Sometimes the fey mood strikes, and I need a dark and potentially terrifying story to chill me to my bones... for fun. Well, despite having numerous books out from the library that are dying to be read, I knew that I needed a King book to read. I had heard "Revival" touted as "classic King" and "absolutely bone-chilling". So, I figured... why not?

Let me give you a brief synopsis without give things away.

This is the story of Jamie Morton and a person, Charlie Jacobs, who occasionally makes an appearance in Jamie's life. More than appearance, he makes a dramatic impact each time. Jacobs is fascinated with a sort of "secret electricity" and he attempts to harness it. But something happened...

Review:

I read the book in two days. The first 90% of it was backstory, and I love backstory. I love a good frame story, and I think this fits the bill. The dates that you hear about are confusing at first. It's hard to follow when things are actually happening.

There is a lot of rock 'n' roll story here, and it's not really my favorite topic, but it wasn't terrible. Once the strings all start coming together to form the cord, it gets more intriguing, but you have to wade through an awful lot of backstory to get there. I can imagine that if you aren't a fan of backstory, that this would be a hard book to get through.

So, my review of the first 90% of the book is that it is a story. It's not terrifying, it's not terribly scary. It's the story of this guy's life and some weird stuff happens.

The last 10% is where the "scary" happens. Except, I didn't find it scary. Maybe I should have. I don't know. In the list of things that I find scary, the topic of this portion of the book is on the top of the list. But it wasn't terribly scary. It wasn't bone-chilling, and it didn't give me nightmares. In fact, I felt that I had read it all before.

After mulling it all over, I decided that this book is like Shelley's Frankenstein meets HP Lovecraft. It has the Lovecraft feel to it and many elements from Frankenstein, right down to the frame story. You know, it just seemed unoriginal.

So, after much thought, I have decided that this book is nowhere near what I was hoping for or expecting. I was disappointed. Maybe it's just hard to scare me. Read it for yourself and let me know if it's just me.

A brief aside: In the acknowledgements for inspiration at the beginning of the book King writes that he was inspired by Arthur Machen and his story "The Great God Pan". King claimed that the story haunts him. So, I thought, "What sorts of things haunt Stephen King?!" So I read "The Great God Pan", which is not a long story. Turns out, Revival is a revival of Machen's story. The characters and time period are different, but it might as well be the same story. Le sigh.

This particular book has taken me ages to read. This is because I figured out immediately one of the major events in the story, and once I figured it out, the draw to read the book was minimal. So, I'm going to tell you what I figured out, but first I must warn all that THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

I just moved to Michigan and some close family recommended this book to me. The book centers around Crooked Tree State Forest on the western side of the lower peninsula of Michigan. Now, let me just tell you now, that this is a horror story about bears. There is no spoiler here. You find this out almost immediately. I have never been overly fond of bears. It's not that I'm terrified of them, but I don't think I would be thrilled to encounter one in the woods while I'm out hiking. So, what would be the perfect gift for someone moving to the wild north? How about a book about man-eating bears to help you sleep at night. Very thoughtful.


Synopsis: 
Axel and his wife, Janis live in the outskirts of Crooked Tree. Janis, a member of the Ottawa tribe, starts acting strangely around the same time that bears start killing people. The Ottawas, who have often considered the bears to be almost cousins, believe that something sinister is at work. As the killings increase, new evidence comes to light. Not only have these people been killed by bears, but they have also had their tongues cut out by a knife. The only thing that could possibly be causing these attacks is an impossibility. 


Review:
I don't even know where to begin with this one. I got about 25% of the way through it and was almost ready to hurl it through a closed window. I was disappointed to immediately discover the culprit was bears. I was hoping for some build up and some suspense, but nope... it's bears. I mean, it gets more complicated, but it's mostly bears. The writing was the big turnoff for me. Wilson changes perspectives like he changes his mind. Constantly. At first he would separate the different perspectives with a return, but then I think he just gave up on that. There is one part where two canoeists are going down a river, a man is out fishing, and the bears are on the prowl. You know the bears are going to attack, but you don't know if they will attack the fisherman or the canoeists. So it keeps switching perspective between the three parties. This is what it looks like, I wrote this to give you a good example without copying two pages from the book:

It started out where the character that is narrating has its own section and you can tell when the narration changes. Then it kinda just all jumbles together and you're wondering if the fisherman is thinking about dumb fish or if the bears think the people are dumb or if the canoeists are just dumb. Wait? Who was what and whe-.....  oh, now somebody is dead. Well, that was fun. 

