The House Across the Lake

The House Across the Lake

by Riley Sager

narrated by Bernadette Dunne

Blurb:

Casey Fletcher, a recently widowed actress trying to escape a streak of bad press, has retreated to the peace and quiet of her family’s lake house in Vermont. Armed with a pair of binoculars and several bottles of liquor, she passes the time watching Tom and Katherine Royce, the glamorous couple who live in the house across the lake. They make for good viewing—a tech innovator, Tom is rich; and a former model, Katherine is gorgeous.

One day on the lake, Casey saves Katherine from drowning, and the two strike up a budding friendship. But the more they get to know each other—and the longer Casey watches—it becomes clear that Katherine and Tom’s marriage is not as perfect and placid as it appears. When Katherine suddenly vanishes, Casey becomes consumed with finding out what happened to her. In the process, she uncovers eerie, darker truths that turn a tale of voyeurism and suspicion into a story of guilt, obsession and how looks can be very deceiving.

My Reaction:

I listened to this audiobook while doing some patchwork quilting.  This was perfect for that—interesting to listen to, but not too complicated to follow while cutting, sewing, and pressing.  

I suspect that the format (audiobook vs. text version) may affect how I rate a book.  It takes less of a commitment in time and effort to simply listen to a book while I'm doing something else, so I might tend to rate an audiobook less harshly.  Also, I'm swept along with the flow of the story and am less likely to stop, think, and poke holes in the plot.  Or become annoyed by something.  And even if I am annoyed, it's not easy to highlight that section and to remember for my review.  

Anyway!  I did enjoy the book, mostly.  I wasn't thrilled when it turned out that the main character is an actress (just... meh), but later on I suppose it turned out to be important to the plot... In any case, I was mildly amused by the fact that the main character and her mother were clearly inspired by Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, even more so because the narrator sounded a lot like Carrie Fisher.  

However, that posed a bit of a problem, as well, because the narrator, while very talented at narration and probably a big part of why I enjoyed the book, sounds much older than the character is supposed to be.  Even after learning that the character is in her 30s, it's hard to picture a woman that age when you're hearing her thoughts and words in the voice of an obviously older woman.  Just not a good fit in that way, unfortunately.  (After searching other reviews, I see that I wasn't the only one to make this observation.  Not just me—though, is it ever?)

As for the plot... I don't think there's much I can say without getting into spoiler territory.  It starts off as you'd expect, especially if you've read the blurb.  It's very Rear Window-ish, which is never a bad thing, as far as I'm concerned.  I see a lot of reviewers didn't like the main character's excessive drinking/alcoholism, and I agree.  It's been used too often in too many popular books over the past several years, and it wasn't particularly fun to read, even on the first time around.  However, I don't mind travelling over familiar ground in terms of the "spying on your neighbors and deciding there's a crime in the offing" trope.  That's pretty much what I expected and signed up for, with this book.  

What I didn't expect was a very odd twist that came in the final quarter (or so?) of the book.  Again, I can't tell you much without spoiling the whole book, so I guess I'll just say that it's extremely unexpected and strange, and it comes completely out of the blue.  To be honest, I didn't like that twist.  It's just too weird for me.  I would've preferred something else, but oh well!  

This is the kind of thing that would prevent me from recommending the book to many people, because it just feels too outlandish and out of place in a book of this kind (or a book of the kind that I mistakenly thought this was).  Some people will love it, but others will find it incredibly annoying and stupid.  I think it was pretty stupid, to tell the truth, but I just kept listening, and by the end... Eh, it's fine.  Because it still gave me something to think about while I worked on my quilt, so it did its job.  And a month from now, I'll have forgotten all about it!

Feathers in the Fire

Feathers in the Fire

by Catherine Cookson

Blurb:

Every once in a while, circumstance traps a group of people in a pattern of tragedy and violence from which they struggle vainly to fight free. Thus it was with the Master of Cock Shield Farm, Angus McBain, a man too easily tempted to sin, and those in and around his household.

