The Other

The Other
by Thomas Tryon

Blurb:

Holland and Niles Perry are identical thirteen-year-old twins. They are close-- close enough, almost, to read each other’s thoughts, but they couldn’t be more different. Holland is bold and mischievous, a bad influence, while Niles is kind and eager to please, the sort of boy who makes parents proud. The Perrys live in the bucolic New England town their family settled centuries ago, and as it happens, the extended clan has gathered at its ancestral farm this summer to mourn the death of the twins’ father in a most unfortunate accident. Mrs. Perry still hasn’t recovered from the shock of her husband’s gruesome end and stays sequestered in her room, leaving her sons to roam free. As the summer goes on, though, and Holland’s pranks become increasingly sinister, Niles finds he can no longer make excuses for his brother’s actions.

My Reaction:

It took me a while to finish The Other, but I did enjoy it! 

The book gets off to a slow start, but I hesitate to complain about the pacing, since some of the slower, more extraneous elements of the novel were actually my favorite parts.  Certain passages are beautifully written, pleasantly evocative... Almost the kind of thing where you want to climb into the book and live there for a while, except that there's something slightly off the whole time in this book's world, and you aren't sure you'd make it out alive! 

There's a strong sense of nostalgia (for childhood, but particularly for childhood during a period well before my own birth!) woven through the "slow" parts of the book, and I'd hate to have missed out on them.  The normal, almost-idyllic childhood moments contrast well with the horror of the story, too, but there's no denying that the first good chunk of the book is slow-moving.

Aspects of the novel are predictable, it's true, though the major twist, which probably should have been obvious to a reader in 2020, didn't even occur to me until soon before it was revealed.  I was too busy thinking about other things (such as the identity of the narrator and what would happen by the book's end, rather than what may have happened before the story starts). 

In any event, I found it a good read in the genre of "literary horror" (or at least more literary than most horror).  

One more thing, though.  There were times where I felt a kind of mental whiplash over the age of the twins.  I couldn't remember exactly how old they were-- 12 or 14, I thought... the blurb says 13-- because they seem by turns to act too young or too old for their age. 

I guess maybe 13 is a funny age, on the cusp between childhood and the teen years, but there were a few times when I thought one or the other of the twins seemed to behave oddly for their age-- either too immature or with a little too much knowledge of the ways of the world.  One or the other is fine, but to go back and forth was discombobulating. 

Maybe I was mixing up the twins, earlier in the book, before I'd really settled in.  I can well believe that Niles is a "young 13" and Holland a dirty-minded, older-than-his-years type of 13-year-old.  (I think we can all agree that-- mercifully!-- neither of the two are a typical 13-year-old boy! Still, it took me out of the story repeatedly, stopping to think, "Wait a minute... How old is this kid, anyway?!")

Service With a Smile

Service With a Smile
by P.G. Wodehouse


Blurb:

The final Uncle Fred novel marks his return to Blandings Castle to relieve Lord Emsworth's woes: a nagging secretary, prankster Church Lads, and a plot to thieve his prize-winning sow. Uncle Fred must serve up his brand of sweetness and light to ensure that everything turns out very capital indeed.

My Reaction:
(Shared read with Donald.)

We started reading this one months (no telling how many months) ago, then set it aside to keep up with whatever 372-Pages book was going at the time. Somehow, we never got around to picking it back up again, until the past week, when we wanted some light reading. It was still on my Kindle, so we picked up where we left off.

It didn't take long to remember enough of the story to feel that we weren't completely lost-- and honestly, with Wodehouse, the humor and style of the language itself is much more important (for me, at least) than the plot. I don't think this is one of his best, but it still had us laughing again and again.

As always with Wodehouse, this little novel left me in a better mood than it found me. I need to remember this the next time my spirits need lifting!

My Immortal

My Immortal
by Tara Gilesbie


My Blurb:

This Harry Potter fanfic follows the trials and tribulations (and the bizarre wardrobe choices) of Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way, proud goth and vampire, after she enrolls at Hogwarts. She meets all the most notable characters from the Harry Potter universe, but you won't recognize them, because in this fic, none have any depth or retain any of their canon characteristics/personality traits-- to the point that most have been transformed into vampires and have even been renamed to sound more "goff" for this hilariously bad exercise in wish-fulfillment.  It is a truly epic example of the Mary Sue. 

(Or IS IT?!?!)

My Reaction:
(This was a shared read-aloud with Donald.)

It's another 372-Pages bookclub podcast selection!

