Book Review - Boneman's Daughters

Title: Boneman's Daughters
Author: Ted Dekker
Source: Purchased
Pages: 404
Publisher: Center Street
ISBN-13: 978-0446547208
Rating: 2 stars


From the back of the book:  Would you kill an innocent man to save your daughter?
They call him BoneMan, a serial killer who's abducted six young women.  He's the perfect father looking for the perfect daughter, and when his victims fail to meet his lofty expectations, he kills them by breaking their bones and leaving them to die.
Intelligence officer Ryan Evans, on the other hand, has lost all hope of ever being the perfect father.  His daughter and wife have written him out of their lives.
Everything changes when BoneMan takes Ryan's estranged daughter, Bethany, as his seventh victim.  Ryan goes after BoneMan on his own.
But the FBI sees it differently.  New evidence points to the suspicion that Ryan is BoneMan.  Now the hunter is the hunted, and in the end, only one father will stand.

My Thoughts: Interesting concept that failed to really deliver, IMO.

This read more like two books in one, both of which never really got fleshed out. In part one we have Ryan, the military intelligence officer who ends up being picked up by a terrorist and tortured. In part two we have broken Ryan trying to save his daughter from a serial killer.

There was no real mesh between the two, not to mention that I felt absolutely zero sympathy for Ryan and his plight, nor did I have any kind of feelings for the daughter, the mother or the other man. I really can't say that I super enjoyed a book where I cared for none of the characters.

The whole book felt like it wasn't sure where it wanted to go, or what it wanted to be ... rushed and choppy. To be completely honest I had to stop and make sure I wasn't reading book two in a series. I was expecting more serial killer stuff and here he'd already murdered everyone, been arrested and was being released on a technicality???? Huh?

Being the first Ted Dekker that I've actually read, I will give him a second chance, but I honestly was not impressed with this book at all. It was okay, I finished it to see how it would end, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Book Review - The Time Traveler's Wife

Title: The Time Traveler's Wife
Author: Audrey Niffenegger
Pages: 536
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN-13: 978-0676976335
Source: Purchased
Rating: 4 stars

From the back of the book: When Henry meets Clare, he is twenty-eight and she is twenty.  Henry has never met Clare before; Clare has known Henry since she was six.  Impossible but true, because Henry finds himself periodically displaced in time, pulled to moments of emotional gravity from his life, past and future.  Henry and Clare's attempts to live normal lives are threatened by a force they can neither prevent nor control, making their passionate love story intensely moving and entirely unforgettable.  The Time Traveler's Wife is a story of fate, hope and belief, and more than that, it's about the power of love to endure beyond the bounds of time.

My Thoughts: This was my second attempt to read this book.  The first attempt I didn't even make it through the first chapter before I set it down to read something else.  When this book was referred to me by a fellow group member on Goodreads, it provided the motivation to pick it up and give it another try.  I am pleased to say that it was a good thing I did.
Henry and Clare are beautifully written, no matter what time they are in.  Niffenegger has created characters that live and breath and, best of all, feel solid and real.  I was more interested in what was happening to them because of this.  I didn't mind investing the time to read their story because it was an interesting tale happening to interesting people.  There was no magic wand to wave and make all the bad stuff go away.  There was no miracle cure to help everyone live happily ever after.  That alone makes the book worth reading.
The author also handled the time travel aspect smoothly.  So smoothly, in fact, that I stopped paying attention to the date and age markers at the start of each chapter because I was wrapped up in the story.  There was usually a mention of when/where Henry either was or was coming from and there was no real interrupt or jarring in the flow of the writing from that.
All in all, a really great read.  Thanks, Aths, for recommending it for Refer a Book Friday.

I admit I have a fickle mind...

Okay, okay.  I just can't keep up with too many different blogging platforms so... my reviews will stay here.  I'll keep the wordpress site just in case I decide to ever switch my /entire/ blog over there at some point, but for now Blogger is the place I will hang my hat and call home.

On that note, there will be a couple of new book reviews coming up.  I'll be copying my last two reviews over from the wordpress blog and I have a new one I need to finish writing.

Currently I have my nose buried in Columbine by Dave Cullen.

Hopefully I'll be able to finish both of those off soon, though I have to admit that Columbine is sometimes hard to just sit and read more than a few pages at a time.

In which our heroine has her WoW account hacked...

So, I have been playing World of Warcraft for almost five years now. It's my way of letting off some steam and having a good time in a multi-user environment. My guildies are great people and it is actually nice to have adults I can chat with over ventrillo to offset the toddler language that I get during the day most of the time.

In the time I've been playing Warcraft, I've had to deal with the GM's (in game support staff) on a couple of occasions and they were all very curteous and helpful in resolving the issues I had contacted them about. I had listened to various people in the game and in my guild discuss their efforts in dealing with hacked accounts and getting their toons and/or items back. Not once did I contemplate that I might have to go through this myself.

Well... was I wrong :p

Some random catchup

 
This is just one of the images I tend to find on my camera if I leave it out and the little guy gets his hands on it. He's actually managed to take some very interesting shots, but most tend to be blurry because he moves around too much. He is completely fascinated with the camera; has been for a while. He's my favorite subject to take pictures of because he simply loves to ham it up when a camera is pointed in his direction.

Really not too much new to report on. I've been enjoying the new TV. I must say that bluray movies in high def really are lovely to watch on the appropriate equipment. I actually play with the playstation 3 games now as well. It makes it more fun when you can actually /read/ the instructions on the screen.

I rented Heavy Rain for myself, but the elder son got his hands on it and finished the game first. It was ... an interesting game; very dark noir detective tale with the player controlling four different main characters. Each chapter of the game focused on one of the characters and you pieced everything together from the clues that all four managed to gather throughout gameplay. The controls took a little while to get used to (one of my characters even died because I messed up the sequence of button presses!) but after playing for a bit it actually added to the story. Overall an interesting game to play through but not one that I'd have bought since there really isn't much replay value. Once you know who the killer is the mystery isn't so much a mystery anymore.

I think I'm forcing myself out of my reading slump. After my horrible lack of reading in April I've decided to make more of an effort to actually /read/. One thing I've done is to set up a new blog specifically for my revies and ramblings about what I am reading. You can view it by clicking here.

That's pretty much all for now.