The problem is that whenever you see the quick narration shift like this, you know someone is going to die. The suspense up to that point is pretty decent, and then the narration shifts. As soon as that happens, I lose all concept of suspense. I kinda just yell about authors and predictable writing. You can ask TC about this. I will just randomly start yelling about books and authors when they do stuff like this. 

Wilson also introduces a lot of characters that are there only to die. There is a character in the movie Galaxy Quest that sums it up nicely, "I'm the guy in the episode who dies to prove how serious the situation is." They are the "red shirts" from Star Trek. They are really obvious too, and they have a ridiculous amount of story that goes with them. It's like Wilson wants you to get to know and love these folks before he kills them, but he only has a chapter to do so. It's a waste of pages, in my opinion. 

There is one section in this book that talks about prehistoric bears. I have no idea what it's purpose is for the story. Useless words. 

The characters are not lovable. You aren't really rooting for them. It's a disengaged sort of story because of it. 

There are some books that are so terribly written that I can't even read them. The story may be amazing, but I can't get past the truly terrible writing. This is not one of those books. I got past the bad writing, and there were a few really good moments in this book. The action and history were pretty decent. The writing was predictable, the ending was incorrect, and the scariest part of the book was not as strong as it could have been. All that being said, I read the whole thing. It was an easy read. I am glad I made it to the end, but this book could have been so much better. I could easily excuse this book as a "first book" (the first book this author has published), and would potentially read something else by him. 

I have a theory. It is mine. Actually, let me tell you some back story about my "theories". When I first started blogging, my blog was called the Brontosaurus Theory after the Monty Python sketch. You can find one of my first blog posts on this site and the sketch HERE. Anyway, let's talk theories. There are a few things I must say before we begin. 

1. These theories are just my guesses with some text to back them up. 
2. These theories will involve things that haven't happened in the show yet. 
3. THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS. Read at your own risk. 

This is the second book in the Divergent series. If you haven't read the first one, I would recommend skipping this review for fear of spoilers. 

Synopsis:
Tris does a whole lot of playing with life and death. Tobias is always around to bail Tris out. There is way too much kissing. There are arguments, and all is made well in the end. 

The factions have pretty much collapsed, Dauntless has split, and Erudite is trying to take over everything. The Factionless have quite a few Divergent in their midst. Amity tries not to get involved. Abnegation doesn't know what to do with themselves. Marcus is obviously should not belong to the faction he is in for mere selfishness. Candor gets attacked and end up victims of a simulation because they were blackmailed into an alliance with Erudite. It's all just one big mess. 

Review:
As a person, I prize honesty tempered with kindness above most things. Honesty to be cruel is never helpful. I guess that would make me some Candor/Amity type Divergent. Who knows? Anyway, Tris and Tobias lie to each other all the time and it makes me absolutely furious. This is not something that people should be promoting or looking up to. Their entire relationship is based on lies. If they would just sit down and have an honest conversation with each other and not hide things, they would be a much happier couple. Instead, Tris lies and goes and does something that could kill her. Tobias saves her. So she does it again. Meanwhile, he is lying to her as well. What have we learned from this? That lying obviously accomplishes nothing. Whenever the truth comes out, what does the other person say? "I wish you would have just told me what was on your mind." Telling the truth is not as hard as people think. Their whole relationship kinda makes me furious. 

As for the book, there is a lot of drama, way too much kissing, a lot of lying, a whole lot of really stupid choices, and then some fighting. I was unimpressed. Do you remember The Goblet of Fire? It's the book where Harry Potter turns into a jerk. He whines a lot that no one understands his burden and that even his friends aren't there for him. This is, of course, not true, he's just being overdramatic. Tris was just like that in this book, and I hated it. I want to read the third book in hopes that things get better, but right now... I'm just angry at this book and the amount of people who read things like this and think that acting this way is totally acceptable. 