My Reaction:

This was my first time reading anything by Catherine Cookson.  She clearly knew how to write a gripping historical tale.  I wouldn't say it's "literary quality", but it's perfectly good entertainment and has more depth than you might expect.  Though I didn't love the story, personally, I can't deny that it's extremely readable, with plenty of character development.  (Also a fair bit of scandal, if that's your thing!)  These aren't two-dimensional characters, and they are interesting to read about, but the drama and unending bad fortune became frustrating to read, especially when it felt avoidable with an ounce of common sense and a decisive action or two.

I wouldn't label this as primarily a romance, incidentally.  Though there are elements of romance, that's not how I'd describe it.  It's more of a drama and character study than a typical romance.  If you come looking for a straightforward romance, I'm afraid you may find it a slog!

I'd consider reading another of this author's novels, but not immediately.  I need a chance to recover from (or possibly forget) my issues with this one!

(The version I've linked here in my blog has a different title.  The alternate title, Her Secret Son, and description are a bit odd, in fact.  I'm not sure what they were thinking when they came up with this.  There is no "secret son" in this novel!  But at least it's available.  Some of this author's books apparently have been difficult to access after going out of print.)

Last Days

Last Days

by Adam Nevill

Blurb:

When guerrilla documentary maker, Kyle Freeman, is asked to shoot a film on the notorious cult known as the Temple of the Last Days, it appears his prayers have been answered. The cult became a worldwide phenomenon in 1975 when there was a massacre including the death of its infamous leader, Sister Katherine. Kyle's brief is to explore the paranormal myths surrounding an organization that became a testament to paranoia, murderous rage, and occult rituals. The shoot's locations take him to the cult's first temple in London, an abandoned farm in France, and a derelict copper mine in the Arizonan desert where The Temple of the Last Days met its bloody end. But when he interviews those involved in the case, those who haven't broken silence in decades, a series of uncanny events plague the shoots. Troubling out-of-body experiences, nocturnal visitations, the sudden demise of their interviewees and the discovery of ghastly artifacts in their room make Kyle question what exactly it is the cult managed to awaken – and what is its interest in him?

My Reaction:

I listened to the audiobook version of this novel while piecing quilts.  At the start, it made a nice alternative to talk radio and podcasts, but at some point my interest began to wane... 

Early in the book, the story was pleasantly creepy, and I was interested in seeing where it was going.  (I even had a little theory, early on, about how the story would develop, which I'll return to in a moment.)  

Unfortunately, aspects of the novel began to feel repetitive, and after Kyle returns from the USA, it felt like it landed in a quagmire and just sort of stalled out.  Then we get the loooooong info-dump / exposition / history lesson with one character, followed by another history lesson from a different character...  This type of writing just doesn't hold my interest.  It starts to feel bloated and in need of the editor's pen.  

A few nitpicks:

—I didn't like the way the American characters' dialect was written.  Maybe it was worse to listen to than it would've been to read on the page, because of the nasal interpretation of the American accent.  However, the persistently poor grammar also annoyed me, as an American who doesn't use "ain't" in every other sentence.  It's especially jarring when the character with the over-the-top dialect refers to a flashlight as a "torch".  Somehow, I begin to wonder if the author has ever known or met an actual American person...  

—I felt like we never really get to understand Sister Katherine at all, beyond the summary of "evil cult-leader".  Maybe that's intentional, to maintain an air of mystery, but it felt disappointing.  

—This book does that annoying thing where a character who has encountered paranormal entities still can't bring himself to accept that another, different paranormal occurrence could be possible.  (Something like, "Yeah, okay, so vampires are real.  I acknowledge that.  But werewolves?!  C'mon, man!  Do I look crazy to you?")  That might be how people would tend to react in reality—simply unable to absorb any more blows to their concept of how the world works, in such a short space of time—but it always irritates me!

—It also does that other annoying thing where a totally new character is just dumped on you in the last quarter or less of the book, with no satisfactory explanation for why you're just hearing about him when another character has clearly been working with him for months, if not longer.  The new guy is an irritating, painfully clichéd character, too, which makes the whole situation even worse.  At this point in the book, we're just waiting to see how it all wraps up, though, so... whatever.

—If you dislike open endings, you might be disappointed here.  I'm choosing to just believe that it ended the way I want it to have ended, but I would have appreciated a little more indication of what happens next.  

As for my theory, it involves spoilers, so... 

