**spoiler alert** !Spolier Alert! I really mean it, people. There is a HUGE spoiler here
Alternative title: The Weiner
This book reminds me so much of th**spoiler alert** !Spolier Alert! I really mean it, people. There is a HUGE spoiler here
Alternative title: The Weiner
This book reminds me so much of the episode in The Brady Bunch when Greg gets paid to have raunchy butt sex with his next-door neighbor, then he falls in love with her daughter. Except in The Brady Bunch S03E05, the neighbor is eighty-two years old, and her daughter is sixty. There was no mention of butt sex in the series because this was network TV in the late 1960s, but it was hinted at with the usual dreadful euphemisms of the day.
Connor The-Tool is a good-looking tennis teacher and recent law school graduate who comes to comes to white people heaven to make money to support his sickly mother. What a great kid!
What I found dubious in the novel was that once Connor was felated to within an inch of his life by the old broad, any normal male would have dumped the daughter, who was less than stellar in the sack, to put it politely. There’s lots of time in life for age-appropriate puntang, so when you have a maniacal cougar screwing your brains out, put the possible marriage material on hold.
There is a poorly choreographed assault scene that made little sense and here is when the story truly went off the rails for me. The novel describes how silly this scene was for me:
No jury would accept that a twenty-five-year-old male athlete had been in such fear for his life that he’d had to defend himself with this degree of force against a forty-nine-year-old woman.
As a reader, I didn’t accept it, either. He is a tall, athletic young man who is attacked by a woman pushing fifty who hits him with a tennis racket, not exactly a samurai sword. Then, his first instinct is to cave in her head with a 25 pound metal racket stringer. This was just stupid, unless he had a history of psychopathy.
It’s sort of like The Talented Mr. Ripley except this guy has to clean his spunk from the inside of his cougar fuck-buddy’s Mercedes.
Had Connor been arrested and charged, I would have rated this book 1 Star. I didn't like it much, but I like stories where the bad guys get away with it, not that there is anything wrong with me. I'm not sociopath, I just like crime fiction and the bad guys almost never walk away at the end.
I hated the whole affair between the kid and the MILF, and her sexual banter was embarrassing to read and would have been the biggest turn-off for me. Example:
“Are the pipes clogged?” she asked, helping him along. The floorboards creaked in back of him. “Yes. It’ll be expensive to fix.” “Oh, dear,” Catherine said right behind him. “My husband will be so upset. I don’t suppose we can work something out?” “Maybe,” Conor said, and as soon as the words were out, Catherine’s hand was between his legs. “Good,” she said. “Because we can’t have any pipes clogged around here.”
Clogged pipes. Get it? I groaned when I read this, and not in any sort of sexual way....more
**spoiler alert** This was so all over the place that I got seasick.
The entire premise is sort of stupid: a single hater launches a campaign to ruin t**spoiler alert** This was so all over the place that I got seasick.
The entire premise is sort of stupid: a single hater launches a campaign to ruin the career of a writer. Then, the rest of the internet herd piles on. I’ve never seen this happen and I’ve been on GR for a long time. If anything, the reverse is true. People pile on to praise a truly horrible book.
The real story is worse and makes even less sense. It’s basically all about a mean high school girl who is jealous because another girl likes the guy she likes, so she helps the girl to overdose, then films it and posts it on social media, the cyber sewer.
The whole angle of the “Hater” ruining the author’s life didn’t work for me at all. What kind of adult receives a crank/threatening call and tries to argue with them? You hang up immediately, right? I was taught this lesson at age five and was surprised that my parents even knew that I was making crank calls.
The protagonist is a high school counselor, yet she doesn’t seem to have a single person in her life who likes her, and this includes her family and even her boyfriend. Isn’t that sort of his job? Is he just hate-fucking her?
She’s a terrible parent and her daughter can’t stand her for many reasons. Her daughter is a total creep, so, good job of parenting. Her daughter does nothing when her friend overdoses at a party, basically leaving her for dead. That qualifies her as a monster in my book. Then, in the biggest asshole move ever, when her own damn mother is in a crisis, she blocks mommy’s number.
I also didn’t like the idea of basically giving us two books to read: this one and the book she wrote. I don’t think her book and the main story had sufficient parallels to make us suffer through reading Burnt Orchid.
