to be. I loathed him as I have never loathed a fictional character before. At the very thought of him, my skin crawls. With such a powerful reaction as that, how could I help but to give Nabokov five-reluctant-stars.
The fact that there are reviews that sympathize with Humbert is, in a word, disturbing. Were we reading the same book? This wasn't a love story. It was the story of a narcissistic, likely sociopathic pedophile stealing the childhood of his step-daughter. He didn't love her. He wanted to have sex with her. He wanted to own her. You think that what he felt for her was real love, even if it was misplaced? Then tell me, what kind of girl was Dolores Haze? What sort of person was she? You don't really know, because the only details Humbert sees fit to romanticize and write about, at length, are those of her prepubescent body. There is no effort put into giving Lolita a personality worth loving, because none of this was about loving her for herself. It was about "loving" her for her body. He even says at some point that it is her youth that he loves, and that as soon as she reaches adulthood it will be gone.
The thing that makes people give Humbert the time of day is that he is remarkably articulate. Nabokov's writing is beautiful, even as it leaves you feeling like you need a shower. His gorgeous prose lends itself to making Humbert seem as though he is really human, as though nothing he does to Lolita is his fault, as though he loves her and she loves him back, as though she is not his victim. And yet, we see moments where it is clear that he is the bad guy. Feigning sleep after sex, pretending not to hear that she is literally sobbing afterwards; withholding basic childhood experiences unless she performs sex acts on him, ignoring that it is done reluctantly; never even once thinking of Lolita in a way that is not entirely focused on what he gets from her. He is a sociopath, and she is an abused child.
Lolita is the kind of book that I think everybody should read while at the same time believing firmly that it should be locked away forever. People should see the way a pedophile thinks, the ways that he manipulates the world around him into enabling his relationship with a young, unprotected child. At the same time, I know that there are plenty of people who wouldn't get that from this book. There are people who just think that this is a one-dimensional soliloquy about star-crossed love, without seeing that this story isn't Humbert's. This story is, quite obviously, Lolita's. It is the story of a girl who was failed by the person that was supposed to love her the most, and taken advantage of by a man who believed he was entitled to her childhood. It is the story of a girl being groomed and raped, and of that girl finally growing up despite it all.
I am happy that Dolores Haze is fictional, but there are so very many young girls and boys out there in the world subjected to their very own Humbert Humbert. It is shocking, and upsetting, and disgusting, but it is a fact. My hope is that perhaps someone with similar inclinations to Humbert might read this book, and recognize the damage inflicted upon this fictional child so that perhaps they might never do that damage to a real one. One can dare to dream, right?
The fact that there are reviews that sympathize with Humbert is, in a word, disturbing. Were we reading the same book? This wasn't a love story. It was the story of a narcissistic, likely sociopathic pedophile stealing the childhood of his step-daughter. He didn't love her. He wanted to have sex with her. He wanted to own her. You think that what he felt for her was real love, even if it was misplaced? Then tell me, what kind of girl was Dolores Haze? What sort of person was she? You don't really know, because the only details Humbert sees fit to romanticize and write about, at length, are those of her prepubescent body. There is no effort put into giving Lolita a personality worth loving, because none of this was about loving her for herself. It was about "loving" her for her body. He even says at some point that it is her youth that he loves, and that as soon as she reaches adulthood it will be gone.
The thing that makes people give Humbert the time of day is that he is remarkably articulate. Nabokov's writing is beautiful, even as it leaves you feeling like you need a shower. His gorgeous prose lends itself to making Humbert seem as though he is really human, as though nothing he does to Lolita is his fault, as though he loves her and she loves him back, as though she is not his victim. And yet, we see moments where it is clear that he is the bad guy. Feigning sleep after sex, pretending not to hear that she is literally sobbing afterwards; withholding basic childhood experiences unless she performs sex acts on him, ignoring that it is done reluctantly; never even once thinking of Lolita in a way that is not entirely focused on what he gets from her. He is a sociopath, and she is an abused child.
