Book review: The Accident

Title: The Accident

Author: Chris Pavone

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Format: Kindle

Summary:  A mysterious yet explosive manuscript has landed on the desk of literary agent Isabel Reed.  If she's going to publish it she needs to survive first.  Every time another person gets a copy of the manuscript they end up dead.

Review: I have grown to love reading via Kindle but one of the downsides is the inability to quickly go back and re-read segments and this is one of those books that I needed to go back pretty often and try and remember what is happening.  Many of the characters were very mysterious and unidentified at times, so it was sometimes difficult (for me) to figure out which character was speaking (the perspective kept shifting amongst different characters).  Also, I'm not generally a huge fan of "there's a massive global conspiracy of the top business leaders and government leaders of the world."  It's not that I don't think there are conspiracies, I just find it tiresome at times. This is a good suspense novel and I'd recommend it as a beach read (even though summer is over).  The door was left open for a sequel, we'll see what happens with that. Despite this seemingly negative (or lukewarm) review, I'd consider reading the sequel.

Time to write: 5:30

Book review: Us

Title: Us
Author: David Nicholls
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Summary: Douglas is a pretty reserved and straight-laced guy.  Despite this, he wooed the artistic Connie into marrying him almost 30 years ago and now their son Albie is 17 years old.  Right before the family is set to depart on a month-long European tour, Connie announces that she wants a divorce.  Should they cancel the trip?  Of course not!  Douglas wants to use the trip to persuade Connie to stay and to attempt to get closer to Albie.  What could go wrong?

Review: One Day is one of my favorite books of all time so I was excited to see Nicholls' latest book.   I couldn't bring myself to see the movie version of One Day because I'm not a huge fan of Anne Hathaway and I didn't want to see yet another movie epically fail to do a book justice.  I digress.

It took me a while to get into Us, but once I did I enjoyed it.  This book certainly didn't go the way I thought it was going to.  How could it?  Here's what I liked:

1. The back story on how Douglas and Connie met.
2. How Douglas' initial perspective on his relationship with his son didn't portray the full story.
3. The disastrous start to the trip and how it evolved.
4. Douglas' acknowledgement that he had made mistakes and his attempts to fix them.
5. The ending.

So why not the full five stars?  Because initially it wasn't one of those books that I was dying to read at the end of the day.  I'd pick it up and I enjoyed it, but it wasn't one that I wanted to stay up all night reading.

Time to write: 6:26

Book review: Department of Speculation

Title: Department of Speculation
Author: Jenny Offill
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Summary: Just see what it says on Amazon.  It is not helpful.

Review:  This is one of those books where now that I'm finally getting around to writing the review, I don't have the faintest idea of what it was about.  I took a look at Amazon for some clues but that wasn't terribly helpful either.  When I finish a book, I generally jot down my rating right away.  Since I gave it three stars, I apparently I thought it was alright.  Not terrible but not great.  Not a terribly informative review but there you go.  Did I think it was one of the Top Ten Books of the Year like the NY Times Book Review did?  No, but I think we all know that the NYTBR and I generally aren't on the same page anyway.

Time to write: 4:16