My last 5 books: Four misses and one redeemer

1. The Miniaturist, by Jessie Burton. I don't know how I feel about this book. I enjoyed reading it but when it ended I felt strangely disappointed. Reflecting back nothing much happened, while a lot of things happened. There was a lot of empty words and the characters fell flat. It seems like the author spent a lot of time choosing her words and making her prose pretty, but not even close to the same amount of time in making her characters seem like real people. All the characters behave in illogical and erratic manners, that move the story forward but do nothing for their credibility. It feels like the ending fell flat. The finality to it was disappointing and nothing is resolved. The title is misleading as almost nothing in this book has to do with the miniaturist. It seems odd to name a book after someone who has so little influence on the actual story. Every twist to the story was expected, except the one evening involving a dagger. That scene only helped diminish the characters' credibility even more. Nothing is resolved, nothing is explained, and the only lesson the author seems to want to impart to her readers is that the world sucks and you can't do anything about it. The ball keeps rolling, the cups keep spilling over, and all you can do is to try to keep up because you don't stand a chance of stopping it.

2. Sea of Ghosts, by Alan Campbell. My boyfriend read this book before me and he really didn't like it so my expectations were extremely low for this one, but I figured I might as well read it. It starts off pretty slow. I don't like Granger, even after finishing the book I'm not a fan of Granger. I really like Ianthe and Briana, though, and I'm fascinated by Maskelyne. So far so good. The world is steampunk meets sci-fi meets fantasy meets dystopia. This book is the absolute definition of science fantasy. The only thing that's extremely jarring to me in this book is how they are terrified of the ocean throughout the whole thing, a touch of it will change you, being submerged will kill you, and yet Granger survives going for a dive and a prolonged swim? Either the author unwittingly ruined the danger element he'd given the sea, or he made his beloved main character a superhero, or there will be answers further down the line. I also don't agree with the way Ianthe came into her power. It was too out of nowhere. I understand that strong emotion like anger and fighting for your life can make you do things - but if that was the only requirement for Ianthe to discover her power then she would've killed Maskelyne many times over before they even got to Awl. The way she discovered what she could do was way too convenient.

3. Braindroppings, by George Carlin. I really love Carlin's stand-up shows and so I thought I'd love this. I didn't. Apart from a few giggles and chuckles spread throughout the book it was mostly a case of looking ahead to see how many pages were left before the book was finished. To top it off the book hasn't aged well, some of the jokes in it are now so old they have passed the point of being funny because they aren't relevant on any level anymore. I could see how they were once funny, but the world has changed too much since they were. I.e. the short about guys and their walkmans - like what would Carlin have to say today about all the people wearing headphones and listening to music/e-books/podcasts pretty constantly? Not a lot of nice things probably, if that one joke is any indication. While reading this book I could hear Carlin's voice in my head, telling the jokes with all the mannerisms he used on stage, but it didn't help to make this book better.

4. Nights at the Circus, by Angela Carter. 1½ months and 200 pages later I decided to DNF this. It's supposedly a classic, but I've never heard of it. Nothing about this book speaks to me. The characters fell flat and the story progression makes no sense. I hate when a character falls in love for no apparant reason, and the journalist in this book is supposedly so in love with Fevvers that he follows her to the circus, after having a very one-sided conversation one single night. She did all the talking, he barely got a word in sideways. These two characters have no chemistry and seem to make no connection and so their feelings make no sense, almost like their relationship was made up on the fly to somehow make the story move forward. And yet it doesn't. After 200 pages it feels like nothing has happened, nothing at all. And I just can't with this book. This was sent to me as part of Blind Date with a Book, it's the first book I read from my six months with them and I hope not all of the books they send will be like this. I enjoy the freak show/circus setting and so this was a huge disappointment.

5. Taken In, by Elizabeth Lynn Casey. This was a lost-and-found at the hotel that nobody ever claimed and I figured I might as well read it. It was terrible, which is why it took me so long to finish. Obvious plot is obvious. The murder is so simple, there's basically no mystery to it and it's evident who the murderer is pretty much from the point where the victim's neighbour says she saw a tall guy bang on his door and then walk past her door. Like duh. This is what we'd call "old lady mystery trash" and they can be entertaining, but this one just made me sigh in exasperation. Tori is a Mary Sue. Rose's personality is that she's old. Margaret Louise and Beatrice are painfully blatant stereotypes, Dixie is basically not involved and Leona is a bitch. This book has no redeeming qualities other than that it was easy reading and done pretty quickly when I set my mind to it.