Oh My God!! I loved this book!! I think that everyone knows the story of Misery, because of the awesome Movie by the same name in the 1990's, starring Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes and James Caan as Paul Sheldon. The book was a million times better! I always have one book on reserve that I read by lamp light before I go to bed. I am not sure if it was the smartest thing to have Misery be that book. There were more than a few nights that I went to sleep in the wee hours of the AM only stopping because I had to get up a few hours later to get my children ready for school.
Annie Wilkes is Paul Sheldon's number one fan. She makes it a point to tell him that as he first wakes up. Wait...wakes up? What? OK...so Paul Sheldon is a famous writer of a series of Romance novels based on a female character named Misery Chastain. He just finished his final novel about Misery, whom he killed off. He was caught in a winter storm while driving and ended up crashing his car. Annie Wilkes came across the accident and pulled Paul from the wreck. She took him to her home, and got him set up in a makeshift hospital room.
So, crazy woman decides that she wants to nurse her most favorite writer back to health. There is nothing wrong with that, right? Well, it appears that way, until Annie reads the manuscript of the new Misery novel that Paul just finished. She finds out that Misery dies, and she loses her mind!!! Annie Wilkes throws around her version of curses at Paul, including the ever amusing, "Dirty Bird". She then leaves Paul to his own defenses as she storms out the room and the house for almost three days. When Annie returns she tells Paul that she needs him to write a new novel, bringing Misery back from the dead. Paul has become Annie's hostage.
You think this is bad...well, buckle up cowboy cause it gets so much more twisted as Paul becomes a pain pill addict, Annie grows more and more nuts. Paul eventually finds out that Annie is a psychotic killer who avoided being convicted for past murders (surprise!!). Annie swings more frequently into fits of depression and anger....believe me it will make your ex look sane!! She wields weapons again Paul throughout the book, from knives, to axes, to shotguns....and he is not the only one to suffer her wrath at this time, but the only one to survive it, yet not in one piece, cough* cough*.
The craziness involves, abuse, love *twisted on her part*, hatred *twisted on his part*, fear, desperation, and even a bit of pity for who Annie is as an adult, a very, very crazy adult.
I totally was hooked from the beginning of this book and found myself screaming at the characters, shaking my head at disbelief and totally coming undone by some parts. I could not recommend a book more highly for people who love a little bit of crazy in their reading lives, cause this one takes the cake! *****
see the movie trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=108&v=ptpaEntid74
buy the book:
http://www.amazon.com/Misery-Stephen-King/dp/0451169522
Mitch Cullin's A Slight Trick of the Mind was a surprising read for me. I had never heard of this novel until I picked it up at a bargain bin. (I have found many good reads this way.) It is a quick read, but quite the story.
We all know that Sherlock Holmes was not a "real" person, yet a character created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, inspired by many people Doyle knew in his lifetime. In Cullin's novel he brings Holmes to life, yet it is not the Holmes that fans have known in the past. He isn't the young "Benedict Cumberbatch, Robert Downey Jr., Jonny Lee Miller" type. The Holmes read about in this novel is a 90+ year old man, his twilight years. A man who deals with memory loss, which he admits interferes with his famous deduction skills.
This novel deals with Holmes and how he reflects on a personal issues from past and present which ultimately affects him as a person. The reader at times hopes and prays for him to reach an emotional realization, as we all know he is famous for his calculating reasoning when it comes to dealing with issues of emotion, and all but absent of feeling and empathy.
Sherlock becomes a mentor to a young child of age- his housekeepers son- Roger. Roger has become intrigued with the bee apiary that Holmes has installed in the backyard. This mutual love for the bees draws the older and younger together, and though there is not a "Loving" relationship from the older, there is as much that Holmes can give to the younger as he only knows how....to show caring...teaching the boy how to care for the bees. This relationship in my mind was sweet and yet tragic, it was the crux of the novel for me. I think this is also the basis for the movie that will be released in June, which is titled, "Mr. Holmes." Any amount of emotions that Holmes can possess is borne in this relationship with this child.
Secondly Holmes reflects on a recent trip to Japan to visit an acquaintance he has met through written correspondence, one Mr. Umezaki. Holmes goes to Japan to visit this man, and stays in a home with Mr. Umzaki's mother and male "companion". The biggest thing I found interesting about this trip is that Mr. Holmes receives a dead Bee in a glass vial which he takes home and gives to Roger. There is much more written about his trip, visits to historical places, such as the site of the Hiroshima bombing. This part of the book was not very interesting to me.
The third part of the book is about the memory kept in written journal form about a case he had in younger years. This case involved a woman he was investigating for her husband (his client). The melancholy woman had lost their child and was grieving in her own way, and for some reason the husband believed that she was having an affair. What was reality about the woman, entranced Holmes, and he experienced the closest thing to feeling of infatuation.
