Mid-Reading Thoughts (Sort Of) on Gone Girl

This mid-reading piece is rather overdue, seeing as I'm more like 85% through with Gone Girl and not 50%, but I ended up flying through that extra 35% on my lunch break at school one day, and, well, here we are.

Still Slogging Through Gone Girl...

Reading the reviews for Gone Girl, I knew that it was one of those books that people really like or really hate, but I was determined to read it because the movie looked so interesting, despite the fact that I already disliked one of Flynn's books, Dark Places. So far, I'm only a little more than 100 pages into Gone Girl, and I have to say it's slow going. It's not exactly boring, but it doesn't motivate me to stay up to read it if I'm tired or pull myself away from my computer to keep reading. My opinion of it is kind of balanced at the midpoint right now--I like some parts and I'm less fond of others. I thought I should just add a little something here, even though I'm not really at the 50% mark that usually leads to a mid-reading post, because it seems like it's going to take me awhile to get through this one.

Review of Soil by Jamie Kornegay

So, my first advance reader copy is in the bag. It was definitely a neat experience, even if I was pretty disappointed with the book toward the end, and I'm looking forward to being able to write rave reviews and encourage people to read great upcoming pieces of work. After the jump, you'll find my Goodreads review, but be forewarned: I don't go into much detail about my disappointment with the book here, because it all has to do with the ending and I don't want to give anything away to those who want to read it when it comes out in March 2015. So, you can read the non-spoilery parts here, and if you want to take the leap into spoiler territory and find out what bugged me about Soil, feel free to navigate over to Goodreads and take a peek at the spoilers there.

Mid-Reading Thoughts on Soil by Jamie Kornegay

Soil was one of the two early reviewer books that I was really excited to win on my birthday this year (and, luckily enough, the first early reviewer copy I've ever applied for). It's slated for publishing in March 2015 and has an interesting premise: a paranoid soil expert decides to try to revolutionize farming (and keep his family safe during the inevitable apocalypse) by moving out into the country to build his own sustainable farm, but he is soon ruined by a flood and his wife and son leave him. Alone, starving, and growing more paranoid by the day, he discovers a corpse on his flooded property and suspects that the townspeople are going to blame the crime on him. Therefore, he has to figure out some way to conceal the body, but, unbeknownst to him, various interconnecting plot lines are unfolding all around him...

Thoughts on it so far are after the jump!

Review of The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury

The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another Bradbury book that I think might have been better if I'd read it as a child first. It was definitely interesting and kept me reading, but, as someone who already knew most of what was said about Halloween, there weren't many surprises to be had. The part about Egypt was new to me, but other tidbits were nothing special.

Again, as with Something Wicked This Way Comes, I struggled with Bradbury's descriptive writing style. On the one hand, the scenes he creates are lovely. I loved the spooky Halloween Tree itself and could picture it clearly in my mind, just as I could picture myself running through Notre Dame and seeing the gargoyles there. In terms of creating an imaginary landscape for the reader to enjoy, Bradbury delivers every time. On the other hand, I sometimes found myself wishing that he would just tone down the adjectives and the lengthy sentences full of similes. Not every action needs a paragraph of description to go with it, and all of the similes and images eventually begin to shoot themselves in the proverbial foot, losing any of their drama because they're used so often. A breeze rolls in, and it sounds like the dusty animal howls of tortured souls dead and gone for a thousand years and buried in damp dark graves with no one but earthworms for companions. Bradbury is undoubtedly a talented writer with a gift for description; I just feel I would enjoy his work more if he used that gift a little more sparingly.

That said, it was a nice little Halloween book with a spooky atmosphere (it captured the feeling of being out on Halloween night very well) and a good scary character in the form of Moundshroud. It's probably a fun and interesting way for children to learn about the origins of Halloween, and adults will enjoy pondering the questions it brings up about life and death. Worth the read.