I think the subtext here is people who leave less than glowing reviews are animals. Sorry, but people pay money for books and deserve some sort of accountability, something rarely provided by the media as they are all owned by the same conglomerates that own the book publishers and movie studios. I hate it when reviewers here apologize for giving a book a harsh review, like they are doing something wrong by giving an honest opinion. If you look at most of the most-liked reviews that giving glowing, five stars to a book, you will find little in the way of a review and just stupid shit like, “loved it,” or whatever, or just a synopsis. ...more
**spoiler alert** I read this when it came out in 1987 which is 47 years ago. Just doing the math to remind myself how fucking old I am. This came out**spoiler alert** I read this when it came out in 1987 which is 47 years ago. Just doing the math to remind myself how fucking old I am. This came out back when people still read quite a lot, a lot more than today, I think. At least I remember that people talked about books more, at least in my circle of friends at that time. I remember that everyone was reading this book. It was passed around, or more accurately, people shoved it in other people’s faces demanding that they read it.
This was one of the first legal thrillers I remember reading and I believe it redefined the genre from the Perry Mason school of legal thrillers, if you could call them thrillers.
This originality is one of the things that pushed me to five stars. There were also some twists that really took me off-guard. The judge dismissing the case after the prosecution rested. I’d never seen that before or since and didn’t even know that was a thing. Maybe it ain’t a thing. I also like how his cop buddy pulled his nuts out of the fire a couple times.
The twist about the wife doing it seemed obvious to me, even way back then, and it seemed stupid that the prosecution didn’t even consider this angle.
My recent interest in the book is due to the recent series being released now which I have to say that I’m not digging too much. The 1990 film by Alan J. Pakula did a great job of adapting the book and I even liked Harrison Ford who shined among a cast of great actors like Raul Julia, Brian Dennehy, and Paul Winfield, among others....more
Back when Stephen King first hit the book/movie scene with an immediate splash, I was an earnest university student playing the role of the pseudo-intBack when Stephen King first hit the book/movie scene with an immediate splash, I was an earnest university student playing the role of the pseudo-intellectual dipshit. I did a fair job of it. SK was for booger-eaters and acned pre-teens and I steered clear. Then I saw The Shawshank Redemption, loved it, and was shocked to find that it was from a SK story. I wouldn’t say that I became a fan, and definitely nothing like an acolyte in the SK army, but I read his stuff almost religiously so as not to allow another masterpiece to pass me by.
I don’t even have a label for “horror” because I don’t read that stuff. I don't do paranormal. There is a lot of that sort of silly shit in this collection.
My favorite of the bunch was “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream” which also has its feet mostly on the ground except for the dream. It’s mostly a hard-boiled crime story about a cop who sort of loses his shit on an investigation and sets out to nail who he thinks is guilty no matter what.
Most of the others are forgettable. I admire the hell out of King simply for his tireless obsession with getting every single one of his ideas down on paper. I think he'd be a better writer if he wrote less....more
I read this in English way, way back when it came out. The book that inspired Munich, perhaps my favorite Spielberg film. The book is good, the film iI read this in English way, way back when it came out. The book that inspired Munich, perhaps my favorite Spielberg film. The book is good, the film is great.
Even when I read the book way back in 1984, the parts outside of those that could be verified sounded like fiction. Still, it’s a great story and sort of a David and Goliath tale, except when it drags down into a pointless blood feud between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
On that front, nothing has changed in the entire history of this conflict that I’m tired of hearing about, to be honest.
That's it for this review as I'm just trying to clean out my "Currently Reading" file as mine was looking like a hillbilly's garage.
P.S. I had no Fourth of July plans so I bought some great bockwurst and some lovely small loaves of bread yesterday so I can have a couple of hotdogs. That counts as American, right?...more
I made it through about half of this before DNF. It was mostly too outlandish for my tastes. A brain surgeon is blackmailed into killing the POTUS on I made it through about half of this before DNF. It was mostly too outlandish for my tastes. A brain surgeon is blackmailed into killing the POTUS on the operating table after his daughter is kidnapped by nefarious elements. His dead wife’s sister just happens to be a Secret Service agent, so he confides in her. Just way too much of a silly coincidence for me. I just thought that the premise was just ridiculous. On top of that, my fucking god was this thing too long. He writes nothing but doorstop novels. Doesn’t anyone have an editor these days?...more
This is part of my plan to read exclusively in Spanish and as many pages as I possibly can in an effort to raise my level a few notches in the shortesThis is part of my plan to read exclusively in Spanish and as many pages as I possibly can in an effort to raise my level a few notches in the shortest time possible.
Here is something that I’ve learned about mysteries and thrillers: most people will swallow any sort of stupid shit they are fed as long as you give them a reason to keep reading. The bait is resolving the mystery and there is absolutely no reason for the mystery to make a lick of sense. If you are looking for this novel to make sense, you are in for a huge disappointment.
La Música de los Huesos
Dumb title, right out of the starting gate. Then it takes over half the novel for anything significant to happen. Before that, all we get is a girl from Madrid going back to her family’s palatial country home, how they can afford it and the upkeep isn’t mentioned.
