Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child (audio)

Posted on May 8, 2011 by pagesofjulia

YAY for Lee Child as usual! Especially after a couple of unimpressive audiobooks in a row, it’s been such sweet relief to hear Dick Hill’s deadpan narrative. I feel like he suits Jack Reacher very well.

Backstory: Jack Reacher is a serial character. He’s a former MP (military policeman), fairly decorated, who’s retired young to travel the country at random. He has enough money to get by just wandering, and seems to want to be left alone (although it’s not clear what would occupy him if it weren’t for the circumstances that keep drawing him in). He is repeatedly pulled, against his will, into events of dangerous or criminal intrigue, and he uses his general bad-ass-ness to beat up the bad guys and uplift the righteous little people.

I really appreciate Reacher. He’s a character that works for me very well. He’s almost a superhero – big, strong, smart, quick-thinking, and with a general inclination to do the right thing. He has integrity. He’s just about perfect; but just when he starts to really look like a caricature, we find he’s not so perfect after all. In Worth Dying For, the bad guys got him tied up and hurt for a little while; I was surprised to see him thwarted. But you can’t keep Reacher down. In Gone Tomorrow, too, he gets captured and held, but not forever! I’m not saying he’s an entirely realistic character or anything, but for my tastes, Child pulls back just in time, right before I say “oh, come on…”

And he’s not just a physical hero – although he is enormous, very strong, has no body fat, is a highly skilled gunman, a formidable hand-to-hand fighter, etc. He’s also smart, and an expert in all things military as well as in many other obscure areas of knowledge. It’s a bit uncanny, how much he knows and how much he can figure out. But in this area, too, he’s pulled back from the brink of cartoonish superiority: for example, Lila Hoth convinces him of the American military’s role in a time and place he didn’t think it was possible. I like that in this conversation he listens, asks discerning questions, and isn’t afraid to learn, even to be wrong. In short, Reacher is, to me, a real hero: almost perfect but with a few human deficiencies and – best of all – aware of them (rare though they be).

I also get these little nuggets of information. Like, he muses that there are experts out there who could look at the dimensions of the bricks, and the arrangement of them, in his unknown little dungeon-cell, and know pretty precisely where the building is and when it was built. But Reacher’s not one of those experts. (I’m paraphrasing the audiobook from memory.) See what I mean? It might have been just a little too much if Reacher had been the brick expert, too, on top of everything else. And what a cool little historical nugget. Of course there are brick experts; it makes perfect sense. It had never occurred to me, though.

At any rate, aside from my ramblings about the wonder that is Reacher, this is a good book. I love the little details. When Reacher wakes up after being drugged, he wonders how long he’s been out; with all four limbs bound, he ducks his head to rub his chin against his shirt, thereby feeling how much stubble he has. Now he can make an educated guess. This is a neat detail – evocative, realistic, and also impressive. Reiterates how proficient this guy is. I just hope we really do have guys this effective in our military and/or law enforcement systems.

I came across just one or two points of contention. I think the 9/11 aftermath and international politics was rather clever but also rather pat; 9/11 politics is a fairly common thread in mystery-intrigue genre fiction, and I was a little disappointed and a little bored there for a minute, although Child handled it fairly uniquely. And I was a little bothered by a certain person, for whom English is not a native language, uttering sentences like “…you employed a deductive process. Do you think you are uniquely talented? Do you think that deductive processes are unavailable to others?” This didn’t sound very realistic for this character to me.

But overall this was another great Reacher story. Fast-paced, gritty, suspenseful, funny and witty, and, for me, just the right balance of realism and hero-worshipping-fantasy. Go get you some Jack Reacher right now if you have any interest in action-adventure, mysteries, intrigue, or loveable heroes.

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book beginnings on Friday: Nothing to Lose by Lee Child

Posted on May 6, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Katy at A Few More Pages for hosting this meme. To participate: Share the first line (or two) of the book you are currently reading on your blog or in the comments. Include the title and the author so we know what you’re reading. Then, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line, and let us know if you liked or did not like the sentence. You might also consider stopping by the original post.

