Mic Breaks Only discussion

I finished In the Dark and I started the book with much more excitement than I had retained by the end. I loved the premise and enjoyed most of the characters. The main detractor from my enjoyment was the mushy faux romance between Callie and Mason that ended in a fizzled "we're just friends" pronouncement. I was also bummed that some characters died early when I yearned to see more character development unfold. Overall, I think the idea was great but the execution fell a bit short in keeping me as jazzed about the beginning as the journey at large.

I read False Step and it was a disappointment. The plot was transparent (I guessed the big bad very early), the characters were bland, and the ending was depressing. The main character was rife with excuses and justifications about why she was cheating on her husband. She was incapable of ending a relationship that caused her misery and came across as weak willed, needy, and sniveling. Maybe I would be more interested in reading about the next chapter of her life when she has to pull herself up by the bootstraps, reassess her priorities, and start setting a better example for her daughter.

In mid January I started picking up a few books that had been gathering dust on my shelf. I'm going to skip over book club books for this post.

Bag of Bones was a quick read (especially for its size), which is normal for King. For a long time I considered King my favorite author and his books are easy for me to slip into, like a comfy pair of socks. Unfortunately I felt less haunted and more ho-hum by this ghost story. I couldn't relate to the main character and thought a lot of his decisions were odd (to say the least). A supernatural mystery sounds fun but its components swung between obvious and obtuse faster then a car careens with a flat tire.

Next up was a more direct mystery: The Woman in the Window. I was constantly distracted by my frustrations with the main character. I understand the author's need to trap the character in her house but the execution of her dilemma felt heavy handed and blunted the impact of the actual mystery (which was pretty darn good).

The Boy on the Bridge was as good as The Girl With All the Gifts and actually improved my view of the overall story. I can't think of any time I've read two novels set in the same universe that managed to both stand on their own and add to the collective whole so perfectly. I wholeheartedly recommend both books and recommend starting with Girl.

Malingering on my shelf are The French Lieutenant's Woman and Novel Explosives, I need to kick myself into finishing both as I'm over halfway done with them.

Next month I think I'm going to pick up This Is How You Lose the Time War to fill in the gaps between our books club selections.

I finished the audio version of The Bat. The trait I find most redeeming in Harry Hole is that he ultimately solves crimes because of his tenacious disposition. He tries and tries and tries again until he has the correct suspect in hand. I appreciate that Jo Nesbø writes Detective Hole as more of a human that makes a fair amount of mistakes along the way and less of a super hero who has an uncanny knack for getting it right all of the time.

All in all I liked the audio version of The Snowman a bit better. It may have simply boiled down to a personal preference in narrators which were vastly different between the two books.

Our February book club selection was Gideon the Ninth. It took me a while to acclimate to Tamsyn Muir's style. I found myself reading and rereading sections of the book, particularly at the beginning, because I struggled a bit with the pacing and some of the funky, archaic word choices. About a third of the way in, I gained momentum, got hooked in by the plot and by the end of the book was more than ready for the sequel. Ultimately, I really enjoyed the combination of supernatural mystery, bad-ass female characters, and delicious action scenes.

I started Bag of Bones and believe it or not this is my first Stephen King novel. I'm an avid viewer of horror films, so I've seen his stories on the big screen, but haven't delved into his written word until now. My first impression is that he has a real knack for penning verbal conversations, they seem natural and easy breezy but still convey a ton of detail. I'm only 100 pages in, so I'll check in later once I have more of the story under my belt.

I started the next book club selection a bit early and got about a third of the way through Welcome to Night Vale. It has been a wild ride so far. I find myself reading and rereading sections of the book because it is so outlandish. I'm not put off by being thrown into an unfamiliar world, so far it has been pretty darn entertaining. I'm looking forward to investigating more weirdness.