Anne paints herself as a nice girl who can’t cook but loves a good tortilla de patatas, like every nice Spanish girl from a good family. Then she goes to the music festival and drinks like a 70’s rock drummer, and not the ones who survived. Then she smokes pot while her bestie takes ecstasy. I’m not judging, but it just seemed out of character.
Y lo peor de todo: Anne tenía razón. Y él la había tratado como un idiota.
Yes, the whole scene when he (they) interviewed the people in Esparza de Salazar and then Gabriel lost his mind and screamed at Anne because why? She asked a couple of questions? Jesus, why didn’t he just beat her up on top of yelling at her? He’s an asshole. Period.
The story involves some sort of hippie Manson-like drug cult and, once again, two nice Spanish girls get mixed up with their shenanigans. Murder and mayhem ensue.
As far as endings go, this was one of the stupidest and silliest I've read, and that's saying a lot....more
Under genres like mystery, horror, fiction there were also a few, less well-known categories. Namely “tree branch corn-holing” and “by far the worst cUnder genres like mystery, horror, fiction there were also a few, less well-known categories. Namely “tree branch corn-holing” and “by far the worst crime I have ever been called upon to examine.”
I’m so glad that my Goodreads friends warned me about this novel, telling me that half the novel is police procedural, and the other part paranormal bullshit that I can’t tolerate. This was a decent gym audio book for the first part, but I won’t be around when it swings into the anti-reality. I just can’t do that shit which is why I avoided Stephen King for so many years. I love lots of his stuff, but I don’t do paranormal, not even a little.
I was listening to the audio at the gym and thus prepared to get off at my stop, the one where reality ends and hocus-pocus begins....more
There are so many things I didn’t like about this that it’ll be hard to list them, but I’ll try. First of all, are we really going to play the “there’There are so many things I didn’t like about this that it’ll be hard to list them, but I’ll try. First of all, are we really going to play the “there’s no cell-phone service” card, or the equally stupid, “My battery is almost empty.” Both of these issues are enough of a horror story for most young people (see “The Nightmare” below).
I hate it when characters are constantly asking questions from the reader, stuff like, “What’s he going to do?” Or:
Would he use it on us, too? How much would it hurt to die that way? Would every blow register, or would that first strike be the last thing I felt? Would we make it to one more switchback? Let alone to the point where we’d have cell reception again? What if we were too far down in the canyon to get cell reception? Was something falling apart? The bumper? Part of the undercarriage? The engine itself? What else would Red Mask do if given the opportunity?
This device is used to the extreme throughout this book, if that is what you are looking for. I am not. I want to answer back, “How the hell would I know?”
In real life, once you were dead you were dead.
Really, is that what this is, real life?
Another thing that bugged me was the narrator constantly telling the reader how scared she was without really explaining why. The story wasn’t scary at all, a murderous fraternity? They were involved with pimping out college girls, white slavery, and putting on fuck rodeos for entertainment. Fraternities are creepy, everyone knows that already. Any young girl who goes near these guys is lacking in common sense, like some idiot who doesn’t bring a long a charger for her phone.
The Nightmare
It was sexy pajama party night at the Omega OMG sorority house and all the young ladies were clad in their skimpiest nighties, all crowded around the warm fire as they watched a horror movie on the big screen. They were counting on the safety in numbers hypothesis to keep them from the wrath of a serial killer stalking the campus, a fiend who’d ended the lives of four young women so far with no leads in the case.
An hour into the film, right when the first sexy coed was walking down into the basement to retrieve her laundry where the ghoul was hiding in wait, the screen on the TV went blank.
“Not now, this is the best part,” Cindy squealed.
Candy looked at her phone.
“What the fuck? I don’t have any service.”
The other girls checked their gadgets. The cable was out meaning no TV, and no internet or phone service.
“This is the same thing that happened at the Mega Smegma house, right before Jen was murdered,” Cassie said, secretly thinking that the death of one of her sorority sisters would be a small price to pay to get her Instagram working again.
Just then, they all heard the front door crash open and slam shut violently. Tammy ran into the room in hysterics, bleeding from her neck.
“A man just tried to kill me. He stabbed me with a knife and tried to rip off my shirt,” Tammy said, forcing the words out through her sobs.
“That’s tragic, Tammy, but we have our own crisis going on right now that’s way more important than your little drama,” Candy shouted. “We don’t have phone or internet service.”
“Oh my god!” Tammy screeched as she applied direct pressure to her wound. “What are we going to do?”...more
Sorry, I don't do pedophilia. I could write more, but I have better things to do.Sorry, I don't do pedophilia. I could write more, but I have better things to do....more
There must be fifty pages of the narrator lamenting the death of her husband and having to give the news to family and friends. I wanted to scream at There must be fifty pages of the narrator lamenting the death of her husband and having to give the news to family and friends. I wanted to scream at her, “Dude, we get it. Gabe is dead. Stop fucking saying that and move on with the story.” When she does move on with it, it’s mostly stupid and annoying.
