Stone Cold Sober

Posted on January 26, 2014 by Robert Downs

16130549 Doctor Sleep by Stephen King
My Rating: 3/5 Stars

I’d like to thank Kemper and Will and Dan and Delee and Trudi for pretty much doing my job for me and writing such excellent reviews that I don’t even have to offer up one of my own. Ha, you crazy bastards, who would I be if I let you off that easily?

King might just be one crazy son of a bitch for calling this a sequel to THE SHINING (I should probably add here that I have never read said novel) when it’s about as much of a sequel as the James Bond films are to one another (especially the Pierce Brosnan versus Daniel Craig versions). But I love him anyway, even if I didn’t exactly love this novel. Sure, this is vintage King where the man breathes and breathes across pages and pages of exposition and dialogue and prose and where the number of characters could fill a village and where the man knows evil so well he can pull it out of a hat as easily as a rabbit, a frog, or a Siamese cat.

Even though I was stone cold sober when I started DOCTOR SLEEP, I felt as though I had imbibed a few by the end of the story, passed out, and was revived with steam as a one-toothed raven-haired beauty breathed into my mouth. Had the steam not done the trick, I might have passed out all over again. Dan Torrance swaggered and swayed his way through this novel (at least he made an effort to change), so I must say he wasn’t exactly my favorite character. Abra, on the other hand, proved every bit as precocious as her fourteen years allowed, and I rooted for her every step of the way.

The length proved a bit daunting at times as words upon words piled up, and there were so many characters that it was sometimes hard to keep track. It meandered and bobbed and weaved and bounced along more than a few backcountry roads. We switched time zones, and we nearly switched coasts, and I found myself staring at a plaque from the Overlook Hotel. For a brief moment, I felt as though my entire universe had been stripped away right in front of me.

Stephen King has no equal…in punctuation. He punctuates and paragraph breaks like no other writer I’ve seen before, and he does it with such dexterity and effortless ease. He must have taken a punctuation class that no other writer in the entire universe was privy to. In the end, that’s okay (not that he needs my approval), and I applaud him on his uniqueness. It’s probably safe to say that I could decipher a Stephen King novel based on punctuation and paragraph breaks alone.

Even if the master may have backed off a step or two on his game, he’s still well ahead of the rest of us mere mortals. It’s certainly not a bad read, but on the other hand, I wouldn’t say it’s one of his best efforts either.

Debonair Masterpiece

Posted on January 25, 2014 by Robert Downs

17304110 Live And Let Die by Ian Fleming
My Rating: 3/5 Stars

James Bond on the page certainly comes across a lot different than James Bond on the big screen and LIVE AND LET DIE only serves to further hammer this point home. Ian Fleming has created a debonair masterpiece, with more than a hint of chauvinism. Sure, he uses terms then that he probably couldn’t get away with today, but this book was first published in 1954, so you have to roll with it a bit. If you’re a woman, or you’re easily offended, you might want to hesitate before picking it up.

The action moves slower than it does in the movies (that’s understandable), but it’s nice to get a fuller and complete picture of a true icon. At times this novel reads like a military intelligence briefing, but it’s still well-written prose, and given Ian Fleming’s, along with James Bond’s backgrounds, it’s not all that surprising.

If you’re looking for a quick read and a strong male lead, it doesn’t get much better than this.

A Different Thriller Style

Posted on January 24, 2014 by Robert Downs

15954464 Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
My Rating: 3/5 Stars

James Bond is as much of a weapon as his Beretta 418, although he’s more of an agent by chance than by choice, a weapon as sleek as his 1933 Bentley convertible. He has his vices: gambling, martinis, cigarettes, and sex. Ian Fleming may not have painted women in the most favorable light, may have used a different writing style for a thriller than I’m accustomed to—the agency brief, plenty of inner dialogue and thoughts, and only a dusting of intense action sequences—but this was an enjoyable read for me from the first page to the last.

Having watched and enjoyed all the Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig James Bond films, along with a few other films from previous James Bond actors, I wanted to look at the man behind the mask, and I must say I’m rather glad I did. This was a quick read, although I wouldn’t necessarily call it light, and while I won’t rush to read the rest of the Ian Fleming novels, I do want to see how both his main character and writing style develop.

A Few More Rounds

Posted on January 22, 2014 by Robert Downs

Tigers In Red Weather by Liza Klaussmann
My Rating: 2/5 Stars

I just need to stop reading historical fiction. Like right now. But I keep trying, like the little kid who keeps reaching for the electric burner, even though he’s bound to burn himself for the thirteenth time and once again lose several layers of skin in the process, or like the woman who just can’t stop dating that man-child with the six-pack abs and commitment issues and the Mickey Mouse voice, because damn it she can bounce quarters off his belly button, and that ought to be worth a few more rounds on the merry-go-round.

