Books!
Well, I haven’t exactly got a wide spectrum of books that I read. There’s the steadfast triad of Harry Potter, Discworld and LotR, and then there’s fanfiction, and then… um… not a lot else. Which, if I am to study lit and creative writing at uni, simply will not do. Therefore! I’ve been picking books by authors I’ve never heard of, outside of genres I’d usually stick to.
…oh yeah, and there are spoilers in the reviews under the cuts. So’s you know.
The first was Dangerous Love, by Kate Lock. It’s the story of a young woman who falls in love with a psychopath named Tim who has killed one of his former lovers, although he maintains that it was an accident. And this is doubly interesting because it’s not a novel, but a memoir-the names are changed, but the psychopath was a real man, and the woman was Lock herself. The first half of the book is the story of their relationship, and the second Lock’s own personal investigation into whether or not the killing was murder or an accident; it doesn’t come out looking good for Tim.
It’s a pretty depressing book at times-especially when the relationship becomes abusive. (On a freaky side-note, there were times during it when I read a bit of Tim’s dialogue, or about something he did, and had a tremendous sense of déja-vu-as if I was reading about Tam. O_o I kid you not.) But overall it’s actually quite inspiring, especially when you remember that the very existence of the book indicates that the author has gotten over her ordeal, no matter how dark it got at times, and no matter how hard Tim tried to bind her to him and break her. It definitely helps that Lock employs some gorgeous turns of phrase, and that she’s impressively honest throughout, showing both sides of the story rather than just turning it into an itemized list of Horrible Things Tim Did. The second half of the book goes from a narrative to a case study, and sees Lock go around interviewing people and looking over the old trial to find whether or not Tim is a murderer, and whilst it’s very different it’s just as awesome. So, overall, and before I get too formal (is it too late for that?) a great book. You can tell, because at the points where the in-story Lock stands up to Tim, you want to punch the air and whoop for her; author-Lock is just that good at making interesting and sympathetic characters.
The second book I read was a fantasy novel by Patrick Ness, called The Knife of Never Letting Go. Now, when I see “Tome One of the Sparklymadeupname Trilogy!” on a book’s cover, I tend to run a mile, but not before taking a deep breath, holding my nose and peeking inside to see whether my suspicions are unfounded. The first line was about talking dogs and how they don’t have naff-all to say, and the narrative voice-do I even have a hope of describing the narrative voice? It’s brilliant. There are new words and speech patterns unique to the world snuck in there till you feel like you’ve been hearing them all your life, and the buttload of exposition at the beginning about Noise and aliens and germ warfare and genocide and EVERYTHING is handled like a dream, so that it’s fascinating to read rather than a chore, and part of the story rather than delaying its start. When the plot gets properly under way, it achieves the not-inconsiderable feat of (a) being a quest plot whilst (b) not being at all predictable, which I thought had gone out the window after everyone decided to copy LotR. Some things are broadly foreseeable-the two main characters growing together after their initial animosity, for example-but they’re still handled really well, and they’re believable and fun to read, which I tend to look for over utter originality.
One thing I noticed whilst I was reading this book was that the narration is just like a roleplay. I shit you not. I was reading it and checking off the use of brackets for underlying thoughts; the author playing fast and loose with grammar and capitalisation as befits whatever mood they’re going for; the lines shorn to only a couple of words each to pick the pace up to lightspeed… it was kind of funny. And also kind of awesome. So. That’s my observation. Also? It’s a fantastic book. 479 pages long, and not nearly long enough. :P Can has the sequel nao?
So! Those were books. Currently I’m reading a book about psychopaths by some dude who, despite waving about his credits as a novelist like a matador with a big red flag, doesn’t seem to have heard of this thing called proofreading. >_>
…oh yeah, and there are spoilers in the reviews under the cuts. So’s you know.
The first was Dangerous Love, by Kate Lock. It’s the story of a young woman who falls in love with a psychopath named Tim who has killed one of his former lovers, although he maintains that it was an accident. And this is doubly interesting because it’s not a novel, but a memoir-the names are changed, but the psychopath was a real man, and the woman was Lock herself. The first half of the book is the story of their relationship, and the second Lock’s own personal investigation into whether or not the killing was murder or an accident; it doesn’t come out looking good for Tim.
It’s a pretty depressing book at times-especially when the relationship becomes abusive. (On a freaky side-note, there were times during it when I read a bit of Tim’s dialogue, or about something he did, and had a tremendous sense of déja-vu-as if I was reading about Tam. O_o I kid you not.) But overall it’s actually quite inspiring, especially when you remember that the very existence of the book indicates that the author has gotten over her ordeal, no matter how dark it got at times, and no matter how hard Tim tried to bind her to him and break her. It definitely helps that Lock employs some gorgeous turns of phrase, and that she’s impressively honest throughout, showing both sides of the story rather than just turning it into an itemized list of Horrible Things Tim Did. The second half of the book goes from a narrative to a case study, and sees Lock go around interviewing people and looking over the old trial to find whether or not Tim is a murderer, and whilst it’s very different it’s just as awesome. So, overall, and before I get too formal (is it too late for that?) a great book. You can tell, because at the points where the in-story Lock stands up to Tim, you want to punch the air and whoop for her; author-Lock is just that good at making interesting and sympathetic characters.
The second book I read was a fantasy novel by Patrick Ness, called The Knife of Never Letting Go. Now, when I see “Tome One of the Sparklymadeupname Trilogy!” on a book’s cover, I tend to run a mile, but not before taking a deep breath, holding my nose and peeking inside to see whether my suspicions are unfounded. The first line was about talking dogs and how they don’t have naff-all to say, and the narrative voice-do I even have a hope of describing the narrative voice? It’s brilliant. There are new words and speech patterns unique to the world snuck in there till you feel like you’ve been hearing them all your life, and the buttload of exposition at the beginning about Noise and aliens and germ warfare and genocide and EVERYTHING is handled like a dream, so that it’s fascinating to read rather than a chore, and part of the story rather than delaying its start. When the plot gets properly under way, it achieves the not-inconsiderable feat of (a) being a quest plot whilst (b) not being at all predictable, which I thought had gone out the window after everyone decided to copy LotR. Some things are broadly foreseeable-the two main characters growing together after their initial animosity, for example-but they’re still handled really well, and they’re believable and fun to read, which I tend to look for over utter originality.
One thing I noticed whilst I was reading this book was that the narration is just like a roleplay. I shit you not. I was reading it and checking off the use of brackets for underlying thoughts; the author playing fast and loose with grammar and capitalisation as befits whatever mood they’re going for; the lines shorn to only a couple of words each to pick the pace up to lightspeed… it was kind of funny. And also kind of awesome. So. That’s my observation. Also? It’s a fantastic book. 479 pages long, and not nearly long enough. :P Can has the sequel nao?
So! Those were books. Currently I’m reading a book about psychopaths by some dude who, despite waving about his credits as a novelist like a matador with a big red flag, doesn’t seem to have heard of this thing called proofreading. >_>