This is a woman in the security industry, paid to invade systems to find flaws, while putting herself into stressful situations where people who are unaware of her function are standing in her way. Yet, she's such a nervous nelly that you want to reach into the book and slap the snot out of her and tell her to get a hold or herself.
She also dated a cop, yet she hasn’t learned that you don’t talk to the police without a lawyer? That's a fact of life cops teach their own children. Her husband has been murdered and anyone with an IQ over 80 knows that spouses are at the top of the list of suspects, yet she goes into a police interview with the attitude that she has nothing to hide.
Once the police interview goes wrong, she asks for a lawyer. Another idiot move as there is no need for a lawyer when you can simply refuse to talk and walk away. The cops vaguely threatened to arrest her if she chose not to cooperate, but they have no evidence against her. Then she escapes from the police precinct. Maybe this was an exciting moment for some readers, but for anyone with even the remotest understanding of the law, it was fucking stupid. She doesn’t need to escape; she can simply walk away, and why she even went to the station to answer questions was even stupider.
If Jack is shitting herself at a police interview when she isn’t under arrest, you have to think she was shit at her job as a “penetration specialist.” Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, hardy har-har, and LOL.
Did I mention that Gabe is dead? Completely dead, corpse probably rotting at this point, just thought I needed to mention that again as this seems so incredibly important to point out in the book, just in case we’ve forgotten. Nope, Gabe is not gonna be around anymore, not in a living state. Gabe is definitely past tense, as the author points out again and again and again.
How do you mean?” “Someone took that policy out. And I really don’t think it was Gabe. It’s just not his style.” Wasn’t, I reminded myself bitterly. It wasn’t his style. Would I ever get used to thinking of him in the past tense? It seemed impossible that he was gone, even though I’d cradled his dead body in my arms.
Leaving a police interview isn’t any sort of crime if you aren’t under arrest, yet she claims she’s a fugitive and makes breaking out of a police precinct like she busted out of Alcatraz. She wasn’t under arrest when she went in for the interview, so explain why walking out of a voluntary questioning elevates her status to criminal.
She goes on a lamb, yet the cops weren’t really interested enough in her to charge her with a crime. Cops are shit at finding people they’re looking for, so why worry about someone they aren’t after? Then she decides to break into an insurance company to find the records of her husband’s file. That is a real crime, by the way. This was my DNF point (page 182).
I didn't make it to the end, but I'll say the butler did it, not that I care....more
The worst apocalypse tale I've come across and King's worst book that I've read. I just want this in my rear view mirror.The worst apocalypse tale I've come across and King's worst book that I've read. I just want this in my rear view mirror....more
This wasn’t much fun, and I loved a couple of her earlier books. This seemed rushed and phoned-in. Woman with evil husband meets boy-toy and they plotThis wasn’t much fun, and I loved a couple of her earlier books. This seemed rushed and phoned-in. Woman with evil husband meets boy-toy and they plot murder. Throw in some red herrings, a homeless ingenue, some sex, add some credulity-stretching twists, and out pops a thriller baby for the public to devour.
My biggest complaint is that the last third of the book was a bore because we sort of know what happened and are just waiting for the details to be sorted out, and it’s not like they make a ton of sense. Does her husband really monitor her every move? Doesn’t he have a demanding job? It’s just silly that he would have the resources and the energy to watch his wife 24/7, his slave. Who is really the slave in this relationship, I would ask her hubby if I were his therapist.
Slight Spoilers The police find the boyfriend’s jawbone in the sea and from that they can determine that he was stabbed repeatedly? Huh?
Why didn’t Lee ask the people at the spa before she went in if everything was paid for? Why did Hazel not pay for it upfront? It seemed this bit was put in just to add tension that shouldn’t have been there and was frustrating for this reader because I thought it was stupid. A homeless chick at some ultra-swanky spa wouldn’t make absolutely sure she wouldn’t have to pay before accepting all of their services? Unlikely.
It was never explained at all, really, just why evil hubby wanted to kill his wife.
How to get a fake passport:
“I found someone to make us fake IDs.” “How?” Hazel’s life seems to revolve around yoga and society lunches. Where did she meet a person with that capacity? “Online,” she says. “Reddit. I connected with this guy and he helped me. I had to go on the dark web!” She sounds thrilled, even proud. “We have to send passport-quality photos. It’s not cheap but they’ll be totally legit.”
