Author: Irvine Welsh

After a mental breakdown due to a child murder case he investigated, and still recovering from drug abuse, D.I. Ray Lennox (Filth) goes on holidays to Miami, Florida with his fiancée Trudi, whose only idea is planning their wedding.

While there, they have a fight which ends up with Ray going with two women he met in a bar to their apartment to have some cocaine. Things go wild and Ray is now responsible for Tianna, a 10 year old girl and daughter of one of the women.

Haunted by the memories and ghosts from his recent case back in Edinburgh, Ray’s only quest now is to protect Tianna from a paedophile network.

The book is good and easy to read, but I didn’t get attached to it as with the other Irvine Welsh’s books. I don’t think there is enough depth on the story and the characters, and although the usual combination of drugs-sex-booze-violence, typical from the author, is there, it felt quite a different writing style – which is not my favorite. I love Welsh’s old and usual way of writing.

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Author: Kim Edwards

1964 – During a snowy night in Kentucky, Dr. David Henry has to make the delivery of his and his wife Norah’s own and first child, helped only by a nurse called Caroline. A perfect boy named Paul is born – and that’s when he realizes there is another baby coming – a girl with Down Syndrome. Worried about her health and the impact on Norah’s life, he asks Caroline to put the baby girl in an institution, and tells his wife the girl was stillborn. Caroline, seeing the precarious conditions of the institution, decides to take care of the baby, and names her Phoebe.

Norah was never the same after her daughter’s “death”, and Caroline moved to Pittsburgh to start a new life with Phoebe as her daughter.

We follow Paul and Phoebe’s growth throughout the years, while David and Norah’s marriage deteriorate.

The plot is very interesting, but the book is disappointing. The characters are unlikeable, some things are not explained very well while others are repeated a thousand times, and the end is, of course, predictable.

What a shame! It could have been a great book if written in a completely different way.

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Author: Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Using the same universe of The Shadow of the Wind, The Angel’s Game takes us to Barcelona in the 1920’s. Although it is not a proper prequel, because the story is very different and has no connection to that of the first book, we again see the Cemetery of the Forgotten Books and the Sempere & Sons Bookshop.

This time, David Martin, a young writer disappointed with his love and professional life, accepts the offer of a mysterious editor to write a book that could “change the world” – but not for a cheap price.

After having fallen in love with The Shadow of the Wind, I was highly anticipating this would be another wonderful book, but unfortunately it didn’t meet my expectations. The book in itself is good, no doubt about it – there’s mystery, friendship, romance, and the descriptions and the characters are very profound. At some points I felt this weight upon my chest and my mood was kind of deteriorating – just what happens when the words and characters have such depth – but maybe because of this, when I think about this book I think of darkness (maybe some part of me is still lost inside a room or a corridor of David’s house), and for that and the natural comparison that we’ll all do, The Angel’s Game is not near as good as the previous one.

But, said that, as this is a 4-part series, I’ll certainly read the next books and try not to raise my expectation so high, so maybe I’ll be surprised, and for the better.

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Author: Markus Zusak

Set in Germany during World War II, this could be another book amongst millions that explore the war period with a dramatic story on top. Huge mistake. The Book Thief is simply a masterpiece and should be in the bookshelves of every person in the world. So what makes it so special?

To start with, the narrator of the book is Death, but believe it or not, he is not keen of war as everyone seems to think. It’s very interesting to see Death defining himself and his job, but most of all, him opining about human actions, morals and thoughts – he is sarcastic, smart and funny.

His first encounter with the main character, Liesel Meminger, a 9 year old german girl, happens when she and her younger brother are being taken by their mother to a foster family and her little brother dies. Stopping for the burial, Liesel finds a book called “The Gravedigger’s Handbook” lost in the snow – this is the first book she “steals”.

After that, Death will continue telling us Liesel’s life with her foster parents, big-hearted Hans Hubermann (Papa) and strict Rosa Hubermann, as well as the neighborhood and Max Vandenburg, a Jew they hide in the basement and with whom Liesel develops a great fondness and shares the passion for words. I will not write more than that because I don’t want to spoil the whole story – you’d better read and discover it for yourself, and I’m sure you won’t regret it.

One other thing that is interesting is having the point of view of common germans during the war: those who didn’t approve Hitler’s actions and didn’t want to take part on it, and kids, who tried to make the best of their days during those tough and strange times.