Once we began reading this, I realized that I'd started it years before after seeing it mentioned online. I didn't get very far back then, but this time around, I loved every poorly written sentence.

I simply can't believe that this could possibly be "real". There's no question that there are some staggeringly terrible writers out there, but this... this is probably too outrageously, entertainingly awful to be true. Some of the malapropisms are just too, too perfect. (Tom Bombadil, anyone?) And the way that characters can do absolutely anything "sexily"... It's just not possible that this could be real. (Right?)

Anyway, I suppose it doesn't matter whether or not it's actually "sincere", so long as the author and her audience enjoy(ed) the experience. We laughed and laughed while reading-- and having the podcast to go along with it is just the cherry on top!

The Art of Inheriting Secrets

The Art of Inheriting Secrets
by Barbara O'Neal


Blurb:

When Olivia Shaw’s mother dies, the sophisticated food editor is astonished to learn she’s inherited a centuries-old English estate—and a title to go with it. Raw with grief and reeling from the knowledge that her reserved mother hid something so momentous, Olivia leaves San Francisco and crosses the pond to unravel the mystery of a lifetime.

One glance at the breathtaking Rosemere Priory and Olivia understands why the manor, magnificent even in disrepair, was the subject of her mother’s exquisite paintings. What she doesn’t understand is why her mother never mentioned it to her. As Olivia begins digging into her mother’s past, she discovers that the peeling wallpaper, debris-laden halls, and ceiling-high Elizabethan windows covered in lush green vines hide unimaginable secrets. 

Although personal problems and her life back home beckon, Olivia finds herself falling for the charming English village and its residents. But before she can decide what Rosemere’s and her own future hold, Olivia must first untangle the secrets of her past.

My Reaction:
Another DNF.

I listened to probably more than two-thirds of the audiobook-- selected because I could listen for free on Amazon-- but at some point I lost patience and stopped listening. I'd planned to skim through to the end just to satisfy my curiosity, but it's been months, and I find my curiosity simply isn't that strong! Maybe I'll still skim through, but I think I can guess more or less what will happen, and if I'm wrong... (shrug)

My SPOILERY annoyances:
-- I'm not bothered by a little Anglophilia, but Olivia takes it to sickening, barf-worthy extremes. I was embarrassed on her behalf. The whole "as Lady of the Manor, I must learn this, do that, change who I am" thing made me sick. I guess I'm too American for that nonsense. Inheriting a beautiful home? Fun and exciting to think/read about! Doing right by the community as you take possession of this historically significant home? Great! But all the airs and graces and "you must do it this way because this is how it's done because we say so"? No, no, a thousand times no.

-- Olivia's obsession with the age difference between herself and Samir? Ugh, so, so boring! But then when they "hook up", it's possibly even worse. I wasn't expecting so much sex in this book, and it was unwelcome. (Please, more house renovation/mystery and less village gossip, family drama, food talk, and sex!)

-- Such a slow pace. Dragging its feet the whole way.

-- Very obvious "baddies".

-- Didn't really care for the "closeted lesbian grandmothers" subplot. Sorry, not what I was expecting from this book. Just didn't care. Like the heroine's food obsession. (Seriously. Can we stop with the food already?) I just couldn't care less!

All in all, it wasn't what I was expecting, and I didn't like what it was enough to get over that and stick with it until the end.

I'm sure Olivia and Samir end up together, her plans for the house work out (one way or another), and there's a happily-ever-after. That much was never, ever in doubt.

Every House is Haunted

Every House is Haunted
by Ian Rogers


Blurb:

In this brilliant debut collection, Ian Rogers explores the border-places between our world and the dark reaches of the supernatural. The landscape of death becomes the new frontier for scientific exploration. With remarkable deftness, Rogers draws together the disturbing and the diverting in twenty-two showcase stories that will guide you through terrain at once familiar and startlingly fresh.

My Reaction:
This is a DNF. 

Every so often I think a creepy short story would hit the spot, but unfortunately, I must be very picky when it comes to horror short stories.  I so rarely actually enjoy them!  I only read three in this collection before calling it quits.  "Ace" was just "okay" for me, "Autumnology" was far too short for me to get into at all, and "Leaves Brown" was another "okay".  They're not long or involved enough for me.  I know short stories tend to be open-ended, but these were open even by that standard.  Worse, I didn't find them scary or even particularly eerie.

No sense in continuing, as I suspect "okay" is going to be my strongest reaction.  I can see how some readers might enjoy them, but they're not for me.  It's a shame; I love the title, but the stories don't seem to match it, in my ever-so-humble opinion.