Review: Promise Me Eternity

Promise Me Eternity by Ian Fox

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



Review posted at: The Owl Review

I was asked by the author to review this book for him and received a Kindle copy. This book starts off introducing the character Simon, Dr. Patterson, who is alone on a highway and is telling himself he must kill Carlo for Christine. Then it cuts to earlier in time and the story begins with the introduction of the character Simon.

Simon is a heart surgeon but is attempting to find a vaccine that creates eternal life. He spends all of his free time at home hiding from his wife in his basement, where he is transfixed on his test rabbit Dorothy, and this vaccine. The premise alone of this vaccine to prevent and stop aging is incredulous at best, but the story itself is told like a daytime soap opera. I had a very hard time taking the characters seriously or becoming interested in their plights because it felt like the story was told by a teenager who was attempting at speaking like an adult. It overall, felt a little bit cheesy.

I was beginning to feel like the author had an immense dislike for women as they were all bitter, nagging, obsessed with money, and ready to cheat on their husbands and partners. Then I realized that every character acted this way in the book. It seemed a bit silly as they were all obsessed with money, and all the women (except his wife) was attracted to Simon for no real reason. The women really did just want money, in fact, the character Christine is the book explained to Simon
"Women are crazier about money than men are. That's one of our problems." Apparently in the world of Promise me Eternity, they truly are.

It had a basic plot of Simon wanting to create his vaccine, and then solving why Simon was trying to kill Carlo on the opening chapter. The medical aspect of the story and the science behind a vaccine to "cure" aging isn't sound, but the story is told with the desire for the reader to take this all seriously, but unfortunately in a manner that expects us to take everything at face value. The plot line wasn't very strong, and the characters were all very flat with no description that created images in your head, or writing that brought them to life. Most of the women were described like this, "She was beautiful, with long flowing hair." One character wanted to win her husband back so she went and got a complete plastic surgery overhaul, face, body, fake breasts, as well as eye surgery so she could get rid of her "hideous glasses". She then started dressing in really tight revealing clothing, grew her hair out, got a perm so it wasn't straight (because short or straight hair is universally accepted, as well as normal bodies and wearing glasses... as ugly right?) and then snagged that doctor of a husband back. He left his pregnant girlfriend just to be with his wife since she was finally pretty. It was just ridiculous, and I could only imagine an over-sexed juvenile thinking this way. Overall, the descriptives were not detailed and focused on the story, many were just superficial, as were the actions of the characters themselves.

I found myself having difficulty in wanting to finish reading the story, and could not take the story seriously. In a few instances, the research was not sound. The story took place in Medford Oregon, and I've lived in Oregon for about 15 years, and have never heard of the beach town "Golden Beach", the nearest beach of a similar name is "Gold Beach" on the southern coast so I can only assume the author did not research this item, or stating that Medford is about an hour away from the beach, when it is about 3.5 hours from the coast because you cannot travel through the National Forest. These details make a story even more difficult to believe in, and is necessary for a writer to be taken seriously -- especially when the story is already as shallow as a soap opera. I would guess that since the author is foreign, writing about America normally can be a little bit inaccurate if the readers are unfamiliar with the areas.

Another aspect that I didn't understand was how the character Anita, being visibly pregnant - it wasn't described in the book as to what term she was in, or when she was due, or any other details like that, but, she was out drinking publicly in a restaurant and then fell asleep right away at home. This seemed weird since it's not common for American women to behave this way nor is it socially acceptable, regardless of what a womans preference is regarding drinking while pregnant, it's commonly accepted to be taboo. The author described it as though it was a normal thing for a pregnant lady to do. However, a little bit later in the chapter her boyfriend comes home and finds her drinking wine and demands to know why she's drinking while pregnant as though it suddenly is completely unacceptable. That made no sense in relation to her drinking at the restaurant.

I did not enjoy this book because of it's superficial characters and shallow attitudes. It lacked needed descriptions and rich dialogue and details. Characters would be described like, "he lamented on this fact for ten minutes then went upstairs." I found there to be lacking details such as characters features, and behaviors, beyond soap opera sterotypes. In some cases it had details that weren't necessary to the story at all, like Edna, his housekeeper, having a whole chapter to describe her outside with her dog thinking what a wonderful person Simon was and how he couldn't have killed his wife. We already can see that Edna is clearly, and without any given reason, obsessed with Simon and thinks he is amazing. In other regards, there were points where the story wrapped things up without much ado at all.

