Review: Kill Switch by Chris Lynch

Daniel’s grandpa suffers from short term memory loss and awkward moments of lucidity and insanity. The old man begins sharing violent stories from his “work” as old co workers begin popping up to “check on” him. Daniel realizes there is more to gramps’ unsettling stories than he’d like to believe and more to the thinly veiled threats from the creepy co workers.

Kill Switch is a short book I hoped would be an entertaining reprieve for my teen book discussion. The plot was promising, the concept interesting. And the first half delivered a satisfying combination of mystery and humor (the car scene! The car scene!).

Then along came the “kill switch,” when Daniel abruptly and illogically becomes violent as he guards his grandfather. The moments of violence made no sense to me and my teen readers. We were like, “Huh? What was that violent act for?” The ending was untirely unsatisfying and rather unbelievable. We spent most of discussion poking holes in the plot.

So, not the best read. Not my favorite. Not terrible either and it was fast. You can’t love every book but at least we had fun laughing about the ridiculous plot discrepancies during discussion!

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2012    Pages: 176

Rating: 2 stars     Source: Public Library

Review: No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

I enjoy stories with villians. A good villain is a fully developed character and not just a background entity, not just an obscure presence prompting the “good” characters onward. While Chigurh is obviously the bad character, it is less clear if Llewelyn Moss is the good character. The voice of peacekeeper, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, is conflicted as well.

Llewelyn finds the remains of a drug deal gone wrong. He grabs the cash and makes a dash. Chigurh pursues relentlessly with the passion of a zealot who believes in what he’s doing. Others give chase including the law and the lawless. In the end, it is not money that drives the characters. It is principle and will.  

McCarthy has a way of exploring good and evil that is only possible by exploring violence -- minds that are violent by nature and violent acts that lie dormant in any average person and erupt given the right circumstances.

Chigurh is unusual because he is morally demented as opposed to morally corrupt. He does not necessarily take pleasure in violence but he is committed to violence nonetheless. He is not altogether illogical either which is the scary part. His mind is functioning properly. He is not “insane” in the sense that he lacks the ability to reason. He has reasoned and found himself at odds with traditional views of morality and the sacredness of life.

The novel is sparse in language and, while I found it easier to read than All the Pretty Horses or The Road, No Country for Old Men is less linguistically beautiful. It is also significantly less violent than The Road (which won the Pulitzer) and moves much faster than All the Pretty Horses.  It’s a good middle-of-the-road McCarthy read so if you’re new to his novels I would say start with No Country for Old Men and see if you can handle forays into dark psyches and violent behaviors.


Publisher: Vintage, 2005.     Pages 309
Rating: 3 Stars     Source: used bookstore

Review: The Athena Project by Brad Thor

From the inside cover: “When a terrorist attack in Rome kills more than twenty Americans, Athena Team members Gretchen Casey, Julie Ericsson, Megan Rhodes, and Alex cooper are tasked with hunting down the Venetian arms dealer responsible for providing the explosives. But there is more to the story than anyone knows.”

                                

The Athena Project is an interesting mix of science fiction, thriller, mystery and historical fiction. What I liked most about this book was the WWII back story of Nazi experiments which resurface in a horrifying way. The all-girl Delta Force team kicks butt all over Europe as they parachute, karate chop, BASE jump, kidnap and breach and clear bad guy hide outs… all while dressed to kill, in both senses of the phrase.  

The characters could have used a lot more development. Most of the time, the girls were little more than stereotypes. I felt this book might have been called “Bond Girls Strike Back.” The Athena team reminded me of Bond girls but with more brains. Do you remember Bambi and Thumper from Diamonds are Forever? The girl body guards whoop 007 up pretty good before Bond regains the upper hand…anyways! The Athena girls are about as shallow as the Bond girls but they get the job done for King and Country…except they’re not British but American. The slim character development was the only major problem I had with the book. I found the story interesting and exciting and there was plenty of action. Do be aware that this is the first of a trilogy; however, I think The Athena Project has good closure and works well as a standalone novel.

Some may recall that I’m not normally a mystery/thriller type of reader. In an earlier post I talked about how the covers don’t usually draw me in. I’ve only had fair success with the genre, generally feeling unaffected to mildly entertained when finished reading. So, I’m not the target audience. Nonetheless, I had fun reading this book. I can envision The Athena Project becoming a movie and won’t be surprised if it does become one someday.

Publisher: Atria Books, 2010      Pages: 324

Rating: 3 Stars                                Source: As a Shelf Awareness subscriber I received The Athena Project for free from the publisher. Thanks, Atria!

