I am in the middle of a mystery called "Dog On It" by Spencer Quinn.
The best way to describe this book thus far is to call it mystery fluff. Fluff is fine every now and then, but for the people who read it constantly, well they're just filling their mind with crap.
No offense to you fluff readers.
And while I'm here I'll go ahead and define fluff. Mostly fluff is made up of crappy romance novels. A romance novel, according to Wikipedia must have an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." The romance novels I'm talking about are the ones with the woman who's unhappy, meets a gorgeous and OMG, life is wonderful. Can you tell I hate romance novels?
I'm sorry, I'll get back to the point. Fluff is fine as long as you don't depend on it. Don't pretend that life is actually like the fluff books. Don't fill your mind with fluff because you will ALWAYS be disappointed and probably angry.
"Dog On It" is a cute book, nothing more. It's fun to see the world from a dog's point of view, especially the world of a private detective. But it gets repetitive. We get it. Dogs are hungry, horny and have an extremely short attention span. Tip for all you new writers out there: Dogs are not good main characters. I propose having a book with two main characters, Mr. Quinn. You've got options besides the dog.
Again, I'd suggest that you don't waste your time with this book. If you enjoy mystery books, are a dog lover and are in the mood for a book that makes you feel good (but nothing more) then enjoy!
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Alive in Necropolis
I just finished reading "Alive in Necropolis" by Doug Dorst. I don't really know how to review a book so I'm just going to say what I want.
He wrote a great beginning for it. It invites you to keep reading and makes you ponder about how an author can write this well. But overall I found the book to be unfocused. It couldn't quite decide how it wanted to go or even what genre it was in.
I'm the type of person who needs closure. While I can deal with things not being "whole" or completely solved at the end, I have to have some sort of closure. Dorst gave me a bit of that at the end, but it seemed like an afterthought. As if he had really intended on finishing the book with the last police report.
And another thing! I didn't like to read the police reports. I had to read them because they contained most of the "action" of the book. They were a bit of a cop-out (no pun intended). And if we're being realistic to the character and what he was going through in the book, he would stop writing these silly police reports when he started drifting away from The Book (the rule book). They weren't easy reads either. I'm not sure of the thought process being this choice.
I'm not a writer, but I think for a first book it would be best to stick to one or two main characters, rather than merely dip into the lives of many characters. There was no order to which character he focused on.
My suggestion would be to skip this book.
He wrote a great beginning for it. It invites you to keep reading and makes you ponder about how an author can write this well. But overall I found the book to be unfocused. It couldn't quite decide how it wanted to go or even what genre it was in.
I'm the type of person who needs closure. While I can deal with things not being "whole" or completely solved at the end, I have to have some sort of closure. Dorst gave me a bit of that at the end, but it seemed like an afterthought. As if he had really intended on finishing the book with the last police report.
And another thing! I didn't like to read the police reports. I had to read them because they contained most of the "action" of the book. They were a bit of a cop-out (no pun intended). And if we're being realistic to the character and what he was going through in the book, he would stop writing these silly police reports when he started drifting away from The Book (the rule book). They weren't easy reads either. I'm not sure of the thought process being this choice.
I'm not a writer, but I think for a first book it would be best to stick to one or two main characters, rather than merely dip into the lives of many characters. There was no order to which character he focused on.
My suggestion would be to skip this book.
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