I am confounded that the author describes that "enthusiastic readers write to him saying they can't put his books down and read them in a few days", as well as "Individual libraries have ranked his works among the top ten, sometimes even the top five most-borrowed books." I am perplexed, given that the books are ranked with less than 3 star rating overall. I just didn't feel that there was a caliber of writing involved in this story that shows a top-five book, or a book that will be enjoyed by those seeking a believable and quality novel.



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Review: Sharp Objects

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

My rating: 0 of 5 stars



Twisted. The writing in this book is sharp, much like the point of the story. It's gritty, and blunt, but avoids being vulgar... somehow. I had to keep reminding myself that a female wrote this and that the main character was female as well. Odd I know, but it just sounded so.... male.

Stephen King said that "(I) found myself dreading the last thirty pages or so but was helpless to stop turning them." I wouldn't say I was dreading them, more like wanting to keep reading to find out exactly what happened; it was definitely a page-turner for me, and especially towards the end.

For an authors debut novel, this is pretty good. It is likely to not appeal to all, as the subject matter and characters are pretty damn dysfunctional. As you start reading this, you may not really realize something is quite wrong with Camille, but you definitely begin to see she has her issues. She drinks way too much, behaves like a rough, and withdrawn male detective, even though she's a reporter, that's just the type of image that comes to my mind. She makes a lot of really bad choices, but as you learn more about her past, I really could see why in the hell she's so damn messed up. She's come back to her small town, Wind Gap, to cover the story of the second of young girls that have gone missing. One was found dead the previous year and one is just still missing.

As we go along with Camille on her journey to her home town, we are taken on a voyeuristic jaunt with her as she begins to succumb to her mamma's odd, cold, and twisted style of mothering. This time, as an adult.

Really, it's a great read that takes you into the messed-up minds of a family that looks so perfect from the outside and functions so so wrong inside. They live in the familys' Victorian mansion, and completely run the town, so no one questions anything they do really. I get the sense that people know what's really going on, at least to some degree, but there's too much denial going around for anyone to actually deal with anything. Not to mention all the wealthy, bored housewives are too drunk, and popping too many pills to even question how many backs they keep stabbing. There is such a thin grasp on what's actually acceptable and unacceptable in their realities that most of what wrong was done, they just don't even realize it's not how humans are supposed to behave or be treated.


It's a stark and pointed story. It has a great set-up and the plot kept me reading because I really did want to watch it unfold. It was a fast-read for me, it took about a day to finish. It didn't leave me feeling happy and warm, but I didn't find it repulsively disturbing. Just very very wrong, but absolutely tolerable. Sometimes books come along that you really just don't want to keep reading because they're too much. This never went off the edge for me, but was teetering enough that I was intrigued to discover the pathology of these small-town, ridiculously wealthy, disturbed people. In the end, it becomes the healing path for Camille as her entire childhood finally unfolds and she learns the truth.



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Review: The Night Circus

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I'm going to give this a try, after seeing it pop up on at least two Powell's Books top 5 lists. I initially had dismissed it from the bad reviews on here, but now considering since fellow Portlanders like it. Portland's weird, so who knows? Maybe I will like it. Maybe I won't. But now I'm going to find out for myself. Well, if I ever make it through the library wait list. Still a little wary of the circus aspect. However, I don't like tales regarding anything marine, and I ended up loving Drowned Wednesday.

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A circus has a weird place in my mind. It's a colorful, brightly obnoxious, cruel place for animals and circus folk alike. It's loud, and sticky, it's in my face, it's over-priced, and under-thrilling. I'm not a fan of the circus. There is also the newer, beautiful, artistic, eye-candy circuses. Beautiful, interesting, but too costly for my taste. This story, has made me see the circus in a third light. A different and much more enjoyable view than I've ever had regarding circus life or circus folk than I've thought I would dream of. Although it eventually drew me into this world of black, white, night times, magicians, and interesting folk, I do not think it became real enough to convince me that I might want to live through this fairy tale.

I had a little trouble getting into this story initially. Partially, I really disliked how cold and bland the characters felt at first. The heartless-ness of Celia's father, and how joyless she was. After reading for a little while further, I realized that while the prose is beautiful and very enjoyable to read, the characters and the writing itself is not very emotional. It made them seem like little paper people that were having odd and unusual lives. This is actually much how they appeared to me during reading the story, so that was fun but also a bit bizarre really, in itself.

There were lots and may I say, lots, of descriptives and even unnecessary little one-page random descriptives that appeared to be completely unrelated to the story, in the book, just to add to the bleakly whimsical aspect of this novel. It was beautifully covered in striking art and solid black pages and striped, and that certainly will stand out to many readers as they pick up this lovely-looking black & white little (kinda normal sized actually) book. All of this will make for a very quirky and unusual ride for many readers, and it may be these odd qualities that endear it to those readers as well.

