Michele Kellett

A sad, dark, funny story.

Revisado: 02-17-20

Beautifully read, by the author, in a beautiful Irish brogue -- no one, including the narrator, pronounces "th" in any word. Two aging reprobates consider their ill-spent lives while hanging out in a ferry waiting room in Algeciras. It's a grim setting, and their stories are grim as well, but the language is buoyant, swift and full of humor and rue. You won't feel sorry for them, but you won't mind their company, either. Highly recommend!

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Bit of a Comeback

Revisado: 06-05-18

The newest Reacher has a more absorbing, and more probable, story than recent iterations. The topic is up-to-the-minute -- the opioid crisis -- but the series as a whole now has a technical problem. The entire point of Reacher's existence is his independence from the manacles of respectable existence, which allows him to roam about at will and to see situations dispassionately. He does not carry a suitcase. He does not own a home or a car. He is the deus ex machina in every community and plot into which he is dropped, armed only with a toothbrush. But life in America bristles with technologies, which literally everyone uses. Sometimes Child solves this problem by setting a story in the pre-internet past. In this book, Child has chosen to preserve Reacher's purity by introducing characters whose only apparent function is to drive cars with GPS, own computers and possess cell phones that Reacher can borrow.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Intrigue and Disappointment

Revisado: 04-05-18

Ms. Burton is a skillful descriptor, has done a great deal of research into 17th c. Amsterdam, and definitely keeps one reading, through the careful deployment of red herrings, minor cliff-hangers and juicy revelations. However, all these stratagems lead to a big nothing-burger.

The story itself is intriguing, featuring a human mystery (what the heck is going on in this household?) and a sort of magic-realism mystery (who is The Miniaturist? and does she see the future or create it?) Unfortunately for the plot, and the reader, the miniaturist, the titular character, turns out to be utterly irrelevant to the story, a mere decorative fancy. And the human mystery is no mystery at all to the minimally attentive reader -- we spot EVERY SINGLE revelation hours before our heroine does. The lead male, Johannes, is supposed to be noble, irresistible, tragic and charismatic, but I defy anyone to read his last speech without laughing.

The book lingers over descriptions of weather, and feelings, and clothes, and such, but neglects to furnish credible emotion or motivation to its characters.

I regret that I did not read the physical version of this book, so that I could have thrown it against the wall when I finished it.

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esto le resultó útil a 17 personas

Awful people, entertaining read

Revisado: 03-13-18

I really enjoyed reading about the reality of life at a magazine that I dutifully and unquestioningly consumed throughout my youth as a baby boomer. My then-heroes apparently got to where they did by dint of relentless greed, ambition, narcissism and aggression. I feel so much better about my life! Many of these kinds of books really bog down after the subject becomes rich and famous (looking at you, Springsteen and Rod Stewart), but Hagan's prose is swift and lively throughout. He has affection but no illusions, which makes for a supremely entertaining read.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Surprisingly Dull

Revisado: 05-06-17

This book should have everything: gods and other mythical creatures, adventures and Gaiman's considerable charm. But I really could not keep my mind on it. First, the stories are presented as fables (how Odin got his wisdom). They are not interconnected. All the characters are presented with a full set of attributes and they don't deviate by one iota from story to story. So, characters don't develop. All the stories except one are set in ancient times and are meant to explain how the earth got this way; the exception is set in a far distant future and explains how the earth will end. Hard to feel invested either way. Second, everything and everyone is drawn at gigantic scale with enormous superpowers. Impossible to identify with. So, I finished it, but I really couldn't wait for it to be over.

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esto le resultó útil a 6 personas

A Beautiful Story AND a Ripping Yarn

Revisado: 04-04-17

This beautiful story traverses, in a south-southeasterly direction, Reconstruction-era Texas, about which I knew nothing. The story is simple and well-described in the Audible.com summary and needs no elaboration from me. But I was astonished by what Jiles accomplished in this book. I was deeply enjoying the journey, so precisely described in lapidary prose that nonetheless makes sharp and humorous observations about the many different communities that made up this frontier, and would have been content with that till the end of the book. But smack in the middle of the story she sets a thrilling set piece, a shoot-out that nearly had me run off the road -- and which not only advances the story, but illuminates the characters. Cannot recommend more highly.

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esto le resultó útil a 25 personas

Droll and touching

Revisado: 03-04-16

A fond, acerbic look at youthful ambition, Swinging London, showbiz and the creative process, tied up with a big bright funny bow.

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For Fans of Victoriana

Revisado: 01-31-16

This book is a moderately diverting tale set in Victorian London. Its hero is an aristocratic sleuth, who is all intelligence, kindness and insight. These qualities are counterbalanced by...nothing. He is an extraordinarily tepid character, carrying on a barely perceptible courtship with an equally intelligent and pallid aristocratic widow. Blood hardly seems to flow in their veins. They have money and position and time, none of which is at stake, so they spend all three in the service of solving the troubles of the lower orders.

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

Henry James, meet Rudyard Kipling

Revisado: 02-18-15

An Oxford common room, a feeble fire: strangers meet over port, a tale is told, a transaction fixed, a dreadful act ensues. This is a classic 19th century horror story, told with Pullman's characteristic wit and grace. The bonus is the tangential glance at a character we grew to know well in The Golden Compass.

Bill Nighy's narration is superb, of course -- but perhaps more "actorly" than quite comprehensible. He falls into near-whispers occasionally: dramatically appropriate but hard to follow on a freeway, with a lot of ambient road noise.

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esto le resultó útil a 18 personas

Need a reason to cancel The New Yorker?

Revisado: 10-15-14

If you've ever longed to live in a literary scene, or wanted a do-over on your twenties, this book will pull your head right around. Nate is sees himself as a thoughtful intellectual; he wants to exert broad cultural influence through his writing. But he is baffled by his difficulties in relationship. What is blindingly obvious to the reader is that however well-educated or intelligent he is, he is immature to the point of infantilism in his relations with women. He makes tiny incremental steps forward in this story, but at the end he has only managed to find a woman who enforces decent behavior from him by dint of tears and curses. Why should this jerk be granted whatever cultural influence he has attained? (And the author seems to agree -- the essays he writes sound like deadly piffle). This was a well-written book, but you may wonder why this guy gets a book-length apologia.

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esto le resultó útil a 5 personas