I tried. This was a gift, hence I was determined to give it more of a fair crack (ooh er) than I might've done with something I picked up cheap for myI tried. This was a gift, hence I was determined to give it more of a fair crack (ooh er) than I might've done with something I picked up cheap for myself as a punt, but regrettably I had to DNF about half way through, which was a shame.
As other reviewers have pointed out, had Mayall written a 'straight' autobiography then he may well have written something witty and intelligent, no doubt. That would have been the sort of thing I would've enjoyed a lot more - I've read several comedian memoirs and have enjoyed many who take the time to amusingly tell anecdotes about their formative years and the events which helped them become who they are. There were occasional bits of that in this book, but buried under layers of 'writing as character' spoof autobiography.
Alas the character chosen was all a bit puerile and cocky for me, I prefer my humour a little more understated, modest, self-effacing perchance. There were a lot of jokes in this, but essentially they were in the main the same handful of jokes repeated again and again....more
DNF at ~60%. Strangely for one of the authors I have previously enjoyed quite a lot, this fell flat for me, and just failed to hold my interest or comDNF at ~60%. Strangely for one of the authors I have previously enjoyed quite a lot, this fell flat for me, and just failed to hold my interest or compel me to continue making the effort to complete. It's difficult to advise why this was - a combination of the writing, though witty, feeling a little bogged down in character definition and the plot dragged out and drip-fed to the reader within this fairly dense framework. I just felt that I wasn't getting very far through the book or a great deal further into the story each time I sat down and read a few chapters, and after each chunk I was perfectly happy to put the book down and have no compulsion to pick it up for a day or two. The plot, as far as I got, concerns an ex horror film make-up artist and a student and fan of the genre thrown together in another Brookmyre witty tartan noir escapade. It felt like one of the author's least well-conceived and well-executed efforts....more
DNF after about 70%. This started off with an intriguing hook - parallel stories of a journalist investigating sex trafficking, and a desperately disaDNF after about 70%. This started off with an intriguing hook - parallel stories of a journalist investigating sex trafficking, and a desperately disadvantaged teenage girl struggling with her broken home and being forced into grim decisions - but as it went on, it just got less and less appealing. The former thread got boring, confusing and didn't retain my interest. I've never really liked crime novels involving 'driven' journalists chasing a story, it's not something I can maintain giving a crap about. The other thread just got worse and worse, and though I'm not squeamish I found it all a bit much, essentially it was all a bit 'misery porn' for me.
The writing style too, far far too much dialogue for my liking, and too little description and explanation - hence it all felt a bit 'in the head' of the main characters like they were going from place to place and having conversations, and very little else....more
DNF at ~30% having not engaged me in the first hundred pages. I would be tempted to just set this aside and not review had I not a) got a reasonable iDNF at ~30% having not engaged me in the first hundred pages. I would be tempted to just set this aside and not review had I not a) got a reasonable idea of the nature of the book and mt feelings about it from the first third of the novel, and b) wasted two and a bit days trudging through it.
The premise of this novel has some appeal - a man returns from a short trip away to find his wife has lost her mind, and won't explain what has happened. The book then details a number of threads which appear to have led to this occurring. Alas however the writing is rambling and impenetrable, too many words of description and too many descriptions of things which the reader cannot easily anchor to what's going on and what it means. The lack of chapters and skipping about from one POV to another POV made this even more difficult.
I can tell, objectively, why the novel may be acclaimed - it probably sends literary critics in to raptures of ecstasy - but something about the translation and format in which the story is told made this a book I was not prepared to struggle through joylessly for another few days....more
DNF at ~60%. Not really my kind of thing, I picked this up with the hope of understanding a bit more 'The Golden Age of Detective Fiction', but in truDNF at ~60%. Not really my kind of thing, I picked this up with the hope of understanding a bit more 'The Golden Age of Detective Fiction', but in truth suspect it was not a great example of the genre - even more dull and difficult to feel interested in than the small number of other novels of this era (Christie and E.W. Hornung) I have read.
I think my main problem related to not liking the main character who I felt was arrogant and lacking in charm and understanding. The premise of 'I don't believe the accused is guilty so I will go on a jolly jape with my manfriend and solve the mystery' didn't appeal at all. It was uncomfortably patronising to all and sundry - women especially but also the young and working class. I also found all the spanking of a 19/20 year old girl by her older male cousin to be a bit strange.
All this obscured whatever merit the novel might have as an early example of forensic psychology in crime fiction....more
DNF at ~50%. This for me was much more like 'Waterland' (which I struggled through because it came recommended, and persisted with in spite of not enjDNF at ~50%. This for me was much more like 'Waterland' (which I struggled through because it came recommended, and persisted with in spite of not enjoying it completely) than the serendipitous punt of 'Shuttlecock' (which had unpleasant characters but a narrative which interested me) - and I gave up at around half-way.
