The Drowning Pool is a place where many women have lost their lives, whether that be through suicide, accident, or through being too troublesome for the men around them. Nel Abbott has been fascinated with the Drowning Pool for most of her life, which has now ended in the same place. But her sister, come to take care of the daughter that Nel has left behind, doesn’t believe that Nel would have jumped. And so starts our mystery, delving into the secrets and lies of […]
The Woman in Cabin 10 or How Unreliable is this Narrator, Really?
I love murder mysteries, especially on audio book—my commute just flies by! I especially enjoy murder mysteries with female narrators. It’s safe to assume I really loved Gone Girl. When The Girl on The Train came out, I was an early cheerleader. I “read” it through Audible and the narration was really outstanding, which I think made me like it more than I would have if I had just read the book normally. This is all to say, I came into this book with high […]
As Spooky As Ever: We Have Always Lived in the Castle
We Have Always Lived in the Castle is an amazing, unsettling book. It is a tale told by a fanciful and unreliable but fascinating narrator, Mary Katherine Blackwood, or Merricat, as her older sister Constance calls her. Merricat and Constance and their Uncle Julian and Merricat’s cat Jonas live in Blackwood House, on top of the hill overlooking a small and small-minded village. The author Shirley Jackson was a master of the macabre and creepy. Her short story “The Lottery” continues to haunt schoolchildren every year, […]
Crichton falls a little flat
I think I read most of Crichton’s works one summer (I was hugely pregnant with twins and mostly bedridden.) There’s a lot of great stories in the man. However, I must have missed this one (perhaps it is newer than 2006? Yep, 2008) and honestly, I’m not so thrilled with the fact that I “went back” for this. It’s no Timeline or Andromeda Strain. It’s kind of close in sphere to Jurassic Park, but it lacks the humanizing qualities. This is a story of man […]