Oh, this book had such a cool set up, but just couldn’t seem to live up to it! Set about 150 years in the future, The Dead Lands focuses on a society built among the ruins of St. Louis. This community, known as the Sanctuary, is all that remains of the United States after a super flu, and then nuclear war, wipes everyone out. Or so they’ve been led to believe. Then one day, a slightly-mutant girl (Gawea, as in Saca-) shows up at the Sanctuary, […]
Female author + female protagonist = let’s compare it to Gone Girl!
Actually, Elizabeth Little’s Dear Daughter does have a bit in common with Gone Girl (and Flynn’s other novels) — primarily, that you’ll kind of hate the main character. I will say, however, that Janie Jenkins will grow on you, and I found this novel to be pretty damn compelling. You just have to give yourself about 50 pages to get used to Janie’s voice — I couldn’t stand her at the beginning, but I was rooting for her by the end. “Self-pity is the sun around which we orbit, the great […]
Skip the novella but read the short story
Another Stephen King novella audiobook from the library. This one actually included two stories — the novella, Mile 81, and the short story, The Dune. I’m averaging their scores here: Mile 81 was not so great, but I really liked The Dune. So 3 stars overall. Mile 81 starts a little shit named Pete who breaks into an abandoned rest stop to impress an older group of boys. He drinks too much vodka, then passes out. When he wakes up, he discovers a bunch of abandoned vehicles at […]
A Life Without Light
File this one under, “Be grateful for what you have”. Anna Lyndsey’s memoir about her sensitivity to light, which has resulted in her near-constant need to remain in the dark, is beautifully written, and alternates between darkly humorous, and downright tragic. “Most of the time, I do not want to die. But I would like to have the means of death within my grasp. I want to feel the luxury of choice, to know the answer to “How do I bear this?” need not always […]
Who wants to go for a ride?
Another Stephen King novella, Stationary Bike has a great premise, but gets a little too nutty even for me… Richard Sifkitz’s doctor tells him that it’s time to lose some weight, weight that Sifkitz — a commercial artist — has been packing on since his wife died. Sifkitz buys a stationary bike, and instead of installing it in front of a TV, he puts it in his apartment’s basement, facing a blank wall (artists are weird, I guess). He paints the wall with a mural depicting a […]
The camping trip of nightmares
Oh, this was good. It was creepy and did a lot of hinting around at certain things before whacking you on the face with the facts at the very end. Excellent! “Dates only make us aware of how numbered our days are, how much closer to death we are for each one we cross off. From now on, Punzel, we’re going to live by the sun and the seasons.’ He picked me up and spun me around, laughing.’Our days will be endless.” Peggy (known as Punzel […]
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