Relic

Relic 
by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child


Blurb:

Just days before a massive exhibition opens at the popular New York Museum of Natural History, visitors are being savagely murdered in the museum's dark hallways and secret rooms. Autopsies indicate that the killer cannot be human...

But the museum's directors plan to go ahead with a big bash to celebrate the new exhibition, in spite of the murders.

Museum researcher Margo Green must find out who-- or what-- is doing the killing. But can she do it in time to stop the massacre?

My Reaction:This isn't my usual fare, but on the whole, I enjoyed it.  (I'd give it 3.5 stars.)  The museum made for a fascinating and atmospheric setting, and I found the main characters interesting and sympathetic enough that I cared what happened to at least a few of them.

The references to 1990's technology brought back memories from my youth... In many ways, modern tech is of course wonderful, but I do feel some nostalgia for the good old days-- especially the time before smart phones!

Without giving away too much, I wasn't really surprised by the twist, since it had occurred to me as one possibility earlier in the novel-- still interesting reading, though.

Ultimately, I'm not sure whether I'll read more in this series or not.  It was a reasonably enjoyable but oftentimes slow read for me, until the action finally kicked in and the story flowed more easily.  Psuedo-scientific thrillers are a little outside what I generally like to read, but I might give the next one a try, at some point.  I took a sneak peek at some plot points from later on in the series, and I have to say, it sounds a little crazy, but maybe...

The Mister

The Mister
by E.L. James


Blurb:

London, 2019. Life has been easy for Maxim Trevelyan. With his good looks, aristocratic connections, and money, he’s never had to work and he’s rarely slept alone. But all that changes when tragedy strikes and Maxim inherits his family’s noble title, wealth, and estates, and all the responsibility that entails. It’s a role he’s not prepared for and one that he struggles to face.

But his biggest challenge is fighting his desire for an unexpected, enigmatic young woman who’s recently arrived in England, possessing little more than a dangerous and troublesome past. Reticent, beautiful, and musically gifted, she’s an alluring mystery, and Maxim’s longing for her deepens into a passion that he’s never experienced and dares not name. Just who is Alessia Demachi? Can Maxim protect her from the malevolence that threatens her? And what will she do when she learns that he’s been hiding secrets of his own?

From the heart of London through wild, rural Cornwall to the bleak, forbidding beauty of the Balkans, The Mister is a roller-coaster ride of danger and desire that leaves the reader breathless to the very last page.

My Reaction:
Let me waste no time in absolving myself of this book choice by pointing out that it was a 372 Pages podcast selection (and as such, a read-aloud shared read with Donald).  I have no problem with romance as a genre (though it can be difficult to find one that I truly enjoy, now that I'm so much pickier, as an adult), but this particular one is kind of embarrassing...

It's just not good, in so many ways.

I can't be bothered to think up a cohesive, thoughtful review for this one-- or even the thrown-together, not especially cohesive type of review that I usually end up posting.

The characters are stupid, uninteresting, and unrealistic.  The plot is an odd mixture of the predictable and the bizarre.  The sex scenes are cringe-inducing and mind-numbingly repetitive.  (I think I probably sighed and rolled my eyes every time it became obvious that we were in for yet another of the "romance" scenes.  They were awful, and reading them aloud made them a hundred times worse!  I quickly made the executive decision to just skim through them and only read aloud any particularly hilarious tidbits that leaped off the page.)

There is very little going for this book.  ...Unless you happen to be reading it explicitly for the purpose of finding the humor in it, which is what 372 Pages boils down to.

Reading this "as a joke" made it so much more enjoyable than it would've been, read seriously.
It's still not a good book, though.

DNF: Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff

Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff
by Sean Penn


Blurb:

Bob Honey—a modern American man, entrepreneur, and part-time assassin. He’s just a guy trying to make it through each day while grappling with loneliness, alienation, violence—uncertain of his place in a culture that considers branding more important than being.

