What I Read: Mixed Bag Edition

It’s been a while since I did one of these posts, huh? For a while there wasn’t much to report on the reading front, and more recently, I just got plain lazy. The truth is that I don’t enjoy writing about books; my idea of a satisfactory review is the title, brief (and I mean BRIEF) description of the subject matter, and my personal ranking of how much I liked/enjoyed the book. Yet, I feel like that’s somehow inadequate for a post like this; I would like to write more, but my laziness always gets the better of me. With that in mind, I thought I would try my preferred “speed round” approach and see if anyone still found it useful/interesting.

– Christopher Hibbert, The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici: Title is self-explanatory; this is a biography of the Florentine House of Medici. I would give it a 4/5. Hibbert is an excellent historian, and he is working with fascinating material in the case of the Medicis, but the books is a bit dry at times.

– Tana French, The Trespasser: Mystery novel of the “cop procedural” sub-genre, set in contemporary Ireland. All of French’s novels are set in the same “universe”, featuring the same police department but with different detectives as protagonists in each case. The protagonist in this book is a WOC, and the crime is reported as a domestic case (though there is, obviously, more to it than first appears). I would give this a 3.5/5. French is one of my fave contemporary mystery writers, but her plots are hit-and-miss for me. This one was more of a “miss”. French writes “good atmosphere”, so that upped the ranking for me.

– Bill Bryson, One Summer: America, 1927. As the title suggests, a book about the events that took place in America during the summer of 1927. If, as for me, that year doesn’t mean much to you, you will be pleasantly surprised by how eventful it was. This was a fantastic read, 5/5. Bryson is one of my favourite writers, period, and has a tremendous knack for weaving together all kinds of stories: Charles Lindbergh’s history-making Transatlantic flight, Babe Ruth’s legendary exploits, Al Capone’s tax trial, Prohibition, the creation of Mount Rushmore, and many, many more.

– Bill Bryson, Troublesome Words. This one is hard to describe, but it’s a cross between a dictionary and a spelling/grammar/syntax textbook. It doesn’t sound like something that would be fun to read, but Bryson somehow succeeds in making it precisely that. It’s best read in short chunks, and probably worth referencing every so often. I would give it 5/5 as a writer’s resource. I thought I was a good writer (and a bit of a snob about others’ sloppy writing), but this book showed me that I have PLENTY of room for improvement.

– Robert Galbraith, Lethal White. Mystery novel of the “private detective” sub-genre, set in contemporary England. This is the 4th novel in the Cormoran Strike series, which I love. I pre-ordered this and received it on its release day and, despite it being 7697353 pages long (actually 656 pages but, trust me, it’s a doorstop-sized thing), I finished it in about 3 days. As for my ranking … it’s tough. I would give it a 3/5, which might be a bit stingy.

OK, I am going to make exception to my earlier comments and talk about this one in a bit more detail.

First off, it is way too long. The mystery itself (once the book got to it) is enjoyable enough, if slightly predictable – and I say that as someone who rarely spots the culprit ahead of the reveal. The details of the whodunit are complicated enough that I did not connect the dots (nor do I usually try, I love the reveal-all scenes in mystery novels and hate spoiling my own fun), but let’s just say that the culprit(s) pinged my radar, big time.

The bigger letdown was the rest of the book, namely the ongoing Cormoran-Robin relationship saga. Pause here for a SPOILER ALERT.

DO NOT READ FURTHER UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE SPOILED.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

So, like, NOTHING gets resolved over six hundred odd pages. Nothing. Robin gets married and subsequently (after six hundred pages) decides to leave her husband, who has no redeeming qualities whatsoever to justify taking that long over the latter decision. Cormoran dates some forgettable character, and Charlotte pops up just long enough to establish what will presumably be the romantic obstacle(s) for the next 2 to 4 books. Cormoran and Robin never talk about their actual feelings for each other, whilst spending countless pages of interior monologue analyzing them in detail. I had hopes for the epilogue, but nope. Still just platonic friends, happy to use work as an excuse to see each other, sublimated lust, etc., etc., etc. Seriously, the progress of this relationship is slower than George RR Martin’s typical publishing schedule. We are FOUR books deep, people. As a reader, I love a slow-burning romance, but this is pushing my limit. I acknowledge that’s a very subjective thing, though.

Also subjective, and possibly polarizing? I don’t know that I actually connect with Robin as a standalone character. I love Cormoran; to me, he stands out as a memorable, charismatic character, but Robin? She could be any number of generic “plucky heroine, haunted by past trauma” characters. Maybe she is meant to be the “everywoman” character that allows the (female) reader to insert themselves into the book but … nah, she doesn’t really do it for me. I wanna work with someone like Cormoran (in a fantasy life, because I’m actually a wuss and would hate to be a private detective in real life), but I don’t want to be Robin. Does that make sense?

Alright, that’s enough blabbing from me. If you’ve read Lethal White, I would love to hear your thoughts. And, as always, if you have reading recc’s, leave them in the comments!