For me, I felt it was lacking of much plot, but I did enjoy reading it just the same. Honestly, that's curious right there. Enjoyed, but didn't love. It was of course, a game. A contest between two students to prove whose teaching methods were superior. The stage was the circus, and the players were doing their best along with all of the unknowing pawns (casualties). I did not connect to the characters however, and as much descriptives that were in the book, it was all just too disconnected in emotion to be able to leap through the pages and find an identifiable place in my heart and mind.

It is an interesting tale, that will end up being usually a love it or hate it type of book. I found that I just did not care too much what happened to the characters in this tale, but the words were beautiful, if not lacking much compassion, along the way. For that, I did finish this novel.





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Review: The Wolf Gift

The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Minor note: The cover.... what the hell is going on with it? When I brought it home I teased with my husband that it looked like one of those self-published covers that has a generic picture and solid block coloring and a title. Plus, the wolf pictured on the cover doesn't jive with how the Man Wolves are described in her story. They are clearly described as maintaining their own distinct human eyes which makes them very shockingly not like regular wolves. Just confused why that wouldn't be more important since the cover should correlate to the actual novel's descriptions. Okay, now the review....

I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked up this book, given it's mixed reviews. Maybe a little more slanted towards the negative, in actuality. I was going into it with an open mind, and hoping that it delivered that Anne Rice I was fell in love with reading years ago.

Some stories drag you away slowly from your everyday life, they capture your dreams and ideals of a perfect world, in which you can feel the emotion and atmosphere flowing out of the story and into your own head. You become one with the book, and you don't want to put it down because it feels too good to not live inside it's own little world. I started feeling like this when I picked up the book, but sadly, as I read on, I just started feeling like I was not inside the story, but outside, reading about one's perfect, and completely unrealistic fairy tale. A great book brings you in, and suspends any disbelief you may have about the situations, like feeling that it's completely logical to expect to meet vampires, or werewolves along your city or forest travels.

Some aspects that immediately made it a bit harder for me to get invested in this story is that it's hard, for me, to relate to a 23 year old guy named Reuben that drives a Porche and has trust funds, and is immediately contemplating purchasing an immensely stately mansion. He grew up in a great house in San Francisco with a scatterbrained professor of a father, and a determined surgeon of a mother. Can everyone else relate to that? Well, maybe if the characters are written very well and you are forced to relate to them because you cannot not become involved with them.

I loved the concept of the werewolves in this story. I just didn't feel like I connected to the characters, nor did I believe that the characters could actually not come through in every endeavor they attempted. Every character in this story just had too much money, and enough connections that I didn't believe there were any true challenges for the characters to overcome. Take for example, Reuben has as much money as he needs, and a huge mansion in the forest/hills to retreat to after every attack. When he wants to take his Porche for a drive to "hide out" in any motel he wants to, he does. He gets every woman he attempts to get, and his current girlfriend is so down with Rueben that she's comfortable that he slept with Marchent the first night he went away for his Nideck Pointe story, plus she's very comfortable in just letting Reuben text his breakup after he sleeps with another woman he finds in the forest. I suppose that's because although she loves Reuben dearly, she just doesn't love him enough to not sleep with his best friend Mort and split up with Reuben and stay friends. Luckily, she's a up-and-coming hot shot lawyer who's smart as hell so she doesn't need his trust funds and mansion.

My largest complaint with this story, is that it ended up just being lackluster in it's execution. I found myself realizing I could have put it down and probably forgotten about the characters because I didn't end up believing in them during the novel. Even the boy, Stuart, that Reuben accidentally turns into a werewolf after rescuing him after a gay-bash attack, is a 16 year old whiz that already graduated, and grew up wealthy, and is famous for going after his Catholic high school for not allowing him to take his boyfriend to the prom. Is there anyone that doesn't make 6 figures, drive a Mercedes, Jaguar, or Porche (yes, fine, I know, you're saying Jim, Reuben's older brother and religious viewpoint of the story, because he's a priest who gave up his trust funds and Mercedes to relate to the poor more easily) and just have life come easy to them while they figure out what the heck they want to do with their lives? Ah, to just waste away my days enjoying gourmet meals, ordering anything I might need on a whim (flatscreens, orchid trees, Bose boomboxes, iMacs, everything and anything), while doing anything I want and pretending to be in so much dilemma.

