Book reviews
I’m an air-travel geek who likes thrillers, so my interest was well and truly piqued by the synopsis of this book. I was expecting a quick, irreverent story about some drama on an airplane. That’s not what I got. This book is much more than that, and much better for it. … Continue reading…Wings of Deceit
After a run of really good books in this series, Celestia CV-02 is a bit of a breather. After the ending of the previous book (which I’m not going to
My Sister, the Serial Killer is a wonderful, wonderful, book. After all the hype around The Silent Patient, and the let-down I felt after reading it, I was sceptical toward what could have been another overhyped literary blockbuster (Bookbuster? Is that coined yet?), but My Sister, the Serial Killer really delivers on what everyone seems to be saying about it. … Continue reading…My Sister, the Serial Killer
Auberon, another one of the Expanse novellas, is among the good ones, but not the best. … Continue reading…Auberon
After a few books where they kind of needed to find their footing, I’ve come to really like the Harry Hole books. They are predictably fun, while having a predictably unpredictable outcome. They’re a safe refuge of reliably good, gritty, crime. Snømannen was no exception. … Continue reading…Snømannen
I had such high hopes for The Silent Patient. I kept seeing good reviews of it everywhere, it kept popping up on “best thriller” lists, and the little I’d heard of the premise sounded interesting. Perhaps my expectations made it unfairly hard for the book to meet them, but it’s been a while since I found a book to be this much of a let-down. … Continue reading…The Silent Patient
Like in the other Stephen King short stories I’ve read, Rage and The Long Walk, the pitch for Elevation seems to be a thought-experiment with a story written around it.
I loved American Dirt. I really, really, loved it. It’s one of the most engrossing, emotionally jarring, moving, exciting books I’ve read in a very long time. It’s brutal, sad, and provocative, but it knew exactly what it’s doing, and it struck up all my emotional cords with a precision and relentlessness that, at times, literally took my breath away. … Continue reading…American Dirt
The Conference of The Birds is a good continuation of the Peculiar Children series. Not great, not bad, but perfectly good. After reading the previous book I hoped that this
I picked up Where the Crawdads Sing without knowing anything about it at all, other than being aware of it’s dominance of the New York Times bestseller list (29 number-one weeks, and counting, at the time of writing). I had no idea this was a historical novel, and I had no idea the extent to which it’s a romance-story. This review might be an unfair one, as I’m not a huge fan of either genre, but hey: surely a good book is a good book, right? Having read it, the book left me with mixed feelings, to say the least. It is, in part, a coming-of-age story that I really, really, liked. In part a perfectly okay legal drama. And, in part, a romance-story which, despite being technically good, felt very problematic and made me angry. … Continue reading…Where the Crawdads Sing
War on Peace is the book it promises to be, but not the book I thought it would be. I picked it up thinking that it would be a real-life
A Map of Days is a welcome revisiting of the Peculiar Children universe. It’s easy to be sceptical toward the fourth book in what was originally a trilogy, and I was, but this was a good start to a new trilogy, rather than being a forced continuation of the first one. … Continue reading…A Map of Days
Frelseren, or, The Redeemer, is yet another solid Harry Hole book. Frelseren uses the simple, but very effective technique of relating to the inside workings of a mysterious world most
I was surprised to find that I hadn’t written a review for The Stand back when I read it early 2017. I feel like I’ve been reviewing this book a
There is something about reading the first few chapters of a Stephen King book that invokes a feeling of “Aaaand, we’re back.” The Institute is no exception. In this one
This book was a strange experience. I was thoroughly bored the first 100 pages. As with The Subtle Knife, I failed to immerse myself in the universe of the book
Harry Hole’s adventures continue. As usual he’s in a bad place personally, to the point where his perpetual state of almost getting fired looks like it will finally tip beyond
Catch and Kill is a fascinating, disturbing, thrilling book. It’s the story of how Ronan Farrow worked on uncovering the truth behind the Harvey Weinstein story, and the challenges he
