Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King

Full Dark, No Stars
Cannonball Read 2011 #4
384 pages

Full Dark, No Stars is Stephen King's newest anthology. It contains four novellas called 1922, Big Driver, Fair Extension, and A Good Marriage. They were kind of hit or miss for me as I only enjoyed two of the four. I'm a pretty big Stephen King fan, but there are some of his books and stories that I just have a harder time getting into.

My favorites were definitely Big Driver and A Good Marriage, with Big Driver probably being my favorite overall. It was about a female writer who takes a shortcut home from a book signing where she gets raped and almost murdered. She opts to get revenge herself rather than go to the police. It starts a little slow for a shorter story, but once the action gets going, it's a pretty intense ride.

A Good Marriage is about a woman who finds out that her husband is an infamous serial killer who has alluded the police for years. King says that his inspiration for this story was the BTK killer, who had a normal life with a wife who supposedly had no idea that he tortured and killed women on the side. I thought this story had good pacing as well.

As for 1922, it was probably my least favorite. Unfortunately, it was also the first and the longest novella in the book. It is about a man in the 1920s who decides to murder his wife with the help of his son. The two are fighting over some land she inherited from her parents - she wants to sell and he wants to keep it. The story is well-written, but I just found it too drawn out and slow at times.

Fair Extension was fairly forgettable. It is about a man with cancer who makes a deal with the devil for his health. Of course dealing with the devil always has consequences, so in order to prolong his life, he must cut someone else's short. The story wasn't bad, but it just wasn't that memorable either. It also seems vaguely familiar, like I've read or seen something similar that I just can't put my finger on.

Overall, it's a pretty solid read from King. He's a phenomenal writer, but different people tend to like different things from him. I tend to like his ones like Carrie and Misery. This one might be more suited towards fans of slower moving, less horror stories like Bag of Bones.

The Scorch Trials by James Dashner

The Scorch Trials
Cannonball Read 2011 #3
384 pages

The Scorch Trials is the sequel to The Maze Runner, which I reviewed back in May. This time, the group of boys from the maze find themselves put through another mysterious "trial" while Thomas tries to piece together his past. Again, the plot is extremely interesting to me, but the execution is sub-par.

I still absolutely hate the made-up slang that the boys use. It's so distracting from the story and just makes me think that they're using it as an excuse to add curse words to a YA book. It's obvious that the words are just fill-ins for common curse words (i.e. "shuckface" or "piece of klunk") and it does nothing to further the story or add to anything.

Also, what kind of crack is this guy on that thinks of this stuff? The first book was more puzzles and this one just throws everything out into left field. We have metal balls that eat peoples heads (which are never explained), giant faceless creatures with orange bulbs growing off of them, and diseased crazy people called Cranks - and that's just to name a few. You're constantly being hit over the head with just straight-up weirdness.

I also can't help but wish that James Dashner just sold his idea to a different writer. I hate his execution. The world he created is so creative and so original, but I can't help but think think that everything is going to lead up to a very disappointing ending. You're not going to find any answers in this book. I'm not sure how many books he has planned for this series, but I'm guessing we'll have to wait until the very last one to get any answers. It's almost as bad as Lost.

I'll probably continue reading this series just because I LOVE the whole idea behind the books. I love puzzles and dystopian futures and mysteries. I just really wish these books were as good as I want them to be. All I can say is that there better be a good payoff at the end.

Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

Let The Right One In
Cannonball Read 2011: Book 1
410 pages

I don't like vampires. I don't like books about vampires. I prefer less supernatural forms of horror. I'm was pleasantly surprised to find that I could not put this book down. It is absolutely one of the most engaging books I have read in a while. It takes place in Sweden in 1981 following a 12-year-old boy named Oskar as he befriends a strange girl next door named Eli.

There is virtually no one likeable in this story. Oskar is obsessed with murder and serial killers to the point of having a scrapbook of newspaper clippings on the subject. Eli is found out to be a vampire who must kill to live. Eli lives with an older man who brings her blood because of his obsession with her (he's a pedophile). The friendship that Oskar and Eli have is perhaps the most touching thing. There is really no romance - they are 12 years old (well, Eli is really several hundred years old, but in a 12-year-old's body). They're just two lonely children who form a close bond, even after Oskar figures out who she really is.

This book also has one of the scariest moments I have ever read. I read a lot of horror, but when Tommy was caught in the basement with that horribly disfigured (he poured acid over his head earlier) thing, it was one of the most terrifying passages I have read in a book. The whole thing was just written so well. The translation was also well done. I've read a few Japanese translated novels and the dialogue tends to come out kind of clunky at times. Maybe it's harder to translate from Japanese to English, but the Swedish-to-English translation was done flawlessly here.

One thing I didn't care too much for was the abundance of extra characters. I felt that there were too many minor characters at times, which were sometimes hard to keep apart. As a whole, I see how they forward the story, but while reading it almost feels like you're being taken out of the story to read about these random people. But overall, I loved this book. One of the best I've read in a while.

Cannonball Read!

There is this movie and book review website that I frequently read called Pajiba (www.pajiba.com). Every year, they do something called the Cannonball read, where they challenge readers to read 52 books a year and post reviews. If you read the entire 52 books (or more), they will donate to a college fund for a kid.

