Love Life, Hate Kittens

So over the holidays - a grueling two weeks - I decided to go to a library. Yes, a library. I needed air and an excuse to put on real clothes. And shower.

(Sidenote: Yes, I know calling a 2 week vacation grueling is equivilant to saying ‘oh my, this aston martin is too fast or this house is too big. but whatever.)

Have you guys been to a library lately? It’s amazing! It’s the best place ever. I finally realized.. it’s a place with books. Free books. Not books you read and “return” to Barnes and Noble but literally free. And you can get as many as you want. And you can even rent books digitally!

The novelty!

Anyways, I started going every day getting stacks of books at a time and my librarian thinks I’m some devious creature that’s replicating her books in 24 hours and creating digital copies for the black market. I’ve explained to her that I’m just slightly neurotic and read at alarming speeds because I don’t like my mind to wander but that’s a whole different story and she now just smiles politely like I’m insane. 

I figure I should at least blog the stack I have at home right now because I can’t keep track of what I read and murder mystery covers tend to blend into each other. Enjoy my mini reviews with spoilers galore.  

1. Long Gone by Alafair Burke - Alice is the daughter of a famous filmmaker. She wants to stand on her own two feet and get somewhere in life without her daddy’s connections (calm down, Nate Archibald). I get it. God forbid you use life’s advantages. Anyway, she randomly gets asked to be a manager of an art gallery and the guy that asks her dies and she’s wanted for murder. Somehow in the plot they are also selling kiddie porn in the art and her dad thinks he raped a kid 20 years ago but it turns out he didn’t, it was his best friend that raped the kid but the dad sleeps with so many people that it never occurs to him that he didn’t do it. 

Oh, and running parellel to this plot is this missing emo teenage girl. The plots don’t weave together. If you’re curious, the missing emo girl is dead. It has nothing to do with the plot nor does anyone care. 

2/5 stars

2. Eve by Iris Johansen - It’s a trilogy. Don’t you hate it when you read an entire book only to find out there’s no resolution? Anyways, regardless, it’s a bad book. Eve Duncan is a forensic sculptor. Her kid, Bonnie, has been missing (dead?) for a while now but it doesn’t matter because you won’t find out what happens to her. We spend a couple chapters talking about Bonnie’s conception and father. Her sexy, steamy romance with John Gallo. John Gallo was said to have died in war but he’s alive. He does some stupid shit. Eve does some stupid shit. Somehow at the climax, the maid’s kid is kidnapped. She’s saved. Yes, the book is as stupid as my review. 

1/5 stars. 

3. By Reason of Insanity by Randy Singer - We have a serial murder on the loose and some lady is framed for it. She doesn’t understand why she knows details about the case and it’s getting suspicious. Sounds compelling right? No. There’s no twist or mystery. It all gets resolved in some asinine way, someone else is the killer. Oh and it wraps up by saying the only reason she had those visions is because she’s a ‘medium’. Oh ok. Fuck you.

1/5 stars.

4. Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin - If you don’t like to read about old people or old people going missing or the thought of that old person being your mom being missing, do not read. Just the thought of her wandering around because she doesn’t remember where she lives or maybe even who she is. Shit. I felt so uneasy and uncomfortable after the first couple chapters that I had to skip to the end first to make sure the mom was found. She’s not. 

3.5/5 stars. 

And I’m not going to review Harlan Coben because after finishing Long Lost, I remember than I hate his writing. It’s boring. If you must know, it’s the same story - bland male lead + some bitch + unrelated subplot + terrorist shit. Done. 

I’m starting to run out of things to read. 

xoxo.