I am listening to this one in the car on audio. (You will note, if you’ve been following, that I am listening to more and more audio. More on that later, but suffice it to say the format is more or less working for me.) I love my Lee Child… Here’s your book beginning:

The sun was only half as hot as he had known sun to be, but it was hot enough to keep him confused and dizzy. He was very weak. He had not eaten for seventy-two hours, or taken water for forty-eight.

I have faith, Reacher! Especially as there’s so much more yet to come. 🙂

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These Things Hidden by Heather Gudenkauf

Posted on April 27, 2011 by pagesofjulia

This book drew me in (and presumably I was not the only one!) with its blurbs all over the interwebs referencing abundant vagueness: teenaged Allison has just been released from prison; the former perfect princess committed some unspecified, horrendous crime. Brynn, her invisible sister, struggles to move on from her sister’s mistake. And two unrelated women angst over Allison’s presence, while a little boy’s fate is held in the balance. All this vagueness, and promises of suspense, got me excited; but I found myself disappointed in the end.

For one thing, The Big Question of what Allison did is answered very early on, which I found rather anticlimactic; the questions that remained for the rest of the book felt a touch wanting in suspense after the blurbs built me up. Perhaps most frustrating was the continued and continuing obsession with maternity and motherhood that I’ve repeatedly observed in today’s pop fiction. That’s a personal beef; it’s just not my fave; but it’s worth noting that this book seems to follow a trend.

I didn’t find any one character really sympathetic. Each of them was mildly likeable; but none got me really deeply rooting for them. Also, there was almost no male role at all in the whole book. Again, this is a personal gripe, since I like my worlds a little more gender-diverse. In the end the most likeable character I found was the grandmother, but she was pretty minor; I don’t think she even had a name.

It’s not all bad. I did sit up and read this book all the way through in one sitting; I stayed up past my bedtime to finish it (not much, just 1/2 an hour, maybe an hour); I wanted to get to the end. But, it wasn’t the most burning need-to-finish; and I wouldn’t have stayed up much later. It was a fine book that suited me for an evening. It was an easy read: enjoyable, superficial and superficially enjoyable. Not a bad thing for a plane trip or bus ride. But nothing especially sparkled. I give it a “meh” and am disappointed because I had hoped for more.

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book beginnings on Friday: options

Posted on March 25, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Katy at A Few More Pages for hosting this meme. To participate: Share the first line (or two) of the book you are currently reading on your blog or in the comments. Include the title and the author so we know what you’re reading. Then, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line, and let us know if you liked or did not like the sentence. (You might also consider visiting the original post where you can link to your own book beginning.)

I’m breaking the rules again. I’m not sure what I’m going to read next. I will hopefully finish both Main Street and Dethroning the King this weekend (and will likely not post at all over the weekend, which is my usual habit). But I did want to share a few books that have recently been published that I’m interested in reading. Perhaps you can help me choose!

First of all, Heather Gudenkauf’s These Things Hidden begins:

I stand when I see Devin Kineally walking toward me, dressed as usual in her lawyer-gray suit, her high heels clicking against the tiled floor. I take a big breath and pick up my small bag filled with my few possessions.

To me, this indicates that the narrator has seen this Kineally woman before, knows her “usual” suit color, and is not feeling so hot about the action to come. I have read the blurbs (and a review or two) of this book and am excited about what sounds like a thrilling and intriguing, um, thriller.

And then there’s Lisa Gardner’s Love You More. From the Prologue:

Who do you love? It’s a question anyone should be able to answer. A question that defines a life, creates a future, guides most minutes of one’s days. Simple, elegant, encompassing.

This is a bit general and philosophical for my tastes, and not such a grabber, for me at least, but chapter one does me better:

Sergeant Detective D.D. Warren prided herself on her excellent investigative skills. Having served over a dozen years with the Boston PD, she believed working a homicide scene wasn’t simply a matter of walking the walk or talking the talk, but rather of total sensory immersion.

Now that will grab me. I like a good detective and a good crime scene; this is my favorite kind of light reading. I’ve read some about this book, too – I’ve never read Lisa Gardner before, but this one sounds wonderful, and I can’t wait to get into it. Although again I’m noticing a sort of emotional theme of maternity, parenting, mother-child bonding, family, etc. I’ve mentioned this before and it bothers me somewhat. I wonder if this is a recent theme in publishing? Or just the ones I’m stumbling across? Any thoughts?

