I made it as far as page 34 before giving up on The Seance. I can't tell you if the novel gets around to dealing with the supernatural in a practical I made it as far as page 34 before giving up on The Seance. I can't tell you if the novel gets around to dealing with the supernatural in a practical way, or is more about a teenage girl dealing with spiritualism and the death of her sister in London of the Victorian Age.
It wouldn't make any difference to me if this was a classical ghost story or not if the story grabbed me. Either Hardwood is a tedious writer, or his editors approved the first 50 pages being tedious.
The entire novel reads like a prologue better off being cut: "I had hoped that Mama would be content with regular messages from Alma but as the autumn advanced and the days grew shorter, the old haunted look crept back into her eyes ..."
Events are summed up and skimmed through as if Hardwood is in a hurry to get somewhere, but as near as I can tell, the entire novel is written like this. A magnificent cover design wasted on a book I'm abandoning and an author I'll probably never read again, unless I need a sleeping agent....more
Prince of Thieves, the 2004 heist novel by Chuck Hogan that served as source material for The Town starring Ben Affleck and Jeremy Renner, is the bestPrince of Thieves, the 2004 heist novel by Chuck Hogan that served as source material for The Town starring Ben Affleck and Jeremy Renner, is the best book I've given up on and had to rate with one star since joining Goodreads. It does not make me a happy man to do this and would recommend the book to anyone hooked by the synopsis who hasn't seen the movie. I have seen the movie and trying my damnedest, could find no compelling reason to stay in this taxicab. Let me off here, driver.
Hogan's writing crackles, his research is impeccable and his attention to detail knocked my socks off. The author earned his lunch money here. Of course, I love reading a good caper and the novel takes off like a shot with a bank heist in the shadow of Fenway Park in Boston.
In the middle of this, Doug looked at the manager lying behind the second teller's cage. He knew things about her. Her name was Claire Keesey. She drove a plum-colored Saturn coupe with a useless rear spoiler and a happy-face bumper sticker that said Breathe! She lived alone, and when it was warm enough, she spent her lunch hours in the community gardens along the nearby Back Bay Fens. He knew these things because he had been following her, off and on, for weeks.
Hogan does his homework with everything in, off and around the high-powered hold-ups. But when the masks come off, the story sets off on a slow train to Nowhere, getting mired in boilerplate melodrama about a criminal with a moral conscience who can be redeemed by the power of love, in this case, a bank teller his crew actually took hostage.
The main character, in addition to being stuck with one of the blandest names in the English language -- Doug -- is a Gary Stu through and through, the sort of character Chuck Hogan might imagine himself being if he had to earn a living outside the law. Doug is passive, a nice guy, observing all the animal life in the jungle, thinking ahead to his next step, but thinking about things is not a substitute for doing things.
In between the heists, there's a lot, and I mean a lot , of jocular male bonding in the Old Neighborhood, with fighting Irish slamming back beers and talking about the good times. If you've seen one bar in the Old Neighborhood tale, you've seen them all. I had to stop reading because I felt I'd seen this all before. Same old self-destructive childhood pals, same old girlfriend who wants to get back together, same old aspirations to break free to someplace better. Same old, same old. Hogan's a good writer, I just wish I didn't have to read his book.
Over three days, I kept trying to plow through Prince of Thieves, which has the unpleasant characteristic of being about so little and at 400 pages, taking so incredibly long to finish. Abandoned. ...more
JOE: It's a routine evening in November. I'm reading a novel about time travel because November is Science Fiction Month. The novel is The Time TravelJOE: It's a routine evening in November. I'm reading a novel about time travel because November is Science Fiction Month. The novel is The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. It was a very popular novel made into a very unpopular movie starring Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams. Few people went to see the movie and fewer seemed to like what they saw. This made me afraid at first, but now I think the movie must be better than the novel. The author uses very plain language. Let me explain. The basis of her novel is one of the greatest adventures a couple could possibly experience. Time travel. The author alternates between the couple, CLARE and HENRY, who tell their story in first person. Like I am. Like a script. CLARE talks. Then HENRY talks. It's all very plain. Which I don't mind, plain. I read novels to become engaged in a story. Language is a bonus. Audrey Niffengger is skilled at neither language or storytelling. There's too much "telling" in this book and not enough "story". The telling continues on and on. Like this long, plain paragraph I'm writing. Clare tells about missing Henry, who disappears into thin air to pop up in the past. A metaphor for men absent in their relationships. Maybe I am not the demographic for this novel. Clare suffers and is sad. I could care less about Clare. Or Henry. I like Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams, but that's as far as it goes. So I am adding this novel to my "Abandoned" pile. If you are a fan of this novel, please tell me about your experiences....more
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekykll and Mr. Hyde was that fifth book, the one I'll borrow from the library with ambitions that I can read five novels in lThe Strange Case of Dr. Jekykll and Mr. Hyde was that fifth book, the one I'll borrow from the library with ambitions that I can read five novels in less than three weeks. Usually, my eyes are bigger than my stomach.
I'll give that fifth book a shot and in the case of Mr. Stevenson's, read Chapter 1. I was not drawn in by the story and abandoned it. 19th century literature seduces me right away or gives me bad flashbacks of a reading assignment in high school. This one was filled with too many expository passages for my taste. ...more
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