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Picked up a book on a whim over the weekend
Lately, I've been reading a lot of fluffy books. (brain candy.) Hit on Kathy Reichs, who wrote a number of books on which the TV show "Bones" is based on. I like her forward writing style, even if she tends to overuse the chapter cliffhanger convention. Makes it hard to find a good place to put the books down. Started with Bones to Ashes which is, apparently the 5th book in the series. (Hate it when I start halfway through a series.)
I happened to be in a Paper Store looking for wrapping paper, (You'd think a place called Paper Store would have had more of a selection of wrapping paper, but I digress,) when my eye settled on From Baghdad, With Love: A Marine, the War, and a Dog Named Lava. Picked it up, thinking I'd save it for after the current run of brain candy.
Got home and figured, what the hell, I'll read the first chapter to see if I like the style, or if it's going on the shelf of poor purchases.
...
1:30 am the next morning, I finished the book.
I don't want to say it was a particularly well written book, but it was painfully compelling. It didn't tell the story of the war, it didn't try to sell you an agenda, it was a brutal and honest story of one man's, (and many of his acquaintances,) fight to save the dog he begrudgingly came to love in the storm of insanity only war can kick up.
In the end, it is heart warming. You can pretty much gleen that from the title. Along the way, though, you read nervously, as if by the action of turning the page you might initiate events that will spiral out of control.
Highly recommend it, for the dog lover, but also for the person who can't understand why men two, three tour in, continue to volunteer to go back.
- k.
I happened to be in a Paper Store looking for wrapping paper, (You'd think a place called Paper Store would have had more of a selection of wrapping paper, but I digress,) when my eye settled on From Baghdad, With Love: A Marine, the War, and a Dog Named Lava. Picked it up, thinking I'd save it for after the current run of brain candy.
Got home and figured, what the hell, I'll read the first chapter to see if I like the style, or if it's going on the shelf of poor purchases.
...
1:30 am the next morning, I finished the book.
I don't want to say it was a particularly well written book, but it was painfully compelling. It didn't tell the story of the war, it didn't try to sell you an agenda, it was a brutal and honest story of one man's, (and many of his acquaintances,) fight to save the dog he begrudgingly came to love in the storm of insanity only war can kick up.
In the end, it is heart warming. You can pretty much gleen that from the title. Along the way, though, you read nervously, as if by the action of turning the page you might initiate events that will spiral out of control.
Highly recommend it, for the dog lover, but also for the person who can't understand why men two, three tour in, continue to volunteer to go back.
- k.
Silly Vampire Books
Re: Silly Vampire Books
- K.
no subject
2) Those of us who write genre fiction are taught to do the cliffhanger thing just so you can't put the book down, on the theory that, the next day, bleary-eyed and book-drunk, you'll stumble in to Borders to find more things we've written.(Actually, it's for earlier than that in the process. We want editors to zip through the first three chapters that you send to pique their interest and be dying to read more.)
no subject
2) I understand the reasons why... but I get to that point where, like in art, I need a white space to rest your eyes. I need to have a good place to make a break, or it actually frustrates me, and I try to read faster to get to a break faster, and start missing detail. I can compromise - maybe every fourth chapter could not be a cliffhanger? ;)
- K.