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doug

doug@bookwyrm.social

Joined 1 year, 6 months ago

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Kelli Jo Ford: Crooked Hallelujah (2020, Grove Press) 4 stars

Review of 'Crooked Hallelujah' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

An impressive debut. Although it feels (at timeS) like a slow read for such a short book. The POV changes often, but I only needed to get my bearings a couple of times. But at those times, there were some considerable jumps in time and place that felt like, if it was a TV series, I'd missed a couple of crucial episodes -- maybe even a season. Though still impressive that it covers so much time in so few pages.
With 4 generations of Cherokee women, and 2 of them being main characters, only 1 of them felt fully fleshed out and developed.

Sadeqa Johnson: Yellow Wife (2021, Simon & Schuster) 4 stars

Review of 'Yellow Wife' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Completely engrossing and compelling book. I usually don't read for my entire flight, but I read this pretty much cover to cover in order to finish this one before landing yesterday.
Filled with matter-of-fact brutality, strong narrative voice, good writing, and it's clear she's done her research, but it also felt at times like it's written by a romance author. Which isn't a bad thing, just unexpected.

Review of 'Wall' on 'Goodreads'

1 star

It's cold on The Wall. And damp. And boring. Sooo boring.
And a good writer can express to the reader how boring something is without making the reader bored. We know what boredom is. We don't like it. So don't make us experience it.
The third act gets a little better, but just when there's about to be something interesting... there isn't. And it's over.
I only finished the book out of stubbornness because it's not very long. (And I was reading a more entertaining book at the same time.) But even in its brevity, it was a struggle to get through.

Edit: I just saw this was longlisted for the Booker. What?!

Joe R. Lansdale: The Bottoms (Hardcover, 2000, Subterranean Press) 4 stars

Its 1933 in East Texas and the Depression lingers in the air like a slow …

Review of 'The Bottoms' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

It's the Deep South in the 1930s, so definitely not for everyone. But a great book. Compelling story and engrossing writing style.

-- It’s the kind of weather where you learn to move as little as possible, seek shade, and stay low to the ground.

John Grisham: The Boys from Biloxi (Hardcover, 2022, Doubleday) 4 stars

Review of 'The Boys from Biloxi' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

So predictable that you can see things coming 300 pages away, but that doesn't matter. The journey there is thoroughly enjoyable. Like floating on an inner tube down a lazy river on a sunny summer day. Grisham's storytelling at its best since The Client. Which, wow, was 29 years ago.

Review of 'Master Key' on 'Goodreads'

1 star

I kept reading out of curiosity to see how the different character storylines came together, but mainly because it's a short book. So I knew the end was near.
But none of the "stories" are very interesting and the book is not compelling overall.
Really didn't like the narrative style or writing style at all. Masako Togawa had obviously never heard of the "show don't tell" rule of writing. The entire book is just tell, tell, tell. Like someone giving a overly detailed recap of a book. Or, maybe more like someone thinking out the entire story in their head first before putting it down on paper with some literary skill.