batrock's reviews
843 reviews

I don't know what's got into Sookie: she wants to have sex with every man in the universe, but she's no longer quite so stupid and prudish as she once was. It's almost as if she's growing as a character: she's finally learned how to say "fuck". Dead As A Doornail sees a multitude a plot lines of varying entanglements crashing upon Sookie like so many waves - but now she understands so much more about her life, and is asking questions like "why do I have to put up with these jerk men?" "why do I make out with so many of them indiscriminately?" and "when am I going to realise I'm constructing a harem?"

This is possibly the strongest of the Sookie Stackhouse books so far, with the events that pile up not rushing each other out and plot lines not tripping over each other in a clumsy morass. That said, it does fall into the familiar franchise trap of the secret villains being the new characters introduced to the book who don't have room for agendas beyond villainy.
The number of men that find themselves all wanting a piece of Sookie continues to strain credulity (although I do know there is a supernatural explanation for this coming waiting in another volume), but they are becoming more fleshed out; indeed, the weakest supernatural male characters, Sam and Bill, are the initial ostensible main men in Sookie's life.

Though artless, I am now legitimately enjoying Sookie's adventures. I hope she doesn't mess it up again. Also: fuck Sam. Eric forever.

Beautiful story of the love between a man and his shadow. Also features detailed descriptions of how to decapitate and de-brain the corpse of a unicorn. Something for everyone. (more later, seriously)

This is a borderline case. This book has its passages, but the story is almost nonexistent and the initial chapters (written as a short story before becoming this book) do not represent the character of Oliver as he is in the rest of the novel. A sometimes sensitive portrayal of teenage depression and breakdown is frequently undermined by pointless sociopathy and general unpleasantness, but to be fair there are a few laughs to be had as well.

With some consistency and focus, this could have been a better novel; I'm hoping it's going to be a better film. It has to be.

Also the pull-quotes in the cover talk shit about Adrian Mole, and I'm not going to stand for that. God, I need Sookie.

Sookie goes to New Orleans and stirs up a billion threads of unrelated trouble. She thinks that consenting adults can have whatever sex they want but she doesn't want to hear the details, then she gives a hand job through a guy's jeans. All in a day's work.

The time flux thing particularly comes into play here because this book is based on events never disclosed within the fairly closely chronologised earlier books - as if Harris had come up with ideas for the past as she was writing this book and retconned it in.
Anyway, pretty par for the Sookie course, although her new boyfriend isn't very interesting.

On a scale of Bad Sookie to Good Sookie, I give this a "Good Sookie". (Not sure that "Superlative Sookie" exists).

I've got much more to say about this elsewhere, so I'll give you a potted version for now. Franzen has written a novel designed to frustrate the reader at many points so that he can provide an intense pay off. Some characters annoyed me at multiple junctures yet managed to win my affection at the most surprising times and the ending, though perhaps sentimental, provoked unexpected emotion from me.

In short: good book, worth the battles with the characters that occasionally arise. My much more verbose full review can be found here.

It's hard to know precisely how to grade a novel such as The Skull Beneath The Skin. James takes much of what she learned from composing twenty years of crime fiction and transplants these lessons onto Cordelia Gray, who is simply not as robust a creation as Adam Dalgliesh.

What we get is a largely satisfactory composition that never quite gels, because Cordelia feels like more of a bystander than an active participant in the novel; she is on an island when bad things happen on that island, and then worse things happen. The private detective of the era simply isn't as practical a character as an actual policeman, and Cordelia never quite makes her mark on the story.
Still, many of James' strengths come to the fore here, albeit writ small. As always, she provides an excellent sense of most of the important characters, and, given the "locked room" nature of the mystery, a firm sense of space. There are some very keenly realised moments but on the whole I'm not sold on Cordelia; why exactly is she there? How did things work out as they did? James has overcome most of her prudishness by this point but when she suggests carnal motives she's still entirely too coy.

The Skull Beneath The Skin is not exactly an exemplar of James' work, and it's baffling that this is the text that they choose to teach crime fiction in Australian schools. It's more than competent, but it has none of the elevation of spirit that her best work provides.

Levy's use of four character voices means that this book is slightly unbalanced, because the Hortense character never becomes properly compelling. Still, what we get in the rest of them is either interesting, compelling or moving. The development of Gilbert's character is genuinely touching and, while the ending has some moral quandaries attached, this ultimately proves itself a very fine novel indeed.

A jock in nerd's clothing, Reamde ultimately casts aside the shackles of Stephenson's fancies to become a rambling but engaging little thriller. There is not a huge amount to distinguish it from many other competent thrillers (apart from the extreme length), but the characters are endearing and, when it is extant, the window dressing is interesting.

Nothing matters and everything is terrible.

Christos Tsiolkas presents a relentless parade of racism, homophobia and misogyny and tries to pass it off as belonging to his characters rather than himself, but it's difficult not to think that the men and women between these pages aren't just mouthpieces for his agenda of systematically destroying Australia.

This book has no bearing on reality, and none of the characters or their actions are believable. Tsiolkas closes the novel out with a chapter about a closeted kid just out of high school, and he knows a little bit about this topic, but ultimately Richie is a punching bag who has to take on unreasonable drama for a relatively neat ending to occur.

It is more than somewhat shameful that this book has been exported to other countries; we should have kept it to ourselves. Someone on the inside is capable of processing the monumental fakery of The Slap; an unsuspecting American or British person might take it as reflective of this place, and I wouldn't be able to blame them for hating us forever after.

After a slow start that focuses rather too closely on the subject at hand (literary discourse, structuralism, etc), Small World evolves into farcical series of coincidences to rival Tales of the City. One of the diffuse protagonists' Grail quest seems rather too silly for my eyes - unschooled as I am in the ways of the extreme classics - but the book works on the whole because of the intense and ridiculous tapestry woven between its pages.

There is nothing particularly profound about the contents of Small World, but the eventual tightness of its structure allows for a highly enjoyable read and showcases Lodge's accomplishments as a writer. It wins bonus points because of its not-at-all villainous German WWII officer.