Lolita is the kind of book that I think everybody should read while at the same time believing firmly that it should be locked away forever. People should see the way a pedophile thinks, the ways that he manipulates the world around him into enabling his relationship with a young, unprotected child. At the same time, I know that there are plenty of people who wouldn't get that from this book. There are people who just think that this is a one-dimensional soliloquy about star-crossed love, without seeing that this story isn't Humbert's. This story is, quite obviously, Lolita's. It is the story of a girl who was failed by the person that was supposed to love her the most, and taken advantage of by a man who believed he was entitled to her childhood. It is the story of a girl being groomed and raped, and of that girl finally growing up despite it all.
I am happy that Dolores Haze is fictional, but there are so very many young girls and boys out there in the world subjected to their very own Humbert Humbert. It is shocking, and upsetting, and disgusting, but it is a fact. My hope is that perhaps someone with similar inclinations to Humbert might read this book, and recognize the damage inflicted upon this fictional child so that perhaps they might never do that damage to a real one. One can dare to dream, right?
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
5.0
The Handmaid's Tale has long been one among the many books that I knew I needed to read, but just never got around to. When the Hulu series came out, I bought a copy for my Kindle, and it sat unread for an embarrassing amount of time. Finally, after years of procrastination, I have gotten around to reading it, and I wonder what the hell took me so long.
I think most people know what this book is about; a dystopian society where fertility is valuable, but women are not. Using the Bible as a precedent for a mass cultural shift, Gilead diminishes the rights of women and ultimately begins to diminish fertile women to the point of livestock. Every month, at their most fertile, the "handmaids" engage in an impersonal, highly ritualized sex act with the man that owns them. If a child is produced, the Handmaid lives out her pregnancy in peace, give birth to the baby, spend a handful of weeks breast feeding, and then are moved on to her next station. No better than animals, they are denied even the most basic of rights -- their own names.
Offred, original name unknown, is the Handmaid of a high powered Commander and his wife, Serena Joy. This is her third, and last, assignment and her only chance to have a child. If she fails, she will be subjected to whatever horror infertile women are subjected to. Told in the first person, Offred's tale is deliciously limited in its scope. We don't know everything about the world; we only know what she knows, and she doesn't know a whole lot. All she knows is her experience, and the reader is left to wonder at all the unanswered questions. This tactic on the part of Margaret Atwood is highly effective, in my opinion. It serves to put you into the place of the Handmaid -- in a state of constantly being denied the thing that you want most.
No scene showed the horror of this regime more than a scene from the time before Offred became a Handmaid, when Offred and her husband Luke are trying to escape Gilead with their daughter. The couple is faced with the difficult decision of what to do with their beloved pet, and Offred remarks that it is what these kind of regimes do; they force you to kill parts of yourself, to become something you don't want to be just so that you can survive, the lay waste to parts of yourself that you once valued and to parts of your life that you valued, because the alternative is worse. That hit me really hard.
I heard that there is a sequel to this that answers all of the questions posed at the end of the book, and I don't think that I'm going to read it.. I liked the way this book ended well enough to stop here.
I think most people know what this book is about; a dystopian society where fertility is valuable, but women are not. Using the Bible as a precedent for a mass cultural shift, Gilead diminishes the rights of women and ultimately begins to diminish fertile women to the point of livestock. Every month, at their most fertile, the "handmaids" engage in an impersonal, highly ritualized sex act with the man that owns them. If a child is produced, the Handmaid lives out her pregnancy in peace, give birth to the baby, spend a handful of weeks breast feeding, and then are moved on to her next station. No better than animals, they are denied even the most basic of rights -- their own names.
Offred, original name unknown, is the Handmaid of a high powered Commander and his wife, Serena Joy. This is her third, and last, assignment and her only chance to have a child. If she fails, she will be subjected to whatever horror infertile women are subjected to. Told in the first person, Offred's tale is deliciously limited in its scope. We don't know everything about the world; we only know what she knows, and she doesn't know a whole lot. All she knows is her experience, and the reader is left to wonder at all the unanswered questions. This tactic on the part of Margaret Atwood is highly effective, in my opinion. It serves to put you into the place of the Handmaid -- in a state of constantly being denied the thing that you want most.
