My expectations were probably overly high, as SOON I WILL BE INVINCIBLE is one of my absolute favorites. That novel is a superhero adventure that dealMy expectations were probably overly high, as SOON I WILL BE INVINCIBLE is one of my absolute favorites. That novel is a superhero adventure that deals deeply with the mythology of comic books, the way the industry has changed over time, etc. Now, I read and enjoy comics but am nothing like an expert -- yet I was totally swept up in SIWBI. The story functioned as such a great superhero adventure in its own right that the meta element was unnecessary (though deeply enjoyable).
However, with YOU, I think readers have to be much more deeply engaged in the world (in this case, video games) in order to fully relate to the story. Again, I have played video games from Pong to now, but would not call myself a gamer. And there were long sections of this book that I sensed you had to be a gamer to really enjoy.
(Though I actually liked a lot of the talk about game development, etc., because I felt like these things were explained in an engaging way.)
None of the characters were very sympathetic. Now, characters don't have to be likable as long as they're interesting, but they weren't all that interesting, either -- their interests and concerns were fairly mundane, and I never had any sense that something significant was at stake here for any of them.
The book came alive any time Russell began to imagine interacting with the video game characters themselves. There, more of Grossman's wit had a chance to shine through, and I enjoyed the contrast of their over-the-top talents and backstories with the average world they were attempting to inhabit. But this element is a fairly small piece of the whole.
Again - my expectations were probably too high, and I am not in the book's core audience. ...more
**spoiler alert** I found this installment in the Maisie Dobbs series both fascinating and frustrating. In the end, my frustrations didn't add up to e**spoiler alert** I found this installment in the Maisie Dobbs series both fascinating and frustrating. In the end, my frustrations didn't add up to enough to greatly diminish my enjoyment in the book, which represents a major turning point I think we've all known was coming.
The one real flaw: The lack of resolution between Maisie and James. I was surprised to learn that the question of their marriage was still open -- I had thought ELEGY FOR EDDIE made it more or less clear that the two of them loved each other but understood conventional matrimony wasn't in the case. Although I liked the fact that Maisie thought more seriously about James in this installment, and we saw more of their relationship at its best, it didn't make up for the fact that this book ends with his proposal still unanswered. Honestly it's hard for me to imagine that either James or Maisie would think six months separate from each other would lead them to matrimony. Much greater intimacy and connection would have to have been shown to make me believe this. To me it feels like this storyline is being dragged out past the point of credibility or dramatic effectiveness.
That said, everything else about this novel worked beautifully. The mystery is both one of the series' most elaborate and most affecting, peering into aspects of interregnum life in London for immigrants that I've never seen portrayed before. Although I greatly enjoy the psychic talents Maisie brings to bear on her cases, I also liked reading a case where those talents played only a very small role. Even better was the way Maisie brought so many different aspects of her life to a turning point -- closing her detective agency for a while (forever?), finally seeing Billy and Doreen off to another life, and touching base with so many important characters from past books. Although the trip to India itself seemed a bit out of left field, in the end I thought her destination almost didn't matter; Maisie was ready for a dramatic change, and the voyage allows her to do that.
I will be VERY curious to see #11. For some time now, Winspear has been hinting that, as WWII draws closer, Maisie may be drawn into espionage rather than private investigations. Will this come to pass? (And if so, will Stratton be pulled away from his schoolmaster days as well? OK, I may be slightly Stratton-obsessed.) It seems certain that the storm clouds in Europe are about to claim a larger part of the narrative, so I can't wait to see where this series goes next. ...more
Patricia Cornwell is an author I both admire and enjoy, which is one reason why reading JACK THE RIPPER- CASE CLOSED is so mind boggling. Cornwell claPatricia Cornwell is an author I both admire and enjoy, which is one reason why reading JACK THE RIPPER- CASE CLOSED is so mind boggling. Cornwell claims to have identified Jack the Ripper more than a century after the fact and even prefaces the book with a passage where she is tormented about accusing even a dead man (painter Walter Sickert) of such ghastly crimes, and considers not publishing this book. But in the end, she says, she had to publish it, because she knows the truth. She's sure of it.
And yet what follows piles conjecture on top of conjecture, and in fact ignores a lot of basic criminology, in an attempt to make her case. I personally have no idea whether or not Sickert was Jack the Ripper (though it seems unlikely); however, I am certain that no evidence is given here.
To be fair, Cornwell convincingly demonstrates that Sickert had troubling relationships with women and may have eroticized the idea of violence against women. This, however, does not make someone a serial killer; it is a depressingly common mindset. He was also very interested in the Ripper murders - and yet, this has been true of thousands if not millions of people ever since the crimes occurred.
Beyond this, she has no evidence, only suppositions. Sickert underwent some form of surgery on his penis as a child. Cornwell postulates that no anesthetic was used, that the birth defect was severe, that he was held down on the operating bed by a female nurse and so his hatred of women was born ... except there is no proof that anesthetic wasn't used. Anesthesia had not been universally adopted at that time, but it was no longer uncommon, either. There is also no proof that his defects were as terrible as she suggests. So this is only a theory -- not implausible, but far from proved.
Other suppositions are implausible in the extreme. For instance, she takes it for granted that virtually all of the "Ripper letters" -- anonymous notes sent to the police claiming to be by Jack the Ripper -- were authentic. While experts wonder about one or two of these notes, there were literally THOUSANDS of them, almost universally recognized as crank letters, the kind of thing trolls did before they had the internet to despoil. Cornwell seems to believe in them all, drawing tenuous links between some sent years after the Whitechapel murders and various crimes that occurred in London and France. There is one link to an unusual bit of stationery that Sickert also owned pages of, so I suppose it is possible that he wrote one -- maybe not surprising, given his obsession with the case. But again, it's not certain, and based on the more factual information she gives us about Sickert, he seems more likely to write a fake letter than to be a serial killer. The obvious differences in handwriting are ascribed to Sickert being clever and artistic.