The characters are just not realistic. They sound like the writing of someone who has never had to work a day in their life and thinks everyone's biggest quandary is whether mom will be upset we spent our trustfund on this new mansion we visited and suddenly cannot live without. I really wanted to love this story, but there's not enough grit within this beautiful story to make me feel like these are real people that I care about making it. Everyone always gets what they want in this book, with really no consequence. It's hard to feel emotion for people that do whatever they want, and get whatever they want. It's so tidy there's nothing for them to truly overcome. That's probably the best way to put it, right there. Even in the end scene, with Felix & Thibault, they just wrap everything up with the evil doctors and the sheriff and it gives us as the readers, absolutely nothing to root for. We know it'll be perfect. Reuben gets everything he wants, always.

Were the Vampire Chronicles this tidy and unrealistic, but I was just too young and idealistic to realize this? I'm not sure, it's been so many years I'm now not sure if this is how Rice always wrote, or her writing is just too simplistic and unrealistic in it's attempt to get me as a reader, to believe in it. She still writes in a beautiful flow, and makes everything seem dreamy. But even my dreams have more substance of reality wrapped up in their fantasy.

I saw one reviewer state that they thought this was a very prudish Anne Rice. I wasn't sure I agreed with that at first, but I do feel like, in contrast to her previous novels, this definitely is prudish for Rice. She's normally unabashedly descriptive in the sexual encounters, but this time she sets them up, then switches scenes so nothing really happens. She does spend more time describing the violence the Man Wolf dishes out, and how much he relishes eating humans and sucking the marrow out of their bones, than showing any inclination towards descriptive lovemaking. Maybe there really is a huge difference in her writing this time around.

In the end, I read it, it was a great concept, but it was delivered in a manner which was just not exciting, or enveloping enough for me to love it, or believe in it.




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Review: The Goodwill Grimoire

The Goodwill Grimoire by Abramelin Keldor

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Rating is actually 2.5 stars

Starting off this book, I was a little taken back by the opening of it with the character, Stanley. Total sleazy creep - slacker of a B-horror movie producer who stumbled upon a Grimoire in the Goodwill, of all unlikely places. He immediately sets to using it, accidentally of course, as he begins to reanimate a stuffed duck in his home. Once he discovers his ability to reanimate dead bodies, his evil genius plan begins. Remember Stanley is an idiotic sleaze, so his master plan is really quite simply, world domination, one bad, and slightly disgusting, plan after another. He even has creepy sex, but luckily us readers are only spared by hearing one detail of it, and it's told after the fact so we don't have to really visual it along with sleazy Stanley.

Nick, the lych detective, and main character is introduced to the readers as a very ancient supernatural. His character describes the authors world of vampyres, lychs, zombyes (were they spelled this way? there was little mention of zombies, but...) Everything the author describes as being "real" in this story was spelled with a "y" to differentiate between what most of society commonly believes to be real about these supernaturals, and what is actually real. This cracked me up a little, because back in my teens, my friends and I used the same exact logic of spelling those things with a "y". Nick describes this all to Elphaba, his witch companion and assistant. I was a little disappointed that as a practicing witch in a coven, Elphaba wasn't empowered at all, in fact she had little knowledge of any of the supernatural world, which is hard to believe since she is firstly, a witch, and secondly, we are led to feel that she's been working with him for some time so why does she know so little of this world that Nick knows so much about?

Nick is written as a dramatically sweeping kind of character. He's kind, he's chosen good over evil, and he has been around for so long that he has even known some very famous humans in history (more on that later). To increase his presence, he constantly uses phrases and endearments in other languages, but it makes him come across, to me, as a bit of a show-off because they are almost always a different language than the last one, and they just don't feel like it fits. His FBI friend, John, along with Elphaba seem quite like the groupies to he who is Nick, and that part doesn't feel believable to me.

The writing isn't bad overall but it's execution of dialogue is too simplistic in how Nick just educates us all on how it really works in the world. I think part of the trouble is the writing does not lend me to feel invested in the characters, they still felt like characters until the end of the book. There is a moment where you have to make the readers really believe in what's happening, no matter how unrealistic it can be, and because I'm not drawn into the world and taking the characters seriously, it didn't happen.

Nick comes across as feeling that he's so calm and intelligent, but he makes poor choices throughout the story, in order for Stanley to be written as having a reason to gain more power, and this contrast of the ridiculous Stanley who is attempting world domination with an enchanted beer mug, and remote control doesn't mesh enough to make it cohesive. One concept, either serious Nick or comically sleazy Stanley would have worked better to make me get into the story. I was really following pretty good, enjoying it's silliness until about 30% in, when Nick decided to abruptly tell us his story about how he helped bring Rasputin to power in an effort to showcase the characters age and importance in always being around in history. After that portion, it took me until about 80% in, when Nick brought Elphaba to his fortress and suddenly it got interesting again. Sadly, we had to go back and visit Stanley's incompetent war at the high school and get goofy again.