Anywho, sorry, got distracted. Either of these books appeal to me for a next read – or it could always be something off my TBR bookcase at home. 🙂 Do you have a vote? What shall I tackle next? (Perhaps the next one of these two to be returned to my library, hmm…)

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vacation reading: a series of short reviews

Posted on February 23, 2011 by pagesofjulia

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Still a good story! Spooky and short, it’s a bit reminiscent of Poe. Action-packed and efficient. I would not have sworn I had read this before, but now I recognize that I have. What a classic. I highly recommend this as a bang-for-the buck, action-packed, early sci-fi spookster with a bit of meditation on the human condition. Not sure if I should count this for the Classics Challenge as its a re-read. :-/

Worth Dying For by Lee Child. (audiobook) Surprisingly good as audio. I wasn’t sure. I’m such a BOOK purist that audio doesn’t always work for me; but it can’t be argued with on a road trip. Part of what made it special, too, is that I got to share it with the Husband, who doesn’t normally read. He got really into it, and we shared this suspenseful adventure together. That’s priceless.

Classic Jack Reacher! He’s such a Rambo. It’s a bit comical in the over-the-top violence and general bad-ass-ness, but I eat it up. It’s great fun. We both enjoy the slight absurdity of it, while also appreciating that we can count on this guy to get it right. And I finally begin to understand, at least a little bit, what was so frustratingly up-in-the-air at the end of 61 Hours. This may be my favorite Reacher novel yet.

The Ballad of Typhoid Mary by J.F. Federspiel. Opening quotation: “Life is strange and the world is bad.” (Thomas Wolfe) This sets the tone.

This is another creepy story. It’s historical fiction, and I have made a note in large letters to read up on the concept of Typhoid Mary and how much we know about her in the real world. She was a carrier of typhoid fever: she never got sick herself, but she made people around her sick, to the tune of several hundred at least. She was a cook, passionate about cooking for people, despite seeming to understand that she was killing them. She wasn’t a serial killer; she didn’t do it on purpose; she just didn’t let it stop her. What can we expect, in an age with poor understanding of hygiene and the spreading of disease, of a poor, uneducated, abused & orphaned young woman with no opportunities who suspects she might, in some way, be responsible for all these deaths around her? This was a fascinating read, and another very short one, too.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks.This is a collection of case studies, or short stories, or essays, by a neurologist who also fancies himself a philosopher with literary leanings. It was quite attention-grabbing, and I had to keep putting it down to tell the Husband stories. Reading about brain injuries or anomalies of the brain is infinitely more interesting to me since I had my bad wreck and experienced some brain injury and healing of my own. The most interesting thing about a number of these cases is that these patients often don’t realize that anything is wrong!

Sacks’s approach is to contemplate the relationship between mind, body, and soul, which perhaps too few of our hard scientists do. It still ended up a bit on the hard-science side for me, perhaps; he made a number of references (unexplained) to other hard scientists, which made it a bit less accessible to us laypersons. But I loved the stories, the concepts, possibilities, complexities of the human mind.

In the Woods by Tana French. I’ve been hankering for more of Tana French since reading Faithful Place. I really fell for that Frank Mackey! This one opens with immediately recognizable poetry-in-prose, stark, gritty, and strongly Irish. Then I was disappointed to recognize a familiar story: grown male detective forced to confront unsolved childhood trauma of missing friend(s). Argh! But I guess why mess with a good thing…

Oh man. I stayed up nearly all night to finish this book. (and this, in a place where I LIKE to get up to watch the sun rise!) Same story my head; it did have its plot similarities but it was so gripping and spooky, like a ghost story, except even spookier because there was nothing supernatural at all, just creepily realistic human nature. I can’t wait to get the next book!

Side note: the beautiful, tragic, doomed, perfect friendship reminded me somewhat of One Day by David Nicholls, which had an entirely different tone to it.