No scene showed the horror of this regime more than a scene from the time before Offred became a Handmaid, when Offred and her husband Luke are trying to escape Gilead with their daughter. The couple is faced with the difficult decision of what to do with their beloved pet, and Offred remarks that it is what these kind of regimes do; they force you to kill parts of yourself, to become something you don't want to be just so that you can survive, the lay waste to parts of yourself that you once valued and to parts of your life that you valued, because the alternative is worse. That hit me really hard.
I heard that there is a sequel to this that answers all of the questions posed at the end of the book, and I don't think that I'm going to read it.
Spoiler
I like the parallel between the mystery of what happened to Offred, and the way she doesn't know what happened to Luke or her daughter. Just as she spent so much time in a state of ignorance about what happened, so must we.
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
5.0
Madeline Miller's debut novel, The Song of Achilles is an epic retelling of the life and love of famed Trojan War hero Achilles, told through the eyes of his true love, Patroclus. Beginning with Patroclus' exile from his homeland after an accidental murder, the book follows the two boys from childhood, through the initial years of the Trojan War, and up to the point of their deaths. Although set against the backdrop of one of the most famous wars in history, the focus of this novel is on the emotional relationship between the two main characters, and how the myths in which they both play a part came to be.
As a fan of Greek mythology, and of Madeline Miller's second book, Circe, I knew that I would like this book. However, I expected that my reaction would fall in with the majority of readers, in the sense that I would prefer Miller's sophomore novel to this one. That was not the case. I found The Song of Achilles to be a deeply moving, wonderfully romantic story. Often times, in the modern era, the story of these two characters has been changed to indicate a heterosexual leaning on the part of Achilles. Despite the fact that it was relatively common for soldiers to form sexual relationships with one another in Ancient Greece, that particular thing has been taken out of many modern day retellings. Miller, on the other hand, leans into that part of Greek culture, and doubles down on it. In this retelling, Achilles is not some womanizing super soldier who happens to fall in love with a man. He is instead a demigod and a gay man, desperately in love with Patroclus.
Achilles is an interesting literary character, a Book of Virtues style fable against hubris. It is, after all, his desperation for fame and his incredible pride that results in the worst events of his life. As the child of a god, he is overloaded with power and support from the divine, told again and again that he is destined for godhood. He believes, entirely, that that is what he wants, and that more than that, it is what he deserves. As the greatest fighter of all time, he feels that the respect and thanks of his fellow men is the least that they can give him. This is his fatal flaw.
Patroclus, mythologically speaking, is not a well formed character. His relationship to Achilles is pretty much the only thing that anybody knows about him, and I felt that Madeline Miller's debut novel didn't add very much to this foundation. Patroclus, although the narrator of the novel, is hardly the main character. He is the more moral half of their relationship, woefully average and averse to fighting, as well as being desperately infatuated with his lover. Who he is, separate of Achilles, is not well written. In my opinion, the novel would have been all that much better if Miller had taken the skeleton provided in mythology and really fleshed it out to make Patroclus his own person rather than Achilles' faithful boyfriend. Other than that, though, I felt like Miller did a good job of bringing this story to life.
Other than this and Circe, Madeline Miller hasn't written any other novels. However, she is still early in her career. My fingers are crossed in eager hopes that she will write more of her Greek myth inspired fiction, because it will be on my auto-buy list!
As a fan of Greek mythology, and of Madeline Miller's second book, Circe, I knew that I would like this book. However, I expected that my reaction would fall in with the majority of readers, in the sense that I would prefer Miller's sophomore novel to this one. That was not the case. I found The Song of Achilles to be a deeply moving, wonderfully romantic story. Often times, in the modern era, the story of these two characters has been changed to indicate a heterosexual leaning on the part of Achilles. Despite the fact that it was relatively common for soldiers to form sexual relationships with one another in Ancient Greece, that particular thing has been taken out of many modern day retellings. Miller, on the other hand, leans into that part of Greek culture, and doubles down on it. In this retelling, Achilles is not some womanizing super soldier who happens to fall in love with a man. He is instead a demigod and a gay man, desperately in love with Patroclus.