Just contact the “dark web,” or look in the yellow pages (not sure if “yellow pages” are still a thing). That was way too facile. Fake passports these days would be super-difficult to impossible with fingerprinting and iris scans. If I were writing a story that required fake passports, I’d set if pre 9/11. I thought this was dopey, at best. So, Mr. Evil’s wife is super-hot with fake boobs, and she is seduced immediately by some ex-con hillbilly who works at her gym, then the same convict seduces the other heroine?
Once again, this was just filler for my gym sessions. I feel like I'm killing two birds and all, but am I really accomplishing anything by plowing through these "mysteries." If "poking holes in plots" is killing a bird, I think I need to kill something besides birds, if that makes sense to anyone, and if it does, can you explain it to me?...more
**spoiler alert** If you like books that make sense and are logical, you probably won’t like this novel. This book has been very successful, so I can **spoiler alert** If you like books that make sense and are logical, you probably won’t like this novel. This book has been very successful, so I can only imagine that these qualities aren’t highly regarded by most of the reading public. The new TV series is truly cringe-worthy (DEC23).
The book was obviously inspired by the Malaysian Airlines flight that disappeared without a trace. That was an airliner in the middle of the South China Sea, so looking for it was a nightmare as there were thousands and thousands of square kilometers to search. In this book, it was a small commuter aircraft with a very limited range so far fewer kilometers in the search area, so the probability of even a small plane disappearing isn’t too likely.
So, we start off with two sisters on a trip across the world. Then they have a short flight to their FINAL DESTINATION (I would play some organ chords for dramatic effect if only GR would allow sound). The small aircraft is lost without a trace along with only one of the sisters as the other missed the flight.
Two years later, the pilot shows up in Fiji when he is recognized. The population of Fiji is less than one million living mostly on two major islands. The pilot is Australian and would stand out considerably from the local populace. Could he really hide that long without being discovered? Doubtful, but it gets dumber.
The pilot is interviewed about the accident and is treated as if the police are looking for an overdue library book and not concerned about the fate of the lost passengers and crew. The pilot simply says he doesn’t remember, and that’s that. Sorry to bother you.
On the island, the pilot didn’t know where they were. Huh? He’d have some idea as it was a short flight. How far of-course could he possibly have flown? 25K? 50K?
There’s simply no way investigators would accept this sort of behavior from the pilot and would’ve probably charged him with murder, at least until he came clean. The author tries to side-step this huge hole in the plot by saying he’s in ill health. This isn’t some minor detail; this is the basis for the entire novel and it’s weak as hell.
Even the British consulate people seem unwilling to question the guy. Living sister talks to him and he tells her that the bodies were buried, “WE didn’t have a choice.” WE!
We had no choice. Not I, but we.’ Nathan has taken a slight step back and stares at me, confounded. ‘He’s lying to us,’ I finish.
Really? You think he’s lying when he says he doesn’t know what happened to the plane he was fucking flying, I screamed at my eBook. I miss paperbacks that I could hurl off my fourth floor balcony. OMG does the author make a lot of hay out of this “we” bit. Had I been out to discover the fate of a loved one, I would have tortured the prick until I got everything I needed from him.
Soon enough, we learn the plane went down on an island. This is handed to us as some sort of major revelation, but of course, it was an island as there are nothing but islands in the Sound Pacific. Where else would it have crashed? On a new and undiscovered continent? Besides the usual Gilligan’s Island crew of castaways there is a four-month-old baby. Ugh, I’m sure I’m going to hate this bit as babies can’t talk or add anything but dirty diapers and crying to a story.
Then the not-dead sister goes to the room where you pilot lived before he was discover several months earlier. His room is intact with all of his belongings. Ever heard of someone not paying their rent for a few months? Their shit is out on the curb before you can snap a finger. The police seemed to have barely bothered with his possessions.
The thing is, the bit about the recalcitrant pilot makes me doubt that the rest of the story will be worth it and I’m only a third of the way in. Then there’s the whole thing of the sister who is going to crack the mystery of a plane crash all on her lonesome, which is just silly as these incidents are exhaustively investigated, especially in this era of total paranoia over terrorism. But never fear, little Erin is going save the day and her sis.
I didn’t like the NOW / THEN alternating chapters between sisters. It's super-gimmicky and has been over-done to death.
Anyone who knows anything about the matter knows that in a survival situation, the first priority is to sort out sexual partners. Stressing out over sex will kill you faster than dehydration or hunger. And speaking of castaway orgies, all anyone could talk about from Gilligan’s Island is who would you choose: Mary Ann or Ginger? But what about the old gal? She was totally hot, and you just know she was a really bad girl, right? Anyway, that meant the Professor and Mr. Howell had three babes between them (Gilligan and Skipper were in a monogamous relationship).