The last part of the book deals with his reflections on death and how losing so many people in his life affected him. The most interesting part is how he realizes his mind is not as sharp as it once was, his despair about this seems subtle, and logical reasoned, but I believe it brought him face to face with his own mortality.
I highly recommend this book to Holmes lovers....it is well written and keeps to the original quirky personality of the man himself. ****
The movie trailer: http://movie-trailers.com/mr-holmes-official-trailer/
buy the book : http://www.amazon.com/Slight-Trick-Mind-Mitch-Cullin/dp/1400078229/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1430101726&sr=1-1&keywords=slight+trick+of+the+mind
**I want to preface this review by saying that yes, I did see the movie based on this novel, which followed it pretty much 100 percent, but I will not be comparing the two. I want to review the book as written.**
The Hours is a nicely written novel by Michael Cunningham. It is voiced by three separate females, in three separate situations. Some might see this as a feminist writing, or as a Lesbian writing, but I saw many factors played out.
First Virginia Woolf, historically, she was a writer who committed suicide by drowning herself in a river. In this novel, she is focusing on her writing of, Mrs. Dalloway. She incorporates this piece of writing into her own life and experiences as a woman, a clearly depressed and lonely woman. Virginia feels smothered, by the times, her husband, her lack of control over her own life, as a woman, wife, and artist. It eats at her, affects her...her desires personal and professional.
The Second woman, Mrs. Dalloway (Clarissa), 21st Century female, Lesbian, who has a relationship/friendship with a male, Richard, who is dying of AIDS. She is planning a party for him. He has won a prize for his writing and she wants to celebrate it for him. Richard, has other plans, and as his health deteriorates, he knows death is imminent. Clarissa, spends the day reflecting on her life as a woman, her past romantic relationship with Richard, her life now with her partner Sally, and her daughter, Julia. She feels lost, and questioning who she has become, homemaker, housewife.
The third woman, Laura Brown, a pregnant housewife of the 50's. She is perfect, at least to her husband, her child and the neighbors. She is not necessarily happy with the role she is playing. She has her own mind, her own desires, which she cannot express in the social milieu she lives in. She struggles with who she is, she wants, something...and it seems throughout the novel is unable to make a full picture of it. Her story is one of stifling womanhood left to play the role in society she is not quite sure is what she wants.
The way that Cunningham writes these stories, and uses the voices of the women to connect with what women have gone through, are going through is spot on. It is very easy to see how this book won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Awards.
I really enjoyed the quote from the book: "We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep. It's as
simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out windows, or drown
themselves, or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us are
slowly devoured by some disease, or, if we're very fortunate, by time
itself. There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when
our lives seem, against all odds & expectations, to burst open &
give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children
(and perhaps even they) know these hours will inevitably be followed by
others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the
morning, we hope, more than anything for more. Heaven only knows why we
love it so."
A great read, quite the thinker, highly recommend *****
For more about the book and Michael Cunningham visit: http://www.michaelcunninghamwriter.com/books/the_hours/
I have been reading a good many Young Adult novels (series) lately. I wish I had such a wide array of choices when I was a teen. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed my Judy Bloom ;-). Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs is such a wonderful read. I thought it was imaginative and kept my attention from the first page to the last. This is another Gothic type horror/fantasy that includes actual photographs in the novel to go along with the story. I have to say that Riggs hit a goldmine with this, his debut novel.
This novel opens with Jacob and his storytelling Grandfather Abraham. Jacob has a keen interest in the photographs, and the stories behind them, that Abe shows him which are full of peculiar children. (The invisible boy, levitating girl...) These stories bonded the young boy and his grandfather. Yet, years later, the gloss fades from the pictures (so to speak) for Jacob, and he starts to question the reality of the stories, photographs, and ....his grandfather.
One night, a tragic event causes Jacob to travel to the small island where his Grandfather spent some of his youth after he lost his family to the horrors of Nazi Germany. From the moment Jacob arrives in this small place called, Cairnholm, adventure and dark mystery await him. Jacob comes face to face with situations and people he would never have thought existed in "the real world." He becomes a part of the world he discovers, and forms friendships, joins conflict to become part of the "peculiar" family.
The different realities of past and present, time travel, the unnaturalness of "peculiarities", are weaved together to make a great story. This is a great tale of someone looking for belonging, and also trying
to solve personal family mysteries. The cliff hanger at the end has me ready for the
next book in the series. I highly recommend this to those who want a "different" type of read. Let the imagination roam .... *****
to see the book trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVegDhDxLeU
soon to come, the movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1935859/
to buy: http://www.amazon.com/Miss-Peregrines-Home-Peculiar-Children/dp/1594746036
author's personal page: http://www.ransomriggs.com/