Achilles is an interesting literary character, a Book of Virtues style fable against hubris. It is, after all, his desperation for fame and his incredible pride that results in the worst events of his life. As the child of a god, he is overloaded with power and support from the divine, told again and again that he is destined for godhood. He believes, entirely, that that is what he wants, and that more than that, it is what he deserves. As the greatest fighter of all time, he feels that the respect and thanks of his fellow men is the least that they can give him. This is his fatal flaw.
Patroclus, mythologically speaking, is not a well formed character. His relationship to Achilles is pretty much the only thing that anybody knows about him, and I felt that Madeline Miller's debut novel didn't add very much to this foundation. Patroclus, although the narrator of the novel, is hardly the main character. He is the more moral half of their relationship, woefully average and averse to fighting, as well as being desperately infatuated with his lover. Who he is, separate of Achilles, is not well written. In my opinion, the novel would have been all that much better if Miller had taken the skeleton provided in mythology and really fleshed it out to make Patroclus his own person rather than Achilles' faithful boyfriend. Other than that, though, I felt like Miller did a good job of bringing this story to life.
Other than this and Circe, Madeline Miller hasn't written any other novels. However, she is still early in her career. My fingers are crossed in eager hopes that she will write more of her Greek myth inspired fiction, because it will be on my auto-buy list!
The Shining by Stephen King
5.0
Pretty much everybody knows what The Shining is about. A man, his wife, and their small son living in a closed down hotel over the winter, far removed from the rest of civilization and left with no way out. Of course, the hotel is haunted by a series of misfortunes, but Jack Torrance and his wife Wendy are also haunted. They bring with them their own ghosts, shadowy pasts filled with demons that assist in building a creepy, atmospheric tale of haunting.
Because I have not lived under a rock at any point during my life, I have seen Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of this book, and I expected that it would come out the same way. I sat through the tense final chapters expecting the ending to be what I had seen on film, and I was incredibly relieved to discover that it was not so. Stanley Kubrick was telling a different story when he made the film version of The Shining. The story that Stephen King was telling was, to me, far more compelling and believable.
Without spoiling too much, I found that I actually really liked Jack Torrance. His descent into madness is well known, the classic "Here's Johnny!" axe against the bathroom door scene an absolute staple of pop culture literacy. However, King's version of Jack is far more nuanced and complex. His struggle to remain sober is only one of the weapons that the hotel uses against him. We see his struggle against being like his father, while simultaneously being driven through madness into the same behaviors that his father was known for. We see his desire to be so much more than he has turned out to be, and how the Overlook preys on this desire to lull him into a sense of security. The Overlook makes him feel special in a way that he has been lacking, and so distracts him from its true motives; to get at his son, Danny.
I was very impressed with the way that King crafted such a flawed character, made him commit terrible acts, and yet was still able to make him lovable. I was particularly captured in the latter portion of the novel, when Jack is roaming the halls of the Overlook in a rage, driven mad by the hotel, attempting to murder his wife and son. At the same time that I was chewing my nails in anxiety about Danny and Wendy making it out unscathed, I was hoping against hope that somehow Jack would make it out too. That they could get away from him without killing him, that he could be redeemed. It's hard to love a roque mallet wielding psychopath, but I did. I wanted him to succeed in fighting his demons, and I wanted them all to be a happy family at the end.
Wendy, too, was much more likable to me in print than on film. I don't remember much about her in the film, but I do know that she was far less bad ass than the Wendy Torrance of the novel. The way that Wendy summons her strength to fight against her husband, protect her child, and do what needs to be done in the ending portion of the novel was awesome. Sure, she made a couple dumb mistakes throughout the novel, but what character doesn't make mistakes that are crystal clear from the vantage point of dramatic irony? I liked her. And of course, Danny Torrance is a godsend. Precious cinnamon roll too good for this world.
I definitely look forward to reading the follow up novel to this one, Doctor Sleep, just to catch up on what happened to Danny.
Because I have not lived under a rock at any point during my life, I have seen Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of this book, and I expected that it would come out the same way. I sat through the tense final chapters expecting the ending to be what I had seen on film, and I was incredibly relieved to discover that it was not so. Stanley Kubrick was telling a different story when he made the film version of The Shining. The story that Stephen King was telling was, to me, far more compelling and believable.