The novel follows an aged academic looking back on his life, as well as discussing family and other people in great biographical detail. A few of these vignettes were interesting and real, piquing my interest for a handful of pages, but the majority felt tedious and disconnected. There was just too little to hold together the various small tales told, too few of the characters held my interest, and epistolary sections about distant ancestors in 19th Century Britain were the final straw in breaking my fragile interest. Swift writes with beauty and no little talent of small description, I have no doubt the fragments did eventually pull together into some kind of plot... but there was just far far too little here to motivate me to continue....more
DNF at ~25%. This crime drama set in Australia followed a woman on a corporate outward bound type team building hike going missing, and how it was supDNF at ~25%. This crime drama set in Australia followed a woman on a corporate outward bound type team building hike going missing, and how it was supposedly connected to mysterious secrets held by one or other colleagues of the absent girl. The author came recommended, but for me this book didn't grab me at all in an opening hundred or so pages - it felt light on plot (far far too much time spent dwelling on how each of the women on the expedition didn't like or trust one or more of the others for one reason or another, not a lot actually happening) and something about the large font size didn't help with the feeling I was reading slightly plainly written chick-lit, albeit set in an unusual location. I persisted with it for a while but in the end wasn't enjoying it enough to continue. Disappointing....more
DNF at ~70%. Had this been a memoir of a band I was fond of (or even vaguely familiar with) it might’ve held my interest. Had this had a plot any moreDNF at ~70%. Had this been a memoir of a band I was fond of (or even vaguely familiar with) it might’ve held my interest. Had this had a plot any more detailed than ‘rock band drink, argue, fuck, play music, get introspective and argue some more’, it might have held my interest. As it was, all the characters I didn’t develop any interest in, all the verisimilitude felt like padding for the repetition, and reading about sex and drugs and rock and roll is much less fun than I recall living it was :-)...more
DNF at approx two thirds through. Though this was well-researched and thorough, and not unpleasant to read as it provided insight and interesting docuDNF at approx two thirds through. Though this was well-researched and thorough, and not unpleasant to read as it provided insight and interesting documentation of a talented and unusual poet and man, it basically was a little too dense and chewy a read for me as someone with a casual interest only. As with my biographies, I found the chpaters dealing with the formative years to be of much more interest, the latter three quarters of this were rather turgid for all that the author tried to make them more varied. There's only so much 'odd bloke moves jobs to another provincial town library, writes letters to male friends and female muses, composes and publishes a few poems some of which have some lovely clever aspects, and moans a bit about people and things' one can remain interested in, and there was a lot of this in Larkin's adult life....more
DNF at 100 pages. Very uninteresting and disconnected ramblings of two or three (I have no idea) probably Jewish characters which didn't seem to have DNF at 100 pages. Very uninteresting and disconnected ramblings of two or three (I have no idea) probably Jewish characters which didn't seem to have any plot to speak of, any characters about which the reader could become interested, or anything connecting what was written about in one paragraph to what was in the next. For a comic novel it contained nothing I found humorous or witty. No idea why this won The Booker Prize....more
DNF. Somewhere around the 200 page mark, only a hundred or so from the end, I gave up on this - a book which objectively was probably reasonably deserDNF. Somewhere around the 200 page mark, only a hundred or so from the end, I gave up on this - a book which objectively was probably reasonably deserving of praise, but which had failed to really engage me. This novel deals with a Soviet gentleman - a father, an art critic and magazine editor, a traditionalist in a time of change in the USSR. In some ways a complex character, but in others a person in which I could only find myself taking a far from deep interest. I could neither identify with the lack of progressiveness of the traditional views, or the excess of pretension of novel artistic sensibilities. Though the writing was occasionally shining with beautiful moments and small observations, in general it was meandering and descriptive for little real benefit. After the umpteenth flashback to the protagonist’s formative moments, I realised I had no interest in how it was going to end. ...more
DNF - I gave up after a hundred and fifty or so pages which felt like it had been written by a pubescent boy, in which far too many different but mainDNF - I gave up after a hundred and fifty or so pages which felt like it had been written by a pubescent boy, in which far too many different but mainly indistinguishable characters had been introduced with little or nothing to tie them together. Attempted dramatic cliff hanger every two or three pages, overuse of the same ‘mislead the reader by not giving enough information then confound their natural assumptions to make a point’ cliche. Every female character described in lascivious detail In the manner of a giggling teen discovering his Mum’s copy of ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’. Not for me....more
The prose in this was clever and witty, and for the first two or three chapters I was enjoying reading this, but very soon after that it became clear The prose in this was clever and witty, and for the first two or three chapters I was enjoying reading this, but very soon after that it became clear that this was going to be a series of very loosely connected short vignettes (some recurring characters, but not enough to make the narrative anything other than ‘disjointed’) which would take a lot of concentration for little in return, and I knew I’d end up frustrated with the lack of character development and the multitude of loose ends. So I gave it up as a bad apple. Style over substance, pretentious of the author to sacrifice readability for showmanship. ...more