This year, they're letting us start a little early, so we have to read 52 books between now and Dec. 31, 2011. So, I'm going to restart my book counter and change the title of my blog so I can start!

If anyone else is interested, here's a link: Cannonball Read

It doesn't officially start until Jan. 1, 2011, so you can sign up before then! But if you sign up earlier, you can get a head start.

Fallout by Ellen Hopkins

I avoided Ellen Hopkins for a while because I wasn't a huge fan of how she writes in verse form. Then I found Crank in a thrift store and picked it up and read it in one night. The books look huge, but they're actually a fast read because of the verse form. And it's not nearly as annoying as you'd expect.

Fallout is Ellen Hopkin's newest YA novel. It's sort of a sequel to
both Crank and Glass, but instead of the main character being Kristina, they focus on three of her children who are now teenagers and have been effected by her drug abuse.

Hunter was the son that Kristina had Crank. His dad raped Kristina and he was eventually adopted by her parents. Now he's 19 and having problems with his girlfriend. Autumn lives with her paternal grandfather and aunt. She is trying to deal with her father trying to come back into her life at the same time her aunt is leaving her to get married. Summer has been passed around between foster homes her whole life until she decides to run away with her boyfriend.

I liked:

-A drug addict would TOTALLY name her kids "Summer" and "Autumn".

-How realistic these characters are. Kristina is still on drugs and it's still effecting everyone in her life, including her children at this point. It's so sad to read, but these characters really come to life.


I didn't like:

-I didn't like Fallout quite as much as some of Hopkins' other novels. It was slightly slower moving, but still very good nonetheless.

Verdict:
4.5/5 stars. Amazing book.

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Mockingjay is the third book in the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. I picked up the first book after I read the synopsis and it sounded exactly like the plot from the Japanese novel Battle Royale, which I LOVE. It takes place in the future where each year they pick a group of kids from different districts to fight each other in an arena of sorts until only one person is left alive. There are a few differences between the novels, namely that The Hunger Games trilogy are YA books, while Battle Royale is definitely not.

I liked:

- I love the characters. They're so real. The heroine (Katniss...more on her stupid name later) isn't even likable most the time, which makes her more like a real person.

- (POSSIBLE SPOILER) I like when authors have the guts to kill off a fairly well-known character at the end of a popular series. Like Harry Potter. Again, it's more realistic to not have a completely happy ending.

- Speaking of the ending, I was almost really mad with how I thought it would end. Fortunately, Katniss stays true to character and the ending turns out perfect.

- I liked how they handled the love triangle between Katniss, Gale, and Peeta. Gale was her best friend from childhood who was in love with her and Peeta was her partner in the Hunger Games. I liked how they didn't make the romance the main plot, but instead kept it secondary to everything else going on.

I didn't like:

- The name Katniss. Every time I read it, I wanted to call her Catnip. It's just a terrible name. The names in the book are a mixture of normal names (Annie, Gale) and weird, future names (Peeta, Cinna). Cinna makes me think of cinnamon buns.

- I didn't like who Katniss ended up with at the end. I was kinda hoping she'd go for the other option.

At first, I was worried how they were going to keep this series going after the Hunger Games ended in the first book. They threw them back in the arena for the second book, but I wasn't sure what they were going to do with the third and still keep it interesting. The war between the Capital and the Districts was just a good a read as the others.

Verdict?
5/5 stars.

The Lost City of Z by David Grann

When I first picked up this book, I thought it was fiction. Actually, it is about the true story of 1920's explorer Percy Fawcett and the author's attempt to follow his trail into the Amazon jungle. Fawcett was an accomplished explorer already when he took his final trip into the Amazon with his son and his son's friend. They went looking for the legendary "City of Z" and were never seen again.

Also, the Amazon might be the scariest place on earth. It's INSANE how many ways you can die out there - and painfully too. We're talking maggots that infest living flesh, cyanide-squirting worms, and let's not forgot those fun little fish that like to swim into any orifice it can find - like a urethra - usually requiring castration to get it out.

I liked:

-I'd never heard of Percy Fawcett before, so I found his story pretty interesting.

-The author decided to make his own trip to the Amazon to try and follow Fawcett's trail. I liked reading his experiences since he was by no means an explorer. He was an average person - a writer! He had no experience living in the outdoors, but I think the book was made better by his attempt to experience just a tiny bit of what Fawcett and his team did.

I didn't like:

-It's pretty slow at first. The main exploration in question doesn't even occur until more than halfway through the book. Then when it finally picks up momentum with Fawcett's doomed journey and the author's own trek into the Amazon, the book abruptly ends 3/4 of the way through. The last fourth of the book is acknowledgments and book notes. I guess they didn't really have much more to go with since no one really knows what happened to Fawcett.

-I wish they focused more on the exploration to find "Z" instead of all the excessive background information on every explorer for the past 200 years and all the history of maps and cartography. That stuff was pretty boring.

-They didn't give much information on the lost city itself, especially considering it's the title of the book. I would have liked to learn more about it's history.

Verdict?
2.5/5 stars. I only liked about 1/4 of it...I could have done with more adventure and less history of maps.