Oh, man, I have so many thoughts. And I’m also not entirely sure what I think about some of what happened in this book. On the one hand, I LOVED IT. The case and Robin and Strike’s personal lives dovetailed beautifully. So much of this book was character shiz, which is my favorite kind of shiz. And I’ve been saying for the past two books that I wanted MORE ROBIN and MORE ROBIN is exactly what I got. Robin backstory. Robin frontstory. Robin Robin Robin. […]
A very funny caper comedy where the caper comes second
Pel Dalton spends his time by day as a supervisor of IT staff at a library, er, make that Learning Center, at a large University in England. By night he squabbles incessantly with this German girlfriend, Ursula, and tries to raise the couple’s 2 young boys. Pel does just enough to get by and believes half-assing any task is about a quarter ass too much. He’s mostly been bluffing his way through his job so when Pel’s boss, TSR, suddenly vanishes and Pel steps in […]
Scottish black comedy madness.
Okay, so biting the bullet on my next couple of reviews because I’m behind and don’t want to get even further behind by being paralyzed about what to say. Bottom line about One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night (which is apparently named after a Robbie Williams song–thanks, Kat!): super fun spoof of action films in book form. Great characters even though they could have been flimsy. Very funny. Features dialogue written in the Scottish dialect, which I thought was really fun (but […]
“Scandal and tea at four-thirty.”
Good times with Miss Marple. I wish there would have been a bit more scenes with her, though. Maybe it’s just my own expectations of the role titular detectives should play in their own series, though. There is no written rule saying that the detectives must play the largest role in their books over other characters, it’s just what we’re used to. The vicar was a good pair of eyes to see this story through, after all. I admit it would be fun to see […]
Nice Guys and Bad Boys in Victorian England
I’ve only read three of his books now, but I kind of love Thomas Hardy. Because he gets it. He gets how shitty social and moral conventions are to women. Does Hardy have an avid following like Austen or Dickens? Because he totally should! I demand more Hardy adaptations! Bathsheba Everdene – what an awesome name – is a beautiful, intelligent, confident, and fiercely independent young woman. Upon inheriting her uncle’s farm, she moves to Weatherbury, where she attracts the attention of three very different men: loyal shepherd Gabriel Oak, reserved farmer William Boldwood, […]
Is this the best Agatha Christie book? I’m still partial to ‘And Then There Were None.’
Up until the ending, I really did not understand why this book is widely considered to be the best (or at least the top five) of Christie’s books. Then it happened, and I was like WHAT!? Actually it was more like a double what, because not only was it a really daring ending, especially for being published in 1926, but I actually guessed the murderer! That has never happened to me before. I am THE WORST at guessing mystery endings. I am gullible and trusting […]