novel

Some Girls Are

Book Notes kitt decided around 12:20 on 29 December 2015 to publish this:

And my pile of to-read books just dropped by one! So much for reading "only" double of my original 2015 goal of one book a week. Go for 52, hit 105.

I picked up this book after reading the Book Riot article about how a single parent managed to ban a book without going through a review process. The banned book was Some Girls Are, about bullying in high school and a bully who has fallen from grace, and is now on the receiving end of the actions she inflicted upon others.

As I was trying not to spend money on books (a near impossible task), I tried to get it from my library. No go.

I asked Mom to try her library. No go.

Eventually, on a night of drinking too much whiskey, where "too much" is defined as "more than one shot," I hit the buy button on all the books in my Amazon cart, and ended up with a stack of 24 books to read. Including this one.

I read it last night.

I will fully admit that if I were the mother of a kid in high school today, I would struggle to believe this kind of behaviour exists, that my child would be doing it, or that people so young can be so ugly in their actions. Which is not to say on an intellectual basis, I dispute this behaviour exists, I totally believe it exists. I just don't WANT it to exist.

The Rosie Effect

Book Notes Posted by kitt at 18:09 on 28 December 2015

And here we go, the 104th book of the year for me, and likely the last one I will finish this year.

This is book two of the Rosie series, the sequel to The Rosie Project. In this one, we have much of the same humour derived from a person (yes, an autistic person) taking everything said literally. Balance this with always making objective statements, without any social nuances, and you have the humour and charm of the first book.

What you also have, unfortunately, is an ass in the book. I really do not like books where one person is abusing power, which is the premise of much of the plot in this book. I should be less upset by it, given how much the world is about abusing power and not doing the right thing. Less upset, sure, and I also can choose not to seek out that particular style of conflict, given there are plenty others to choose among (Man vs. Fate/God, Man vs Self, Man vs. Society, Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Supernatural (-ish), and Man vs. Technology).

It is a quick read.

It's an amusing book, but much less so than the first Rosie book. I would liken the two books to the first and second bites of a treat: the first bite is amazing and delicious, and while the second bite is good, it isn't as amazing as the first bite.

Nemesis

Book Notes Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 10:33 on 21 December 2015

This is book 4 of the Harry Hole series.

Okay, be completely (and by "completely" I mean 100%) unsurprised that the next book I read is a Harry Hole book. It's pretty much all I'm reading these days. So close to 104 books for the year, which would be twice my goal of one book a week. Go me.

This Harry Hole book had the feeling of deja vu. So much so that I had to reread a number of chapters just because I felt I had already read the chapter and wanted to reread it just to confirm that the feeling of "I've totally read this book before" wasn't valid.

In this book, Harry is set up.

Shock.

And likely about time.

By which I mean, the man has totally set himself up to be screwed by jealous and less moral coworkers.

Tom Waaler is a major character in this book, how he is a complete an total asshole and BAD COP (whoops, spoiler alert). Seriously, if you've been reading this series, that Tom is a bad guy isn't a revelation. He plays an important role in the previous two books. And yeah, he's an asshole. Takes advantage of someone else setting up Harry.

I enjoyed the book, again with the caveat "as much as I can enjoy anything with murder in it." Hate people taking advantage of other people, hate the willful destruction of other people, hate the fucking unfairness in this world. Go Harry! it gets better.

Related: OMG writing book reviews when drunk is AWESOME. Sober Kitt, you should try this more often.

Or maybe not.

Working for Bigfoot

Book Notes Instead of being asleep at 01:31 on 21 December 2015, kitt created this:

Yay!

Another Dresden book!

"Book."

At least Butcher keeps his fans somewhat happy between Dresden books. Unlike some people *cough* GRRM *cough* *cough*

This one is a collection of three novellas, each longer than a short story, none able to stand on its own, all previously published. The theme of the stories is Bigfoot (-ish, he's one of the Forest People, with a tremendously strong aura) and his son, who seems to get in a lot of trouble.

What I like about this book, aside from DRESDEN (duh), is that it spans many of the books we've already read and loved about Dresden, and follows the life of a kid, Irwin Pounder, as he grows from elementary school to college. We see some of the cases that Harry takes between the big stories we read about in the novels.

And the jokes are pure Dresden / Butcher. Enjoyed the book, wish for more.

The Redbreast

Book Notes kitt decided around 12:20 on 16 December 2015 to publish this:

This is book 3 of the Harry Hole series.

Book ONE HUNDRED for the year! Given my goal was to read 52 books this year, a feat I accomplished in June, I have to say that I have crushed that goal. Harry Hole was a significant part of that crushing: this is the seventh book I've read in the ten books of the Harry Hole series. While I prefer to read series in order, this one happens to be readable in any order, with lots of details filled in by reading earlier books. I kinda like that I didn't read them exactly in order. Even if I didn't really like the first book, I do like the series and the tragic character of Harry Hole.

This book has a different writing structure than most of the other Harry Hole books, in that it tells two stories intertwined, with the merging of the two plot lines at the end with a resolution for both of them. One of them was the story of a soldier from Norway who fought on the Eastern Front during World War 2. On the wrong side. Except there wasn't a correct side in the trenches until after the war and atrocities were revealed, and even then, the bottom of the totem pole does what he was told to do, did what he needed to do to survive.

As with the rest of the Harry Hole books, there is the path Nesbø leads us down, and the actual solution to the mystery, the actual person doing the series of murders of persons who fought on the Eastern Front. A few of the murders didn't quite fit, which of course leads the police down the wrong path, which makes things interesting and confusing.

I'll finish the series, likely this year at this rate. Maybe. Four more books this year and I've doubled my reading goal for the year.