The Expanse by Ryk BrownSeries: The Frontiers Saga #7Publisher: Amazon Released: June 17, 2013Pages: 246GoodreadsRating: 4.5/5 A newly repaired ship… A willing and eager crew… A host of new technologies…
As a TV-series based on these books seems to be coming out soon, I figured it would be a good time to pick up my rereading of His Dark Materials. I’m sure I’ve read these books before, but they are filed under the category of books I read so long ago that I can’t remember anything at all about them. … Continue reading…The Subtle Knife
Head of the Dragon by Ryk BrownSeries: The Frontiers Saga #6 Released: February 4, 2013Pages: 378GoodreadsRating: 4.5/5 Time is running out… An ally has all but fallen… Resources are running
Finally! The Frontier Saga books haven’t been bad up until this point, but I must admit that I’ve been waiting for some reassurance as to whether they’re good enough to justify the amount of time that it will take to read the number of books this series already comprises of, never mind the number of books that will eventually be released. … Continue reading…Rise of the Corinari
Byens Spor: Skyggeboken by Lars Saabye ChristensenSeries: Byens Spor #3 Released: August 5, 2019Pages: 544GoodreadsRating: 5/5 Hva hører vi når vi lytter til byens lyder? Hvilke spor etterlater den i
The Smiling Man gave me exactly what I expected from it: some well done, gritty, dark, British, crime – you know, as a feel-good change from what’s going on in
Seeing as every Norwegian “books you should read” list last year seemed to have this one on it, I figured Id give it a try, If anything to get to
From what I’d heard about it I knew that I would enjoy Educated, but I wasn’t prepared for how hard this book would hit me. The story told is truly
The wonderful style of the first Elling book continues into the second one, but in this one Elling’s internal monologue and fantasies are, to a much greater extent, guided by
I really want to say “I will make no excuses for loving this book”, but I did love this book, and, for some reason, as this is a bit of
I’d describe Kakerlakkene as solid, but unremarkable. Whereas the first Harry Hole book took a while to find it’s feet, this one hit the ground running, and continued in the
Utsikt til Paradiset reads a bit like a whimsical, funny, feel-good story with a charming main character, but without you really realising what has happened, you suddenly find yourself at
Note: in this review I say a bit about the very basic premise of the book, but not any more (and indeed quite a bit less) than literally every description
Twenty minutes into Flaggermusmannen I was almost feeling sorry for myself – why did I insist on setting out on this mission of being a Jo Nesbø completist? Is it
Wow. So, I’m not writing anything at all about what happens in this book, because doing so would be impossible without possibly spoiling the previous books, but… wow. This book
After reading this I’m getting a little nervous: what if I’m not the kind of person who loves Terry Pratchett books? I want to love Terry Pratchett books! I want
This installment of The Frontiers Saga felt different to the others, like a bit of a setup for books to come. I didn’t dislike it – it was enjoyable enough,
I loved this book. I really, really, loved it. This second Byens Spor took everything that was good about the first one, made it even better, and then added some
I learned of the existence of Endelig Tirsdag through a retweet of the author by a stranger on the internet. On the strength of the writing in the author’s bio
Persepolis Rising starts out with a twist (yeah, I know, starting with a twist rather than ending on one? What a twist!) But, almost remarkably considering the framing it sets
Byens Spor is a bit of a slow burn, but once the flame catches it burns as bright as anyone could ask it to. This isn’t a story about something
To start out with the elephant in the room: Artemis is not The Martian. But that’s okay. Very few books can be The Martian. Despite that Artemis is an extremely
Another Expanse-novella, this one follows a girl living in a new world that has been made possible by the events in the Exanse-books preceding it. Whereas the other novellas have
After the downward spiral that was From Russia With Love, Octopussy, and Doctor No, my expectations for Goldfinger were rather low. It’s still not a great book, but I was
The best and the worst thing about the Jeeves-books is exactly the same thing: you know exactly what you’re going to get. Had I picked this book up expecting to
Well, this was bound to happen. As much as I’ve liked all of the books in The Expanse so far, I guess it was inevitable that one would come along
