January Minireviews – Part 3

Sometimes I don’t feel like writing a full review for whatever reason, either because life is busy and I don’t have time, or because a book didn’t stir me enough.  Sometimes, it’s because a book was so good that I just don’t have anything to say beyond that I loved it!  Frequently, I’m just wayyy behind on reviews and am trying to catch up.  For whatever reason, these are books that only have a few paragraphs of thoughts from me.

Cogheart by Peter Bunzl – 3*

//published 2016//

This book definitely seemed like one I should like.  Middle-grade steampunk with super fun world-building and interesting characters, yet somehow the story just fell flat for me.  There were some minor continuity issues that annoyed me – things like several sentences explaining why a certain mechanical animal can’t get wet, but then later in the book he gets completed doused in a huge barrel of water, yet is completely fine.  There were little things like that throughout that really distracted me.  The drama was just a little too over-the-top and choppy.  Overall, while I enjoyed it for a one-time read, I don’t really feel interested enough to read the rest of the series.

Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie – 3.5*

//published 1924//

This is a collection of short stories featuring (you guessed it) Hercule Poirot.  Like all short stories, this batch had its strengths and weaknesses, but overall were just sort of meh.  There wasn’t really one that jumped out at me as being particularly clever or interesting.  Much of Christie’s brilliance is in her characterizations, and this format doesn’t really allow for that to happen, so it’s mostly just random set up of a problem, Poirot is clever while Hastings is a bit slow, and then conclusion.  A fine little read but not one that blew me away.

The Decorated Garden Room by Tessa Evelegh – 3.5*

//published 1999//

This was a nonfiction read and focuses on turning outdoor areas into living spaces.  The book was an odd mixture of the super practical and then the super impractical.  Overall, Evelegh presents some useful information, like where to start (floor/ground) and gives some ideas for other aspects of creating a garden nook.  But some of her ideas were just so over-the-top that I can’t imagine anyone doing them from scratch.  Still, there are a lot of lovely photographs and some interesting concepts.  I’m not sure how happy I would be if I had paid full price, but since I picked it up as a library discard for a quarter, it was worth the investment.

Watching You by Lisa Jewel – 4*

//published 2018//

Do you ever have one of those authors that you just keep adding their books to your TBR but never seem to actually read one??  Jewel has definitely been one of those authors for me, and I finally got around to reading one of her books this month!  I really enjoyed this one, although Joey’s pattern of self-sabotage (“I’m a terrible person because I do terrible things/I may as well do terrible things because I’m a terrible person”) really began to get on my nerves.  There was also a married couple in this book that didn’t end up staying together, and I think the story would have been a lot stronger if they had.  Instead, it’s just another one of those messages about how “sometimes things just don’t work out” instead of “marriage is work so you’d best work on it.”

But all of those things are side issues. The main story/mystery was done very well.  The pacing was absolutely fantastic – I loved the way the police interviews were sprinkled throughout the story, giving little tidbits of what is going to happen in the future.  The majority of this book was written in third person, past tense – YAY.  At the end of the day, this was an easy 4* read, and I definitely want to see what else Jewel has to offer.

A Mouse Called Wolf by Dick King-Smith – 3*

//published 1997//

This is a very short children’s book (less than 100 pages) that has been on my shelf a long time.  I have a lot of love for many of King-Smith’s books (Babe the Gallant Pig, Harry’s Mad, The Fox Busters, The Queen’s Nose, etc.), but he also went through a time period where he was cranking out books at a ridiculous rate, so some of his stories do lack depth, and this was one of those.  A story about a singing mouse and an elderly lady, this was a perfectly nice little story that I can see younger readers enjoying, but it was a bit too simplistic for me.

Watching You // by Michael Robotham

//published 2015//

After a few weeks of basically reading nothing but Dee Henderson, I was ready to jump into something new.  I’ve been really wanting to read the last two books in the Joseph O’Laughlin series, Watching You and Close Your Eyes, so I was pretty stoked to jump back into the series.  I’ve really come to like Joe and his family a lot, and his friend, Vincent Ruiz, is one of my favorite characters ever.

This book didn’t disappoint – I finished it within 24 hours of starting it, reading in huge chunks when I could, and a page or two at a time every time I walked through the room.  It was so intense, and I think it may be my favorite in the series (although Shatter is a close second).

One thing that I liked about this book is that Robotham switched to third person narration, which I always thinks works much better with present tense (if present tense we must).  For this book, it was a big part of what kept the tension ratcheting – the narration was always jumping to where the action was.,

In so many thrillers, it seems like a cop-out to have someone have serious mental illness issues, but it works in this series because Joe is a psychologist, so it’s only natural that he is going to have people who fit the ‘unreliable narrator’ category, and his patient Marnie definitely does just that.  Marnie’s husband has been missing for over a year, and she’s desperate for money.  The insurance company won’t release the life insurance until he is declared dead, and the government won’t declare him dead until he’s been missing for seven years.  (And apparently Marnie was never added to their bank account, so she can’t access that, either?  That bit seemed like a stretch to me, I  mean they’ve been married for several years and have two children, doesn’t it seem like they would have some kind of joint account??)

Marnie finally gets access to some of her husband’s stuff that he left at work when he disappeared.  In the box is a scrapbook of sorts – apparently, Daniel was working on a big surprise for Marnie, interviewing and videoing people who have known and loved her throughout her life, collecting memories and happy anecdotes.  Except as Marnie – and Joe – begin to work through the interviews, it turns out that not everyone remembers Marnie with pleasure.  In fact, several people seem to hate her, and Marnie has no idea why.

The pacing of this book is what makes it perfect.  As we slowly learn bits of Marnie’s past, each new dollop of information propels the reader on to the next bit – every answer only leads to more questions.  The slow realization that bad things happen to everyone who has done Marnie wrong, the questions about the unknown narrator from whom we get a few pages every couple of chapters, everything comes through at just the right time.  I was racing through this book, desperate to know the answers – all of which, by the way, were answered satisfactorily.

I wanted to give this book a 5/5 rating, but there were just a few scenes that held me back.  First off, this book definitely seemed to have more sex in it than others, and there is one bit in particular where an adult carries on a several-month assignation with a fifteen-year-old, which is downright creepy.  And that’s never presented as normal or healthy, but when the identity of the adult is revealed, it really seemed a bit out-of-character with everything else we’d learned about this person, so it was a little strange.  It sort of came across as though the whole thing was the fault of the teen, and the adult’s responsibility in the situation was sort of glossed over.  And the whole chapter talking about it went into a bit tooo much detail for my delicate sensibilities to enjoy.

So in the end, it’s a 4.5/5 read for me.  This book will definitely read better within the context of the series, but I think could also work as a standalone.  It’s definitely recommended, but only if you have some blocks of time on your hands, because you will not want to put this one down!

#6 for #20BooksofSummer!