Echo Park by Michael Connelly. (audiobook)Another highly enjoy audiobook! This one unabridged, thank goodness. (I realized AFTER we listened to Worth Dying For that it was abridged, and now have to go back and read the book.) Connelly, for all that he’s sort of stark and black-and-white, also strikes me as a poet; I love that Bosch “educates” his ice with vodka. That’s unique! I’ve read this book before, but it’s been long enough that I still enjoyed the mystery. I like all the background or frame elements in Connelly, like the jazz (and I like that the Library of Congress, and some clever librarian there, make an appearance in relation to the jazz), and the audio format took advantage and gave us a few jazz riffs in the background here and there, which was a nice touch. I hadn’t really thought about using music on on audiobook, and actually, there were some other snippets of music added that I didn’t think worked so well; but jazz behind Connelly is a strong choice.

Whatever You Say I Am (the life and times of Eminem) by Anthony Bozza.I put this in the same category as the Hefner biography, actually. These are some highly controversial men, offensive to many if not to all, who have impacted our world; without making a value judgment, I can say I find them interesting to read about. My feelings about Eminem are complicated, just like with Hefner. (I was talking with my Pops the other night along these lines and we put Reagan in the same category but that’s a whole new can of worms.) I haven’t finished this book, am less than halfway through, but I can say I really enjoy the way Bozza puts his reader fully into a time and place. For example, to help place us in the year in which Eminem was working to release his first album, he gives us a full rundown of the musical hits and award winners of the year in various categories, as well as what movies and television were hot. Now, I’m not generally all that up to date on pop culture, but this worked for me; it really evoked a time in my life. I think that works for all of us, because isn’t sound or music second only to smell as a mnemonic? Doesn’t hearing a particular song take to you a time and place? At any rate, I’m enjoying this biographical study of a controversial figure.

And finally, By-Line: Ernest Hemingway. As I’ve said, I’m enjoying reading Hemingway’s usual tone and style, that I know so well, used in journalism. I hadn’t read any of his journalism before. I guess the nonfiction I’ve read would be Death in the Afternoon and A Moveable Feast, and then all that fiction that’s so heavily autobiographical. Any Hemingway I can get, I like.

I’ll keep you up to date on the books I still have to finish; and I have a few Maisie books waiting for me. I might finally be caught up!

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Teaser Tuesdays: Persuader by Lee Child

Posted on February 1, 2011 by pagesofjulia


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Duffy wanted me to move into the hotel and offered to have somebody drive me back to my Boston hotel for my luggage. I told her I didn’t have any luggage and she looked at me sideways but didn’t say anything.

From page 38 of Lee Child’s Persuader. Standard Reacher behavior – and I love that there’s a “she” already. Reacher doesn’t consummate his flings the way Connelly’s character Bosch tends to, but there’s always an attractive (and generally also very tough) woman around. I’m looking forward to the ease of reading a fast-paced Reacher thriller for the next few days!

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Still Missing by Chevy Stevens

Posted on December 27, 2010 by pagesofjulia

I started this book last Thursday and read it all the way through before bed, with the Husband very tolerant and occasionally (as necessary) sympathetic as I cried on the couch.

I had read the various reviews and blurbs (see amazon and the dust jacket, etc.) and thus grasped the concept: Annie is abducted and held captive for a YEAR before her escape, and we meet her in therapy as she tries to put her life back together. But I still wasn’t quite prepared for the graphic and disturbing descriptions of what she went through. That probably makes me naive; what, did I think it was going to be a cozy? (No.) But it was definitely on the dark side. I cried over what she went through; but I also cried over her attempts to recover, particularly her failed reunions with her well-meaning but bumbling boyfriend.

I read some not-so-favorable reviews of this book – luckily, after I had read it and formed my own opinions! But I do give Still Missing a strong review. It may not be terribly “serious” or literary, but since when is that all we look forward to? I found it moving – lots of tears – and I was still thinking and talking about it days later. While the story is fictional, we live in a world with lots of bad, and I bet this very thing has happened, and I bet the psychology is not far off. It certainly got to me.

I was surprised at how similar it ended up feeling to my understanding of Emma Donoghue’s Room, and I may decide not to read that one next for this reason! Although I’m also interested in the comparison. Hm. Time to go browsing. Check in tomorrow and see what I come up with…

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book beginnings on Friday: Still Missing, by Chevy Stevens

Posted on December 24, 2010 by pagesofjulia

This meme is hosted by Katy at A Few More Pages.