Bob Honey has a hard time connecting with other people. He dreams he is sleeping with his ex-wife every night, and imagines waking up unhappy next to her every morning. Advertising, entertainment, and commerce rule his days; he’s sick of being marketed to every moment, but is unable to pry himself away from the constant feed. A paragon of American entrepreneurialism, Bob sells septic tanks to Jehovah’s Witnesses and arranges colorful pyrotechnic displays for foreign dictators. He’s also a part-time assassin for an off-the-books program run by the CIA that targets the elderly, the infirm, and others who drain this consumption-driven society of its resources.

When a nosy journalist starts asking questions, Bob can’t decide if it’s a chance to form some sort of new friendship or if it’s the beginning of the end for him. With treason on everyone’s lips, terrorism in everyone’s sights, and American political life racing to ever-lower standards, Bob decides it’s time to make a change. If he doesn’t get killed by his mysterious controllers or exposed in the rapacious media first.

My Reaction:
I can sum up my reaction to this book (and the audiobook version read by Penn himself, which is how I "read" it) in one single word: UGH.

Yeah, big surprise: I absolutely hated it.  I'd give it negative stars, were it possible.  If not for the 372 Pages podcast, I never would have been tempted to read this one, and even with that as an incentive, we didn't get very far.  (This was another shared read/listen with Donald.)  I don't remember how far we got before saying, "Eh... Let's just listen to the podcast episodes without reading the rest, okay?"  (For the record, that's the first time we've done that, and it does reduce the listening pleasure of the podcast when you haven't read the book.  In this instance, however, I think we still came out ahead by avoiding further exposure to Bob Honey.)

Imagine my surprise upon discovering that there's a sequel in the works! 
Nope, not for me.

Son of Rosemary

Son of Rosemary
by Ira Levin


Blurb:

Son of Rosemary opens at the dawn of the new millennium - a time when human hope is shadowed by growing fear and uncertainty, and the world is in greatest need of a savior. It is here - against a glittering backdrop of New York City in 1999 - that Rosemary is reunited with her son. It is also here that the battle between good and evil will be played out on a global scale - a struggle that will have frightening, far-reaching consequences, not only for Rosemary and her son but for all humanity.

My Reaction (with SPOILERS):
Well, at least I finally finished it.  To be fair, I knew going in (based on the "bad-book recommendation" of my youngest sister) that it wasn't going to be a good book.  However, I didn't know what made it a bad book, and now I've satisfied my curiosity.

There are plenty of things I could nit-pick, but I'll try to confine myself to the bigger issues.

First, I get the impression that the author had some sort of writer's crush on his own creation-- Rosemary herself-- intensified by and linked to Mia Farrow's portrayal of her.  Rosemary isn't that interesting, honestly.  That's part of her appeal in the first book: she's just a normal, everyday woman tossed into a nightmare scenario.  In this sequel, however, it feels like we're supposed to adore or at least admire her in a way I just don't understand.  Maybe it's just me being too sensitive to the book-world's bizarre obsession with her, which is attributable to her connection to Andy, who himself has an apparent charisma-on-steroids that doesn't translate well to the page.

Example: Why would the world care particularly about Rosemary's "Fresh Eye" perspective on how things have changed since she went into her coma?  She's been "asleep" for 30-ish years, not a hundred.  Tons of living adults could make the same observations.  Yes, it's a little different when you're seen things gradually change vs. essentially waking up one morning after a 30-year sleep, but I still don't see why she just assumes that of course everyone will care about her ground-breaking theory on "terrorist-speak", etc.  (The maddening thing is, in the world of this book, people would care!  Yuck.  Never been one for the cult of personality. Hero/celebrity-worship is definitely not my thing.)

Second, the relationship between Rosemary and Andy.  ...What can you say about it?  Just... bizarre. It might be a while before I hear or read the word "biggie" without cringing.