Berge was nothing like what I thought it was going to be like, and I absolutely loved it. I’ve purposefully avoided reading much about this book, but from what I
I enjoyed The Vital Abyss the most of the Expanse-novellas I’ve read so far. We follow one character, and the story alternates between taking place in the past and in
If someone were to ask me what I think of Noir as a genre I’d quickly say “I really like it!”, followed by half an hour of thinking “Wait… have
Well… Wow. I’ve been through quite a few Expanse books by now, and as much as I’ve really liked them, I’ve been waiting to really love one of them. I
I’ve really come to enjoy the universe in which the Expanse books take place, and the main characters from the previous books have really grown on me. Then along comes
The Churn (a short novella set in the Expanse universe) is the kind of story where you won’t realise why you like the start until you’ve read the end, and
After the first two books of The Expanse, I expected a lot of Abaddon’s Gate. How could this series go on making itself better? How could the third book surpass
Another entertaining little short story, though this one almost seems too short to justify its own Goodreads-entry. It’s an origin story of the piece of technology making it possible to
Caliban’s War is a great book. It has some flaws that might usually have annoyed me, but despite them I just couldn’t help being thoroughly won over. I found it
I really liked this short story. A words that comes to mind to describe it is “cute”, which I realise can be a loaded word, but this story is cute
I didn’t get this book. It has been described as one of the best books of the century it was written in, a brilliant piece of biting satire, and a
The Girl on The Train is perfectly ok. Disappointingly and underwhelmingly ok. I haven’t seen the film, but my expectations were set pretty high based on what I’ve heard about
A companion-piece to the Expanse series, this short story tells the origin story (of sorts) of Fred, the rebel military leader from Leviathan Wakes. It adds some interesting nuance to
The expanse series has been emphatically recommended to me, and Leviathan Wakes is certainly a very strong start. It’s set against an interesting backdrop in which humans have colonised Mars,
Annoyingly, this book was both good and disappointing. After Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers my expectations for this last book of the trilogy were very high. They weren’t met. The
It’s getting there, it’s getting there… After the somewhat boring second book in this series, the third book shows a lot more promise. The relatively large number of characters, which
I really like what this book sets out to do. I really like the idea of this book, I really like the politics of this book, I really like the
Like Rage, The Long Walk is a concept with a story written around it. A hundred boys are participants in a competition. The rules are simple: walk for as long
The Rings of Haven is the second book of what is going to be a million or so installments of the Frontiers Saga. Apparently the series is supposed to turn
The Trial really has the feel of the kind of nightmare you’d have if you were to eat a very large meal and then fall asleep while reading about Alice’s
Rage seems like a written down thought-experiment, in a good way. Put an angry high-school student in a classroom with a gun and his fellow students. What would happen? What
Another book that fits comfortably in under the definition of “really good fun”. It’s not deep (at least not yet), probably extremely derivative when seen through the eyes of anyone
I know way, way, less than I should know about the first World War, and I had no idea what the Zimmermann Telegram was, let alone how it fit into
I know I should have liked this more than I did, and that I’m wrong not to. I also tend to really enjoy classics, which is why it surprised me
I didn’t find this book to be anything like what it’s like. For me it wasn’t really a case of the book being greater than the sum of it’s parts,
Ah yes! Fast-paced, entertaining, never-boring, just-clever-enough, geeky, video-game-related action! Ready Player One takes place in an extremely bleak vision of the future, but it’s a future in which almost everything
I apologise in advance, but this is going to be the kind of review that keeps going on about the book having been adapted to a film, and, even worse,
It’s hard to be that specific about all the good things I want to say about Night Film. I think part of the strength of it is that it doesn’t
I’m generally not the kind of person who struggles to put down a book. Even if I really like it, I’m generally fine with putting it down and coming back
