A misadventure of the boat carrying an enormous bathtub to the residence of the Duke of Burgundy annoys several influential residents and visitors to Bruges.
This book started VERY badly, with heavy-handed “if he had only known how this would change the world” foreshadowing that almost made me quit reading on the first page. I might as well have quit then; after wading through three chapters of nasty people acting catty towards each other, I did quit for good. Obnoxious when it wasn’t boring, and disjointed as well.
When Regent Mangan dies, his unusual cat Niffy adopts the young Prince Jamas. But it will take all Niffy’s deviousness and Jamas’ courage to stop a murderous queen.
Short book and fast read, but enjoyable.
Bryson, an American who lived for 20 years in England, narrates his goodbye tour of the island prior to moving back to the U.S.
Mildly interesting but periodically vicious: he says Britons “are comfortable with faceless bureaucracies and, as Mrs. Thatcher proved, tolerant of dictatorships” (page 52) and ranted for several paragraphs against fat people, who are all greedy and rapacious (pages 70-71). And it’s difficult to tell what is factual, what is imagination, and what is just plain wrong. I found enough factual errors in another book by this author (The Mother Tongue) to approach this one with some skepticism. I can see a seaside cottage named Saltings but doubt Sick Over the Side as an actual cottage name (page 80). A little of this type of writing goes a long way. He also periodically interrupts his modern-day story with trips down Memory Lane to his arrival in England 20 years earlier, which are mostly distracting and irrelevant. I made it halfway through the book before the cruelty and flashbacks overcame the mild interest his tour had provoked.
In the 1990s, a man takes brandy to his alcoholic brother. In the 1700’s, a Scottish family leaves for the New World and the mother dies on the way.
There has to be more to this story, but I couldn’t keep reading long enough to find out. MacLeod has a reputation as a great storyteller but I sure don’t know why. The story was so disjointed that I could only force myself to read the first 30 pages.
Rambling non-narrative combining not-very-interesting anecdotes from the author’s psychological practice (and childhood) with factoids about nursing home care.
This might have made an interesting collection of anecdotes or a serious investigation into the current state of elder care. As it, it is neither. As a nurse, I already know the factoids and the author didn’t catch my attention with his role. Yet another book with a misleadingly catchy title.
Long-winded and tediously detailed account of a shooting weekend at the country house of a rich, good-hearted, but lower-class woman. I got 1/4 of the way through and although the murder was clearly being set up, it didn’t come fast enough to hold my interest.
Georgette Heyer is famous for her historical details, but she seems to forget there needs to be an interesting story to hold the reader to the details. The characters make up the largest collection of completely unlikeable people I’ve come across in a long time. There simply wasn’t any reason to keep reading this book.
Suspended-lawyer Kendra has rented her lovely L.A. mansion to a reality star and ekes out a living by pet-sitting. But when a corpse turns up in her rented home, she is determined to find the killer.
Several elements of this book rubbed me the wrong way. First, I don’t want to know the heroine’s sex life in gory detail unless it’s relevant to the murder.Second, a large contingent of nosy neighbors and a too-wimpy-to-tell-them-off heroine is another big minus. Third, I don’t find ferrets cute at all (although I am a sucker for friendly cats, nearly all dogs, and anything genuinely cute like rabbits or even chickens). Fourth, I really don’t like successful frameups, and Kendra’s still suffering from one in a prior book. Finally, Kendra’s constant criticism of her renters was snooty as well as irritating. She lost her right to criticize the décor when she started taking rent checks. I discovered I had no interest in whodunit about 1/4 way through.
Narrative of a nurse who provided all the health care to fisherfamilies on a remote island off Nova Scotia.
Unfortunately, Banfill wrote much more of the islanders than she did of her nursing adventures (which is what I was interested in). I’m glad she admired the villagers, but I don’t consider enduring poverty a virtue and I found her endless paeans boring. I gave up halfway through.
After the death of their parents, priest Joseph and intelligence officer Matthew investigate their father’s claim of a conspiracy that may have caused his murder.
This is mis-described as “a novel of WWI.” It is a novel, but it’s a murder mystery and political thriller that are set in the days around the assasination at Sarajevo, not just a general novel. Unfortunately, it’s just not very interesting, even the murders. Half the novel is rumination or flashbacks by the individual characters – talking heads in writing, if you will. I gave up halfway through and don’t intend to read the rest of the series.
A deadly boat fire, seen from a little taverna high above a charming Greek bay, draws together host Andreas and the travelers who came to eat there. As the days pass after the disaster, each person grasps for the company of the others and faces her own problems.
Typical “disaster draws strangers together” story. Mostly character development, with way too many flashbacks and minimal plot. Even so, it was pretty interesting for the first couple of days after the fire. Then much of the plot degenerated into soap opera and didn’t get interesting again until about 3/4 of the way through.
40-year-old grad school dropout volunteers for military and is shot down and captured, then re-educated.
Apart from a view of a very glum future, there was nothing interesting about this book. The narrator is too self-absorbed to think about anything else and the situation of the U.S. supplying soldiers to both sides of a war is too cynical for me to enjoy. I gave up quickly.
Adventurer marries rich wife and plans to murder her when his dream woman is left a poor widow. Plum full of unlikeable characters, I gave up pretty early in the story.
Captain Jester gets hit with an environmental assessment team and a new rabbitlike recruit instead of the promotion he is expecting, while a Mob team tries again to kidnap him. I liked this series several years ago, when it first came out. But now, either I've grown up or Phule hasn't. The plot was convoluted, the characters were all the people you dread getting stuck talking to at a party or convention, and nothing interesting happened to hold my attention. I forced myself to make it halfway through and then skipped to the last chapter.
Although copyrighted 1973, this story has a definite 50's feel. Nurse Cass Meredith is asked to take a short-term nursing job in another town, where her boyfriend has moved, and she meets and becomes interested in another man. But there is a real medical plot as well, as Cass is epileptic, and the temporary assignment involves helping an epileptic teen learn to live normally, and helping her overprotective mother to let her. I have no idea where the title came from, it bears no relation to any events in the book.
I really wanted to like this book. I'm a history buff anyway, and while I probably would not have wanted to know Churchill professionally or socially, I think he did an amazing job leading Britain during WWII. But it was just too boring and disjointed, cutting between political activities, Churchill talking to a German woman he'd hired as a researcher, and the experiences of a conscientious objector named Donald Chichester in France and Belgium. I forced myself to read half of the book before giving up; it never got any better.
Yet another of her 19th-century novels about a young woman who conceives a child out of wedlock and tries to provide for it. They are all pretty depressing and longwinded as well -- you can read a couple of pages and then skip 10-20 pages without actually losing the story.
Just another romance story. Young, innocent nurse has to share a house with her wicked stepmother until two different handsome men come along, both wanting to marry/rescue her. <yawn>
I don't find manipulativeness, casual sex, and adultery any more attractive when the lead characters are black than when they are white. There is not a likable character in the book.
Another one I couldn't finish because of a total lack of likeable characters. The main character is a whiny me-obsessed school counselor who doesn't like kids but is pressured into having a baby by her childish husband. If this is great chick-lit, chick-lit is in real trouble.