Review: The Passage by Justin Cronin

Finally, I finished it! Freely admitting my laziness, here is a summary from Shelfari:
First came a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility that unleashed the product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gave way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear—of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.

As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he’s done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. He is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors. But for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey—spanning miles and decades—towards the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun.

The first two hundred pages were painstakingly slow for me. If it wasn’t for the hype and the fact that I generally enjoy dystopias, I’d have put it down and forgotten about it. After page 400, I was more or less enjoying the read. Things keep slowly escalating but I can’t say I ever felt sucked-in until the last fifty pages.

The best parts were when the narrative broke out of the standard third person point of view for snippets of emails, journals and logs. I enjoyed these parts a lot which broke up the string of events and offered glimpses into the pre-vamp past, vamp-infested present and the suggestion of a unique unknown future.

The characters felt real to me except for the Sister Lacey – she was a mystery. I didn’t understand why she came to the U.S., why she felt connected to Amy, or what exactly her role was in the big picture. A statement on religion or religious beliefs? Maybe just about preserving innocence? I don’t know.

My favorite character was Michael or “the Circuit.” He gave me some hearty chuckles. I also really liked Peter with his self-doubt and conflicted feelings. I realize Amy is a link between everyone but, I felt the novel was really Peter’s story. By the end I was enjoying the party that forms and travels together. I’m not normally one to read for characters but I did with The Passage. I wanted to see how each character would deal with new situations. I wanted Peter to find some answers – about his family, his future and himself.

As for themes, I’m sure there plenty to be sucked out of the novel but none left as big an impression on me as the idea of camaraderie – hoping, supporting and believing in each other when there is not always a real good reason to do so.

What I feared most did happen. The novel ends with a giant teaser. After 766 pages I wanted some more wrap-up. The end was an “oh, my gosh what does that mean? What happened!” type of moment that does make me want to read the next book. After spending so much time with these characters I feel too invested in them to just leave them hanging.

Who should read The Passage: those who like a more thoughtful use of the vampire theme, those who enjoy “quest” stories or dystopias. But it’s definitely not for the faint of heart; The Passage is the first of a planned trilogy.
Publisher: Ballantine Books, 2010     Pages: 766
Rating: 3 Stars     Source: Purchased on Amazon

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

If I had to define this novel in one word it would be intrigue. There are layers of secrets that journalist Blomkvist is drawn into uncovering. Every truth he reveals leads him further down a dark tunnel in search of more answers. The novel is set in Sweden with two main threads – a family mystery and a corporate mystery – that bring Blomkvist and a young P.I. into an unlikely alliance.

I liked the character development and third person point of view in which the story is told. The narrative has several breaks within a chapter that visually signal a switch to another character. The narrator was at least semi-omniscient and could get inside the heads of characters, telling us what they thought and felt. It worked well and provided some irony. I feel mixed about Blomkvist’s characterization. Some of the women threw themselves at him and he gladly slept with them. It was a bit unrealistic. I really liked Salander, a.k.a. the girl with the dragon tattoo, and her quirky off-kilter personality. For the most part, the characters seemed like real individuals with personal problems like anybody else.

The writing was good and the book fun to read. One small annoyance was the foreign names. Usually, that sort of thing doesn’t bother me but these names were hard to keep straight because several characters go by more than one name/nickname. We call guys named William, Bill, which doesn’t make much sense. So, imagine such nicknames in a foreign language. For the first half of the novel I was trying to remember who people were and should have written their names down. There were a few spots that broke out of the normal narration, moments not exploring a character’s thoughts or actions, which felt like an unnecessary political spiel. It would have been enough to let the characters' thoughts about a situation stand on their own and left the narrator’s commentary out. But these out-of-character harangues were fairly brief and were not a big downer overall. It was nearly two hundred pages before I was hooked because, generally speaking, I am not that interested in financial scandals, with which the novel opens. But by page 200 I had to know the ending. There was a fairly intense scene that I didn’t see coming that kept me turning pages. After the cases were summed up I wanted to know more about the main characters. I am even interested in reading the sequel (not for awhile though. These are some big heavy books) so The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a thumbs up for me.

THE MOVIE COMES OUT MARCH 19th IN SELECT THEATERS!! If you see the movie please let me know how it is. I live in a small town and will be lucky to see it on the big screen. Here's a link to the trailer:
http://dragontattoofilm.com/
Publisher: Knopf, 2008 (originally in Swedish in 2005)     Source: IC Public Library
Rating: 3.5 Stars                                                                Pages: 465