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kris_mccracken's reviews
2529 reviews
Jaws by Peter Benchley
3.0
I know the movie well (I'd class it as among the absolute best), but had never got around to reading the book. Once you get past the nonsense spouted about sharks - Benchley's done his best to atone for that - you'll find a taut little thriller that engrosses from the beginning.
I liked it very much, well worth tracking down.
I liked it very much, well worth tracking down.
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
4.0
Another odd little Japanese novel that is essentially a love story between an odd woman and a convenience store.
I quite liked it!
I quite liked it!
Human Acts by Han Kang
5.0
Hard going at times, this one is a brutal heart-breaker than explores the deep and rippling effects of state-sanctioned atrocities, particularly those that are left festering and without genuine efforts at reconciliation and efforts to expose truth.
I really liked it, but was a little taken aback at the tone, as I went in purely looking for a Korean novel in advance of my first visit!
I really liked it, but was a little taken aback at the tone, as I went in purely looking for a Korean novel in advance of my first visit!
The Cove by Ron Rash
4.0
I'm really digging Ron Rash. I really enjoyed One Foot in Eden immensely, and was looking forward to The Cove. It did not disappoint, even if the narrow-minded locals did! Bleak as all hell, but a fantastic gut punch of a novel. I'm already racking up his over novels on the "to read" list.
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone, Amal El-Mohtar
1.0
There is a few hours that I'll never get back.
I'll be honest, I'm at a bit of a loss to see why this is rated so highly. There are certainly many, ah, words here. And, ah, the whole "time war" things is very, um, 'interesting'.
Who am I kidding? It strikes me as full of highfalutin guff. Utterly pretentious in its incoherence and desire to overwhelm the reader with (what is the right expression...?) "poetic obfuscation".
Yeah, the 'twist' wasn't much of a twist and I found myself frustrated at wading through all of the gibberish (both conceptual and linguistic), only to find that that was it.
Better to not waste your time.
I'll be honest, I'm at a bit of a loss to see why this is rated so highly. There are certainly many, ah, words here. And, ah, the whole "time war" things is very, um, 'interesting'.
Who am I kidding? It strikes me as full of highfalutin guff. Utterly pretentious in its incoherence and desire to overwhelm the reader with (what is the right expression...?) "poetic obfuscation".
Yeah, the 'twist' wasn't much of a twist and I found myself frustrated at wading through all of the gibberish (both conceptual and linguistic), only to find that that was it.
Better to not waste your time.
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
3.0
I get the whole discussion around authenticity and who can tell whose stories, but I'm going to side step it here. It would be disingenuous of me to have it fundamentally impact my score, given that I routinely rate highly works by men and women evoking characters and narratives of worlds far beyond their own.
So, the novel. Yeah, a little heavy on the cliché. A bit "Mexico by numbers", but not in any significantly more egregious way that - for example - Yuri Herrera's most recent novels have done. It moves along at a decent pace, and is too heavy handed for my tastes. Still, I've have it rated somewhere around 2.5 leaning towards 3 stars.
So, the novel. Yeah, a little heavy on the cliché. A bit "Mexico by numbers", but not in any significantly more egregious way that - for example - Yuri Herrera's most recent novels have done. It moves along at a decent pace, and is too heavy handed for my tastes. Still, I've have it rated somewhere around 2.5 leaning towards 3 stars.
The Korean War by Max Hastings
4.0
A few years old now, and was written without a lot of access to the Russian and Chinese archives, which limits its line-of-sight. That said, Hasting's presents a thorough portrait of the war, with all of its hubris, errors and tragedies.
Perhaps the key issue that didn't quite land for me is the fact that - in a abundance of voices from the UN armies, the Japanese holdovers and even some of their Chinese adversaries - the real absence of Korean voices. They are there, but primarily introduced via a Western lens. Perhaps this is appropriate, as Korea was indeed a proxy war in which the locals were mere ciphers for grander ambitions.
Despite this, it offers a great opportunity to understand how on Earth so many found themselves neck deep into the mess that was the war. Moreover, it offers some sense of why a resolution to the conflict remains elusive today.
Perhaps the key issue that didn't quite land for me is the fact that - in a abundance of voices from the UN armies, the Japanese holdovers and even some of their Chinese adversaries - the real absence of Korean voices. They are there, but primarily introduced via a Western lens. Perhaps this is appropriate, as Korea was indeed a proxy war in which the locals were mere ciphers for grander ambitions.
Despite this, it offers a great opportunity to understand how on Earth so many found themselves neck deep into the mess that was the war. Moreover, it offers some sense of why a resolution to the conflict remains elusive today.
Beartown by Fredrik Backman
5.0
It's a rare thing to find a book that so totally constructs a world so vividly inhabited by a range of characters of great depth and complexity, to such affecting ends. Perhaps it helps to grow up in a town in the death throes of de-industrialisation. To be a parent of a teenager (and another nearly there). To be not quite as courageous as one might like to be when it comes to expressing one's innermost feelings, but to be a man who has never quite fit in with the 'world of men'.
Whatever the reasons, I loved this book. I suspect that a number of these characters, their trials, choices, bravery and cowardliness will stay with me for a very long time. Wonderful stuff!
Whatever the reasons, I loved this book. I suspect that a number of these characters, their trials, choices, bravery and cowardliness will stay with me for a very long time. Wonderful stuff!
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
5.0
Covering a year in the life of a number of young black girls in against the backdrop of America's Midwest in the years following the Great Depression. Like a lot of stuff written in the late-1960s, the shifts about a number of characters, as well as a third-person, omniscient perspective. However, (unlike many novelists in the late-1960s) Morrison has the skill to pull it off effectively. In fact, her use is a great example of how such a device can aid in constructing a depth of characterisation rarely seen in such a challenging (in terms of subject matter) tale.
Without giving the game away, the novel explores ideas of ‘beauty’, particularly those that relate to racial characteristics, gender, race, deprivation, historical memory, the sexualisation of youth, and the determinants that shape individual’s character, choices and lives.
It’s a wonderful book, and one in which the author expertly (and seemingly effortlessly) recreates a world populated with rich characters so far from one’s own to a degree rarely seen. Even more so, she has avoided the clichéd exercise of the literary expression of ‘victim as martyr’ or ‘misery as entertainment’.
I could not possibly recommend it more highly.
Without giving the game away, the novel explores ideas of ‘beauty’, particularly those that relate to racial characteristics, gender, race, deprivation, historical memory, the sexualisation of youth, and the determinants that shape individual’s character, choices and lives.
It’s a wonderful book, and one in which the author expertly (and seemingly effortlessly) recreates a world populated with rich characters so far from one’s own to a degree rarely seen. Even more so, she has avoided the clichéd exercise of the literary expression of ‘victim as martyr’ or ‘misery as entertainment’.
I could not possibly recommend it more highly.