One of the best parts of reading Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad books (and there are many best parts, I’ve gotta say) is that you can dive into any of them and get nearly the full experience and feeling even if you haven’t read all of them.
this shirty forking book, I swear, it made me so mad
There were a few hot minutes where I was trying to pretend like there was anything I liked about this book. “You finished it,” I said to myself. “There had to be something that made you want to keep reading, right?” Well, yes, of course: hatred. From the very beginning, this book and its poor excuses for “characters” pissed me off. The main character is Scarlett, who is gutless and timid and who would do anything for her sister, Tella, because she loves her and […]
At least there’s no GD ghost bear.
I sit down to read A Breath of Snow and Ashes over a year after finishing the last Outlander book, A Fiery Cross, which for the uninitiated is literally just a tolerance test for how long a reader can stand the unabridged minutiae of unremarkable 18th century backwoods living, plus a sprinkling of UTTERLY BONKERS NONSENSE to trick them into believing much more is happening than is actually happening. That last sentence should hopefully provide some understanding as to why it took me so long […]
“You don’t feel like smiling? Then what? Force yourself to smile. Act as if you were already happy, and that will tend to make you happy.”
This book is tough. It’s centered around an emotionally devastating premise — the untimely death of a teen girl — and the tension of that mystery unfolding is coupled with a stark examination of gender politics and middle-class family dynamics. It’s the type of story that doesn’t let the reader breathe easily, as it seems too real, and, for many of us, too relate-able in a lot of ways. One minute, you feel deeply for James or Marilyn Lee, struggling with being an outsider and […]