read 50 books in 2008

Yeah, I’m a big Koontz fan. 4.5/5 stars!

I am of two minds about this book. On one hand, this book kept me interested and made me read it from start to finish without much self-prodding.

On the other hand, it’s so freakin cheesy my eyesockets are sore from all those eyerolling. The book is told from the female protagonist’s perspective, and the reader is told many, many, MANY TIMES, that her boyfriend smells SO NICE, that her heart jumped everytime he touched her, bla bla bla, bla bla, bla bla… argggh.

3/5 stars.

Book 26: Hideaway – Dean Koontz. An antique dealer died and came back. But with him… he brought something else. A serial killer died and came back. But with him… he brought something else as well. 4/5 stars.

Book 27: Strangers – Dean Koontz. An author found himself running from something while sleepwalking. He was afraid, but he didn’t even know what he was afraid of. A doctor suddenly found herself terrorized by everyday objects. She, the author, and several more people, share a destiny that transcend that of mankind’s. 5/5 stars.

Book 28: Midnight – Dean Koontz. A deranged, psychotic genius is trying out his vision of bringing mankind beyond evolution. Turned out that he doesn’t know as much as he thinks… 3.5/5 stars

Quite an interesting one. I’d give it 2.5/5 stars.

What an action packed book! A page turner from beginning to finish.

4/5

This book is way too looooooooooooongggggggggggggggggg. WAY TOO LONG!!! WAY! TOO! LONG!!!!!!!!

This book is ONE smucking puffickly huh-yooge bool! (and if that last sentence didn’t make sense to you… you’ll see plenty of smucking puffickly huh-yooge bool in the book. Literally.)

This is probably the most tiring Stephen King’s book I’ve ever read. I kept getting frustrated at the incredible amount of useless, pointless, not-adding-anything-to-the-discussion fluff that I had to go through to get to the smucking point. I was close to abandoning the book a few times, only King’s reputation kept me going… plus the fact that this book won the Bram Stoker Award.

A case in point:

Lisey got a call from guy, who said: “Mrs. Landon?”. She was trying to put a name on that voice. She couldn’t, yet she didn’t think any of the names she knew would call that number. So the guy said again: “Mrs. Landon?”

Easy, right? Straight to the point, we get what’s happening, right? Now see how King writes it:

(begin)
There was a moment or two of silence, and then a male voice—one she thought she knew—said: “Mrs. Landon?”

It was Lisey’s turn to pause as she ran through a list of male names. Pretty short list these days; it was amazing how your husband’s death pruned your catalogue of acquaintances. There was Jacob Montano, their lawyer in Portland; Arthur Williams, the accountant in New York who wouldn’t let go of a dollar until the eagle shrieked for mercy (or died of asphyxiation);
Deke Williams—no relation to Arthur—the contractor from Bridgton who’d turned the empty haylofts over the barn into Scott’s study and who’d also remodeled the second floor of their house, transforming previously dim rooms into wonderlands of light; Smiley Flanders, the plumber from over in Motton with the endless supply of jokes both clean and dirty; Charlie Haddonfield, Scott’s agent, who called on business from time to time (foreign rights and short-story anthologies, mostly); plus the handful of Scott’s friends who still kept in touch. But none of those people would call on this number, surely, even if it were listed. Was it? She couldn’t remember. In any case, none of the names seemed to fit how she knew (or thought she knew) the voice. But, damn it—

“Mrs. Landon?”
(end)

See what I’m saying? I don’t smucking care about acquaintances who don’t add anything to the story! The book is chock-bloated-full with these annoying paragraphs after paragraphs that are not really saying anything.

Another example:

Lisey bought some cigarettes.

You thought King would leave it at that. Oh, no no no. Here’s King’s version of ‘Lisey buying some ciggies’:

(begin)
Naresh Patel, owner of Patel’s Market, was himself on duty when Lisey came in at just past five o’clock on that long, long Thursday. He was sitting behind the cash register in a lawn chair, eating a curry and watching Shania Twain gyrate on Country Music Television. He put his curry aside and actually stood up for Lisey. His tee-shirt read I DARK SCORE LAKE.
“I’d like a pack of Salem Lights, please,” Lisey said. “Actually, you better make that two.”
Mr. Patel had been keeping store—first as an employee in his father’s New Jersey market, then as owner of his own—for nearly forty years, and he knew better than to comment on apparent teetotalers who suddenly began buying booze or apparent non-smokers who suddenly began buying cigarettes. He simply found this lady’s particular poison in his well-stocked racks of the stuff, put it on the counter, and commented on the beauty of the day. He affected not to notice Mrs. Landon’s expression of near shock at the price of her poison. It only showed how long her pause had been between cessation and resumption. At least this one could afford her poison; Mr.Patel had customers who took food out of their children’s mouths to buy this stuff.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Very welcome, please come again,” Mr. Patel said, and settled back to watch Darryl Worley sing “Awful, Beautiful Life.” It was one of his favorites.
(end)

Geez!!! Mr. Patel didn’t add a SINGLE BIT to the story! Was all that crap necessary?! NONE of those unwanted, unnecessary information was referred again anywhere in the story!

Now the thing is, the story is actually pretty good. But you only get to the good bit IF you’re patient enough to go through the irrelevant annoying crap first.

If it weren’t Stephen King, I don’t think I’d finish this book ever.

Wow. This is an amazing book about the love of two mothers, one deranged, psychopathic, murderously insane, the other the real one, who’d stop at nothing to get her son back. I couldn’t kept myself from turning page after page as the latter chased the former for one baby, leaving deaths and destruction in their wake. And absolute page-turner.

5/5 stars.

This is an excellent book about forex trading! It’s a book that I actually look forward to finish, it reads like a novel. Very informative and actually fun.

5/5 stars.

An OK book about an old WW2 submarine that emerged back from the depth of the sea after many years buried deep under the seabed. Not as good as Baal.

2.5/5 stars.

This is an exciting book! It’s McCammon’s first novel about Baal the Lord of Destruction, and as he roams the world leaving behind deaths and chaos, trailed closely behind by a hunter/shaman, theologian, and somebody not exactly human.

McCammon is a master of description. While reading the book I could feel as if I was in the book itself, shivering with the extreme cold of the North and disgusted by the atrocities in the desert.

3.5/5 stars.