and secretly
Dec. 15th, 2007 08:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
impyI finished Book of the Dead [the new Patricia Cornwell book]. It's okay, you don't need to send out a search party for my mind or anything. In fact, it was pretty good. Not as good as the earlier books, but not as god awful as some of the later ones. [Did she go crazy and that's why Scarpetta went downhill? Or just the nature of the beast?] Of course, the big lure was Scarpetta and her team of minions moving to Charleston. So I read the book hoping for a, "HEY! I know that place" moment.
I'm not sure why I started reading her books other than a friend of mine [Calli] recommended them and... I stumbled across one of the ones right in the middle of the total insanity that was Scarpetta's life going to hell. It was fantastic [shut it, it was] and I went back and read all the books in order up to the book I'd started with and then the next one had come out, so I read that. And then things just went downhill. I don't know which book it was, but the last few, especially once the voice of the books changed, went straight to hell and it's been an uphill struggle to redeem them. Which she's working on, mostly. I no longer wish everyone in the books would die [that would include Lucy, Marino, Benton, and even Kay] but I no longer feel... as protective as I did. If that makes sense. Usually this far into a series, you want the conflict of the book to leave the characters alive and well.
There's no "well" for these guys. The most you can hope for is alive, and even that's not necessarily a given. Meh.
I was going to good, bad, and meh it, but I... can't.
So we'll skip around.
Marino. Um, what the fuck? The guy's usually the book's punching bag, this isn't new, but the level to which he sinks is. This isn't Marino. This is some guy pretending to be him and I swear, if he's not redeemed in the next book, I'm done. She's been sloshing him so horribly through the mud in the last few books that it's physically painful to read in parts. But this just... g'ah! When everyone else in the book is seriously wondering what the fuck is wrong, you've got to be leading to a fix, right?
...right? Because for some reason I can't even begin to understand, I have a soft spot for Marino. I don't know why since he's been an ass for so long, but it was like the jerk who was a relative softy underneath it all in some regards. She chopped those parts off and it doesn't work.
Lucy. How had I momentarily forgotten Lucy's health problems? Is it because I've spent the last few books wishing she'd die, but then stopping myself from that wish because of what it would do to Kay [Benton was bad enough, y'know] and not wanting to wade through that much crap. I don't loathe Lucy this go round, but I do wish someone would smack her around. Easily her best moment is taking the kids for a spin in her car. Girl's got issues, though, and someone needs to kick that into her skull.
Kay. Kay is pretty much trying to find peace and as such, she's mostly moved around in relation to what other people are doing. It's very strange. She's the cardboard prop for a lot of the scenes, and it's weird since this is supposed to be her series. I think I liked her scenes with Bull the most and it feels like something, other than her engagement status, has changed, but I can't figure out what.
Benton is Benton and ever since his resurrection he's been a mixed bag of a pain in my ass as well as one of the better characters to read if you didn't want to slap yourself so hard that you might pass out from the stupidity going on.
The book is set up around two fairly high profile [though on different levels] deaths. One is an unknown little boy and one is a well known tennis star. Drew, the star, gets a decent resolution. The kid? Not so much. Which is a shame as the crime aspect of the book still continues to be a fun read, although someone's a little too into her shiny toys to keep my eyes from glazing over in parts. Nothing new there. But the stuff surrounding the Sandman? Interesting, in the best way possible.
Biggest issue is that by now the books are more about the interpersonal relationships than the crime going on. And that would be fine if everyone weren't so screwed up. I understand that exceptional people who do exceptionally difficult things have exceptional problems, but pull back just a smidge, kay? Which sort of happened, except in Marino's case where it was jacked up to 11.
Oh, Rose. ;_; Such love but its going to break my little heart, it is.
So, not the worst book ever, and not nearly as bad as the lovely mob at Amazon would lead you to believe. In fact, if not for the loathing of Dr. Self and the way Marino was handled... I'd say it was good, though not great. I didn't get my AHA moment, really, but that's okay. Still, you could almost smell the pluff mud in parts. Woo?
I rambled and lost any train of thought I might have originally had.
Headache.
Gonna go die.
I'm not sure why I started reading her books other than a friend of mine [Calli] recommended them and... I stumbled across one of the ones right in the middle of the total insanity that was Scarpetta's life going to hell. It was fantastic [shut it, it was] and I went back and read all the books in order up to the book I'd started with and then the next one had come out, so I read that. And then things just went downhill. I don't know which book it was, but the last few, especially once the voice of the books changed, went straight to hell and it's been an uphill struggle to redeem them. Which she's working on, mostly. I no longer wish everyone in the books would die [that would include Lucy, Marino, Benton, and even Kay] but I no longer feel... as protective as I did. If that makes sense. Usually this far into a series, you want the conflict of the book to leave the characters alive and well.
There's no "well" for these guys. The most you can hope for is alive, and even that's not necessarily a given. Meh.
I was going to good, bad, and meh it, but I... can't.
So we'll skip around.
Marino. Um, what the fuck? The guy's usually the book's punching bag, this isn't new, but the level to which he sinks is. This isn't Marino. This is some guy pretending to be him and I swear, if he's not redeemed in the next book, I'm done. She's been sloshing him so horribly through the mud in the last few books that it's physically painful to read in parts. But this just... g'ah! When everyone else in the book is seriously wondering what the fuck is wrong, you've got to be leading to a fix, right?
...right? Because for some reason I can't even begin to understand, I have a soft spot for Marino. I don't know why since he's been an ass for so long, but it was like the jerk who was a relative softy underneath it all in some regards. She chopped those parts off and it doesn't work.
Lucy. How had I momentarily forgotten Lucy's health problems? Is it because I've spent the last few books wishing she'd die, but then stopping myself from that wish because of what it would do to Kay [Benton was bad enough, y'know] and not wanting to wade through that much crap. I don't loathe Lucy this go round, but I do wish someone would smack her around. Easily her best moment is taking the kids for a spin in her car. Girl's got issues, though, and someone needs to kick that into her skull.
Kay. Kay is pretty much trying to find peace and as such, she's mostly moved around in relation to what other people are doing. It's very strange. She's the cardboard prop for a lot of the scenes, and it's weird since this is supposed to be her series. I think I liked her scenes with Bull the most and it feels like something, other than her engagement status, has changed, but I can't figure out what.
Benton is Benton and ever since his resurrection he's been a mixed bag of a pain in my ass as well as one of the better characters to read if you didn't want to slap yourself so hard that you might pass out from the stupidity going on.
The book is set up around two fairly high profile [though on different levels] deaths. One is an unknown little boy and one is a well known tennis star. Drew, the star, gets a decent resolution. The kid? Not so much. Which is a shame as the crime aspect of the book still continues to be a fun read, although someone's a little too into her shiny toys to keep my eyes from glazing over in parts. Nothing new there. But the stuff surrounding the Sandman? Interesting, in the best way possible.
Biggest issue is that by now the books are more about the interpersonal relationships than the crime going on. And that would be fine if everyone weren't so screwed up. I understand that exceptional people who do exceptionally difficult things have exceptional problems, but pull back just a smidge, kay? Which sort of happened, except in Marino's case where it was jacked up to 11.
Oh, Rose. ;_; Such love but its going to break my little heart, it is.
So, not the worst book ever, and not nearly as bad as the lovely mob at Amazon would lead you to believe. In fact, if not for the loathing of Dr. Self and the way Marino was handled... I'd say it was good, though not great. I didn't get my AHA moment, really, but that's okay. Still, you could almost smell the pluff mud in parts. Woo?
I rambled and lost any train of thought I might have originally had.
Headache.
Gonna go die.