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Now that I work in a bookshop, I find myself wanting to read more and more.
Not only that, but I also find myself wanting to read books
I probably wouldn't have picked up otherwise
which, now I've said it out loud, sounds like a really obvious inevitability.
But as with movies when I finish a book I find myself really wanting to talk about it.
Problem is, none of my friends have read the book I just finished
so I'm a bit stuck with who I can talk to. So I thought...
if only there was a place where I can say what I thought about the book
and let other people know what I think and they can comment back to me...
I recently finished a book. The book was this book.
'The Deaths' by Mark Lawson. This is described as 'a combination of ingenious plotting...
and forensic social comedy. A dark and brilliant novel of life...
in the 21st century.' Right up my street, I thought, I'll breeze right through it, I thought.
I thought wrong.
The story basically follows four upper-middle class, very wealthy couples
as they live and then one of them as they die.
That's not a spoiler, by the way. The deaths of the title are discovered in the very first chapter
and in a very sneaky narrative device
are, kind of, uncovered at the novel goes on in between
long chapters which have flashbacks to what happened up to The Deaths.
I say very sneaky because these death-uncovering DCI-esque
chapters are the only interesting part at the early novel. They're just interesting
enough to make you wanna keep reading through the very long
and ultimately lacking in between chapters. The flashbacks where we learned
about the characters, their back stories and their obnoxious
personalities are just the most base-level satire
that I felt the author hadn't really put any effort in. It was almost as if, in the name of
research, all he'd done was buy a first class ticket from London to Manchester
sat on the train, saw three or four rich bankers and gone, 'Yep. They can be in the book.'
It's just...society is ripe for the picking in terms of satirical humour
but it should take a lot more effort than just looking around you, seeing what you think is
a bit funny, plonking it down the page and giving it a slightly different name
and that's all I feel like he's really doing. If it weren't for the fact that I was
genuinely curious to see which of the couples were victims of the deaths and how
they met their grizzly end, I probably would have consigned this book to receive the
Twilight treatment. That's a term coined when I read the Twilight books
to try and get an informed opinion
got four chapters into the first one, so annoying I threw out the window into the
waiting wheelie bin. No word of a lie.
It took about this much of the book to me to be interested in
the characters, and about
this much me to be genuinely engrossed in a story and a 480-page book
that is just not acceptable.
Also, just a quick note, this isn't because the characters were unlikeable,
or because I felt them
not similar to me. I'm a big believer in the fact the you don't need a character to be
relatable or likeable in order to enjoy the story
as long as their journey creates a strong enough emotion
in you to make you want to continue with them that's fine
the problem here wasn't that they were unlikeable. it was that they were unremarkable.
You want to invest in characters straightaway so that you want to go on the journey with
them and see how their story unfolds.
The problem with this lot is that they were just there.
That indifference left a big ol' black mark on this book for me.
When the book actually gets going it's a really good character study and it really does have
some interesting
thoughts on the human psyche and the way our surroundings can dictate our behaviour.
It just took so long to get there that I find myself not thinking,
'Wow, what a great novel.'
but longing for what this novel had the potential to be.
That was kind of fun!
if you've read this book, amazing! Good job! Let me know what you thought in the comments.
If you've read a book that you think is kind of similar to it, and you have strong opinions about
that one, share those thoughts as well.
And if you like this video and you wanna see more of this kinda thing for me in the
future
then let me know that as well. Until next time,
I shall see you soon. I've been Daniel J Layton, Book Reviewer.
Not quite as snappy, is it?