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michaelcattigan's reviews
469 reviews
The Small Hand by Susan Hill
4.0
A lovely gentle haunting book: the idea of the small ghostly hand sliding into the narrator's in a ruined garden halfway reduced to wilderness is a beautiful one.
The following pages, however, although well written I felt lacked some of the tension that I had been anticipating, the narrator would tell of the fear and dread he felt but just fall short of conveying it to me. And the twist at the end, the explanation was just a little too obviously signposted.
It remains, however, a lovely little book, which just fell a little short of the anticipation it generated.
The following pages, however, although well written I felt lacked some of the tension that I had been anticipating, the narrator would tell of the fear and dread he felt but just fall short of conveying it to me. And the twist at the end, the explanation was just a little too obviously signposted.
It remains, however, a lovely little book, which just fell a little short of the anticipation it generated.
The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse
4.0
A lovely haunting and poignant Christmas-time ghost story. No real brain power required but a good read which, as Mosse often does, intertwines the past and the present.
The Stonehenge Legacy by Sam Christer
1.0
What a totally disappointing book. Begun at 11:00 on a train and finished by the time I returned home at 6:00, it really is that thin despite the 500 or so pages.
The basic premise of the story is that a secret cult worships at Stonehenge or some other underground version of it and requires sacrifices. They obtain sacrifices; the police become involved; that's it. Secret cults... Ancient settings... an academic unwittingly involved in their machinations. Did someone give Sam Christer the how-to-write-a-Dan-Brown-novel kit for Christmas?
Chapters rarely extended more than 2 pages and there was almost no development of setting, visualisation or atmosphere within them; the plot really is paper thin to non-existent; every so-called twist was so patently obvious and clumsily handled that everything was predictable. What can save a poorly plotted novel is character. The novel as a genre gifts to the writer the space needed to create characters who are three-dimensional, realistic, capable of being identified with and emphathised with. Christer didn't even try.
And for some unknown reason Christer decided to write in the present tense. Why? It added nothing to the plot; it could have made visual descriptions more vivid, but he hadn't included any; it was just, well, odd!
Overall:
A good pace meant that I didn't waste more than a day on the book;
Derivative premise, under-developed characters, no atmosphere, no tension, no style did mean that it was a day totally wasted!
The basic premise of the story is that a secret cult worships at Stonehenge or some other underground version of it and requires sacrifices. They obtain sacrifices; the police become involved; that's it. Secret cults... Ancient settings... an academic unwittingly involved in their machinations. Did someone give Sam Christer the how-to-write-a-Dan-Brown-novel kit for Christmas?
Chapters rarely extended more than 2 pages and there was almost no development of setting, visualisation or atmosphere within them; the plot really is paper thin to non-existent; every so-called twist was so patently obvious and clumsily handled that everything was predictable. What can save a poorly plotted novel is character. The novel as a genre gifts to the writer the space needed to create characters who are three-dimensional, realistic, capable of being identified with and emphathised with. Christer didn't even try.
And for some unknown reason Christer decided to write in the present tense. Why? It added nothing to the plot; it could have made visual descriptions more vivid, but he hadn't included any; it was just, well, odd!
Overall:
A good pace meant that I didn't waste more than a day on the book;
Derivative premise, under-developed characters, no atmosphere, no tension, no style did mean that it was a day totally wasted!
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
5.0
I was lent this by a student at school - ironically as one of the main features in the book is that Charlie is lent books by his English teacher! It took a while to get around to actually opening it, I think the word "wallflower" in the title put me off! Once I did start though, I did have to concede that it is an extremely good book!
The book is an epistolary novel and we are never told to whom Charlie, a rather disturbed young man at high school, is writing. I suppose that this anonymity is designed to encourage the reader to feel that the letters are written to them directly. The story, therefore, needs an authentic and engaging voice to succeed, and I felt it did achieve this. It is clear throughout that the narrator is not a traditional school child: there are elements that feel autistic, elements that feel almost schizophrenic in his character; he is under the care of a psychiatrist throughout the novel and has difficulty engaging in his own life. He seems to prefer being the "wallflower" of the title: observing life around him, rather than taking part.
The novel does have a rather sixties / seventies feel to it, possibly because some elements of the story are meant to be autobiographical. The drug taking, LSD and cannabis, did feel out of date and there was no references to culture or contemporary life to fix it in time. I suppose this may be a deliberate choice to create a "timeless", "classic" feel but it did jar a little.
There is a twist at the end of the novel, which does lend some explanation for Charlie's condition, and it has to be said that this actually took me by surprise! Without wanting to sound big-headed, but as an English teacher and avid reader, that doesn't happen often!!
The book is an epistolary novel and we are never told to whom Charlie, a rather disturbed young man at high school, is writing. I suppose that this anonymity is designed to encourage the reader to feel that the letters are written to them directly. The story, therefore, needs an authentic and engaging voice to succeed, and I felt it did achieve this. It is clear throughout that the narrator is not a traditional school child: there are elements that feel autistic, elements that feel almost schizophrenic in his character; he is under the care of a psychiatrist throughout the novel and has difficulty engaging in his own life. He seems to prefer being the "wallflower" of the title: observing life around him, rather than taking part.
The novel does have a rather sixties / seventies feel to it, possibly because some elements of the story are meant to be autobiographical. The drug taking, LSD and cannabis, did feel out of date and there was no references to culture or contemporary life to fix it in time. I suppose this may be a deliberate choice to create a "timeless", "classic" feel but it did jar a little.
There is a twist at the end of the novel, which does lend some explanation for Charlie's condition, and it has to be said that this actually took me by surprise! Without wanting to sound big-headed, but as an English teacher and avid reader, that doesn't happen often!!