Five Decembers by James Kestrel
I received an Advance Reading Copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Those who know me know that I’m a big fan of the Hard Case Crime label. I collect the novels and make a commitment to read at least one a month. Publisher Charles Ardai has made a point to reach out extensively to the HCC fan community; passing out ARCs and bonus copies before they go on sale. A few months ago, some of us got an […]
Cult X by Fuminori Nakamura
Cell by Stephen King
I recently read two books with apocalyptic overtones. Neither were great but both were eminently readable, if weird and unfocused… Cult X * Well then. It’s almost impossible for a book as popular as Fuminori Nakamura’s Cult X to get anything less than a 3+ star rating on GoodReads. A book usually has enough vociferous defenders who give it gratuitous 5s to put it over the top. That this one was hovering at 2.97 when I picked it up was not a good sign for […]
The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji
I’m not really into classic detective fiction. While I definitely enjoy a mystery and a puzzle (ooh, and a murder!) in whatever I read, I’ve not once had the urge to pick up a Sherlock Holmes novel, and only vaguely know about Agatha Christie’s famous stories. In fact, while The Decagon House Murders is loosely based on Christie’s And Then There Were None, I only knew about the latter’s infamously racist original title, nothing about the story itself. Decagon is, as I learned, a prime example […]
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
Keiko Furukura has been different her entire life, and she’s always to understand why she makes people uncomfortable. As a child, she found a dead bird and she brought it to her mother, who responded with sympathy and an offer to bury it. Keiko instead wanted to eat it. One day at school, two boys were fighting. Horrified, one of the girls screamed for someone to break them up, so Keiko grabbed a shovel and hit one of them over the head. And that was […]
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
Jacob de Zoet is a young man of meager means. He has hitched his hopes to the Dust East India Company- he’ll spend several trading seasons on Dejima- about as far away from home and his fiancée as he can physically be. What is Dejima? Why, I’m glad you asked! The year is 1799, and Japan is very strict in regards to foreign interference and influence. Following disasters interactions with the Spanish and Portuguese decades earlier, Japan is a closed empire. Dejima, a man-made island […]
Asadora! V01 by Naoki Urasawa
I started the book Asadora! V01 thinking there was going to be some big excitement on every page (meaning our main character would be a Pippi Longstocking type of gal getting in and out of mischief with their friends). Instead, Naoki Urasawa gives us one very large, devastating moment, and the rest of the book is what we do to survive. We try and survive every day (Asa is one of 12 children), what we do to save face (a side story of a boy […]
