10
Review: Bad Marie by Marcy Dermansky
Bad Marie, the latest offering from the talented author Marcy Dermansky, is a quick and fantastic read.
The main character Marie is so very, very awful that you can’t help but love her. She is a modern-day Scarlett O’Hara, self-centered, opportunistic, and completely incapable of making safe or sensible choices for herself. If you can imagine a french film noir perched atop the wreckage of a fresh auto accident that you can’t look away from, then you might be reading Bad Marie.
Fabulous and hard to put down, this page turner found me talking to the book “Don’t do it Marie…don’t…ahhh…she did it. Now I must turn the page to see how the carnage plays out. Oh No! She just made it even worse! No Marie!”
Loved to Hate This Drunken Kidnapping Hedonistic Ex-con Bad Girl
- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: Harper Perennial; 1 edition (June 22, 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0061914711
- ISBN-13: 978-0061914713
29
Your Neighborhood Gives Me the Creeps by Adam Selzer
Your Neighborhood Gives Me The Creeps tells about the wayward adventures of Adam Selzer, self proclaimed nerd, Ghost Hunter, Paranormal investigator, and skeptic. Adam’s scientific approach and healthy skepticism, along with his good hearted ability to keep quiet and not spoil anyone’s fun (Dude. That picture you just took that you think is a ghost? That’s actually a reflection of your ear) make this an interesting read. If you are at all worried about ghosts, reading this book will make you feel a thousand times better.
Original Spooky Amusing Historical schadenfreude.
7
Personal Effects – Dark Art
Wow! Abandon all reality ye who enter here.
Personal Effects: Dark Art by J.C. Hutchins is Silence of the Lambs meets X-files meets C.S.I. as written by a Christine era Stephen King.
As if that wasn’t cool enough, each book comes complete with a copy of the case file. I loved pawing through the personal effects (state i.d., birth and death certificates, psych hospital incident reports, murder photos (yes! really!) etc. Also, there were realtime websites to visit and phone numbers to call. This book dares the reader to solve the murders and mysteries before they do.
The book itself is the story of Zach Taylor, Art Therapist to the criminally insane, and son to a mother that was brutally murdered before his 4-year-old generation Y eyes many years ago. Zach is desperately trying to cure the psychosomatic blindness of a patient/murderer before he stands trial. He relies upon a colorful cast of urban characters, each one more vivid than the last, to help him toward his goal. We the reader are treated to Zach’s own sketches throughout the story, further blurring the lines between writer and reader. I swear, this book becomes PERSONAL. Well done, Hutchins and Weisman. I award you 10 points out of 10, and ask for a sequel a.s.a.p.
Full Frontal Psychological Thriller Bitch Slaps Reality, Shockingly Good Read.
- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin; Har/Pap edition (June 9, 2009)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0312383827
26
Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella
Sophie Kinsella follows her tried and true formula for Chic-Lit with a fresh novel, called Twenties Girl. this book tells the story of Lara Lington, who finds herself suddenly haunted by a little known great-aunt, Sadie, who recently passed away.
Great-Aunt Sadie’s ghost acts as both guardian angel and tormentor to Lara, helping her to launch her sinking business career, get over her deadbeat ex-boyfriend, and hooking her up with a shiny new (and unsurprisingly perfect) man.
Great Aunt Sadie goes on to help solve some previously unsuspected family mysteries. In the end this previously overlooked and often ignored dead relative manages to touch everyone in the family posthumously.
This book was comforting in its predictability. No surprises, no shocking plot twists, just straight up chic-lit.
Formulaic chick-lit, high twenties influenced romantic mystery ghost story
- Paperback: 448 pages
- Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback; Signed edition (March 9, 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0385342039
15
Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth
Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth by Xiaolu Guo tells the story of Fenfang Wang, a modern minded 21 year old woman eking out a living in metropolitan Beijing, mainly by working as a film extra. Fenfang eschews her peasant background, while trying to convince herself to pursue her lukewarm wish to become a serious film actress. Unsatisfying romantic entanglements, par for the course sexist roadblocks, and a peripatetic living situation contribute to the impression that Fenfang is bored, lonely, and unfulfilled – yet in spite of this she comes across as an extremely likable character. I found myself rooting for her to find some meaning, or at least some direction in her life throughout the story. At the end of the book, Fenfang remains undefined, but she does find contentment in a surprising place.
The descriptions of modern day Communist China offer great insight as to why Chinese twenty-somethings flock to McDonalds, and the photos of the city peppered randomly throughout the text are a surprise treat. From an Anthropological point of view, this book is a must read.
Misogyny, Communist Chinese twenty-something woman, desperation, longing, thought provoking,
- Paperback: 176 pages
- Publisher: Anchor (August 11, 2009)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0307389383
- Amazon Link
9
The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker
The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker tells the story of Truly Place, a woman of massive proportions and grotesque features coping with daily life in a small town. A million thoughtlessly candid cruelties are visited upon Truly by the town folk every day, but it is the narcissistic neglectful avoidance by her incandescently beautiful sister Serena Jane that penetrates Truly’s thick skin of resigned serenity.Fully cognizant of her hideous appearance, Truly plows through life with her reality firmly checked and her optimism intact. When she unravels a family mystery that has plagued her in-laws for 4 generations, she discovers her backbone, and we, the reader, discover the pulse of the story.
This book artfully weaves together several story lines, and was admittedly hard to put down. Chock full of visceral descriptivism, and morose realities as it was, it still managed to hold my interest on every single page.
Serial Herbalist, New England, Freak, Murder, Mystery, Visceral, Female, Lovely.
- Paperback: 368 pages
- Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; Reprint edition (January 25, 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0446194220
- Amazon Link