Beautifully and amazingly well-written, Markus Zusak deserves all the glory for this book.

A must read, definitely.

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Author: George R.R. Martin

**CAUTION: IT DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE PREVIOUS BOOKS**

After the slaughter of several important characters in the previous book, one had to wonder who was left to tell the story and how the author was going to keep it up. The answer is plain and simple: a whole bunch of new POVs. 6 they are: The Prophet / The Drowned Man (Aeron “Damphair” Greyjoy); The Captain of the Guards (Areo Hotah); The Princess in the Tower / The Queenmaker (Aryanne Martell); The Kraken’s Daughter (Asha Greyjoy); The Soiled Knight (Ser Arys Oakheart) and The Iron Captain / The Reaver (Victarion Greyjoy). Additionally to them, there’s also 6 POVs already known to us from the previous books (thankfully, otherwise I would not follow it so eagerly): Cersei and Jaime Lannister; Samwell Tarly; Brienne of Tarth; Arya Stark / Cat of the Canals and Sansa Stark / Alayne Stone. All the above with a slash between names mean that character has chapters of his own with two different names – confusing, if you are not paying too much attention on the new characters. Also, the prologue is told by a novice of the Citadel.

Said that, I found the first two hundred pages a bit boring and struggled to get past it, but persistence paid off – once the story caught up, I couldn’t stop reading.

In Dorne, we are introduced to Prince Doran Martell, his daughter Aryanne, the Sand Snakes (the Red Viper’s bastards), and we discover Doran’s plans for vengeance against King’s Landing.

In the Iron Islands, the Kingsmoot turns out to be very predictable (surprise!).

Sansa is in the Eyrie, living as Littlefinger’s natural daughter. I didn’t intend to spend too much time talking about her, because she doesn’t deserve it – she is too silly, even after everything that happened to her and her family, but one thing caught my attention and I want to add this as another reason as to why I despise her so much. After “ages” having not thought about Jon Snow, when someone makes a comment about him, she thinks “he was only my half brother, but still…”. Even when she completes saying, or better, thinking, that now he’s all that she has, she has never considered him as real family! In comparison, Arya loves Jon with all her heart, and if she doesn’t think about Sansa too, who is her sister (not half), it is because they are completely different girls and this difference made them fight, so it’s not because of their blood that she doesn’t give a thought about silly Sansa.

Meanwhile, in the Riverlands, Brienne is still on her mission to keep her promise to Catelyn Stark and also Jaime Lannister, and she now has with her Podrick Payne, Tyrion’s squire.

But it is in King’s Landing that most of the action takes place. Cersei, sweet Cersei…I guess she will have what she deserves soon enough, or so I hope. She’s so full of herself and blind with power, that she does not seem able to think rationally, although she thinks her moves and plots and lies and games are fantastic and would make her father proud of her. What a big fool. She should know better.

Jaime has changed for better, and I definitely sympathize with him now. Samwell is the same craven as ever, and Arya is the one to whom all my best wishes are directed for, but at this point of the series, I have no idea what is going to happen to her.

To finalize: A Feast for Crows is focused in Westeros – from Dorne up to the Eyrie, the Iron Islands and King’s Landing. There are some bits and pieces happening in Braavos, across the Narrow Sea, but apart from that, we hardly hear about The Wall and Essos. George R.R. Martin decided to split the story in two books due to its length, but instead of dividing it per chronology, he divided it by location and characters, which means the next book, A Dance of Dragons, will focus in Daenerys (Essos) and Jon Snow / Stannis (The Wall).

I think this is good, because then we don’t have superficial stories everywhere, but does it mean that we’ll have to wait until the 6^th book (The Winds of Winter – publication date unknown) to know what happens to the characters in Westeros? This is cruel!!!!

It’s another brilliant book, but I’m not giving 5 stars because of those first 200 pages.

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Author: Tess Gerritsen

First of all, I like Tess Gerritsen’s books very much, in particular the ones with Detective Jane Rizzoli and Dr. Maura Isles, a forensic pathologist whom I usually compare and put at the same level as Kay Scarpeta (Patricia Cornwell’s character).

The Silent Girl, though, disappointed me. I read the book until the end, but only because I don’t like to leave a story unfinished, and also because I was hoping it would get better, which it didn’t.