This has the clear position of the best book I’ve ever read that I’d recommend to hardly anyone. Technically it probably qualifies as an educational read, but if the reader
I started writing at-the-time reviews for books I read well before 2015, but in late 2015 I was falling well behind on my review-writing, so rather than holding off on
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is a peculiar book. It tries to be an impossible amount of things at the same time. It doesn’t succeed at being all of
Continue reading…Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
I approached ‘Salem’s Lot with some scepticism. I’m generally not into the vampire genre, and surely there must be at least one dud among these early Stephen King books. Perhaps
I’ve been meaning to catch up on various Shakespeare plays that “everyone” has read, and after finishing a book and having no immediate plans for what to read next, A
Dead Famous has an extremely promising premise. You have a Big Brother-like reality show with a bunch of contestants who are locked in a house and being filmed around the
Return to the Future was a recommendation which came up in the context of philosophical sci-fi, and yup. It does fit the bill. This is a very interesting book, and
I picked Blindsight up thinking I’d be reading an immersive sci-fi story. At least I got the immersive part right. I guess it is, technically, also a sci-fi story in
As they have tended to be for Stephen King books, my expectations were high for this one, especially since the reviews of it have been so favourable. My expectations were
As this is a classic and all, I figured I should finally get around to reading it. It was pretty much exactly what I expected, no more, no less. I
Continue reading…The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4
I found The Woman in Black to be disappointing. It’s really a shame, as it was a personal recommendation, but for me it didn’t work on any level. When starting
I’ve arrived at the gates of Discworld, and so far it looks like a pretty inviting place. The Colour of Magic has a very promising start. It is, of course,
This was an odd one for me. I went into Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy with very high expectations, and unfortunately they weren’t met. It’s hard to pinpoint what I think
If I had to sum up this book in one sentence it would probably be: “Wait… what…?”Not only does the plot seem to be made up of scraps of paper
Murder at the Vicarage is about, and I hope this is not too much of a spoiler: a murder that takes place in a vicarage. The vicarage is situated in
That’s more like it! Reading Pratchett chronologically, I was disappointed by the first two books. They were funny, but chaotic and disjointed. Strata wraps all the chaos and absurdity into
It would be an exaggeration to say that any book is perfect. But, within the boundaries of what The Martian tries to be, it gets extraordinarily close. A Mars mission
It’s hard to overstate how technically impressive The Luminaries is. It’s over 800 pages of a complicated, intentionally disjointed, ambitious story which is told in a consistent old-English style that
I’m really disappointed. Not because Freedom™ is a bad book, just because I didn’t think it was better than “not bad”. Considering that the prequel, Daemon, was one of my
Doppler is a very strange book for all the right reasons. It is the stream of consciousness of a man, Andreas Doppler, who comes to the realisation that he has
Horns is a really good book. Annoyingly there are a few things which prevented me from loving it, but don’t get me wrong. It’s a really good book. The premise
Getting into this book was harder than I’d like. Maybe it’s my own fault, but usually when a book throws the reader into the middle of something completely new, it
I did wonder whether Stephen King’s first published novel would be a mild, toe-in-the-water, version of what followed. It isn’t. Carrie is a full-on mixture of the elements of anger,
Daemon is an extremely impressive piece of work. It’s a wonderfully fast paced thriller, has a relatively unpredictable storyline, and keeps you wanting more, which is in itself a job
Since I couldn’t find any two people who agreed on the order in which to read Discworld, I’m going for the approach of reading Pratchett in published order. Hence my
I liked To Kill a Mockingbird as much as I hoped I would, which was a bit of a relief, considering the fact that American classics have tended to not
Of course I knew exactly what The Diary of a Young Girl was before I started reading it. I quickly realised that, even though I knew what it was, I