Because like that little kid I want to reach out and just one time find the burner turned off, or like the woman I just want to meet a man who looks like Brad Pitt but has a bit of substance for once in her damned life. Well, not me personally, but I feel your pain sister. With historical fiction, I am beginning to think it’s a bit personal, and I am beginning to think I’m the only one who hasn’t been let in on this wonderful, exotic secret that will somehow change my life, but maybe not. And it’s frustrating and intoxicating and I keep coming back for more. Just spin me one more time, and this stint is bound to be different.

And I end up…right back where I started. Let’s start with the dialogue shall we. Now I love me some good dialogue. I want to hug it and squeeze it and kiss it and pat its little forehead and somehow find a way to make it my own. More often than not (and this novel is no exception), I end up disappointed with the overused phrases tossed in my direction. It reminds me of the jellybeans often found beneath the sofa cushions. Just don’t eat them. Sure, they might have been great and wonderful three months ago (like the dialogue might have been snappy and witty about two or three generations ago), but I’m not feeling the love now. And I want to feel the love.

The characters proved a bit too unlikeable. Heck, let’s face it, at least one or two were probably borderline bastards. And that works for me, if the others pick up the slack and shine brighter than a Colt revolver. But I’ll be honest: I didn’t really like any of the sons-a-bitches. Again, sometimes that works when it’s done correctly, but yeah, that wasn’t really working for me either. The characters were just a bit too full of themselves, or completely and totally self-involved (like six-pack abs guy).

Let’s talk about setting. I love Massachusetts and Boston. I love the Cape and the North Shore with its quaint little towns and storybook houses. I love it even more when its spring or summer or fall, and when there isn’t a foot of snow on the ground with layers of ice packed underneath. But this didn’t really feel like Massachusetts to me. Something was just a bit off, and that’s probably a rather quick way of summing up TIGERS IN RED WEATHER.

Kicking Justin Bieber

Posted on January 21, 2014 by Robert Downs

Nemesis by Jo Nesbø
My Rating: 2/5 Stars

Sometimes I feel as though I’m genetically hardwired to be a contrarian. Not because I actually like being different than everyone else or going against popular opinion, nor do I actually want to stand on the mountaintop and scream “All you fuckers are wrong.” Because let’s face it, it’s easy to follow everyone else, to march in line and in step, even if it sometimes means you’re headed for a cliff or the occasional mountain lion. Nor do I get some sort of sick, demented pleasure from bashing other authors and other people’s books, because I’m right there in the trenches with you, buddy. Not necessarily holding your hand, but we’re in the same foxhole, staring out at the same battlefield, and trying to make heads or tails of the opposition. Not that writing is a war, but it sometimes feels that way, to get those pesky words down on paper, and then actually have others get behind the words that you have written, until they make them their own.

So what does all of this mean for NEMESIS? Well, if you’re looking at the date I started this novel (by the way, that is not a misprint), and the day I finished it (that’s not a misprint either), there’s a massive gap between the two. Where I know I had plenty of fun, and most of this fun was had while not reading said novel. Does that mean it’s badly written? No, absolutely not. But it felt repetitive and redundant, and I was never fully engaged in the story. To be honest, it wasn’t even really all that close of a call. But I wanted to be engaged, I wanted to be fully invested, and I wanted to like this story, because so many others have called it a great and wondrous read with high ratings and glowing reviews. But I just can’t consider myself one of them. Maybe I was built with a different set of Legos.

You see, the characters resembled emotionless pits; the dialogue felt trite and pedestrian; the plot plunked along like a Corvette ambling down the train tracks on a Sunday afternoon, to the point that I had to reread the back cover copy to figure out what it was I had just finished; and I ended up so lost within the twists and turns of the story that I forgot where the heck I even was.

If I were to sum up this novel, I’d say it made me want to kick Justin Bieber. Which isn’t that much different from how I normally feel. What I really want to find is the novel that makes me want to hug the Biebs. I’m thinking it’s not possible, but I’m going to continue to hold out hope that it’s out there somewhere, and I will continue to expend energy looking for it.

So Help Me God

Posted on January 20, 2014 by Robert Downs

18754147 Double Dip by Gretchen Archer
My Rating: 3/5 Stars

So Help Me God, this was a funny novel. Not the kind of funny where I was clutching my side while rolling on the sidewalk, threatening to breach the threshold of oncoming traffic, and end up as a hood ornament or flattened to the road to the point where I needed to be peeled off the pavement with a shovel. But it was certainly funny in an amusing, quirky sort of way where the characters often surprised me with either their next line of dialogue or the situations that they managed to find themselves in the middle of, often with very little effort on their part.

