I liked this, I did. But the first half was just an extended Holmes story (a pretty good one!), while the second half was basically pointless. I don’t think this should have been a full length novel. The content of the story just doesn’t justify it. The Valley of Fear was published in full in 1915 (after being serialized in The Strand of course), so by this point, Conan Doyle had been writing the character for almost thirty years. (This was also around the time […]
“Holmes,” I cried. “Is it really you?”
While gathering my thoughts to start writing this review, I kept getting the feeling that this was my favorite of the Holmes story collections so far. With this feeling in mind, I moseyed on over to Goodreads to look at my status updates to try to collect evidence to back it up (I rate and do mini-reviews for every story), whereupon I found to my surprise that my reaction to most of the stories was just good, not great. It’s a solid story collection! However, only two out […]
“All his life he’d used words to distract attention from this deep inarticulacy, this unspeakable emotion which he would now have to use words to describe.”
On a prose level, I didn’t enjoy this one as much as I enjoyed the first two, which were extremely clever and a bit raw. Here, with Patrick sober (for several years, it’s implied), he once again is one among many points of view, just as he was in the first book as a five year old, when his parents’ dinner guests held most of the narrative focus. Here the party is for some duke or other on his birthday, and the Princess Margaret is […]
Jasper Fforde’s silly brand of satire returns, a little bit darker this time around.
Jasper Fforde hasn’t released a new book since 2014, and that is a long time for him. I have been waiting and waiting (so patiently) for the third Nursery Crime book, but it just doesn’t seem to be happening. Neither does the second Shades of Grey book. But now there is this book, which is not actually out in the US until 2019, so I bought it from Book Depository. I’m glad I did this anyway because the UK cover is so much better than the […]
Snogging means kissing
This book is a cultural institution in England. It was recommended to me so when I found it at my local tesco’s I was like, yeah, might as well. While I was reading it, every woman was like “omg I totally remember reading that when I was fourteen.” There’s even a movie! Maybe I would have liked it better if I was fourteen. Angus, thongs, and full-frontal snogging is a year in Georgia’s life featuring her crazy cat, and her quest to snog Sex God, […]
Liked it even more this time!
Okay, so now having finished my first re-read of this book, I am so tempted to up the rating to five stars. A large portion of that desire comes from listening to the audio this time around. There’s something really satisfying about Robert Glenister’s voice narrating this story; it most definitely increased my enjoyment. Another part is that this just feels like the ideal murder mystery to me right now. It was exactly what I was craving, plus some. I love all the clues and […]
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