Session One:

“You know, Doc, you’re not the first shrink I’ve seen since I got back. The one my family doctor recommended right after I came home was a real prize. The guy actually tried to act like he didn’t know who I was, but that was a pile of crap — you’d have to be deaf and blind not to.”

Annie was abducted and held for a year, and endured some awful things, obviously. We join her as she tries to recover from the experience. I like thrillers and psychological puzzles like this. These first few lines set things up nicely, echoing the dust-cover blurb which I’ve summarized for you here. I’ve been looking forward to this one. Stay tuned!

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Tuesday Teaser

Posted on December 21, 2010 by pagesofjulia

Just for fun I’m going to play along with Should Be Reading here and give you a Tuesday Teaser. From page 201 of Faithful Place by Tana French:

“It was late enough that the street was dark and creepily silent, everyone neatly tucked up in their high thread counts. I parked under a decorous tree and sat there for a while, looking up at Holly’s bedroom window and thinking about nights when I had come home late from work to that house, parked in the drive like I belonged and turned my key in the lock without making a sound.”

Beautifully written; I love how much he expresses by writing that the tree is “decorous” and that everyone is tucked up in high thread counts. It says a lot about the neighborhood he’s in.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

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reading weekend.

Posted on December 18, 2010 by pagesofjulia

Without getting too personal, I’ll say that I’ve got a situation here that has derailed my weekend intentions and instead landed me a whole lotta reading time, which is the silver lining. I started Faithful Place last night, with enthusiasm but also with regret that it required putting down When Christ and His Saints Slept; I was really enjoying it. I’m also feeling the pull of Room and several others… but to get back on topic:

I’m now feeling the need to pause (come up for air) on page 262 at the start of chapter 17, realizing that my friends and fellow readers (Karma) probably have not been quite as full-time as have I in the last 24 hours. So.

I’m really enjoying this book! I was drawn very quickly into the romantic story of Frank and his childhood love with Rosie, who no-showed their elopement date and left him thinking she’d, well, left him. There’s an air of mystery about it from the first (let’s be fair, all the blurbs and the inside of the dust jacket agree that it wasn’t that simple, so no spoilers there) and I care about them right from the first, too. Frank is familiar to me. Am I projecting, are all detectives starting to look like Harry Bosch, or is Frank another loner-type, hard on the edges, who cares deeply about his job (see my last post: job is one of the things he’s die for), but has the very soft spot of a young daughter, complete with estranged baby-mama? I think he is. This is my type of detective. But he’s in the relatively new-to-me setting of modern Dublin, and I’m eating up all the local culture and dialog. (I ❤ Guinness.) There's an interesting interplay of class and culture between his family home and neighborhood, which he hasn't visited in 22 years, and his ex-wife's world of privilege. But I think the best part is the characters and the complications of their relationships. If Frank and his four siblings are types, it doesn't make me love them any less, or make them any less real.

It’s hard for me to go much further than this without revealing plot spoilers, which I’m determined not to do, because I want Karma and Valerie and the rest of you to be able to discuss with me in this blog even if you’re not keeping up with my pace in the book. (I think I’m going to switch back to Christ and His Saints now so as to allow some catch-up time.) So what I’m saying here is that the plot has some interesting twists and turns and surprises me, which of course I love. The revelation on page 205 kind of floored me, in fact. When you get there, let me know what you think.

Now, more than half way through the book, I’m starting to get a fatalistic feeling that perhaps I can see the end and the whodunit, and it’s awfully sad. Poor Frank… the guilt and distant love in this family… but you know, author French has me going, and I won’t be surprised if she has a few more surprises to throw at me in the next 140-odd pages.

For now, as a side story, let’s talk about the character Stephen. I like him! It would be very unlike the “type” that is Frank to make a new friend (and he is resisting it) but I’m pleased to meet this likeable guy. How do you feel about him?

I’m off to take a break now and give my other books some love, and hope that you’ll catch up with me a bit. We’ll get back to Frank & Rosie in a day or three. Thanks for joining me here and I hope your weekend allows for all the action and/or restful reading that you like.

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