JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes

Harper Curtis is a killer who stepped out of the past. Kirby Mazrachi is the girl who was never meant to have a future.

Kirby is the last shining girl, one of the bright young women, burning with potential, whose lives Harper is destined to snuff out after he stumbles on a House in Depression-era Chicago that opens on to other times.

At the urging of the House, Harper inserts himself into the lives of the shining girls, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. He’s the ultimate hunter, vanishing into another time after each murder, untraceable-until one of his victims survives.

Determined to bring her would-be killer to justice, Kirby joins the Chicago Sun-Times to work with the ex-homicide reporter, Dan Velasquez, who covered her case. Soon Kirby finds herself closing in on the impossible truth . . .

I’ve wanted to read this book since before I read Broken Monsters – mostly because I love the cover (I really need to stop judging books by their covers) and I was told this book is different to most crime/thriller novels. It’s not really a crime novel as such. It has elements of science fiction in it, and the jumping-back-and-forth style of storytelling is different to that of most crime/thriller novels.

The serial killer, Harper Curtis, is not glorified in this book – nor is his only survivor, Kirby, who starts tracking down his other victims in an attempt to catch Harper. Lauren Beukes always has such great characterisation. Each victim – and they may only be featured on a couple of pages – really feels unique, and you come to understand them, their desires, and what motivates them. And then they leave the story, and you feel depleted.

Beukes does a fantastic job of highlighting social prejudice. Harper travels through different time periods in order to kill these ‘shining girls’, and by doing so, the reader is subjected and thrust into the harsh, sexist or racial criticism that isn’t as prevalent in society today.

Sometimes I found myself having to reread a few pages in the first third of the book when Harper was travelling in and out of different time periods – when he was travelling back to his murders and leaving things at the scene. But this was only until I got the general idea of how his house worked, and how he was travelling back in time. Once I got that, I could follow the story quite easily.

The book ends on an almost ambiguous, especially between Kirby and the detective. I like this, because what Kirby experiences would dramatically affect how she reacts with other people. I recommend this book to people who love reading crime/thriller novels. The science fiction aspect (Harper being able to travel back and forth in time) is but a small aspect of the story, and shouldn’t act as a deterrent to those people who are always like ‘ew science fiction. No thanks’.

My Score: 8/10
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The Ice Twins by S.K. Tremayne

A year after one of their identical twin daughters, Lydia, dies in an accident, Angus and Sarah Moorcraft move to the tiny Scottish island Angus inherited from his grandmother, hoping to put together the pieces of their shattered lives.

But when their surviving daughter, Kirstie, claims they have mistaken her identity – that she, in fact, is Lydia – their world comes crashing down once again.

As winter encroaches, Angus is forced to travel away from the island for work, Sarah is feeling isolated, and Kirstie (or is it Lydia?) is growing more disturbed. When a violent storm leaves Sarah and her daughter stranded, Sarah finds herself tortured by the past – what really happened on that fateful day one of her daughters died?

I heard rave reviews about this title, but I must admit that I was really disappointed. Overall, the book isn’t as ‘haunting’ or ‘gripping’ as described. I kept waiting for a twist or for a shocking scene where I’d be desperate to get to the end, but this just didn’t happen. The ‘revelation’ at the end isn’t really that shocking because most of the book is pretty predictable and I saw it coming.

The book is from the point of view of the mother, Sarah, and she’s just not a likeable character. She has too much internal dialogue and she doesn’t let the reader realise anything for themselves. She’s also really naïve and delicate, and she asks too many rhetorical questions. She comes across as slightly neurotic, and the reader doesn’t like her enough to disregard her flaws.

I quite liked the husband, Angus. He was authentic and his societal reactions were realistic and effective to the plot. You are positioned to hate him in the novel because his daughter is supposedly ‘scared of him’, but it’s quite clear that he’s not the bad guy.

The setting in the novel helps to isolate the characters and force the reader to really focus on the plot and the relations between Angus and Sarah. I think the author did well to pace the story so that it didn’t move too quickly but it didn’t move too slowly either.

I do think it was missing something – the story just didn’t grab me. Maybe it was the characters and the circumstances. Maybe it was the setting. Or maybe it was the farfetched nature of the premise that disappointed me.

