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frasersimons
It pulls off the concept I think, but I was more interested in it then in the actual fiction, so it ended up being a good-not-great experience for me.
I really like Jones’ concepts for his books, but the style of prose seems to never jive with me. I really liked the idea of Mongrel as well. It’s fresh and interesting, and best of all: thematic and meaningful. The books just don’t take off for me, though.
Maybe it’s because I’m not a horror enthusiast, so perhaps just don’t get as invested as others seem to be? The dialogue structure also just doesn’t play well in audiobook format. There’s a lot of X, said, Y said - which feels like a splinter in your brain after a while. You always know who’s talking but it is grating.
Maybe it’s because I’m not a horror enthusiast, so perhaps just don’t get as invested as others seem to be? The dialogue structure also just doesn’t play well in audiobook format. There’s a lot of X, said, Y said - which feels like a splinter in your brain after a while. You always know who’s talking but it is grating.
I didn’t think a rating was appropriate because if you hate self aware books that have a specific kind of humour and you try to read a book like that anyways and find out it isn’t for you, you kinda don’t have a right to bitch about it? It’s like grown ass men watching children’s movie and giving it 1 star on IMDb because it was far too infantile; or something similar, anyways~
I was really hoping the interesting premise would make it more tonally serious and less of an Adult Swim cartoon but it was all that all the time and it’s just not my jam at all, unfortunately. Made it 50 pages in and then bailed.
I was really hoping the interesting premise would make it more tonally serious and less of an Adult Swim cartoon but it was all that all the time and it’s just not my jam at all, unfortunately. Made it 50 pages in and then bailed.
Baldacci is good at commercial fiction. He knows how to deploy narrative devices to keep you turning the page. The premise is usually at least a bit interesting. I like the Robie series I’ve read because he also subverts tropes and uses his large audience to raise issues sometimes.
He tries to do it this time too... but unfortunately clearly didn’t consult with necessary people to nail the more ambitious than normal character he attempts to tackle in the antagonist here. I’ll talk about that more in a bit but can’t do so without spoilers, I’ll put that further down.
The premise for this one is alright, but not very novel. The guy has an eidetic memory that’s been supercharged basically. I like that Amos is flawed, kind of the opposite of Sherlock. All the memory but not as good at deductive reasoning. The plot keeps you turning pages but the clues that propel the story feel pretty unbelievable at times. Some are just straight up stretches that’ll have you cocking your head.
It was a decent commercial fiction read but unfortunately some elements are handled poorly. Vernacular around body types and inclusive language in general is just really poorly handled. LGBTQIA2S issues are similarly mishandled.
Together it sours the ending of something that would have been fine, not great. It has good pacing and uneven dialogue, but better than just plain bad dialogue. I really like how in all of his books he doesn’t rely on sex or sexual tension between lead characters to gesture at their relationships or bait readers. He has men and women interacting like people and he writes women better than most commercial fiction, imo. It’s frustrating because it could have been legitimately really good and feature great representation, just fumbles it in the later 3/4.
Spoilers:
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The villain is an intersex person who has some elements that were commendable. Using a huge audience to talk about how wrong it is for ignorant people to treat marginalized people, especially little known intersex people. But associating mental illness and questioning their gender. Flip flopping pronouns when sex is in question. The actual persons character arc and final end just further plays into how these characters are typed already. It’s too bad more effort wasn’t made to nail this character because it could have been much better.
He tries to do it this time too... but unfortunately clearly didn’t consult with necessary people to nail the more ambitious than normal character he attempts to tackle in the antagonist here. I’ll talk about that more in a bit but can’t do so without spoilers, I’ll put that further down.
The premise for this one is alright, but not very novel. The guy has an eidetic memory that’s been supercharged basically. I like that Amos is flawed, kind of the opposite of Sherlock. All the memory but not as good at deductive reasoning. The plot keeps you turning pages but the clues that propel the story feel pretty unbelievable at times. Some are just straight up stretches that’ll have you cocking your head.
It was a decent commercial fiction read but unfortunately some elements are handled poorly. Vernacular around body types and inclusive language in general is just really poorly handled. LGBTQIA2S issues are similarly mishandled.
Together it sours the ending of something that would have been fine, not great. It has good pacing and uneven dialogue, but better than just plain bad dialogue. I really like how in all of his books he doesn’t rely on sex or sexual tension between lead characters to gesture at their relationships or bait readers. He has men and women interacting like people and he writes women better than most commercial fiction, imo. It’s frustrating because it could have been legitimately really good and feature great representation, just fumbles it in the later 3/4.
Spoilers:
X
X
X
The villain is an intersex person who has some elements that were commendable. Using a huge audience to talk about how wrong it is for ignorant people to treat marginalized people, especially little known intersex people. But associating mental illness and questioning their gender. Flip flopping pronouns when sex is in question. The actual persons character arc and final end just further plays into how these characters are typed already. It’s too bad more effort wasn’t made to nail this character because it could have been much better.
DNF’d a quarter of the way in. I wasn’t super into the other books by this author but gave this a shot because I liked the concept a lot. The character is also likeable and it’s for a great hook but almost nothing happens for 100 pages, it retreads the exact same group multiple times.
It’ll be 2014 and you find out something about her and then it’s 1714 and you find out... the exact same thing about her all over again. There’s some contrast of circumstance but it really bugged me. In conjunction with the narrative voice, which is really odd with perspectives, I just couldn’t get into it at all. Usually I jump off 50 pages in and I more than doubled it for this one to see if it got interesting.
It’s charming and I think well written for what it’s going for, just very much against my grain, I guess.
It’ll be 2014 and you find out something about her and then it’s 1714 and you find out... the exact same thing about her all over again. There’s some contrast of circumstance but it really bugged me. In conjunction with the narrative voice, which is really odd with perspectives, I just couldn’t get into it at all. Usually I jump off 50 pages in and I more than doubled it for this one to see if it got interesting.
It’s charming and I think well written for what it’s going for, just very much against my grain, I guess.
Raunchy and candid. Some of the bits get a bit old, skipping ahead (sure, sex is good but have you____) for like more than 3 minutes is just really, really annoying and not at all funny anymore. There was another thing that was like that. But overall it’s insightful and endearing and pretty funny.