I was super excited to read a new Kate Quinn novel only one year after reading The Rose Code. I have loved every one of Quinn’s WWII novels, but I found The Diamond Eye to be the weakest one so far and the most predictable. Still, if you enjoy historical fiction and temper your expectations, I think you will find The Diamond Eye to be an interesting enough read.
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Shuggie Bain is a tragic and heartbreaking novel with no happy ending, but I think this coming-of-age story set in 1980s Glasgow is worth every second you will spend reading it.
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The Push reminds me of this novel I read a few years ago, Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage, as both novels are about a mother who wonders if her young daughter is capable of murder. Baby Teeth makes it very clear early on what kind of novel it is. The Push is harder to pin down as it focuses more on the idea of motherhood, its role in our society and its affect on women, rather than being a thriller, and I think that is what makes it the better novel.
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Dark Roads is inspired by the real-life Highway of Tears between Prince George and Prince Rupert where women have been going missing or were murdered since 1970; a disproportionately high number of the victims are Indigenous women. I was expecting Dark Roads to treat its subject matter with more sensitivity, but instead it is a sensationalistic thriller featuring a crooked cop which verges on the ridiculous. This novel left me feeling disappointed with myself for reading it.
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I had been interested in reading The Liar’s Dictionary for quite some time, and now that I have read it, I have to say that I found it to be disappointing. It is not at all as interesting as the blurb on the back cover makes it out to be. As I was reading it, I kept waiting for more plot to occur, but it feels like not a lot happens in this novel.
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The Secret History is Donna Tartt’s first novel and was published in 1992, but it is not the first novel of hers that I have read. I read her third novel, The Goldfinch, first, and I love The Goldfinch; however, if I had read The Secret History first, I probably would not have read The Goldfinch. The Secret History is a somewhat interesting novel, but I was surprised to find that there is not a single likeable character in it. The main characters are so insufferable, I almost stopped reading after a few chapters. But I hate to leave a book unfinished, and I was curious enough to know how this novel would end, so I persevered in reading.
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If you like a good, old-fashioned mystery à la Agatha Christie, then you will like Anthony Horowitz’s novels, Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders. The great thing about these novels is that each novel is two mystery stories in one book.
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True Story has an intriguing premise, but I ended up not liking how it was executed. It is a novel about a teenage girl who is sexually assaulted by two teenage boys when she is passed out in the backseat of a car. The thing is, she does not remember anything of what happened to her, and the two boys who allegedly assaulted her insist they did not do it. So, what really happened?
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I spent the past week reading both Son of a Trickster and Trickster Drift, books one and two of Eden Robinson’s Trickster trilogy (book three is already out, I just have not bought a copy yet). Last year, I read Robinson’s Monkey Beach, which is serious and melancholy compared to the Trickster books. The Trickster books are surreal and somewhat bizarre (not in a derogatory way), and they are also humorous despite the tragic circumstances of the protagonist’s life. I really enjoyed reading both Son of a Trickster and Trickster Drift, and now Robinson is on my list of writers whose novels I will look out for.
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I really need to stop buying books based on Reese Witherspoon’s recommendation alone, because every time I do that, I end up disappointed. But you cannot blame Reese Witherspoon for how deceiving the title, the cover and all the blurbs on The Sanatorium are. There is nothing gothic or thrilling about The Sanatorium. I wish this novel had been set in a decrepit, old sanatorium and had been a spooky, paranormal mystery. Instead, The Sanatorium is an insipid modern murder mystery with a not very convincing detective.
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