/rant

I read an article about the new movie, "Divergent" and I appreciated the article so much that I wanted to see the movie. I convinced my husband to go see it with me and I wasn't disappointed. I mean, the movie isn't amazing, but there were some things I really liked about it. I would probably go see it again. 

Well, I was so interested in the movie that I decided to read the book. I was looking for an easy read that I could just tear through, and it seemed like a good choice. 

Synopsis:
The story takes place in post war Chicago (future, post apocalyptic Chicago). To "cure" what had caused the war, the people have split into 5 factions: Erudite (intelligence), Abnegation (selflessness), Candor (Honesty), Dauntless (Bravery/strength), and Amity (kindness). The story is told from the first person perspective of a girl who was raised in Abnegation. At the age of 16, people take an aptitude test to find out what faction they are most suited for. After the test, they have the option to choose any faction. After you choose, you have to go through an initiation phase for your chosen faction. So, Beatrice, the Abnegation girl telling the story, joins a different faction, Dauntless. So, she as to go through initiation and all that jazz. The problem is with Beatrice (now Tris) is that during her aptitude test her results were inconclusive. This means that she is Divergent. She doesn't know why, but it is really dangerous to be Divergent. I won't go into much more detail for fear of spoilers, and there are two other books in the series. 

Review:
I was right, this book was a nice, easy read that kept my interest. I will say that the things I really liked about the movie are not in the book. I was a little disappointed in that, but I think I will continue reading the series. Three books shouldn't be that difficult. So, if you are looking for a fun and easy read, this would be a fun one. I personally really like the idea of studying a factioned society. Maybe that makes me an Erudite, but I rather think I would be in Candor. I don't think I would like Candor all that much. I guess I would be Divergent. Who knows? I definitely wouldn't be Dauntless. Anyway, I liked the idea in The Hunger Games, but they didn't spend much time talking about the split society. So, that's that. I'll be reading the rest of the series. 

I grew up knowing who Anne of Green Gables was. I watched the movies when I was younger (and let me tell you, I hated Anne). Recently, I was helping a friend pack up her apartment (and by "helping" I mean I was there for moral support) and she relinquished her Anne books to me. It's been many years since I have had anything to do with Anne, and after so many people had told me to read these books, I finally caved and did it. 

Synopsis
The Cuthberts (Matthew and Marilla, brother and sister) decide that they need help on the farm. They adopt a small boy from Nova Scotia. When Matthew gets to the station to pick up the boy, all he finds is a thin, red headed, eleven year-old girl wearing a wincey dress. He is completely baffled by the mix-up and decides he can't leave the girl at the train station for days while this gets worked out. He takes her home to Marilla. Turns out that Anne is an extremely imaginative, verbose, and talkative girl, and she quickly wins her way into Matthew's heart. Marilla takes a little more winning over, but eventually Anne is allowed to stay at Green Gables in Prince Edward Island. The rest of the book is about Anne's shenanigans at school, having friends over for tea, dyeing her hair, getting stranded in a boat, and pursuing higher education. 

Review:
As I mentioned earlier, I hated Anne. I hated her temper and her stubbornness. I have a hard time getting over that. For the first 3/4 of the book, nothing exciting really happens, but somewhere along that line you discover something. You discover that you are starting to like Anne. I was a lot like Marilla. I didn't want to admit it. I really started to like Anne. I really like that she always learned from her mistakes, and I loved that people were just naturally drawn to her. I hate to admit it, but I really enjoyed the book at the end there. I am looking forward to reading the next books. I'm also looking forward to rewatching the movies with a different understanding of the character. 

TC's kindle broke recently and he has been using mine. So, I've been reading a lot more of those ancient things that sit on shelves and smell musty and enticing. Yes, I have been reading actual, physical books. In some ways I miss them, but some ways I don't. At any given time, I have 50+ books on my kindle. It's a daunting task to read 50 books, especially when you keep adding to the list. When I read a physical book, it's the only book I have to be worried about. 

Okay, let's move on to Outlander. I have been told to read this book by several different people. Some of them were close friends, some of them were complete strangers, so I stopped by a Half Price Books. I went searching in the fiction section, then I went searching in the fantasy section, then I looked in the dreaded romance section. There it was. I can't, however, ignore so many recommendations, so I bought it. 

I think there is something wrong with the gravity in this house because I could not put that book down. 