SPOILER

WARNING

Ok, if you're still reading now, prepare to be spoiled!

I wondered if one of the children who survived (and then specifically the "Clean Child", once he was mentioned) would turn out to be Kyle.  I thought perhaps Max knew or had discovered Kyle's origin, while Kyle himself had no memory of this early trauma.  That would have explained why Max insisted on involving Kyle, because he was already involved in the cult's history—and was perhaps crucial to its future, in one way or another, either for its destruction or revival.  The documentary would've been just a ruse to get Kyle on-board to visit the locations and slowly remember or realize his connection to the case.  

Of course, as it turns out, none of that was true!  Instead, it's basically a more convoluted version of the move titled The Skeleton Key.  (I liked my idea better!)

END

OF

SPOILERS

On the whole, it was fine.  I didn't lose any sleep from the creep factor, but it was entertaining, apart from the times when too much exposition slowed the pace.  I was glad for it to be over when it was, though, which is a bit sad.  The beginning was much stronger than the end, and the supposedly scary stuff gets less and less frightening, the more it's described.  

This was my first experience with this author, incidentally, and I'm not sure whether to go back for more... What was good was good, but it didn't land quite right for me.  

Edison's Conquest of Mars

Edison's Conquest of Mars

by Garrett P. Serviss

My Blurb:

One edition falsely describes this as "an absolutely wonderful SF masterpiece", but then says it was written in 1947, so that shows how much they know!  It's actually a newspaper serial first published in the late 1800s.  Anyway... the same blurb that got the year wrong goes on to say the following:

"Edison's Conquest of Mars is a science fiction novel by American astronomer and writer Garrett P. Serviss. It was written as a sequel to Fighters from Mars, an unauthorized and heavily altered version of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. It has a place in the history of science fiction for its early employment of themes and motifs that later became staples of the genre."

Following the events of The War of the Worlds, in which Martians attack and lay waste to huge areas of Earth, humans across the globe must rally an effort to defend their planet from a repeat attack.  Fortunately for them, they are led by that amazing inventor and heroic warrior... Thomas Edison!  Will their efforts succeed (as is heavily implied by the title of this book)?  You'll have to read to find out! (Or not.  The title kind of gives it away, really.)

My Reaction:

Donald and I read this together for the 372 Pages We Won't Get Back podcast/book club.  

I haven't read much (any?) "space-themed" science fiction, though I've watched my share of TV shows and movies set in space.  Serviss apparently was the first or one of the first authors to write about... space suits, I think it was.  He also has a few other ideas that will be familiar to anyone who reads, views, or otherwise consumes space-y sci-fi.  

I give him credit for his creativity, but sadly, he wasn't much of a fiction-writer.  He had terrible pacing, practically no attempt at characterization, only the most barebone plot, and zero flair for storytelling.  Just awful, really.  Maybe a child without any expectations or experience of quality writing might enjoy this.  For everyone else, it's a curiosity, at best.  The occasional moments of unintended humor are the best thing this has going for it.  

One thing that particularly annoyed me about this book:

On the one hand, Serviss' version of Edison is an unapparelled genius, in this tale.  He reverse engineers alien technology (only his version is even better, don'tchaknow), conceptualizes and whips up new inventions and improvements on the fly (all behind the scenes, of course), and basically has the most amazing brain God has ever given a man.  

On the other hand, he continually makes idiotic strategic mistakes, at the cost of the other men's lives!  

"Hey!  There are some Martians coming!  Mr. Edison, should we use our powerful weapons to safely destroy them before they get too close, seeing as how they tried to annihilate us all on Earth just a while ago?"  

Edison says no.  Let's just wait and see what happens, first.  

Shocking surprise:  The Martians attack.  Many men are killed.

Edison:  "Oopsie!  Well, okay... Yeah, let's use our death ray... I guess..."  

And he never learns!  Some variation on this happens at least a few different times.  When you're on a mission to Mars to avenge Earth and protect it from further harm, you don't dilly-dally and pussyfoot, man!  You kill-kill-kill until every last Martian is dead.  (Or at least that's what I'd do, probably.  Hey, they started it with an unprovoked attack, and for all Edison's genius, it was only by a stroke of fortune that Earth's heroes were able to achieve the "conquest".  The Martians would be very lucky if I left any of them alive.)