Third, the ending.  I didn't find it quite such a cop-out as some evidently did.  I mean, I didn't like it-- found it a let-down and a fairly anticlimactic, boring conclusion-- but I'm pretty certain we aren't meant to believe that it was all really "just a dream", which means I didn't hate it as much as I would have if it had erased everything that happened in both books.  No, it's not really a dream-- or rather, maybe Rosemary's in a dream at the end of the book, but the events of the books all still happened.  She's just temporarily in a dreamlike bubble, hinted at by the "roast mules" and "exactly three minutes and twelve seconds by the clock".

Finally, I have to admit that while I found the sinister nature of "the Lighting" extremely predictable, it somehow never occurred to me that Joe might be Satan.  I also thought Andy would play a more active role in the last section of the book-- would whip off his (not-quite-actually-a) good-guy mask and do something particularly nasty and cruel and evil to Rosemary.

Okay, I was mistaken.  That "finally" was premature, because some nits must be picked.

#1:  "He [Satan] lives up to his reputation, Andy had said.  Surpassed it, rather; the worst she remembered from the Bible was 'the father of lies.'  How about the father of bestial savagery?"

...So a woman brought up in a strict Catholic family in the 1950s (?) is surprised that the Devil is a savage, cruel monster?  I find that a little strange.

#2:  Andy explains that he was nailed to the wall to keep him from telling Rosemary about the deadly candles "while there was still time to get the word out."  He says he was going to, then adds, "I feel so rotten about it."

...Um, what?!  Feel so rotten about it... About dooming all of humanity to an excruciating death?  Yeah, I can see how he might.  I'm sorry, was this supposed to be funny?  Because it's a darned weird sense of humor, if so.

Maybe I'm being unfair.  Some of the things I like best about Rosemary's Baby are the off-kilter moments of humor.  I think it's only in the movie, but I love it that Laura-Louise sticks her tongue out at Rosemary when she's reprimanded by the coven's leader.  Why do I love that but hate this?  I guess it just doesn't seem to fit.  The sequel isn't as well crafted, for one thing, but also... Ok, Rosemary's Baby is a horror-tragedy, but it's not quite on the same scale as the extinction of all human life.  Little jokes don't work, in this context.

No, I wouldn't recommend this sequel.  Far from adding anything to Rosemary's Baby, it tends to diminish its value.  Best to try to forget it altogether.

The Forensic Certified Public Accountant and the Cremated 64-SQUARES Financial Statements

The Forensic Certified Public Accountant and the Cremated 64-SQUARES Financial Statements

by Dwight David Thrash (CPA FCPA CGMA)

Blurb:

The magical world of Forensic Accounting comes to life as Titus Uno, Certified Public Accountant, Forensic Certified Public Accountant, and Chartered Global Management Accountant along with the other 3 members of his Forensic Certified Public Accountant Team: Drew Samson, Dena Hope, and Veronica Jackson try to catch the "cat burglar terrorist" of the 64-SQUARES skyscraper building and help 64-SQUARES reconstruct the financial statements.

My Reaction:

This was a shared read with Donald, another 372-Pages podcast selection.  Were it not for 372 Pages We'll Never Get Back, there is no doubt that we never would have heard about this book, much less read it.  But they chose it-- we read it-- and we'll never be quite the same again...

This book is unlike anything I've ever read before.  It's truly one of a kind.  (Well, apart from the fact that it's the first in a series of books that apparently are all very similar.)  

You'll laugh!  You'll cry (tears of frustration at the bizarre decision to copy and paste chunks of text so many times that you lose count)!  You'll put the book down, stare into space, and ask yourself one simple question... Why?  Just... why?  

I wouldn't have finished this, were it not for the book club podcast.  If you're a student of the absurd, there's a chance you might get something out of it, but if you're looking for a genuine mystery / crime thriller... Hm. Well, I'd keep looking.

For those whose interest has been piqued, the podcast is recommended-- as always, but particularly in this case, where you may need a little extra motivation to propel you through the umpteenth "I, Titus Uno..." and the seemingly endless parade of character introductions.  

This was definitely one of the more bizarre things I've ever read.