Showing posts with label richard bachman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label richard bachman. Show all posts

Sunday, March 2, 2014

The Sunday Post #2: February in Review

The Sunday Post is a meme hosted by Kimba @ The Caffeinated Book Reviewer.  It's a chance for book bloggers to share what's going on with them this week, any new book-related news, etc.  This week, I'm combining this with my monthly wrap-up for February.

Guys, GUESS WHAT I AM DOING RIGHT NOW.

That's right.  I'm in a Starbucks, drinking coffee, reading my Kindle, and blogging.  ALL BY MYSELF.  (I mean, mostly by myself.  There's a real pompous windbag here (you can see his jeans over the corner of my laptop, hi annoying dude!) who's been going off about Obama and socialism for the last 45 minutes, but whatever, you know what I mean.  ALL BY MYSELF!  And I'm going to the mall after this!  ALL BY MYSELF!!  My awesome husband kicked me out this morning and offered to have a "boys day" with Small Fry and Tater Tot so that I could have some much-needed alone time, and my God, IT IS GLORIOUS.

(As I'm typing this, Pompous Windbag just left, so the day is getting EVEN BETTER.  I WILL ILLUSTRATE THIS BY USING MORE CAPS LOCK.)

Well, as you can see, I don't get out much these days.  :)  But life is good here in Well-Read Redhead land.  We had a bit of a hiccup early in February, when Tater Tot got a cold and then suddenly ran a huge fever and was rewarded with 48 hours in the hospital (ugh), but otherwise, I feel like I'm getting the hang of this whole mother-of-two thing.  I also started running again, which has been great (ALMOST fitting into my pre-pregnancy jeans) and I'm really looking forward to the weather breaking so that I can ditch the treadmill and enjoy the great outdoors.  Bring on SPRING!

In book-related stuff: I read/reviewed 4 books:
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Queen of the Night by J.A. Jance
The Good Luck of Right Now by Matthew Quick
Blaze by Richard Bachman

I also did a Small-Fry Saturday with Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin, participated in the Literary Blog Hop, and talked about my love for short-and-sweet novels.

Coming up in March...I only have 1 book tour scheduled.  Otherwise, I have a couple ARCs that I can't wait to get to (seriously, didn't I say I was going to read fewer of them this year?  I have a problem), and I'm planning to start Gone With The Wind as my next TBR Book Baggie pick.  I'm also trying to make my way through some of the books I bought for the Rochester Teen Book Festival, coming up soon in May!  I am taking a long (LONG) road trip for my friend Liz's bridal shower next weekend, so I'm looking forward to getting lots of audiobook reading done then as well.

How was your February, reader friends?

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Book Review: Blaze by Richard Bachman


Title: Blaze
Author: Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King)
Publisher: Scribner
Publication Date: June 12, 2007
Source: personal purchase

Summary from Goodreads

Clayton Blaisdell, Jr., was always a small-time delinquent. None too bright either, thanks to the beatings he got as a kid. Then Blaze met George Rackley, a seasoned pro with a hundred cons and one big idea. The kidnapping should go off without a hitch, with George as the brains behind their dangerous scheme. But there's only one problem: by the time the deal goes down, Blaze's partner in crime is dead. Or is he?

My Review:

For those unfamiliar with the connection between Richard Bachman and Stephen King, Bachman was the pen name that King occasionally wrote under in the 70's and 80's.  Bachman "died of pseudonym cancer" (as the book jacket explains) in 1985, when King was basically outed.  However, he continued to occasionally release books under that name, including this one, which was actually written before King made it big with Carrie but was not published until 2007.

This is my second "Bachman book" (I read The Long Walk the year before I started blogging), and I have to say that this one definitely has a different feel to it than your average King novel...I suppose that could be because it was written in his very early days, even before Carrie.  The Long Walk is extremely King-esque in nature (macabre, gory, with an all-around dreadful premise), but Blaze is distinctly...not.  It has some elements that are recognizable from his other work (namely, a LOT of suspense, and a child playing a fairly central role), but otherwise I'd say this one could have flown under the pseudonym radar pretty cleanly.

Blaze is not a terribly long novel, but even so, it took me a bit to get into it.  It opens with a slow build as you learn more about Blaze's background, his now-dead crime partner George, and the kidnapping plot that he plans to execute alone.  I was finding the whole thing a bit blah, honestly, for the first 25% or so.  However, after that point, two things happen.  One, the story starts to flash back for longer periods into Blaze's past--and you learn a lot of things about his history that are rather disturbing.  And two, the actual kidnapping gets underway, which is pretty nail-biting.

(Side note: reading about a 6-month-old baby getting kidnapped (albeit fictionally) while you are feeding your 2-month-old baby is a good way to induce a blood pressure problem.)

The ending isn't particularly earth-shattering...in fact, it winds up pretty much the way you would expect, once you get to know Blaze.  But that's where the hook of this novel lies--with the characters.  As with so many other King works, he creates an amazingly complex protagonist, and given the short-ish length of this book, it's rather impressive that he was able to do that with Blaze.  If this book was really about the kidnapping, it would be called...The Kidnapping.  Or something.  (WHATEVER, nobody ever said I would be good at choosing book titles, you get my point.)  But it's not, and by the end you'll know why.

So, despite the slow start, Blaze hooked me well before the mid-point and kept me along for the ride all the way to the last word.  A bit of a cleaner ending than I'm used to with Stephen King, but if you want to see a different side of his repertoire, definitely give this one a try.

This was my second pick from the TBR Book Baggie and a good one at that! My next pick from the baggie is:

Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell!

Oooooh a 30 Before 35 book!  EXCITING!!  Gonna take me a while to finish that chunkster though...
 
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