She also tries to connect many, many other crimes committed in future decades to Sickert -- murders of children, strangulations, etc. -- presumably to fill in the very long gap between the end of the Whitechapel murders and Sickert's death decades later. However, virtually anyone who works on serial murders will say that it is extremely rare for a killer to switch from such a definite method/choice of victim to something so radically different. (Former FBI profiler John E. Douglas' THE CASES THAT HAUNT US not only details this but also provides a more plausible idea of the sort of person most likely to have been Jack the Ripper.)
Most troubling is Cornwell's willingness to flatly ignore information that goes against her core premise. She argues that, as a result of his birth defect and subsequent surgery (which she postulates might have been botched), Sickert probably couldn't reach orgasm or have an erection. That would make somebody angry and twisted, right? Except that Sickert was married three times and for a while took a mistress; contemporary rumors even suggested he and the mistress had a child. I can see that someone unable to have sex might marry, particularly in a more conformist age -- but three times? And why a mistress?
Cornwell even cites "DNA evidence" in this book, when she cannot actually establish the source of one of her DNA samples, and the "commonality" reported is something shared by one in one hundred people. One out of a hundred is NOT proof. Think about how many people would match that sample at the average NFL game.
What kept striking me, as I read this book, was that if this exact same theory were posited in a novel, I'd go with it. But the suspension of disbelief a reader gives a novel is far from the same mindset with which a reader looks at a book claiming to know absolutely who committed a series of murders. Had Cornwell written a work of fiction around these same theories, it would have been a thrilling and disturbing read. But it is inexplicable that she could consider this book to offer any proof of fact.
I still enjoy Cornwell's fiction and will read more of her books in the future. But this is mostly interesting for the opportunity to watch someone extremely educated and intelligent fooling herself. ...more
This is the single most charming, convincing, three-dimensional YA romance I've read in a while. Both of the main characters come across as both speciThis is the single most charming, convincing, three-dimensional YA romance I've read in a while. Both of the main characters come across as both specific individuals and yet completely relatable to absolutely anyone who's ever been young and falling in love for the first time. Their adoration of each other unfolds so slowly, so gradually, that we can't help but feel like this is far more than infatuation. One of the tensions underlying the book is whether or not first love is ever real love, final love, the one that lasts forever. E&P doesn't attempt to answer that question definitively, but you believe they COULD make it. Their love is both raw and vivid in the way first love is and yet mature and solid, too. Oh, I'm becoming incoherent; a rave is the hardest review to write, and I'm raving about this one. So, so good. ...more
Reading this book is like sitting next to the smartest person you've ever met while that person is blazingly, roaringly drunk. There are countless fasReading this book is like sitting next to the smartest person you've ever met while that person is blazingly, roaringly drunk. There are countless fascinating facts, inspired connections, and brilliant reflections mixed in with a whole lot of rambling and some statements that are downright bizarre. I thought it was well worth reading, but I think Ackroyd's stronger ideas and considerable erudition would have benefited from a more cohesive structure. The wandering, almost stream-of-consciousness quality here would work in even a very long essay but seemed to me not ideal for a book-length examination of the English imagination. ...more
What a sensational book this is -- suspenseful, moving and uncompromising from start to finish. Although this is (I believe) usually considered a YA nWhat a sensational book this is -- suspenseful, moving and uncompromising from start to finish. Although this is (I believe) usually considered a YA novel, and there's truth to that, I wouldn't hesitate to compare this to some of the best of the literary espionage novels for adults. The friendship between Julie and Maddie illuminates the novel and provides the emotional anchor, and yet in some ways this is the story of two individuals fighting very different wars.
I was most moved by how deeply fleshed out every single character is. Julie is perhaps the most vivid, in her intelligence, her courage, her brutal honesty and her humor in the face of horror. But Maddie, Jamie, Paul, Georgia Penn, Anna Engel and even her Nazi tormenter von Linden are ultimately rendered in three dimensions. No one is so heroic that we don't see a moment of weakness; nobody is so ghastly that we don't see a moment of humanity.
Absolutely adored this book start to finish. ...more
As I first worked my way through this novel, I thought it struck some discordant notes -- most particularly in the characterization of James Compton, As I first worked my way through this novel, I thought it struck some discordant notes -- most particularly in the characterization of James Compton, who seemed to go from a highly supportive, independent partner for Maisie to a more controlling and elitist figure. However, after reading it through to the ending, I realize how many of the elements that I thought rang false are instead clues. Maisie keeps feeling as though she's "suffocating" in this book and cannot share this with James; yet it turns out she's not the only one who leaves things unspoken, or who can keep secrets for the best of reasons.
The most I think about this book, the more I like it. All the story elements serve and support one another, whether it's the common-law wife of the dead journalist making Maisie question her own role in James' life; the political elements of union-busting and pro-Nazi feeling that come out in the case and shadow Maisie's private world; how most of the problems she and James face come not from each other but from their attempts to fit into roles defined by society; and most tellingly, the way Maisie's do-gooder energies can backfire on both herself and those she most wants to help. It's woven together delicately but very strongly.
If I have any criticism, it's that I feel Billy and Doreen's story needs to take a definite turn before too long. Their many hardships are all believable individually, but it's starting to feel like they just get punished again and again. As much as I like the character of Billy, it would be okay with me if the family finally takes up that long-dreamed-of emigration to Canada. Sandra's new role in the investigations business would allow for some fresher plot developments.
Still, one of my favorites in a very beloved series. ...more
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