Goodreads Review - Sharp Objects

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book really got my attention early on and never lost it. It’s a relatively short book, and that works well until the end when I felt like there could have been a little more time spent in the aftermath, but I could be wrong about that. The story is wonderfully creepy but it’s really the broken, damaged, and mostly demented characters that are the strength of the story. I’ve only read a few Stephen King novels, but I would favorably compare this work to what he does, only in fewer words and with less characters. Flynn really used the characters she had very effectively and you never felt like you met someone you didn’t need to. There was a great build to the suspense and the payoff was very satisfying, even though I thought a little more time could have been spent exploring the revelations. I highly recommend Gillian Flynn’s works, including Gone Girl. I went out and picked up Dark Places upon completion of Sharp Objects: the highest compliment I can offer.

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This week's question is: What do you do with your books after you’re done reading them?

MY ANSWER: There seem to be three tiers of what I do with books. 

Tier 3 :  Set them down on a bus station bench when no one is looking and walk away quickly.  This tier is for those really horrible books that you want to forget you ever read but are too fundamentally opposed to burning books to do the right thing.  You can't give them to friends because they'd know you read it, and you can't give it to a library because, good lord, these books must be stopped no matter the cost.  Your hope is that a homeless man will take it and shred it into little pieces like a bird building a nest.  Best possible outcome.

Tier 2 :  Most books fit this tier.  I love to give them to friends, send to the library, or trade them into a used book store for more books.  Ninety percent of my old books fall into this category.

Tier 1 :  Oh, fabled Tier 1, what rarefied air you inhabit!  This is where I put the handful of books that I still have trouble believing were actually written and not just yanked from my heart while I was dreaming.  Tier 1 books have to stay nearby, to physically represent how close they are to me, for the way they helped me discover something about myself, form lifelong opinions about weighty issues, or just enriched me in a way that only a special book can. 

Goodreads Review - Slammed

Slammed by Colleen Hoover
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book started out with a very typical YA beginning but found its own way about one third into the story. I liked the characters. One small complaint would be the maturity level of the little brother character. He seemed either very mature or too immature depending on the needs of the scene, but this didn’t distract from my enjoyment of the story very much. The book requires you to accept that the two main characters can fall in love really fast. I mean, like less than a week fast. My personal preference is to see the romantic feelings develop over a longer period, exploring the little moments that lead up to that connection, but love at first sight happens too, and I guess you have to be open to that to accept the premise of SLAMMED.

The author obviously likes to write poetry, and while what the characters wrote was fine, I was a little jarred by how much they supposedly memorized so quickly to present during the poetry slams on which the book is titled.

All in all, the story is solid, the characters never really annoy, and the ending is satisfying and avoided any cheap gimmicks or overly Lifetime movie moments that could have been exploited.

When going to find the book at Books-A-Million (I subsequently bought the e-book anyway) I was told by the helpful worker that the book was located in the “After 50 Shades” section and categorized as erotica. I had never been so glad my ten year old son had wondered off as I was at that moment. There is nothing erotic in the book and it was easily found in the standard fiction section. SLAMMED really is about poetry and you can’t judge a book by its title.


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