Do not, and I mean this, do not finish reading. The end is pretty dumb and makes zero sense....more
DNF at 50%. Not much happens. Of course, there’s no cell phone reception. The woman is a total idiot, unable to master fire in her survival situation.DNF at 50%. Not much happens. Of course, there’s no cell phone reception. The woman is a total idiot, unable to master fire in her survival situation.
Her husband flew the coop. Is he good or bad? This is the basis of about ninety percent of these thrillers. Didn’t care either way. Sorry, does that make me a bad person?
What annoyed me most about the book is how the protagonists asks countless questions, like these:
Why would he just go off on his own? Unless maybe he’d tried to wake me up but couldn’t? What if he’d lost his way in the snow? What if I was wrong and Ethan was somewhere else? What if the car was truly fucked and I’d have to make the whole painful walk back again? What if I met a wolf or even a fucking bear on the way? What had happened to Ethan and where had he gone? How had I not heard him go and how had he been whisked away without leaving a sin gle footprint outside in the snow? Had Ethan opened them and climbed out? Why though? And to where? What if Ethan, for some reason, decided to open the shutters and look out, only to be seized by something and dragged outside? What if as well as wolves there were bears in these woods and one had scooped him up with a clawed hand and left him, savaged, by the cabin wall? Was Ethan out in that? Had I missed something, walked right past his body on the ground? What the hell was going on? What the hell happened there? What the hell were they doing there? What the hell had happened to her? What was going to happen to me?
I just wanted to answer, “How the fuck should I know?”...more
This is the reason why I love Goodreads. The professional reviews of books/movies/TV/etc. are like unreliable narrators in pulp fiction. First of all, I can’t believe that anyone who reads The New Yorker magazine would watch a Mission Impossible movie if their life depended on it. This is what is called “turd polishing,” an exercise that requires writers to say nice things about truly gruesome things, like this movie series. Why do they do this? Because they’re all part of the same incestuous family owned by a huge media group that also makes the movies and sells the books.
The Wife Upstairs (my first novel with the spoiler in the title) is the literary equivalent to blockbuster superhero and Mission Impossible-type piffle, these mostly-silly mysteries that people can’t seem to get enough of, like junk food that’s easy to eat, but terrible for your brain, at least they are if you aren’t thinking enough to realize that they don’t make much sense.
The story moves forward, but there isn’t much of one to tell. A rich guy with a dead wife, a young ingenue moves into the neighborhood, they hook up, he has secrets…but wait! She has secrets, too. The first red flag is that two women died in a boating accident, but no bodies were recovered. Huh? The author unconvincingly tries to explain this away by saying the lake is deep and there are trees at the bottom. Maybe if a normal person died, police would make little effort to recover the bodies, but two rich white women? They’d find the damn bodies…but of course, there aren’t two bodies. This isn’t a spoiler; it’s the assumption of any living, breathing reader once they're told no stiffs were recovered in the boating accident. They didn’t know how to swim?
Way too much book for so little story.
I quickly grew tired of suburban white housewife-speak, shit like this:
Girl, let me call you back,” Girl, if I eat another cheese straw, “Girl, if you say the word mums, I am leaving,” “I do not know why he doesn’t just go ahead and wife you up, girl.” “Girl. Tell me you were in there for a reason.” “Girl, I swear you’ve gotten even skinnier!”
The first thing that should have told me I wouldn’t like this novel was seeing that many of the top reviews are by users I’ve blocked, obnoxious professional Goodreaders who devour this sort of trash mystery simply because they know that their reviews will generate LIKEs.
Poor little orphan Jane (Plog) is a dog-walker for the gentry class of some over-priced suburban toilet, and get this: she has secrets, too. Although these were never really fleshed out in the end, it’s just red herrings throw down around a neighborhood already stinking. Plog immediately catches the fancy of the widower-millionaire who also happens to be handsome (we’re told this dozens of times. I don't know about any other readers, but I got it the first fucking time).
We aren’t offered even the slightest reason to believe that Mr. Wonderful would go for the dogwalker. The guy is young, rich, and attractive. If he’s looking to hook up, that ain’t going to be a problem, not in our society. Not only do they hook up, but it very quickly turns into something serious, like marriage. Huh? All the we are told of Plog is that she’s a gold digging parasite and thief who thinks it’s OK to rob her clients.