Conclusion:  Glad to leave this one behind!

 

Upgrade

Upgrade
by Blake Crouch

(Edited) Blurb:

The unwilling recipient of a DNA "upgrade", Logan Ramsay is about to get the brain he always dreamed of, along with a host of other gene-level enhancements.  A holy grail of genetic engineering—one that could change our very definitions of humanity—has just been unearthed.  And now it's up to him to stop it from falling into the wrong hands.  But will he be transformed into something more than human… or something less?  

My Reaction:

Eh...

Well, to start with, unlike many of the readers whose reviews I've skimmed, I was unfamiliar with this author's work until I started reading Upgrade, so I came in with no expectations or preconceptions of what this novel might be.  (Though after starting it, I did see that Wayward Pines was based on his work, and I watched the first season of that...)  While reading reviews for The It Girl, I saw someone suggest that people would be better off reading this, if they wanted a real page-turner of a thriller.  (I'm not sure I agree.  Maybe this is the better of the two books in some ways, but I probably enjoyed reading the other one more, despite that.  And honestly, they're just such completely different books!  Comparing them feels pointless, really.)

So, I went in not knowing what to expect.  Aspects of the initial world-building phase of the book gave me the feeling I probably wouldn't like everything about it, but I hoped the story might move in a different direction.  In some ways, it did, but I probably should have trusted my gut reaction, because it was correct:  I didn't like this book.  

My chief complaints?  

• These are flat characters who elicit mostly flat emotions (with one or two notable exceptions toward the end).  
• The combination of dry science textbook infodump and descriptions of action sequences is boring.  Some reviewers have speculated that this was written "for the screen" (or at least with that as a fond wish), and it certainly feels like a possibility.  This author has had other works adapted for TV/movie, which bumps it up to a likelihood!
• Characters who are supposed to be geniuses display distinctly sub-genius intelligence.
• We're supposed to believe that humanity is a century away from extinction, and yet... most things seem pretty okay in the parts of the world we visit during this book.  Certainly not on the brink of extinction, barring something like a "planet killer" asteroid.  Yes, certain areas have flooded.  Yes, non-synthetic meat seems to be an expensive treat rather than part of a daily diet.  Yes, we're told that people are starving (somewhere).  But the major population centers are still there, around the globe.  There have been major advancements in transportation, as well as other engineering feats, and things don't seem to be too bad in middle-class America.  Again, not on the verge of collapse.
• A colossally irritating ending.  I guess it's not worth going into spoiler territory to expand on it, but I really don't buy Logan's theory for how to save the world.  I found it obnoxious, to be brutally honest, and it completely negated the previous however-many pages I'd read.  UGH.

I skimmed large chunks of the info-dump pseudoscience babbling after briefly considering just skipping straight to the end.  

A couple of quotes, since I bothered to take notes...

—"...Drive to the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, which had been hit by two cat 7 hurricanes in the last decade and left with no economy to speak of, and wonder how people found the will to go on."

First of all, allow me to guffaw my ever-lovin' head off at the ridiculous little "let me slip this in here all casual-like" factoid that they've added two more levels to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.  I live on the Gulf Coast and have lived through multiple hurricanes.  This little cutesy "cat 7" stuff...?  No.  Also, if things were that bad in coastal Mississippi, I think most people would find a way to leave, even if it meant leaving everything behind but what they could carry on their backs.  Why does this author think the people of MS are so powerless (or stupid?) that they would stay in a hellscape "with no economy to speak of" and no hope for improvement when there's a normal life still to be had in much of the rest of the country?  How insulting!

—"What if you create a bunch of people who are just drastically better at what they already were.  Soldiers.  Criminals.  Politicians.  Capitalists."  

Oh, here we go.  Ok, I'll grant you the politicians, because I'm fed up with them all, at this point and have trouble trusting a word any of them say, but saying that "capitalists" and "soldiers" (just any soldier, I guess, not narrowing it down to some type of scary, evil mercenaries, but including people who simply want to serve and protect their country) are on the same level as criminals?  Good grief.  Well, at least we know where he stands!

Was it worth the read?  For me, probably not.  I didn't love it.