An Education in Malice - ST Gibson

42%

23.03.26

An education in overwrought, badly paced, over-adjectification. Yet another book very loosely based on Carmilla (in the sense of there being some vampires, girls in love and a character called Carmilla) but it didn't seem to make any particular point. Although if I'd drunk a shot of blood every time I read the word 'delicate', I'd be immortal by now.

An Unwanted Inheritance - Imogen Clark

 42%

30.10.24

You wouldn't want to meet any of the horrible, entitled characters in this book (especially the sanctimonious 'main' character) but that's OK, because nobody actually behaves like them in real life. It was all tedious telling and not showing, with no real emotional engagement. And it didn't actually address the ultimate point - even if (spoiler) the cash was not ill-gotten, the rest of the estate probably was.

Nowhere to Hide - Keri Beevis

 42%

10.07.24

From the Shari Lapena school of telling, not showing, this was a long, often grammatically dodgy synopsis with too many expositional flashbacks and not enough emotional development or psychological realism. I only read it because it was (partly) set in my local area, but it could have been anywhere.

Theodore Boone: The Fugitive - John Grisham

42%
17.04.20

Oh dear. This was more the quality of Camino Island than The Rainmaker, and in fact I wonder whether Grisham's name on the cover is his only involvement in these more recent novels. If I were him, I'd not want anything to do with such a dull, emotionless, impersonal book. I didn't even care enough to hate it.

Song in the Wrong Key - Simon Lipson

42%
22.04.12

When I first started reviewing books ten years ago, I never imagined that an author could promote their title on Twitter and that it could be downloaded onto a Kindle and I would write about it on a blog. (I also never imagined that the technology of the future would have such odd names.) Now books can be self-published and their authors are less remote and more likely to see obscure reviews like this one. So. 1) It has a great cover, which admittedly isn't much of an advantage on an e-reader. 2) I got to the end. 3) There were no obvious typos but it would benefit from a structural editor, a copy editor and a proofreader to give it the polish required to really make it shine.

New Moon - Stephenie Meyer

42%
26.11.09

Oh well. This is a poor parody of her own work. Choice lines include: "My best friend is a werewolf; must he also be a monster?" and, mostly aptly, "this has all gotten too ridiculous". Indeed.

House of Orphans - Helen Dunmore

42%
01.06.09

Although some members of my reading group liked this, I found it such a struggle that I had to give up. Yet another with heavy-handed metaphors, two-dimensional characters and very little plot - too much like a novel that is only written to be written about.

Staying Alive - Matt Beaumont

42%
16.06.07




His earlier book, 'e.', captured the zeitgeist, but this was dross even by holiday reading standards. Poorly crafted and, worse, not as funny as it was trying so hard to be. Another creative writing class reject.