There were a couple of parts where Nick and Elphaba suddenly broke character in the story from how they had been built up so far. Instead of it being a sudden victory in personal power (where Elphaba suddenly saves everyone by reading from the Grimoire to stop Stanley and unfreeze Nick, as well as deanimate everything else), or a quick, dark moment that developed Nicks character further (where he abruptly decided to euthanize Dwaynes family by taking their life force to save them from suffering from the fact that Dwayne had died) they just seemed like very uncharacteristic moments from how these characters had thus far been developed. Perhaps it was because there was not enough cause written into why and how they suddenly deviated from their usual paths in action? I'm not sure of how long the book was, but it read pretty quickly during the times I was reading so I would guess under 200 pages. This might be part of the issue I had; that there wasn't enough dialogue to bring some of the parts to a believable fruition.

I did appreciate the mention of Harry Potter, D & D, & WoW. Definitely I got the impression the author was wanting to prove his personal opinion that people that like Twilight and kids who imitate it know nothing of the "real" world of Vampyres. Luckily for us, Nick, Lych PI does right? :)

This would make a good B-movie premise, and probably TV supernatural show if the elements were combined cohesively (or maybe not!). I just wasn't sure if I was supposed to be reading a parody of vampire stories, or taking Nick's explanations of the supernatural world seriously.





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Review: The Last Unicorn

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



I picked up this book and began to read it's words. I instantly felt transported to a world of nonsense. Not the fun kind though. It read to me like a mild-mannered acid trip, and at times, some lucidity broke through the haze. It almost read like two or more stories to me, maybe that was the intention, but it felt so disjointed to me. Not cohesive. I normally love whimsical stories, but this one did not speak to me it just kept dragging me along and I almost couldn't remember some parts when I was done reading them.

I will say something about it though, that corroborates the impressions of those that enjoyed the book: Moments of it do stay with you. Whether that is a good reference for one or a negative one depends on how the book affects you. Dreamy, odd, moments of the story, and then the rest of it fading into forgettable gibberish.

One of my favorite books is Alice in Wonderland. I feel that's a lyrical, whimsical, tromp through amusing madness of nonsense and love it immensely. I say that because so many people describe The Last Unicorn as lyrical whimsy. I wanted to love this book, and feeling that I love AIW so much I would have thought this not too far of a cry from something like that. But I felt that The Last Unicorn wanted to be so many things and it ended up falling through in being any of them because it felt like it was reaching in too many directions and didn't complete the path to any because of expelling it's energy before it reached one goal. It was about many things, and nothing at all in the end. A journey that wanted to take you on multiple paths of the mythic symbolism of the unicorn and just fell short for me.

I do wish it had spoke to me fondly, but it had too many whispers instead that I just ended up not fully hearing. I know many people love this book, so it is most definitely one that I believe people love when they read it as a kid, or at just the right moment in their adult life when they need what it offers.



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Review: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This book doesn't seem like the usual type I'd read. Something about the aspect of conspiracy, as well as the promising of a compelling biography drew me in. It ended up being quite a great mix of those plus science, humor, and then somehow it managed to capture me the same way fiction always does.

This author has a unique ability to just make non-fiction read like a fictional story does in it's ability to easily intrigue. One point of her way of storytelling that drew me in was in her manner of not belittling the people she interviewed during her journey to find out who Henrietta Lacks was. She's speaking with uneducated individuals, those that use phrases and words that aren't entirely grammatically correct, and yet, she just offers it as it is. Never speaking down to those people as she spoke with them, and never speaking down to them as the storyteller along her writing. That made this book so enjoyable to read for me. I was able to hear their journeys through their own words, and really capture where those journeys took them because of it. All the while, without prejudice or judgement because they themselves were seen clearly. It made it such a human travel, and you can see that the author really connected with these people along the way.


Whether or not you agree with how the HeLa cells were harvested, or what happened with Henrietta and her family, the tale itself is compassionate, tragic, joyous, and honest. All information and sources were documented in detail at the back of the book, and her research was thorough. It was a fascinating delve into society, culture, and towns that no longer exist. As a lover of history, I ate up every word of it. As a lover of science, the facts and details of the cells use was appreciated. I would love to read future biographies from this author if she writes them.





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