Davis “Don’t you dare call me, David” Way has a heart of gold, a friend named Fantasy, a lover named Bradley, a job as a body double, and sometimes lends her hand as casino muscle in the middle of Biloxi, MS. That’s Mississippi, y’all, home of the third largest concentration of casinos in the lower forty-eight, and previous stomping grounds of Hurricane Katrina, which left her thumbprint and watermark long after she blew out of town. Just as Davis does when the story takes her to Beehive, AL, and she finds herself in the middle of a holier-than-thou slot tournament scandal that threatens to take every dime from the blue-haired and blue-eyed church going folk. Sure, the job may not be for everyone, but Davis Way is about to have her day.

The long list of misfits and miscreants include ex-ex-husbands (it’s a long story and don’t get her started), an elderly woman that can’t shoot for shit (popping a cap in the ceiling and another one in her own foot), and more than a few scam artists. If you’d like to end up on your own two feet (as opposed to having your feet up on a hospital bed), you’d better watch out for the banana pudding when you’re around this crew. You might want to take your job a bit more seriously, and you’d better walk around with a smile in this town, or you just might find yourself outside the glass doors looking in.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should probably mention I sent a manuscript to Henery Press approximately two weeks ago. Which means in four more weeks, I’ll receive a polite but firm rejection via email, and in four weeks and a day, Henery Press will have forgotten who the hell I am. Just so you know.

I received this book for free through NetGalley.

Gaining Confidence With Your Writing

Posted on January 18, 2014 by Robert Downs

Writing strips away the self-confidence of even the most confident individuals. It’ll plague you with self-doubt, cause you to question your very existence, leave you bumbling and stumbling your way through manuscript after manuscript unsure if your writing will go anywhere other than a Dumpster or landfill, and when praise comes your way, you’ll eat it faster than a Happy Meal after you’ve starved yourself for two days. Unless praise proves to be in short supply, constantly being handed out to the other guys and gals, and your debut novel tanks faster than a submarine with a missile stuffed in its jaws. In that case, you’d better figure out some other way to find the road to happiness, or else you’ll be whistling at your own writing funeral, and the carcass will be a stack of half-completed manuscripts, or a broken laptop tossed through a third story window.

But when you rise from the very bottom of the ocean, finally reaching the surface, and gasping for breath as you tread water, you realize how strong you really are. If you can suffer through the worst of the obstacles, and somehow keep on moving forward, constantly pedaling as cement block after cement block is tossed in your path, you’ll come out a better, stronger, and fitter person on the other side. Your confidence rockets to some higher plateau, a level you never thought was possible, let alone attainable, and you end up in a place where you’ve seen it all before. And you’ll keep writing and plugging along, churning out page after type filled page, the words sometimes flowing so freely you feel like the luckiest bastard around, and other times so difficult that you feel like you’re reinventing the writing process, but either way, it satisfies some urge deep within you, some need that only words and stories can satisfy.

Whether you sell a million copies, or pawn them off to friends and family members at holiday functions, or just stuff completed manuscripts in a drawer, before moving on to the next project, you’re doing what you love, and no one can take that away from you. And once you’ve discovered that, you’ve discovered the greatest gift of all, and everything else pales in comparison.

Your Nora Ephron Self

Posted on January 17, 2014 by Robert Downs

What Nora Knew by Linda Yellin
My Rating: 4/5 Stars

If I were a woman, I could have quite a bit of fun reading chick lit and women’s fiction and romance and erotica and then passing along (hopefully) entertaining reviews to the reading public at large just for the hell of it. Oh wait, I guess I already do that anyway. So…moving right along, I must say WHAT NORA KNEW offered up quite a bit of entertainment with very little substance. You know, like trying to eat bubbles that a six-year-old has just blown in your direction after her kite took a nosedive in a public park and turned into a mangled mess on the grass. Rather than preside over the funeral (since your eulogy skills probably need a bit of work), you decided to entertain your mouth in another manner.

This novel reminded me of that, except without the death part. Since deaths aren’t funny. Unless you’re the kind of gal who laughs at a funeral—thank you Barenaked Ladies. Yeah, as long as you’re not that person, then we’re good to go, and you can proceed on with this review. If you are, my apologies, but you’ll probably want to remove your black pencil skirt and gray blouse from the scene in a most expeditious manner.

Whenever I read a novel, and I can’t seem to get the voice out of my head, I know we’re off to a good start. If I then proceed to stop at various points along the way, often rather frequently at the beginning, to jot down words and phrases or character names, then I’ve probably met my match. That is a good day indeed, because the book matchmakers have smiled upon me, which, in turn, means I end up smiling quite a bit myself. This proved to be such a book.

Molly Hallberg decided four generations of the upholstery business was enough for her, and rather than plant her acorn at the bottom of the family tree, she has decided to pave her own way, preferably through EyeSpy and Hipp magazine, and preferably with her own column that includes a header and byline. She may know everything about lying her way through an interview, but that doesn’t mean she’s actually qualified to do the job. And posing nude two years in a row at a SoHo art studio to supplement her meager Starbucks barista income doesn’t mean she’s actually qualified to do anything, other than prove to the masses that she can take her clothes off in public and hold one position for over an hour at a time.