Despite this story of Parisians forced to evacuate the city in response to the advancing war having a good quality of setting and realism in this mannDespite this story of Parisians forced to evacuate the city in response to the advancing war having a good quality of setting and realism in this manner, I gave up after around 100 pages. The descriptions of the situation were sound, I just find the characters had failed to distinguish themselves from each other or make me care about their lives and circumstances, the translation offered too little beauty of language, and it was bogged down in tedious minutiae at the expense of anything dramatic happening. Perhaps it improved after the first quarter, but I wasn’t interested sufficiently to find out - maybe the story of how the book came to be written and published meant this novel was more popular than it deserves to be, or possibly historical family sagas are not my thing. In comparison with the likes of ‘Atonement’ and ‘A Very Long Engagement’, this had little that held my interest. ...more
DNF at ~70%. This felt like 'crime writing by numbers'- nothing particularly egregious about it, but surprisingly difficult to find the motivation to DNF at ~70%. This felt like 'crime writing by numbers'- nothing particularly egregious about it, but surprisingly difficult to find the motivation to read more, considering I like the genre and like the Scottish setting. Perhaps it is that fact - in comparison with the likes of Denise Mina, Malcolm Mackay, Craig Robertson, James Oswald, Craig Russell, this was rather dull with mediocre characters and an initially interesting but rapidly stagnating plot, described with a certain lack of colour in the language. The further I got in to it, the less I got out of it. I was surprised this was #9 in a series, I would have expected more from a successful set of books - perhaps Gray is running out of steam....more
DNF - I managed to read just under half of this before making the decision that it wasn't worth me struggling through another couple of hundred pages.DNF - I managed to read just under half of this before making the decision that it wasn't worth me struggling through another couple of hundred pages.
This wasn't terrible - the writing was quite pretty in places, and it was relatively easy to read, but for me it just felt slow and stodgy. The lack of much dialogue meant I felt I was progressing very slowly through a book that hadn't really engaged me, and it got too much.
Isabel Allende, slightly unusually, aims here to write the story of Spanish folk hero Zorro, in a biographical as opposed to strict 'novel' narrative style. I just found the pages and pages of fantastical anecdotes about his supposed childhood a bit long winded - I didn't really believe in the comic book evil baddies and superhuman goodies with infinite strength, intelligence and wit, all not really my kind of thing, even slightly childish in a sense.
This didn't p*ss me off as much as the only other Isabel Allende book I have read, but like that one (also a book group choice) it wasn't one I could finish....more
My Mum loaned me this, having herself been impressed. I'd enjoyed 'Hope' by the same author, but this was a terrible disappointment. I struggled manfuMy Mum loaned me this, having herself been impressed. I'd enjoyed 'Hope' by the same author, but this was a terrible disappointment. I struggled manfully through the over-wrought and pretentious first thirty pages, wanting it to calm down, wanting to like it more, but to no avail. It was too 'look at me with my challenging ideas', too smart-arse 'aren't I clever, subverting this theological point', too words for the sake of words. I gave up, sadly before the book had a proper chance to get going and reach the point in the plot when it might've got more grounded and relateable. Maybe it was that I wasn't in the mood, but I certainly wasn't going to force myself to continue with something I wasn't enjoying at all....more
DNF. Sadly, having picked this book up cheap as a punt because it is a classic and because it was something different to what I usually read, it proveDNF. Sadly, having picked this book up cheap as a punt because it is a classic and because it was something different to what I usually read, it proved to be too different for my tastes. What essentially is an interesting premise - the life of a young girl as she is passed between her divorced parents, told from her incomplete and immature POV - was so mired in James' convoluted long (and poorly constructed) sentences, it was rendered a labour to read. Yes, in complete silence and given an uninterrupted few days to slowly toil through it, reading each line three times to better understand it, a reader may get all of the intended enjoyment from what is probably a witty and well observed piece, but I didn't have that luxury and wasn't getting much enjoyment from it. ...more
Damn. What a disappointment. I've read two or three other Ali Smith novels before, and think that when she is good, she is very very good - but this wDamn. What a disappointment. I've read two or three other Ali Smith novels before, and think that when she is good, she is very very good - but this was a bit horrid. I've accused the author of writing like she is 'doing a writing exercise' before, and this was certainly true here - the first half of the book about a teenage girl dealing with the death of her arty/hippy mother was kinda interesting and nice, though at times I felt (as has happened before) like the thoughts and deeds of a character were in parts a little too mature to be typical. The second half of the book was supposed to be from the POV of an Italian painter several hundred years previously, but was basically so unreadable it screamed "pretentious twaddle!" at me. Apparently the two halves tie together, but I wasn't going to struggle through 150+ pages of olde worlde crap to find out how. ...more
Absolutely dreadful - I struggled through fifty pages before the pointless descriptions of trivial aspects of the central character's thoughts, actionAbsolutely dreadful - I struggled through fifty pages before the pointless descriptions of trivial aspects of the central character's thoughts, actions and other stuff (so much discussion of her clothes and her overanalyses of every object she happened to encounter) became too much. I have read a later one in this series which wasn't quite as awful, but this debut (?) preceded the author improving her writing. The story here was rendered un-findable beneath layers of chaff. ...more
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