Bookish Thoughts

I feel like Career of Evil needs to be reviewed two separate books. The first is the mystery, which is very good and had me guessing until the end (mostly because I missed something pretty obvious). The second is the interpersonal drama Robin and Cormoran are dealing with, which was a mixed bag. The mystery centers on someone who is out to get Cormoran. He starts by mailing the leg of a dead girl to the office. Cormoran immediately comes up with four suspects, because that's the line of work he's in, and most of the book is devoted to eliminating them, one by one, until the last one left is the guilty party. I became convinced early on that the true culprit was none of the men Cormoran identified. Somehow I landed on the theory that it was the son of one of them, even though the text really doesn't support this. Regardless, I got so wrapped up in it that I didn't even come close to actually solving the mystery. But that's okay. I liked that we got a bunch of sc...

I'll admit that I came in to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child with low expectations. I've been slowly losing interest in JK Rowling's version of the wizarding world for years now. More and more she sticks to a narrow, unresearched view of a world that pales in comparison with the things fans have come up with. She takes credit for diversity after the fact (revealing that Dumbledore is gay or allowing Hermione to be black) without ever explicitly including it in her work. (It shows up in this story in the obvious chemistry between Albus and Scorpius, paired with the shoe-horned in inevitability of Scorpius/Rose). I've been actively consuming Harry Potter fanfiction since I was in high school. Frankly, the world that the fans have come up with is more interesting and more thought-out than the so-called canon. I read this book mostly because I saw fans complaining about it, and I still love the franchise enough to see what all the fuss was about. And I paid full price ...

Before I read this book, I was warned that there was a cannibalism aspect to the murder mystery. Fearing the absolute worst, I braced myself. But it turned out that the cannibalism was mostly metaphorical, part of the book within a book that the murder is based on. So my first thought upon finishing was that it was much milder than I expected. And my second thought was that that was the strangest reaction I've had to a book in a long time. I love JK Rowling's Cormoran Strike series. Only two books in, but he and Robin are fun, smart people to hang out with. I like the way Rowling doles out clues, which leaves me feeling like I'm constantly on the verge of figuring things out. And I certainly could if I paid closer attention or flipped back to re-read passages. But as it stands I haven't been able to solve the mystery before the big reveal in either of her books. Which is a nice change of pace for someone who often sees the ending coming a mile away. If I have a comp...

It is surprisingly difficult to write about the last  Harry Potter  book. Maybe it's because, even though I know I can go back and read them again whenever I want, I'm not entirely ready for it to end. I'm never ready for it to end. Though I did manage to stop myself from charging straight ahead into the epilogue this time. Mostly because I went and signed up for a new Pottermore account instead. This book came out just after my 21st birthday. Nearly everyone who was staying at school over the summer had pre-ordered it, and when they arrived, the wonderful mailman loaded them all up on a dolly and came around to all the dorms to deliver them. Seeing him roll into the courtyard with a huge stack of Harry Potters is still one of my favorite memories. Eveyrone grabbed their books and disappeared into their rooms to read them. Although this time around it took several days, since we had to fit it in around work and my (truly epic) 21st birthday party. Since then I've on...

I'd forgotten how much I like this book. For some reason, the sixth book always gets lost in the shuffle for me. Must be because it's the penultimate book. I expect it to just be build up for the final book. And in some ways it is. This is the book that introduces us to Horcruxes and fills in Voldemort's past. But there's also a lot of fantastic stuff in here. Even if it does put some strain on Rowling's decision to use a limited third-person perspective. I love all of the relationship stuff that begins happening in this book. Ron and Hermione's jealous dance around each other is perfect and so typical of first romances where people are too scared to just say what they want. Harry's crush on Ginny is wonderful, too, if a little cheesy with the chest monster metaphor. The moment when they finally kiss still thrills me completely, and I always wish she was more of a presence in the final book so that we could see them together a bit more. Overall this book...

The first and only time I attended a midnight book release party was when this book came out. It was the summer before my senior year of high school, so a couple of friends and I were easily able to make the trek to the nearest Barnes and Noble by ourselves. The party itself was geared to a much younger audience, but we were bookish and happy to spend some time browsing the shelves before the book was officially released. On the way home I sat in the backseat and read the first chapter aloud for the benefit of the driver. This is also the first time I spoiled myself for something. I care less about this now. I know the shapes of stories well enough to understand what's coming, and spotting the clues is a big part of my enjoyment. But at the time I was genuinely upset that I'd figured out Sirius was going to die from the blurb on the dust jacket. I was even more upset when the text proved my prediction correct. Despite that I remember being excited when this book first came ...