My Score: 5/10
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Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes

In Detroit, violent death – along with foreclosure and despair – is a regular occurrence. But the part-human, part-animal corpses that have started appearing are more disturbing than anything Detective Gabriella Versado has ever seen. As Gabriella works the case, her teenage daughter Layla embarks on a secret crime-fighting project of her own – hunting down online paedophiles – but it all goes horribly wrong…

TK has learned how to make being homeless work for him and his friends, but something evil is threatening the fragile world he’s constructed on the streets…

Ambitious blogger Jonno is getting desperate. The big four-oh isn’t that far away, and he’s still struggling to make his mark. But then he stumbles across some unusual and macabre art, which might just be the break he needs to go viral…

Lauren Beukes travelled to Detroit and spent time taking photos of the city, and then walked around and spoke to locals about their experiences there. Lauren wanted to capture the beauty of Detroit, even though it’s a decaying city full of crime and run down, abandoned buildings. This book is about seeing the beauty in broken things, and presents a serial killer who the reader can sympathise with and feel sorry for.

Lauren illustrates a few different characters and captures each of their voices uniquely. Each point of view adds a different element to the story, and enriches the tale. Stephen King recently read this novel and said that it was “Scary as hell and hypnotic. I couldn’t put it down. Next month. I’d grab it, if I were you.”

You wouldn’t want to read this novel at night – a boy is attached to a deer and a melted woman is found in a kiln. It’s a haunting tale that brings chills to the reader, and it’s written beautifully with realistic dialogue and three dimensional characters. I must admit, I was a little confused and taken aback by the ending – I won’t give it away, but prepare for paranormal presence that seems a little jolting. Despite this, I would happily recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys crime, thrillers, or who-dunnit novels.

My Score: 9/10

The Heist by Daniel Silva

Gabriel Allon, art restorer and occasional spy, searches for a stolen masterpiece by Caravaggio in #1 New York Times bestselling author Daniel Silva’s latest action-packed tale of high stakes international intrigue.

Sometimes the best way to find a stolen masterpiece is to steal another one…

I think this is actually the first ‘spy fiction’ novel I’ve ever read. It’s fast-paced and a globe trotter. This story is not just about stolen artwork. Gabriel Allon, whose wife is pregnant with twins, is asked to help when Jack Bradshaw is found murdered. Bradshaw was known for ‘dodgy dealings’ and stealing and selling expensive artwork. As you can probably guess, Bradshaw is not the only body that’s discovered in this story.

Sometimes I found the novel to be quite confusing, and I think ‘spy stories’ work best as movies because they’re much easier to follow. The plot was fast-paced and the characters seemed to be able to figure out things and come up with these elaborate plans in two pages, and then the reader is left with questions that they feel don’t get answered. A few times I had to backtrack and reread certain pages because their conversations were ripe with lingo I didn’t understand and were almost short-hand.

Although I think the middle section of the novel was unnecessarily complex, I was intrigued by the conclusion of the story. Unexpected events occurred, and the ending was surprising.

This was the first Daniel Silva novel, and I recommend it only to people who have read his work before or people who have read a fair bit of spy fiction previously. Otherwise, it’s a little hard to get used to the pace and you feel like you’re reading the second book in a trilogy without having read the first.

My Score: 7/10

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

I always know when I’m reading a brilliant book because it influences my mood, and Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl made me feel frustrated and angry for the 48 hours that I was reading it.

The novel is about Nick’s wife, Amy, who goes missing on the morning of their fifth wedding anniversary. The first third of the novel functions like any crime/thriller. Someone goes missing (presumed dead), and the first suspect is questioned (usually the husband). But when you get to Part B (the second third of the novel), you’re inundated with twists and horrible acknowledgements from both characters. Part C adds to the suspense in a ‘how will this novel end?’ kind of way. I can’t say much without ruining those twists, so I’ll keep my review vague.

You realise quite quickly that this novel is not like most crime/thriller novels. The characters have depth, and their motivations and background is explained well. Flynn switches point of view between Nick and Amy (this seems like a spoiler, but Amy’s point of view is from the past in the form of diary entries), and the transition is handled quite smoothly. Flynn has established their voices really well, and they don’t intertwine and ever feel like similar characters.

The only downside to the novel is that neither character seems relatable. Nick is a cheater (sorry for the slight spoiler, but you learn this pretty early on), and Amy is a manipulative bitch (excuse the language). It’s hard to know which character you like more, because I felt like I didn’t really like either character. Still, I wanted to know what happened to Amy. And Gillian knows how to write a great thriller.

My Score: 9/10