They broke the mold after Dumas wrote “The Count of Monte Cristo.” There will never be a revenge plot as ambitious, as smooth, as Rube Goldbergian, as violent, as tense, or as passionate as this. This is the Ur Revenge Plot. I devoured this book. Inhaled it. And it’s partly because my brain melted a bit after the election, and then I was doggedly rebuilding my spirits with Solnit’s “Hope in the Dark” (TBR) (GET OFF MY BACK), and then it was Thanksgiving, and I […]
Back on a true crime kick
This book is very interesting. OK, that sentence feels like a 4th grade book report. Really though , it’s interesting. There are so many details, and such well researched facts. You can tell that the authors got a little obsessed with the Monster. Their obsession cataloged thirty years worth of evidence, nearly half a dozen suspects (almost all were tried, convicted, and then acquitted), fourteen to sixteen murders, and two countries. Douglas Preston was an American author trying to write a crime novel. He met […]
Okay, sure. Girl, Train, Murder. Fine.
Okay, first of all, Rachel, the main character, is in her thirties. She’d a woman. She’s a WOMAN on the train. Second of all, uhm, sure, fine, I guess. The girl on the train is an easy read. Not much happens on the pages, the story is pretty straightforward even as Rachel blacks out and forgets large parts of it. But blackouts do not equal nuance. It’s impossible to miss anything. Everything that is lost in black outs or changes in point of view, are […]
And all our joys are but the ghost of a memory.
I don’t know why, but I’ve found myself drawn to depressing, broken people. First November 9 by Colleen Hoover, then Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill, then, after the brief interlude of joy and wonder that is the world of Harry Potter, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and Cujo by Stephen King. Well, The Girl on the Train continues the theme. Rachel is an overweight, unemployed, and divorced alcoholic who rides the train into London every day to avoid telling her roommate and only […]