Goblet of Fire  is the big, transitional book that takes this series to the next level. The world expands, Voldemort returns, and Harry takes some important steps on the road to adulthood. It's nearly twice as long as the previous book, which I remember being super excited about when it first came out. This time around I was a little worried about the length. But it turns out (and I should have remembered) that this book is still excellently paced. It drags a bit at the end when two entire chapters are devoted to exposition and monologuing, but up until that point the story moves along really well. This is one of the first books that I can remember waiting for. I didn't have to wait long, less than a year. But I was still incredibly excited to finally get my hands on  Goblet of Fire . I had elaborate plans to read the entire thing in one sitting, much as I had with  Chamber of Secrets . It was a bit long for that, and I wasn't really allowed to skip family meals. But I ...

The third Harry Potter book is easily my favorite in the series. It breaks away from the plot mechanics of the first two. This keeps things interesting and proves that Rowling is more than a one-trick pony. It takes things deeper and story gets a little darker. We begin to learn about Harry's dad and his time at Hogwarts. It's not all pretty. And we get the wonderful twist involving Sirius Black and his quest for vengeance. The last 100 or so pages of this book are just amazing. It's one thing after another, and Rowling manages to maintain a pretty high level of excitement throughout all of it. There's a lot of information to be relayed during the climax, and Rowling intersperses it perfectly with action sequences. I even cried, which is pretty amazing for a book I've read so many times. Though those tears had more to do with Black's ultimate fate than any plot point in this book. There are also plenty of callbacks to the first and second books. Rowling plan...

In some ways,  Chamber of Secrets  is a retread of  Sorcerer's Stone . It follows the same basic mystery plot, with the same red herrings and clues. This is probably why it's most people's least favorite Harry Potter book. That's not to say it's a bad book, though. Rowling is pretty good at setting up a mystery and peppering the clues throughout for the attentive reader to put together. Of course, most people fly through this book too quickly to solve the mystery on their own. Like the rest of the books in this series, it's a compulsive page-turner. It's the first book I ever stayed up way too late to finish after all (good thing it was summer). But it has a structure that rewards re-reads, that stands up to further scrutiny (unlike so many other page-turners I could mention). There's also a lot in this book that becomes hugely important later in the series. We get some of Voldemort's past, come across the first Horcrux, and learn more about the ...

I can hardly believe I haven't revisited  Harry Potter  since I started this blog. The last time I read the series was just over four years ago. I actually marked my calendar to figure out how long it took me to read all seven books (just under five weeks), so I know exactly when I last read these books. I also, like so many others, remember the first time I read this book - though the countless re-reads in between have blurred together. It was the summer I turned 13, the first summer we were living in the house where my mom still lives. I was an avid reader, but getting my brother interested was a struggle.  Harry Potter  was the latest in a series of attempts to get him interested in the written word. Every night he and my mom would read a chapter together. When they were about halfway through, he asked me to catch up so we could all read it together. I agreed, even though I was just old enough that it seemed beneath me. But then I screwed up and read the entire ...

I don't read a lot of crime novels. I've picked up the occasional mystery, and I did get into the Girl With a Dragon Tattoo books (also known as the Millenium Trilogy, but apparently no one else knows that) when they were popular. I usually find them enjoyable, but they aren't the bread and butter of my reading. But when I found out JK Rowling had penned a book (soon to be series) in this genre, I had to check it out. Not urgently, obviously, but it's been floating on my to-read list, and I finally found a paperback copy. Not being an expert in the genre, I guess I can't really talk about how it stacks up against other crime and mystery novels. But I found it very enjoyable. The mystery was well-paced, and the clues scattered throughout. There were plenty of reasonable suspects, which kept me on my toes. And I came very close to figuring it out, but hadn't quite put all of the pieces together before Strike's big monologue reveal. (I may have ...

I'm not sure why I expected anything different from a book that opens with a death, but I was surprised by how deeply sad and painful JK Rowling's first adult novel was. It wasn't sad in a way that makes you cry - I didn't shed a single tear while reading this book. It goes deeper than that, getting a vice-like grip on your heart and making you wonder if anyone can ever actually be happy. The scope of The Casual Vacancy is incredibly small, focusing on the inhabitants of a single town in England.The lives of the townsfolk are incredibly intertwined, such that all of their actions and decisions seem to affect each other. The death of Barry Fairbrother, beloved town Councillor, creates ripples and triggers a slow unraveling of the fabric of life in this small town. Fairbrother was fighting to keep a rehabilitation clinic open to serve the needs of the low-income addicts in the town. Once he dies, the group that wants to see the clinic closed jumps on the...