Official NT Book Thread vol (?)

[everysingletime]

Hey guys. I noticed on NT that there's a lot active movie threads - a lot, a lot - but there's not an active book thread.

Thought I'd give it a shot and start a thread and see what some of you dudes are reading.

I read a lot. My job has a lot of downtime cuz I get my job done fast. I split my time at work between NT, work and reading books.

Just finished a book at work actually. A half hour ago. It's called The Girl with All the Gifts. Basically it's about how the world has been taken over by zombies. But it's more than your typical zombie story, I think.

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Here's the blurb:

Melanie is a very special girl. Dr. Caldwell calls her 'our little genius.' Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh. The Girl With All the Gifts is a ground breaking thriller, emotionally charged and gripping from beginning to end.

I'd give it a 7/8. Solidly written book. It's told from multiple point of views but mostly focuses on a young girl, a male - military type, a scienttist and a teacher. I took off a point because I wish it didn't end so abruptly.

Some background on the book. The writer envisioned the book as a movie first but then after brainstorming with other people it morphed into a book. I think this will make a really great movie. The movie is green lit and will star Gemma Arterton.

Hopefully the movie doesn't let me down. (Didn't realize the movie was coming so quickly!)

I plan to update this thread every time I finish a book.

Hopefully in between reads, other readers out ther might chime in and want to share what they been reading too Maybe you guys will introduce me to a new writer or a new book that I haven't read yet.

Please share, brizzos.

 

[ronaldo nazario]

Not great at reviewing books, I either think good or bad, but will definitely be checking in here for recommendations on what to read next.

 

[everysingletime]

Even if you don't want to write a detailed review you can always just share what you're reading. I'm always on the lookout for something new to read lol.

 

[everysingletime]

So none of y'all read, bros? I was hoping with an active comic book thread that there'd somehow be active readers of books on NT but I guess not

Are one person threads even allowed? Should I let this thread die?

Anyway, I was so impressed with the Girl With All the Gifts that I had to give another book by the same author a try.

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Fellside is a maximum security prison on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors. It's not the kind of place you'd want to end up. But it's where Jess Moulson could be spending the rest of her life.

It's a place where even the walls whisper. And one voice belongs to a little boy with a message for Jess. Will she listen?

It's a way more ambitious book than The Girl With All the Gifts but I felt it was a lacking a little on the execution. It was a humdinger of a book to read through. 400 plus pages, but I felt it might've been better if it was more streamlined. Sometimes in editing a great book, in order to have a great finished product, it's more about knowing what to take out as opposed to what to put in.

The draw of this book is in the mystery and its twists, and while the author never lost sight of that, I felt like he was trying too hard to keep the reader from guessing in which direction the book was going to go in. Because of it, the book felt very dense and hard to follow. I might've stopped reading if I wasn't so curious about how the book was going to finish.

The twist was GREAT. However, got to say I did see the twist coming maybe 50 pages leading up to the twist. And not too sure if the big twist in the end by itself is enough to justify the misdirection and confusion I felt throughout much of the first 3 quarters of the book. The biggest disappointments I felt was in everything following the twist. It felt very lazy. Like writer ran so hard for the first 3/4ths of a mile but then got gassed and couldn't finish the last leg.

Also I don't know if I can rock all that much with the writer's narrating style. He likes to pull from different perspectives , and while I'm used to reading different books like that (I enjoy reading from different perspectives, even) I hated how narrative perspectives will shift in the same scenes so much. Just stick with one point of view in a scene and rock with that. The shifting perspectives made me feel like a neutral 3rd party observer instead of being able to connect with a character in the scene.

But what I did like about the book? A lot of things. The most interesting part of the book are definitely the characters. One or two of them had great arcs that I was interested in. But damn, the author is a bit of a sadist. He does not like his characters to have happy endings to their arcs

I got to give it a 6/8. I will still read books by M.R. Carey even if I am less than pleased by his second book.

If you like Orange is the New Black, and you like Supernatural, and you like to read then maybe you might like this book. It's not going to make the top of my lists but it's solid and interesting enough that I'd recommend it at least as a one time read.

 

[ronaldo nazario]

Just you and I it seems. I just got done reading Harry Potter and The Cursed Child. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would to be honest, definitely not as good as the other seven but its an easy read. Started it Friday and finished it last night. Even though this was just meant to be a play originally it would have been great if it had been translated into a regular book for publishing, reading the script was cool but I know Rowling could have done so much more had it been constructed like her others. For the most part I've been reading the new Canon Star Wars novels, so I haven't had the opportunity to branch out into other books since I only read at most 30 minute per day, most of my time is directed towards finding a new job smh.

 

[johnnyredstorm]

There's a more active book club thread

 

[jayt1202]

There's a more active book club thread

Gravediggin here, where is this thread? Did an NT search by date/title and couldn't find the new one.