Let's just do a brief synopsis:

This is the story of Claire Beauchamp, a 1940's woman visiting Scotland with her husband. On one of her outings, she is fantastically transported about 200 years in the past. She is briefly "taken into the custody" of the English, and then she is captured by Highlanders. This is the story of Claire Beauchamp and her time among the Highlanders. That's about as deep as I'm willing to go on this synopsis. This is currently a 7 book series with a whole lot more than just those 7 books in print, and more coming. 

Let's jump to the review:

There are several things about this book that I really enjoyed. Yes, this book has it's romantic elements, but I have problems with them. I'll get to that in a minute. The things that I really liked about this book were Gabaldon's details about the plants and herbs and herbal medicine. As a lover of most things plant, it spurred my interest even further, and it even inspired me a bit! Also, having lived in Scotland in the past, it really made me miss it. I can hear the accents in my head, and I can smell the heather in the mist. Speaking of accents, I think the accent was well written, but verra clear. It is how I would write an understandable Scottish accent. Writing a thicker accent would be a lot more difficult. Not to mention the use of idiom is almost absent. It does the job really well though. 

Okay, let's talk about the relationships. I'm not overly fond of the relationships in this book. I mean, there are a few that I really like, but for the most part, I feel like a little communication would go a long way. Also, there are several sex scenes in this book. Most are between the main character and her love interest. I'll not tip toe around anything. Most readers would read those scenes and not think much of it, but there are a few that would be considered rape. It's not as bad as I make it sound, but the awareness is the most important part. It may seem all romantic and all that nonsense, but no means no. All that aside, the way she writes the sex scenes is fairly modest. 

Different topic, the landscapes... oh the landscapes. I miss Scotland. I miss the Highlands. I would love to live in a world before electricity. Imagine the night sky... so bright. Imagine the smells, so pure and unpolluted. I wish I could experience it just once. I would love to see the sunset clearly without the haze of a dirty atmosphere. 


Overall, I would recommend this book. There is enough of a romance element that I could see that it could be a romance, but it's 850 pages, and maybe 2% of that is romance. I would like to read the other ones, but I'm afraid that some of them won't take place in Scotland. I could live without the characters, but I want more of the botany and the landscapes and the history and the architecture. I want more of this world.  

On a long road trip, it's easy to get a lot of reading done. We recently went from Mexico to Canada and back... or close enough to it. I had started this book, and finally broke down and finished it. Somebody had recommended a different book by this author, but this looked interesting too. 

Synopsis:
Since it takes forever to get to other planets, mankind has figured out how to grow humans in tubes and only release them when they have found a viable planet and the individuals have completed their training. While they grow in tubes, they get an education based on what is needed in the colony. I believe they are also genetically engineered for their jobs as well. A Farmer has more muscle and his training wouldn't include anything that a doctor would learn. The story follows Porter, the colony's psychologist. 

The humans in their tubes are rudely awakened 15 years earlier than they should have been (this never really made sense to me and I'll explain that later) and the ship, Colony, has decided to abort the program. Aborting the program would kill all the people in tubes. Halfway through the abort, it decides that a viable planet has been found and that the people who are still alive should get a chance at surviving. The tube folks wake up in a rain storm while the ship is crashing and everything is being engulfed by flames. They all seek shelter and try to figure out what to do next, seeing as they have no shelter, food, or clothes. What normally would have occurred is Colony would have landed and set up shop. Everybody would have a job, a place to stay, and food. Since the ship tried to destroy itself, most of that stuff was gone. 

So, these folks try to figure out how to do their jobs with only half the education they should have received. The management system has a few hiccups while this new society forms and a few people decide to leave the safety (and corruption) of their original home. Shenanigans ensue.

Review:
It took me a little while to get into it. I had a hard time with it. In the world of science fiction and fantasy, I always gravitate towards the fantasy, and I generally avoid the science fiction. There are a few exceptions, like "Ender's Game", but I definitely prefer dragons and magic to spaceships and technology. This book seemed pretty sci fi to me from the start, and my interest waned. Since I was stuck in a car, I figured, "I didn't dislike the book, I should keep reading to see if it's worth it." I'm glad I did, though I won't be putting it on my top 10 list any time soon. 

