J. Belinda Yandell

Awful, awful people.....

Revisado: 08-31-24

I enjoyed the book. I mean, it's well written as everything by Oates is, and it kept my attention though it is quite a long book. But I have to say some of these characters are the worst, most selfish, malicious, paranoid, self-deluded people I've ever come across in a novel. Consequently I spent a good bit of time swearing under my breath at the three eldest McClaren children. I give the prize for worst human being to Loreen, the high school principal who is the epitome of every small minded, mean-spirited dictator. And Thom? I wanna meet him in a dark alley some night with my own baseball bat.
And if I had to hear any of them say one more time, "Oh, what would Whitey say?"....... The book was, basically, a kind of torture that I kept inflicting on myself because I kept hoping someone would get their sh*t together and grow a soul.
Okay, Jessalyn, Sophia, Virgil and Hugo were decent people. Oh, and Mackie. Mackie the cat was also a decent human being.

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More interesting than I expected

Revisado: 07-11-24

The basic premise had me expecting a mashup of “Lord of the Flies” and “Survivor” on steroids, but it was actually pretty interesting. The format of using interviews was very effective for creating a surreal reality that didn’t go off into chaos and melodrama. The creepiest part of the story for me was the warthog couple in the hotel. But I have to say that I didn’t find it that hard to see this really happening. The world has gone mad, and you only have to look at how people treat each other, all the petty grudges and rivalries and just plain cruelty that circulates throughout our schools, our workplaces, our HOAs and most of all our social media to see how close we already are to the edge of a total breakdown of all our civilized window dressing. Social media has already given us a Fantasticland where rules apply less and less, where common sense and common courtesy are dying concepts and hard to find. We just have to be grateful that you can’t shoot arrows, guns or cannons through the internet, because we are already shooting hatred, judgment and just plain meanness at each other in our virtual world.

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Twisted is right... and funny

Revisado: 06-20-24

I thought I'd just be wishing this was another Will Trent story instead of three short stories, but I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy these so much. The first "Go Deep" was a little hard to get into, mainly because the main character is really so disgusting. I mean, just how many derogatory, insulting and demeaning ways are there to address a woman? But karma is a bitch, they say, and the final denouement was very satisfying. "Necessary Women" was a short and very twisted tale that sneaks up on you and hits you up over the head with a hatchet. But "Remmy Rothstein Toes the Line" takes the cake for laugh out loud funny. If Karin Slaughter ever comes out with another book of short story/novellas, sign me up immediately.

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Disappointing

Revisado: 06-18-24

I don't know what I was expecting. Maybe a Sherlock-ian kind of story but with more of an up to date edge? Instead it was all the stuffiness of Conan Doyle and nothing much else. I would hope that Moriarty would have more of a personality of his own instead of just replace "Holmes" with "Moriarty." Maybe I just expected too much, as Weir's other books have been so wonderfully inventive.

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A mess of a story

Revisado: 05-08-24

This book tries so hard to be a twisty, turn-y shocker, but it just turns into a mess. I wish I wasted the time on it, but at least I didn't waste a credit on it.

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Enjoyed but no Slow Horses

Revisado: 03-31-24

I found the main character, Sarah, just a little annoying at times, and I didn’t really follow all of her thinking that kept her hanging around. The end of the book made sense, just not particularly how Sarah got there. Maybe I was distracted during the listening so it might be me.

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Can I have some more, please?

Revisado: 11-14-23

I love Mick Herron, particularly anything in the Slow Horses world. I enjoyed this one quite a bit because it filled in some pieces of familiar characters' background and history. It felt like I was sneaking a peak into their secrets -- and I was, really, because of all of these people have secrets. As "Miles" would say, "That's what spooks do. They keep secrets."

I don't think it's really a spoiler because if you've read the other Slow Horses books, Jackson Lamb is immediately recognizable no matter what name he happens to be using at any given time. And I just adore that disgusting, inappropriate, often cruel but always very smart and very funny spook.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

interesting and surprisingly funny

Revisado: 11-04-23

I had a hard time getting into this one (there were just so many characters in the first chapter), but I'm glad I stuck with it. Some interesting historical angles of a particular time and place, and some of the characters were not exactly shining examples of humanity, but an interesting story. One character's ending I was not particularly happy with but... it's not always a happy ending, is it?

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Wanted to love it, but just couldn't do it

Revisado: 09-02-23

I was so disappointed, because I loved the movie and the books are always better, but this was a misery for me because the narrator of the story -- Stephens, the central charactor, not the audio book narrator, mind you -- nearly drove me out of my mind.

How long do you think you can listen to someone drone on and on about glorious history and tradition of English butlers? Not just about what it takes to be a great butler - in attitude as well as what skills are required and in what priority -- but who is/was/might be the greatest butler (apparently butlers debate this among themselves at length) of all time.

Yes, I get it. The author does a thorough and brilliant job of establishing Stephens' character -- stuffy, as starched as a Puritan's collar, utterly repressed and without humor, without any life at all, it seems, except his role as a servant of rich men for whom he holds a ridiculous reverence. And he's so PROUD of it. It's not just mind-numbing boring, it's painfully sad. I couldn't get past the first chapter.

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All right but not one of her better books

Revisado: 07-10-23

I did not enjoy this one as much as I did Pretty Things and I’ll be You. It was an okay read but something about the characters began to annoy me. I wish I could put my finger on what I didn’t like but I can only come up a nagging feeling that the book was more superficial than the other two I enjoyed.

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