Shorts Reviews

Some short reviews on books I've read in the past few weeks and whether you should read them ;)

Room by Emma Donoghue. 

Jack is five, and excited about his birthday. He lives with his Ma in Room, which has a locked door and a skylight, and measures eleven feet by eleven feet. He loves watching TV, and the cartoon characters he calls friends, but he knows that nothing he sees on screen is truly real - only him, Ma and the things in Room. Until the day Ma admits that there's a world outside... Told in Jack's voice, Room is the story of a mother and son whose love lets them survive the impossible. Unsentimental and sometimes funny, devastating yet uplifting, Room is a novel like no other.
I try to read a lot of modern literature to improve my English. Some of them are pretentious, plotless and overly descriptive just for the hell of it but some are really great. This was one of the good ones. I was very invested in what would happen and I think Donoghue has taken an original story and made it her own. Sometimes it was hard to read but by writing this entirely from Jack's POV, it keeps it simple and a bit naive. Although when it comes to happenings like these I don't mind being naive at all. 4/5 stars

Treachery in Death by J.D. Robb

Detective Eve Dallas and her partner, Peabody, are following up on a senseless crime—an elderly grocery owner killed by three stoned punks for nothing more than kicks and snacks. This is Peabody's first case as primary detective—good thing she learned from the master.

But Peabody soon stumbles upon a trickier situation. After a hard workout, she's all alone in the locker room when the gym door clatters open; and-while hiding inside a shower stall trying not to make a sound—she overhears two fellow officers, Garnet and Oberman, arguing. It doesn't take long to realize they're both crooked—guilty not just of corruption but of murder. Now Peabody, Eve, and Eve's husband, Roarke, are trying to get the hard evidence they need to bring the dirty cops down—knowing all the while that the two are willing to kill to keep their secret.

There are over 33 books in this series and still I'm not tired of them. Kick-ass cop Eve Dallas and genius billionaire Roarke are still one of the best characters Roberts has ever created. And I've read a lot of them. This story takes another turn than usual because instead of solving a homicide, Dallas and her team have to take out a group of rogue cops. You really feel like you know them and their interactions are very funny. 

4.5/5 stars

Good Omen's by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Pratchett (of Discworld fame) and Gaiman (of Sandman fame) may seem an unlikely combination, but the topic (Armageddon) of this fast-paced novel is old hat to both. Pratchett's wackiness collaborates with Gaiman's morbid humor; the result is a humanist delight to be savored and reread again and again. You see, there was a bit of a mixup when the Antichrist was born, due in part to the machinations of Crowley, who did not so much fall as saunter downwards, and in part to the mysterious ways as manifested in the form of a part-time rare book dealer, an angel named Aziraphale. Like top agents everywhere, they've long had more in common with each other than the sides they represent, or the conflict they are nominally engaged in. The only person who knows how it will all end is Agnes Nutter, a witch whose prophecies all come true, if one can only manage to decipher them. The minor characters along the way (Famine makes an appearance as diet crazes, no-calorie food and anorexia epidemics) are as much fun as the story as a whole, which adds up to one of those rare books which is enormous fun to read the first time, and the second time, and the third time..

The very dry humor makes this book for me. I love absurd humor á la Monty Python and Fawlty Towers and this has the same tone. It doesn't make a lot of sense but it sure is amusing. I really hope they will make a series out of this as long as it is done right. It's not for everybody but you should definitely give it a try :) 4/5 stars

Also I NEED this shirt :P