Number 2- The Goldfinch- Donna Tartt

 

This time last year I was on book number 9.  This year my word count is almost certainly up, but book count is down by 7.

The first thing to say about this is it's long. It's easily one of the three longest books I've read since I started this blog however many years ago it was. It feels like the longest though by a clear distance and has taken me 3 weeks to complete.

Theo Decker is 13 when he's caught up in an explosion in a museum in New York. Two results from the explosion are the death of his mother and his theft of a priceless small painting called the Goldfinch.

This theft underpins much of his existence from then on, eventually entangling him with a  European crime ring and risking his life.

His childhood is spent shuttling between friends and the remains of his family. The rich friends who take him in immediately after the explosion introduce him to  a life of riches and privilege, a life he's forced to leave behind when his deadbeat dad whisks him across the country.

I finished this yesterday and it hasn't quite settled in yet. It is certainly well written and held my interest effortlessly while I had this house brick of a book  But, when I put it down, I struggled to motivate myself to pick it up again on occasion for reasons I can't quite work out.  

Tartt created some compelling characters.  The supporting cast mostly felt very real and sympathetic- Hobie in particular feels like a real person. One offstage death quite upset me so Tartt was doing her job right. The character of Theo is less convincing though.  He undergoes a few character reversals when needed to progress the plot. He also does very little of his own volition to move the plot along. Most of the major events and resolutions to his many problems come through the supporting characters' actions rather than anything Theo does for himself.

There are odd threads from the start of the book left hanging. The dying man in the museum who is responsible for him taking the picture asks him to warn Hobie about something- but this is never followed up on.  Hobie tells Theo about a pair of con artists in great detail (including physical description), but then fails to recognise the one he described in a long one to one conversation.  

Tarrtt's prose is occasionally gorgeous.  She's undoubtedly a very talented writer, but I don't think I loved this book. It's a very good book indeed. Some of the insights she gives into art and the human condition are spot on but there are flaws as I've mentioned above. I'm definitely glad I read it, and will certainly be checking out others from her back catalogue.  All in all, a bit of a curates egg. The other two very long books I've read since I started this were pageturners and I read them in under 2 weeks.  I can't say this ever had that type of energy.

Number 1- Cold Snap- Lindy Ryan

 

This time last year I was writing up bonk number 5. This year it's only number 1. I did finish it more than a week ago to be fair.  But book 2 is an absolute housebrick  that's going to take another week at least at the pace I've managed so far.

On to the important detail though.  I bought this as an impulse buy when I found myself in the city centre with 2 hours to kill and no book. It seemed appropriate for the weather at the time.

Christine Sinclaire was widowed two weeks before Christmas when her husband slipped while fitting lights to the roof. She takes her 15 year old son Billy and their pet cat to the remote cabin that she'd planned with her husband for Christmas. It's a way to avoid reality for a few days over the festive period, and to get away from all the concerned neighbours.

Billy is not happy with the arrangements. He is coping with his father's death almost as well as Christine is dealing with it.

They find they have more than grief and blame to contend with at the cabin.  A creature is stalking the frozen woods. A creature with horns and hooves like a moose, hut that seems to stand on two legs.  A creature that calls to Christine with her husband's voice. Events move from tragic to scary in short order.

This is a beautifully written examination of the impact of guilt, blame and grief on a family. It''s also a pretty scary creature feature.  Christine's response to her husband's death feels genuinely heartbreaking.  She constantly relives his last moments. The author's use of repetition with this is masterfully done. The half descriptions of the creature, so we're never quite certain what this thing is, are equally well done.

The final couple of chapters really get the pulse pounding. There is some proper nightmare fuel present here. Lindy Ryan builds a cloying and oppressive atmosphere. These are two very realistically damaged humans under threat. 

I would certainly recommend this.  An excellent start to the year's reading.

2025 book number 0.5- The Deep- Nick Cutter

 

I started this on 30th December but only finished on 5th of this month so to solve issues on numbering for the year, it's a half. 

I read The Troop a couple of years back and it pretty much set the bar for body horror in literature for me.  This is my second outing into his world of horror.

A pandemic is sweeping the world.  Called the 'gets, it's like dementia on steroids. in it's end stages, people forget everything including how to eat and breathe and just die.

In an attempt to find a cure a team of scientists are working 8 miles below the surface of the Pacific, trying to harness a miraculous new substance they call Ambrosia.

Dr Luke Nelson is a vet. His brother is one of the scientists in the deep sea lab. When all contact s lost with the lab shortly after his brother sends a message asking to see him, Luke takes the perilous trip to the bottom of the ocean. He will soon come to regret that decision.

Things have gone very wrong indeed in the Trieste lab. In the darkest and deepest part of the ocean, something is emerging that is more terrifying than any disease.

Cutter manages to create the most cloying atmosphere of claustrophobia I think I've seen in a book. The sense of dread is palpable.