Without spoiling too much, I found that I actually really liked Jack Torrance. His descent into madness is well known, the classic "Here's Johnny!" axe against the bathroom door scene an absolute staple of pop culture literacy. However, King's version of Jack is far more nuanced and complex. His struggle to remain sober is only one of the weapons that the hotel uses against him. We see his struggle against being like his father, while simultaneously being driven through madness into the same behaviors that his father was known for. We see his desire to be so much more than he has turned out to be, and how the Overlook preys on this desire to lull him into a sense of security. The Overlook makes him feel special in a way that he has been lacking, and so distracts him from its true motives; to get at his son, Danny.
I was very impressed with the way that King crafted such a flawed character, made him commit terrible acts, and yet was still able to make him lovable. I was particularly captured in the latter portion of the novel, when Jack is roaming the halls of the Overlook in a rage, driven mad by the hotel, attempting to murder his wife and son. At the same time that I was chewing my nails in anxiety about Danny and Wendy making it out unscathed, I was hoping against hope that somehow Jack would make it out too. That they could get away from him without killing him, that he could be redeemed. It's hard to love a roque mallet wielding psychopath, but I did. I wanted him to succeed in fighting his demons, and I wanted them all to be a happy family at the end.
Wendy, too, was much more likable to me in print than on film. I don't remember much about her in the film, but I do know that she was far less bad ass than the Wendy Torrance of the novel. The way that Wendy summons her strength to fight against her husband, protect her child, and do what needs to be done in the ending portion of the novel was awesome. Sure, she made a couple dumb mistakes throughout the novel, but what character doesn't make mistakes that are crystal clear from the vantage point of dramatic irony? I liked her. And of course, Danny Torrance is a godsend. Precious cinnamon roll too good for this world.
I definitely look forward to reading the follow up novel to this one, Doctor Sleep, just to catch up on what happened to Danny.
The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware
5.0
Rowan wasn't planning on finding a job as a nanny, but somehow a job at the far off Scottish manor home, Heatherbrae House, fell into her lap. The pay is really good, and the whole situation seems far preferable to her life in London. Heatherbrae House, however, is not all that it seemed at first. Chock full of the latest technology, rendering privacy a thing of her past, and diminished by its tragic history, Rowan soon begins to understand why four other nannies have left in rapid succession before this. One things leads to another, and eventually Rowan finds herself falsely (or not) accused of murdering one of the children under her charge. Told through letters to a lawyer that she hopes can get her out of this mess, Rowan's story unfolds in a tense, page-turning way that made my time with this book absolutely fly by.
I'm a big mystery person. I also love the use of unfamiliar locales, isolation, and superstitious locals to really amp up the tension, all of which this book excelled at. This book kept me guessing right up until the end. I have seen other reviews that claim the twist was too easily discovered, but I disagree. Yes, the twist at the end is predictable once you reach a certain point in the novel, but there is enough doubt to make it a fun reveal. I'm the type of reader who can take as much satisfaction in the "I knew it!" moment as in the "whoa, didn't see that coming," moment. Both can be fun and exciting, and I don't think that Turn of the Key's use of the former was necessarily a bad thing.
I don't want to spoil this book for anybody, so I'll keep my review brief, but suffice it to say that this was one of the better mysteries I have read this year.
I'm a big mystery person. I also love the use of unfamiliar locales, isolation, and superstitious locals to really amp up the tension, all of which this book excelled at. This book kept me guessing right up until the end. I have seen other reviews that claim the twist was too easily discovered, but I disagree. Yes, the twist at the end is predictable once you reach a certain point in the novel, but there is enough doubt to make it a fun reveal. I'm the type of reader who can take as much satisfaction in the "I knew it!" moment as in the "whoa, didn't see that coming," moment. Both can be fun and exciting, and I don't think that Turn of the Key's use of the former was necessarily a bad thing.
I don't want to spoil this book for anybody, so I'll keep my review brief, but suffice it to say that this was one of the better mysteries I have read this year.