As I sit here listening to the rain and listening to Lily Allen (huh. My Indie street cred is diminished, you say? What. Ever. Trevor.) after returning from Pirates of The Caribbean 444678.31357 (AKA The One Even Orlando Bloom Thought He Was Too Good For. Orlando Bloom, people!) I’m reminded that all is not lost for humanity.
Dracula, Bram Stoker
Oh, wait. How wrong I was. Remember how back in my last book review I said how much I was looking forward to reading this? Famous last words. This book is SHITE. Avoid it like the plague. In fact it avoid more than the plague. The plague is like a light sniffle that is annoying but not too bad compared to this piece of. Utter. Shite.
Okay, so technically the first fifty-hundred pages aren’t that bad. But then old Van Helsing arrives. Worst literary character ever. His gushing, cloying, OTT dialogue makes you want to stick razorblades on your eyes and drink a vat of acid. He irritated the living shit out of me.
The rest of it’s shit too.
It’s all shit.
Everything is shit.
I hate everything.
Ahem.
The Girl Who God Only Knows What by that twit Stieg Could-I-Have-A-More-Stereotypical-Scandinavian-Surname-Larsson
The third and final one in the trilogy. Yeah…he should have kept it a twofer. Or even better, a stand alone.
Cos…y’know, it’s alright to have the irritatingly noble and perfect good guys win but when you can tell from the fucking beginning of the book that the bad guys will lose! LOSE! Lose for all they’re worth and have no hope of pulling off their master plan it sort of diminishes the dramatic tension.
Also, why kill the two big baddies who seems to have instigated the grand conspiracy plot that is the whole point of the last two book a hundred pages in and then tell us it’s actually one of their sidekicks who’s a cripple and who only appears in two scenes and barely has a word of dialogue until the last few chapters (Seriously! He just disappears and we don’t know what he’s up to! Despite being the big baddie!)
And, yes, he does this again with the OTHER big baddy who disappears for literally the ENTIRE book up until the last chapter where he once again succumbs to a five foot tall bisexual punk ano. SERIOUSLY!?
Also-middle aged author avatar strikes again and bangs a lesbianalicious seeming government/special services police officer despite the fact that she seems a sensible and strictly professional type of lass who should know that shagging an investigative reporter not to mention one who’s high profile and is coming to you for help to uncover a massive government conspiracy is probably not someone you should be hopping on the good foot and doing the bad thing with after two scenes.
ALSO (I like this word apparently) main man’s bit on the side (remember how all the women are highly sexualised but none of the men. Even the main character who seems to go around with a permanent semi) is all upset and despite that the police officer is instantly smitten with him and declaring herself all Bella Swanesque irrevocably in love with him after two chapters she is all “Well, I drove out his wife and lots of other women so I’ll keep my distance, muhaha. Bitch. Now excuse me I have to go get stalked by a crazed loner and have a conversation with my poor husband who doesn’t mind me shagging everything that moves, consenting or otherwise, and who only has one scene in the book.”
Ugh.
Colour me unimpressed.
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, Marina Lewycka
Loved this. Well, what’s not to? Bickering Slavic immigrants? Overly embosomed (totes a word.) gold digging blondes, aged geriatrics wearing shoe lace pyjamas and a harrowing tale of how a family escaped Eastern Europe after WWII complete with a flashback to a concentration camp near the end, that made this hard hearted “I Hate everything, especially small children, and I kick bunnies for fun” bastard NEARLY cry on the tube.
S’very funny, too. You should read.
And I know I said I hated him but am going to read The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham next. It better be good, cause God help me I’ve had a rough time of the literary business lately.
It's easy to hate. So I do. 