If I gave you three minutes to think of how this story ends, you’d probably come up with a better idea than how this book ends. I put “Spoiler Alert” in the beginning of this review simply because GR demands, but to spoil something means that you actually gave a shit about the story. If the ending you thought up in three minutes is dumber than this ending, I’d give you another three minutes. I’m sure that six minutes would be enough for you....more
I think that I read this the year it came out and I remember I really liked it, as well as the movie. This time around, I found it a little slow, perhI think that I read this the year it came out and I remember I really liked it, as well as the movie. This time around, I found it a little slow, perhaps one of those books that doesn't age well, then I got to the part that probably sold me on the novel back when I was sixteen or so: sex...and the film starred Faye Dunaway, so double gggrrrrr.
There's a full-blown porno scene right out of Penthouse Forum, which back in those days was as close to porno that a kid like me could get his horny hands on. Call me jaded, but these days reading a sex scene in a book makes me laugh, and the same for sex scenes in mainstream movies and TV. Everyone knows what sex is these days, and if that's what you're after, you're a mouse click away from it, so leave the sex out of books and movies. It’s sort of like how when I watch a cooking video on YouTube, I don’t need to watch someone chop an onion, I already know how to do that.
You have to give James Grady credits because he really tries to sell it, “pulling his hand slowly up the inside of her thigh, delicately trailing his fingers across rhythmically flowing hips, up across her flat, heaving stomach to her large, erect nipples.” While me as a hormonal teenager appreciated this description, old, jaded me can’t help but embellish the scene in my own mind:
That’s it, papi, just like that,” Wendy groaned. “Papi? Who the hell is papi,” Malcolm shouted. Just then, the pool boy enters the room. “I fee-nish with pool, Miss Wendy.” “Who the hell is he?” Malcolm screams. “Why that’s Raúl, the pool boy,” Wendy answers casually. “Why is he naked?”
It's just one of those things in life that Wendy and I grew apart over the years, but Raúl and I have remained friends.
I just picked this up again by chance. He wrote a lot of other stuff but nothing else got much traction. Luckily for him, this book made him a huge success when he was twenty-five....more
One of the last of the old gunslingers is going out with a bang…in his colon. The twentieth century has just popped up on the horizon and John BernardOne of the last of the old gunslingers is going out with a bang…in his colon. The twentieth century has just popped up on the horizon and John Bernard Books discovers he has ass cancer, which supports the old adage that not all sins go unpunished in this life. He’s a pretty rotten guy, even for a professional killer. He’s completely unlikeable, although he sort of brings you around to at least see his side of things.
I remember when I was a kid it would confuse me to no end to see a cowboy movie with an old automobile, or something else marking a new era. That transition to the modern just didn’t sit right with me in a western, just as it doesn’t with the protagonist in this little story, the last of his breed.
The ending seemed rushed and too predictable, but I guess that's the only way for old gunslingers to go out....more
**spoiler alert** Note to readers: no bitchy housewives or bratty children were tortured in the writing of this review, although I couldn’t help but t**spoiler alert** Note to readers: no bitchy housewives or bratty children were tortured in the writing of this review, although I couldn’t help but think up some fun ways to inflict harm on these two characters in this story.
Why three stars? I can't even say myself. Yes, I read the whole book, but mostly to see if it was going to be as stupid as I imagined. It really was. Why are twists so relished in this genre of psychological thrillers? They are usually stupid and make little sense. The butler did it. The good guy becomes the bad guy. Wow, didn't see that coming, unless you did, not because it made any damn sense, but that's just how these things play out. I admit it: this was a total hate-read. There, are you happy for making me say that after I told myself I'd stop hate-reading? Although, some hate-reads are more readable than others.
I could easily rate this one star just on the whole idea of the locked room in the attic. It's an attic room. Find something and smash a hole in the damn wall; it's drywall, not concrete. No one is going to pull their own teeth out with pliers. She pushed the pliers under the door? Unlikely, as I've never seen a gap under a door that big. Then there's the camera in the room. Once Millie knows she's being watched, why not destroy the camera? Maybe smear her poop on the lens. I'm just thinking out loud here.
Ten years in prison and this girl has no survival skills. I understand she lets a fat slob housewife pimp her around because she needs the money, but she’s also afraid of that vile cow? She must have been everyone’s bitch in prison if she can’t stand up to some spoiled suburban creep. We are left hanging about why she was in jail until the end, of course.
Millie does one dumb-as-hell thing after another and can’t keep her mouth shut. She can’t even verbally defend herself from the fat, mental hag from hell. She can’t even outwit a nine-year-old child. If a kid asked me for a sandwich and then threw it on the floor expecting me to pick it up, I’d rub her smug face in it first. Keep that in mind if you ask me to babysit your rude child. The kids are coming back politer (and possibly traumatized).
After maybe the second tantrum of the horrible daughter, I’d put a horse laxative in the little princess’s juice box she takes to school, so she’ll shit her pretty white dress in class, just like the guy did to the cop in The Pope of Greenwich Village.
