Dr. Sleep - Stephen King

4/5

If you liked The Shining, you'll like this one too.  A true sequel even after so many years in between (both in book and out of it). There's plenty familiar but not so much so that it takes anything away at all from the scare factor.  This book delves deeper into the mystery of shining somehow without explaining a thing about it.  Instead of being frustrating this just adds to the wonder.  Also we see an interesting mix of old horrors and new ones that are just as creepy if not more so.  The feel is still very much the same as The Shining but perhaps a bit older which makes perfect sense once you pick this one up.

Grimus - Salman Rushdie

5/5

I tend not to give 5's unless a book is really special.  This one is really special.  The sense of magic is both natural and unreal.  You don't bat an eye as reality morphs into something on the edge of comprehension.  Like most of Rushdie's work there is also an interwoven commentary about society as a whole, life, death, the comprehension and refusal thereof.  It feels like stepping into a fairy tale, but a grown up fairy tale with the light escaping the world feel of good fantasy and simultaneously the real weight of life and it's unanswerable questions mixed in.

The Glass Magician - Charlie N. Holmberg

4/5

This sequel to The Paper Magician (see prior post) started out on a bit of a different flavor.  It seemed like more of a romance which, while surprising, was not bad.  It continued that way for a while, then the action starts. And once it starts it does not stop.  I usually dislike when a book switches characters between chapters but it is done skillfully to build suspense here.  There are some shocking developments with major implications to the entire story world that makes it almost impossible to not pick up the third book as well.

Black House -Stephen King & Peter Straub

3/5 overall 4/5 in places

The combination of these two authors is fascinating, there is a clear set of typical King characters and setting but the voice is different.  This book is a brick weighting in at over 800 pages.  The pacing is also a bit slow at the beginning,  those familiar with long King stories won't find this entirely unfamiliar but it is a commitment.  It was quite well written and some of the characters are excellent. It's a good book for leaving on your night stand and attacking in little chunks.  That being said it's a little too easy to set down right in the middle of the action.  There are multiple worlds in this book and they certainly feel different almost as if they could be from two seperate books, I'm not sure if I think this is skilled or disconcerting.  Overall a good read but definitely not one to start if you're not ready for a long haul.

Mayhem at the Orient Express - Kylie Logan

4/5

This is my first real delve in to the cozy mystery genre, and I have to say this was a lot of fun.  A very nice light read.  The ladies of the book club at the center of the mysteries keep up a sitcom-esque banter which had me smirking at my book more than once. The story mirrors the classic which it is named after but with enough quirks to make it not quite a parody but familiar and yet new.  I'd recommend this book to anyone looking for something light and amusing, particularly ladies who, I think, will find the interactions of the group quite familiar.

The Paper Magician - Charlie N. Holmberg

4/5

What girl hasn't had a crush on a young attractive teacher.  Now what if that teacher just happened to be a teacher of magic.  Surely this is not just going to be a normal class.  This delightful YA novel has a fantastically relatable main character and the magic is both familiar and phenomenal without being extreme.  In many places I had the thoughts of "hey I remember those!" as well as "oh it would be so cool to be able to do that" (hint: this one relates to books).  This book just whisks you right along, though I do feel the middle bit drags juuuust a bit long.  Though that may have been skill on the authors part because just as I was getting to "okay this part can be over now" within pages, it ended.  This is a book about people not magic but with enough magic to flourish in the imagination.

Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut

3/5

I wanted to really like this book, but I didn't. Not to say it was bad, it wasn't.  Vonnegut's dark humor and quick wit are very much present. The short chapters succeeded both in making the book fast to read, and a bit too easy to set aside.  Normally I appreciate dark humor and satire, but this one was a bit over the top and I felt more pessimism than was exactly good. The satire and absurdity of it all are definitely driven home.  This is definitely not a "feel good" story and at times I had trouble picking it back up.

The Buried Giant - Kazuo Ishiguro

4/5

A rare gem among fantasy novels.  Holding just a touch of magic, using it with a delicate touch rather than as the entire focal point.  As an odd forgetfulness inducing mist covers the land, we follow an elderly couple on their journey, not your typical knight in shining armor.  This story contains just enough of the classic "hero on a quest" to be comfortably familiar.  It also carries enough character to make it something all it's own.

A very pleasant read. I would highly recommend it.

Room - Emma Donoghue

3/5

This is not a book I'd normally choose to read for myself.  This one was for a book club of which I am a part. This is a story of a young woman and her son kept captive in a single room, far from public eyes, told from the viewpoint of the little boy.  For the first half of the book I just did not feel as appalled and disgusted as I felt I should given the nature of the character's situation.  I can't decide if that was intentional given the narrator's innocence or not.  At this point the book just did not draw me in and push me to keep reading even though the reading goes fairly fast.

Then the second half.  Things really pick up, I did not want to put it down.  The world opens up and the insight of the narrator, as a little boy isolated from the world, gives perhaps a more real picture of everything than many of us ever consider. 

This was a good book, I think the first section could have been trimmed a bit, but it does wrap up incredibly well.

Beginnings

Welcome to Snippits! The best way to find books, I think, is to talk to people who read them.  Unfortunately, "You'll love this one!" is usually followed by most of the content of the book.  I don't like that.  And trying to read reviews to determine if a book is something you want to read? More spoilers!

This is not that.

I like to read (mostly fantasy) and while I do like to have an idea of what a book will be like before I start, I want all of the magic of a new story as I immerse into it myself.

Ideally, Snippits is going to be just that, short reviews that give the idea and the feel of a book without giving it all away.  

Are you ready to take this journey with me?
If so, let's begin.