It's nowhere near as gruesome as The Troop but it is a lot more atmospheric. You can almost feel the walls pressing in and smell the stale air. 

 The Troop was a great ensemble piece, where this one sticks to Luke's POV almost continuously throughout. Luke is a good character and well drawn but I did find myself wanting the POV from  some of the other characters.  This only happened briefly in a section where he reads the diaries of one of the scientists.

This is an impressively bleak novel. Hope is a hard thing to come by eight miles under the sea facing a Lovecraftian entity. The body horror, when it comes, is effectively gruesome and mainly concerning the lab specimens so if that's a trigger, maybe avoid this. 

One of the blurbs on my copy says how this book gives you a reason to be scared of the dark, and I have to say I agree with that statement.

Overall this was a good end/start to the year's reading.

2024 picks of the year

 This (last year) has been a good year for reading for me.  I've completed 107 books and got a good start on number 108. I've read a good mix of genres and have really enjoyed the vast majority. There were 4 that I managed to finish despite hating (they were shortish) and my first DNF since I started the blog.  All my full reviews are a simple scroll away.

In the order that I read them, my top 10 for the year are

A very short but satisfying tale of supernatural detectives.  A great start to the year

Another novella, this one told from the point of view of a mountain lion living above LA. I love that weirdness like this is now available in mainstream book shops.

Paul Auster's final novel is as good as anything else he's written.  A beautiful and moving character study.

Adam Nevill's All the Fiends of Hell is one of the two most terrifying reads of the year.  Possibly the scariest book he's written to date, with some truly hair-raising set pieces

I expected to hate this but loved it.  A gorgeously told story of Shakespeare's son's death.

The other one of the most terrifying books I read this year.  It had me jumping at shadows looking for Other Mommy.

This one is genuinely disturbing. Great writing and needs to be experienced to be believed.

Based on the true story of a medical hoax where a woman was allegedly giving birth to rabbits.  This is an odd one, brilliantly told.  The eponymous Mary might be the most mistreated character I've read about all year. 

Cthulu, mysterious corporations, black magic detectives in the big city.  This book has it all.  One of the most mind-bending things I've read in years.

Finally, this one- a crime story without cops. Brilliantly written.  It turned my internal narrator into the cast of Father Ted. A multi-layered story of small town secrets in Ireland.

So there we have it, the 10 best books I read last year.

The DNF was Almost White by Simon Thirsk. The worst book I finished by an absolute country mile was The Breast by Philip Roth.  How that guy has a career in literature is an absolute mystery to me if that is typical of his work.

Number 107- House of Slaughter vol 3- The Butcher's Return- Tynion et al

Jake Boucher the Butcher is back to wreak havoc on the various monster houses. 

Last seen in volume 1 of the HoS spin off, he's been off grid, saving children and trying to keep them safe from the houses.  Of course, it can't last forever and his old house, the House of Butchers, picks up one of his young proteges.

The scene is set for a violent clash of ideologies.

The script by Brombal is very good indeed, building the mythos of the houses and the interrelationships nicely. The artwork is the best to date.

This series is highly recommended.

Numbers 103 a,b and c- Ghost stories for Christmas- Galley beggar pocket books

 

These were my Christmas day read (I said I was playing catch up). They arrived in early November but were far too pretty to open, so I waited till Christmas day to unwrap them  and the books were just as pretty inside the packaging.

They're all famous enough that I probably don't need to describe the stories (although they're all very slight in terms of plot and I'd end up giving more spoilers than I normally like to give). These are traditional tales of hauntings and premonition. They're all told in very a formal, and arguably quite dated, style. I certainly didn't get chills down my spine from any of them.

However groundbreaking or scary they were at the time, they feel quite cliched and predictable now. That's not to say that they're not worth reading, they certainly are. The stories have hung around for a reason.

The packaging and binding of the books is absolutely top notch and these are perfect stocking fillers for next year if you know someone who loves their old school ghost stories.

I know it's a me problem that I didn't find them more than mildly creepy. 

Number 103- All My Precious Madness- Mark Bowles

 

Quick bit of housekeeping, need to post the last few books from last year. Starting with this-

From that minimalist cover, regular readers of this blog will know this  is a Galley Beggar Press book.

This is Bowles's first novel and I have to say he knows how to string a sentence together.  Whether he knows how to plot a novel is up for question.

In this book, the narrator rails against modern society and all the ills he perceives.  We follow him back and forward through his life in a series of flashbacks and digressions. He becomes more and more annoyed by a particular man he sees as being the symbol of all that's wrong until he snaps and takes violent action.

It's frequently very funny and he does make some valid points. But it is a bit rambly and didn't always hold my interest. 

The final section was certainly the most compulsive in the book.

It's beautifully written, as are all GBP books, but this one didn't completely hit the mark for me. 

6/10 - less ramble, more plot please.