Her boss Deirdre Dolson may dress like she’s eighteen, even if she’s forty-eight, but that’s just because she wants to keep up a youthful appearance. And her boyfriend (Molly’s not Deirdre’s) may have a Words With Friends addiction, along with being a professional rubber, but that’s just because he’s good with his hands…and words.

Even the names were rather inventive, along with being rather amusing. There’s Veeva Penney and Pamela Bendinger and Swifty Lazar and Darrin Aschbacher and Hunkster 500 (Match.com profile) and Thatcher Kamin and Keith Kretchmer. There’s also Angela Leffel who may, or may not, have a massive Twinkie addiction that she’s not willing to share on her blog.

So if you’re in the mood for an entertaining read, minus the thought-provoking part, you could do a lot worse than getting in touch with your Nora Ephron self. I know I’m rather glad I did.

I received this book for free through NetGalley.

Long And Winded Tangents

Posted on January 17, 2014 by Robert Downs

The Splendour Falls by Susanna Kearsley
My Rating: 2/5 Stars

If you like your tangents long and winded, then THE SPLENDOUR FALLS may just be the book for you. The dialogue may lack purpose and direction; the descriptions may be verbose to the point that it’ll keep your cabinet chock full of words; and you may find yourself meandering through a meadow filled with daisies and daffodils, but that’s just all part of the experience. Not parts I looked forward to, mind you, but I’m sure someone out there will just eat that up faster than a glazed doughnut.

While this may have been classified as suspense (and we all know Amazon is the authority on books *cough cough*), the only suspense I managed was if I could keep my eyes on the prize and make it all the way to the end without the aid of toothpicks or hallucinations. Instead, I’d rather see this novel classified under romance or historical or some combination thereof, with its castles and ancient letters and German occupation.

As writers, we understand the importance of place, but must we really mention Chinon (the name of the town) 108 times. I believe I received the message loud and clear after the first 107 times, thank you very much. Clos des Cloches received quite a few mentions as well—27 to be exact, or four times less than the specific town. What a shame. It was the little castle that could, but it just ran out of fireplaces.

The characters did prove somewhat interesting, but I lost sight of them amidst all the other words and phrases and tortuous plot points.

On a side note, I’d like to thank my beautiful wife for bringing to light the fact that nearly half of my one and two-star reads come from NetGalley picks, which either means I can’t pick worth shit, or when it’s free, I somehow manage to lose all sense of judgment and click that button faster than Pavlov’s dog. I promise to try and pick better in the future. In the meantime, though, we may have to deal with a few more less than glorious reads. If nothing else, I’ll do my best to bring the entertainment.

Ending with this glorious misstep of a novel, I’ll say the conclusion didn’t really do me any favors, nor did it necessarily enhance the story either.

I received this book for free through NetGalley.

A Truly Rare Gift

Posted on January 15, 2014 by Robert Downs

Under The Wide And Starry Sky by Nancy Horan
My Rating: 2/5 Stars

What I’ve learned is having faith is a truly rare gift, and that even if I’m filled with that much faith, or confidence, that I still have my doubts, those moments where it feels like it will all go to hell, but it won’t really matter because no one is paying attention anyway, and I can make whatever mistakes I need to make, and that ends up being another great gift: the opportunity to fail miserably without the whole world watching. Just when it seems like I’m at my lowest point, and there’s no way I can move up from the bottom of the glass, I realize that people really do care, that they are paying attention, and maybe I can’t measure it, or quantify it, or even extrapolate it and place it on a graph, but it’s there just the same. And while encouragement from others is a great and wonderful and beautiful thing, the best strength comes from within.

What I took away more than anything else from UNDER THE WIDE AND STARRY SKY is a sense of faith (not the religious kind): faith to stay in a relationship, faith to experiment with your writing, faith to scrap an entire story and burn it in the fiery embers of wood and ash, faith to realize that life will come to an end and there’s nothing we can do to stop it, faith to travel and live around the globe, faith to get married, and faith to stay married through the trials and tribulations of daily living.

Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne Stevenson may not have had what might be considered a normal relationship, but then normal is defined as it relates to you, and the creative process is about as far from normal as you can be. Having two writers in the same household practically puts you on another planet altogether, so they did have that going for them, even as Robert’s health faded.

Despite all this mojo working in its favor, I never really felt myself become one with this novel. The dialogue never really flowed like a river; the descriptive passages never really allowed me to become fully immersed in the tale; the characters resembled more ethereal creatures hovering in the distance; and the ending left me a bit unfulfilled.

I received this book for free through NetGalley.