The writing was strange. I can't quite pinpoint it. Something was off... maybe the voice. Maybe not. I don't know for sure. I know I had a problem with the age of the folks. At one point in the book, they are called teenagers, but they weren't supposed to complete their education and find a viable planet for 15 more years. If that is the case, they would be in their 30's when they are finally "born". There is no way that the characters are younger than 15, and they sound like they are in their 20's. It just doesn't add up.  Also, these people eat the same fruit for over a month... there would be a lot more consequences to that than were covered in the book. 

Relationships. This is a tricky portion of the review because the relationship aspect of this book is pretty significant. I say that, but the book would have been fine without the relationship aspect. I don't know that I'm giving anything away by telling you this, but the main character is gay. I can see how that goes along with the story, but the relationships that are formed aren't as big a factor as they are made out to be. There is a lot of "pairing off" in this book that I find unnecessary, but who knows, maybe things would really be like that. I'd like to think that if people were barely surviving would consider their ability to care for a child before procreating. I will say that I like the way he created the relationships with Kelvin and Tarsi. I don't think that could work any other way without there being an imbalance of affection. For the most part, though, I felt like it was a little forced. 

The world was not thoroughly explored and I would have liked to learn more about it, but I don't necessarily want to read another book with these same characters. 

There is something decidedly familiar about this book, and I cannot place my finger on it. 

Overall, I found the book enjoyable, but nothing to write home about. Check it out if you're interested in a survival story with interpersonal drama, adventure, caterpillars, and a rocket. 

I'm not generally a fan of Christian fiction novels. There are a few that I really like, but a lot of them are very forced. That being said, I really like Frank Peretti. I like the Cooper kids series, I like the young adult series (that starts with The Hangman's Curse), and I really like "The Oath". Since he has a pretty good track record with me, I decided to give this 2005 book a chance. 

Here's the rundown for you: A guy and his wife (who has a stutter) go on a survival outing. They hike to their first location and camp out. While they are camping, something attacks. The man, Reed, manages to escape, and his wife, Beck falls down a waterfall and is carried away by a shadowy creature. The rest of the book is spent with Reed (with the help of friends and locals) trying to find Beck... living or dead. While the search is happening, Reed's friend, Cap, is doing some research into some strange tracks and hairs they find at the campsite. It leads down a twisty road of DNA that may or may not be a strange chimpanzee cocktail of base pairs and shenanigans. 

Review:


Sasquatches. 

There, I said it. It's not a spoiler because you find out about them early on in the book. Let me just be clear about this. The book is about Sasquatches. 

If you like Sasquatches, give this book a go. If you aren't even remotely interested in them, like me, then I wouldn't give this book the time of day. 

I remember reading "The Oath" and sitting up at night fully creeped out without being able to put the book down. "Monster" was nothing like that. The ambiguity of the evil and the suspense that was so wonderful in "The Oath" is totally lost in "Monster". I'm honestly surprised I finished this book. I guess I was just hoping that it would get better... and it never does. On top of that, Peretti has gotten a lot more political in his books. 

Let me compare this to something we are all familiar with: Steven Segal. 

Okay, okay, you may not have any idea who that is, but there will be another comparison further down. Steven Seagal is most known for his action films. He does some martial arts stuff and uses guns occasionally, but for the most part, he just kicks butt. After he became known for his action movies (Under Siege is really the turning point), he started making more. Eventually, they got pretty ridiculous. He started choosing hot topics that he wanted people to know about and incorporating them into movies. So, instead of non-stop ninja action, you get a whole movie (On Deadly Ground) of Steven Seagal saving the environment as well as the world. Side note: Michael Caine is the bad guy. This movie is so terrible it's worth watching. 

Here's another example: Michael Crichton. 
Once upon a time, Michael Crichton wrote entertaining stories with a message. Jurassic Park dealt with the God Complex in genetic manipulation and the consequences. They were extremely entertaining and well researched. Then they started getting less entertaining and more message driven. "State of Fear" is around the time that things started to go downhill, if not before then. After his death, a few books were published posthumously that he had started and never finished. They shouldn't have been published. 

Peretti is on this list of people. His books were so good... but they have lost that edge that they used to have. I don't know that I would recommend this book unless you are interested in Sasquatches. Meh.