Most of the first half of the book is spent giving examples of the hag’s awfulness. We get it. She’s a c#nt. This is beat into our heads with so many examples that I was screaming for it to stop. Almost all of it was pointless and annoying, like when she got busted at the supermarket. She just spent $200 on groceries, I doubt the rent-a-cop would be haughty and accusatory with her. Someone called in to say she was stealing? Like they wouldn’t take that with a grain of salt in a supermarket frequented by rich hags. It was stupid and the whole scene should have been edited out.
I was going to DNF after the umpteenth bitchy episode from headcase Mrs. Piggy, the incident with the bag of clothes she gave the maid. I wrote this right at that point in the novel, but I pressed on, and this was the last incident, thank fuck. This was the tipping point, but there was still almost half a novel to go. Ugh.
I was really tired of reading shit like, “He has such a good body, oh man, what a nice bod. God, he’s such a good kisser. He’s easy on the eyes,” and other adolescent descriptions.
Why would Enzo want fatty McPsycho mom? Why was Enzo even in the book? He was a stupid character. No one would fake not knowing the language because too many Milfs are trying to get in your pants. That whole angle was so stupid. He’s trying to warn Millie and he’s still fucking faking that he can’t speak English? That made zero sense, not that making sense seems to matter much to readers of this genre.
The psychological profile of the rich guy made zero sense: he goes from dreamboat lover to stark raving lunatic at the click of a switch? Like he never revealed his inner rage to Millie even once while she worked for him? The same goes for the wife and daughter, neither of whom showed a drop of humanity. Enzo? Dumbest character I've come across in forever....more
**spoiler alert** This is the first time I’ve had to start a review by saying, “Are you kidding?” Preposterous, simply preposterous. Once again, if yo**spoiler alert** This is the first time I’ve had to start a review by saying, “Are you kidding?” Preposterous, simply preposterous. Once again, if you don’t care at all if a story doesn’t make any sense, this is for you. I’ll give Riley Sager one thing; he can keep people reading, but I’d hardly call it entertainment. I mean, a box of lousy cookies is easy enough to polish off in one sitting, but no one would call it food.
Let’s start from the very beginning. The whole story is that they lure unsuspecting organ donors with offers of a paid three-month job of house sitting. They vet the candidates, a bit, at least, choosing those without family, or at least none locally. Even orphans have friends and people who would miss them if, for example, someone killed them and stole their internal organs. In fact, most people would be blabbing to everyone and anyone that they scored a gig living in a luxury apartment. Not exactly low profile. Any half-wit could come up with a million better alternatives for finding warm bodies other than using their own building as a trap.
Of course, there’s a backstory of how the protagonist lost her sister. Ugh. Why? It added nothing and heaped on to the preposterous piling up with every page.
It’s only mentioned about three million times how private everyone is at the building, yet two separate apartments have a dumbwaiter between them? Un-fucking-likely. As soon as this was mentioned in the novel, an air raid siren of stupid went off in my head and didn’t stop. Ever. It got louder.
…staring at the two words Ingrid had scrawled in a shaky hand. BE CAREFUL
Now while this makes for a nifty cliffhanger to conclude Chapter 18, it makes zero sense in the narrative. So, Ingrid is in danger, and she can only write two damn words to express her peril? Ugh, so stupid and something I’ve seen before in novels of this genre.
For all of the homespun wisdom her dad handed down to her, you have to wonder how she turned out to be such fucking idiot.
She’s absolutely flat broke, yet she shells out $500 to unlock the girl’s phone? Unlikely. At this point, they know that three young girls have disappeared from the Bartholomew Building, something the police can hardly ignore. Give them the phone and get out of the building. Also, how did the girl lose her damn phone and not retrieve it?
Then there’s Dr. Nick who immediately shoots up the “I’m the bad guy” flare. I couldn’t get the voice of Dr. Nick Riviera out of my head every time he spoke.
“Please, Jules,” Nick says with a sigh. “Don’t become a problem patient. We can make the rest of your time here comfortable or extremely unpleasant. It’s up to you.”
Dr. Nick Riviera is in the process of harvesting Jules’s vital organs and he’s threatening not to fluff up her pillows at Hotel Give Me Your Liver.
The end is just too silly and stupid. She’s had a kidney taken from her and put into the body of the vitriolic hag whose book she admires so much. Then she escapes and sees the hag in her hospital bed. This would’ve been an opportune moment to bludgeon her to death with a phone book, or a flower vase, bowling ball, anvil, or whatever they have in illegal organ harvesting hospital rooms. Better yet, she should have cut the hag open and taken back her kidney.
I’m a total outlier here as the book rate 3.91 with a glorious amount of reviews and ratings. What am I not understanding?...more
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