A body is found in Boston’s Chinatown, which brings Rizzoli to the investigation and Maura Isles to do the autopsy – and she finds two non-human hair strands in the clothes of the victim. This murder is soon connected to a tragedy that occurred 17 years ago, also there in Chinatown. Side stories, if we can call it that, are Isles testifying against a cop, which prompts all police department to kind of hate her; and Rizzoli kind of fighting with her husband, who thinks she’s taking too much risks at work (as if he didn’t know her profession when they got together).

Anyway, although there is mystery and a twist in the story, I didn’t like it because there is too much “paranormal” or similar things – let’s put it that way – and all these ultra martial arts movements, the type that you see on TV and think “yeah, yeah, right…”, so this was very unreal and not what I was expecting.

There are better books by Tess Gerritsen, and I will try to review a couple of them later on, but you may enjoy this one if you like Chinese culture.

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Author: Carlos Ruiz Zafón

I’m not someone who sheds tears for a book, at least not very easily, and only a few books have made me cry – The Shadow of the Wind is one of them.

Daniel Sempere is taken by his father to a secret place called Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a library full of old and rare titles, where he must choose a book (or perhaps be chosen by one), and take care and protect it for the rest of his life. He picks up “The Shadow of the Wind”, written by Julián Carax.

Completely involved by the book, Daniel searches for other Carax’s books, just to discover that someone is buying and burning/destroying all copies available in Europe. Decided to learn who is doing this, and why, he ends up discovering Julián Carax’s life story, at the same time that his own life seems to be mirroring the story told on “The Shadow of the Wind”.

Beautifully written, with characters jumping alive from the pages, description of places and people very detailed and vivid, and a plot full of mystery, friendship, obsession and love in a period of post war/dictatorship, I didn’t want to stop reading so to get to the last page and know what happens as soon as possible, but at the same time every page turned was a page closer to the end and I didn’t want the story to ever end!

I got very emotional towards the last pages, not because I was finishing the book, but mainly because of their tradition not being abandoned after all, and the possibility of another book bringing another great adventure, and that it would always be passed along from father to son…

This is one of my favorite books, and the only other thing I can say is: READ IT!

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Author: Mikkel Birkegaard

When Luca Campelli, the owner of a second-hand bookshop called Libri di Luca, in Copenhagen, oddly dies, his son Jon inherits the bookshop, even not wanting it initially. Days after his father’s death, with whom he had not had contact from more than 20 years, someone tries to burn the shop, so Jon decides to take a better look into his family’s past, discovering that Libri di Luca was not just a regular bookshop, but a place of meeting for a secret society of booklovers with powers to manipulate and induce people’s feelings and actions while a book was being read. Now Jon and those helping him are in danger and must fight for their survival.

It has been a long time since I read this book, but I remember I was not that impressed after finishing it. The idea of touching people’s feelings in a particular way through a book is very interesting (when not used for bad purposes, of course), but there are too many cliches and some things are simply too much and overrated.

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Author: Irvine Welsh

Filth is, by far, my favorite Irvine Welsh’s novel. It is hilarious, depressive, revolting and disgusting, but a page-turner all the same.

Detective-Sargeant Bruce Robertson is a corrupt and sociopath “polis”, cocaine addicted, who hates everyone and plays these foul games of his with people (especially his workmates) to see them disgraced and out of his way – “how does it make you feel?” is a common question is his mind.

He is designated to investigate and solve the murder of a young black guy, which, by the way, happens in the prologue but doesn’t develop too much along the book, as the main plot is about Bruce and his sick behavior.

At one point a tapeworm is introduced in the context, overlapping the text in the form of a tube (or guts, whatever you prefer), and first he just wants to eat, but then develops a personality – calling himself “The Self” and Bruce “The Host” – and then tells us the real/inner story of his host’s life – those things Bruce won’t admit even to himself.

The book is told in first person – there’s also a second character with a few chapters of her own: Carole, Bruce’s ex-wife – and the title is just perfect. Bruce is disgusting – when he goes to the toilet to scratch this arse and then he goes back to the canteen to eat something without washing his hands – aaaahhhhh – I wish I hadn’t read that!

Some characters from other books are mentioned in this novel, a couple of them having an important part on the story (Lexo and Ghostie from Marabou Stork Nightmares, and Ray Lennox from Crime, for instance), and there’s again sex, drugs and alcohol abuse, racism and hatred.

The end is very surprising and I highly recommend this book, but certainly not for the soft, pure and innocent ones.

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