Cockroaches

Book Notes Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 20:07 on 11 December 2015

And now, to no one's surprise, I'm going back to read the five Harry Hole books I didn't read. Starting at book five likely wasn't the best decision, since I was fairly "meh" after reading it, but I found that I missed the character, so I'm going back to read the books I had missed.

This is book 2 of the Harry Hole (hō-lay? hol-lee? hōl!) series. Again, Harry is on the other side of the world. Again, he is solving an odd murder. Again, there are so many twists and turns and what the hell, I am so confused moments, that, yes, I enjoyed the book (minus the murder and the brutality parts).

The book takes place mostly in Thailand. There are a number of actions that Harry does that are referred to in passing in later books that I'm glad I read this book. I suspect I missed a lot of other references, having no context for them when I read the later books.

As with the Harry Dresden and Harry Potter books, I recommend this Harry series if you like Scandinavian crime mysteries and can stand gruesome descriptions and horrific acts. I tended to skip over the dark parts, without loss of continuity.

Neverwhere

Book Notes kitt decided around 21:21 on 5 December 2015 to publish this:

After not finishing a book for three weeks, I'm happy to have finally finished one. Unsurprisingly, it's a fiction book, and doubly unsurprising in the sf/fantasy genre.

Neverwhere is one of the older Neil Gaiman stories, which makes me surprised I haven't read it yet. Though, really, upon thinking about it, not really that surprising. I suspect if I had realized it was the novelization of a BBC television show, I wouldn't have read it in the first place.

Which is good that I didn't know, as I somewhat enjoyed the tale of Richard Mayhew, and the mystery surrounding the appearance of Door on the sidewalk in front of Richard one evening. It's a cute storyline, though, in this case, I think I'm more inclined to recommend watching the series, it's not very long, over reading the book, which is also not very long. Things are lost in translation, with very few times the translated medium being better than the original.

So, yeah, watch the series instead, but read this if you enjoy Gaiman's works and really prefer words over a world pre-imagined for you.

Police

Book Notes Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 22:59 on 19 November 2015

Okay, this is the latest book (that would be book 10) in the Harry Hole series. Based on the ending, I feel this should be the last book in the series. I'm not the author, and I understand the lure of keeping a franchise alive, yet this one feels like a great place to end the series.

True to Nesbo's style of writing the Hole series (ha, I crack me up), there are a lot of twists and turns and deliberate wording causing misdirections. I was confused a bit with some of the characters, but figured them all out in the end. Unsurprising, this book was about THE POLICE, and had a large bit of house-cleaning in it (another reason why this could be the last book: a lot of the different plotlines are wrapped up, cleaned up, and squared away).

I really liked how a number of details from previous books wrap back around in this book. The details are still details, not major plot points. They are subtle enough to make this book stand on its own (without the Dresden repeating of everything), but stand out if you've read the previous book recently (like finished it about an hour before starting this one).

So, with this one, I've read five of the Harry Hole books. Given I've read the last three, and know much of the plot points of the previous ones from details gleaned from those last three books, I'm likely going to skip the rest of the Hole books.

Despite my luke-warm first book review, I have to say that I now recommend this series.

Phantom

Book Notes Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 22:58 on 11 November 2015

Second to last of the currently published Harry Hole books, which is to say, book nine, and I read this one quickly. Not really sure I intended to read this one as much as I did, I avoided some of the conference this weekend to read it, but read it and read it fast, I did.

The ending, holy crap. Totally had me emotional and upset. I was glad there was another Harry Hole book to immediately begin reading. If I had had to wait a year for it to be published, I'm not sure I would have read the next one (yes, I would have read the next one).

This one has Harry returning from Hong Kong, this time to defend Oleg, Rakel’s son. Again, in Nesbo's style of using pronouns and just enough description to paint a picture in your head, playing with your prejudices and expectations to have you paint the wrong picture, only to have a clearer picture painted later providing a different interpretation, this book has a number of twists and turns and unexpected huh? moments.

Last book, Harry almost died. In that one, it seemed to be a lucky but plausible escape from death. In this one, Harry, surprise, almost dies, but ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh, no, it's not really a plausible escape from death. Just a clever plot twist that, okay, works.

I still very much enjoyed the book. The ending had me overwhelmed. Worth reading.

The Leopard

Book Notes Posted by kitt at 22:57 on 8 November 2015

This book is number eight in the Harry Hole series. As such, I really need to put links to the whole list at some point. After reading The Bat, book one of the series, I sought this book out from (you guessed it) the stack of books from Mom. I will finish that stack of books. Really.

This book starts out confusingly, from the perspective of the first victim of HEY NO SURPRISE a serial killer. It takes awhile to understand the particular method of death, mostly when it happens again. I wasn't particularly able to "see" this book the way I could see the previous one, given this one is back in Norway, and not Sydney (of course). There are a number of life path changes that happened as a result of the previous book in the series, which I hadn't read, so yeah, I was confused a bit.

This one has Harry in Hong Kong, using opium instead of alcohol to numb himself. Why he's there is the subject of the previous book, which is also the first Hole book to be turned into a movie, so I might have to read it at some point. He is convinced to return to Norway, works on the case, has a number of strange romantic twists (complete with confusing real-world "Is she interested? I can't tell" moments), and several "we caught the bad guy NO WAIT WE DIDN'T" endings. You know the actual ending only because you read the last page.

Nesbo is vague enough with his descriptions and his use of pronouns that you're never really sure who is who in the books. This is one that I'm uncertain could be translated into a movie for that reason. The ending was a little surprising to me because of the use of pronouns, and that, like real life, the first guess is not always the correct answer, so I have to say, I'll be reading the remaining books in this series pronto.

This series is recommended.

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