Book Review: Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

Author: Gillian Flynn
Release Date: June 10th 2010
Publisher: Phoenix
Pages: 424
Format: Paperback
Buy on: Waterstones, Barnes and Noble
Add to: Goodreads, Leafmarks

Rating: 5 stars

Libby Day was just seven years old when her evidence put her fifteen-year-old brother behind bars.

Since then, she had been drifting. But when she is contacted by a group who are convinced of Ben's innocence, Libby starts to ask questions she never dared to before. Was the voice she heard her brother's? Ben was a misfit in their small town, but was he capable of murder? Are there secrets to uncover at the family farm or is Libby deluding herself because she wants her brother back?

She begins to realise that everyone in her family had something to hide that day... especially Ben. Now, twenty-four years later, the truth is going to be even harder to find.

Who did massacre the Day family? 

My Thoughts:

Dark Places is one of those books that linger in your brain for a while. You keep thinking about it again and again until your brain bleeds from the feeling of: That was fucking amazing.

I think this is my favorite book of the year, highly disturbing and dark with a pitch of macabre and thrilling detailing of the most chilling events.

It all starts with Libby Day a survivor from the Day family massacre back in the 80's. All these year she lived off the money people donated to her because they felt sorry for her, but money run out and she is in need of those, although, not too willing to either hear her lawyer or do something about the situation.

One day she is being contacted by a guy who participates in the Kill Club. A group of people who research various murders throughout time and they believe that her brother – who is in jail for her family's murder – is innocent. At first, Libby seems reluctant enough to go there and see what all this is about, because she is sure that her brother did it but soon enough those people will make interested because they are willing to pay for any information she can provide -and she needs the money- and also because they have some interesting theories about the real killer. And that's where the awesome story takes starts.

I was thrown in a world so complex and twisted and macabre that I could not believe what I was reading. Everyone seemed like the perfect killer. The story was told in alternative points of view, from present day Libby to deceased mother and brother back in the 80's before the murders. What unraveled in front of me was a mystery so mesmerizing that had me turning the pages like crazy.

The book covers everything from Satanism and sacrifices to drugs, to child molestation, to teenage pregnancy. It covers the theme of abuse and how a troubled teen can hide so much rage inside of him but at the same time be the most quiet and shy child out there. How someone can be completely paralyzed from fear that cannot even defend his own self and can easily be manipulated to do things he doesn't want to do or seem right to him. I love the fact that people who are afraid, are not actually afraid to point fingers to people they consider to be somehow weird and turn someone innocent into a murderer, a child molester etc etc, I like how the book shows you that nothing is what it seems to be and judging by fear is the worst one can do.

The characters are all really complex even the supportive ones play a role in the story and while reading this book you need to be really careful of details because they play a huge role in the development of the story. Libby was unique to me. The complexity and development of her character was truly fascinating and the same applies to her brother Ben. I felt like the characters reached their goal in the end and found peace.

The writing was magnificent. I could not put the book down, I felt every agony, every fear and every confusion in this book because every scene was so vivid, like I was in the book. You wont see the ending coming thats for sure, it was so unpredictable and jaw dropping that I was asking where it was coming from and did not see it. It gave a great closure to the book.

If you love mysteries and suspense then Gillian Flynn is the author for you and its sure my new favorite author.

Book Review: The Unbecoming Of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

Author: Michelle Hodkin
Release Date: 27th September 2011
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Books For Young Readers
Series: Mara Dyer #1
Pages: 466
Rating: 3
Buy on: Amazon
Add to Goodreads, Leafmarks

Mara Dyer believes life can't get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.
It can. 
She believes there must be more to the accident she can't remember that killed her friends and left her strangely unharmed. 
There is.
She doesn't believe that after everything she's been through, she can fall in love. 
She's wrong.

My Thoughts:

It had been some time since the last time I actually read a ''real'' young adult book and The Unbecoming Of Mara Dyer made me love them and hate them at the same time all over again.

The story was promising and it promised a lot to me and it had me captivated with just one small sentence. If I love something that is horror films and horror books (Stephen King) and I love the paranormal element, it's what makes me pick up a book most of the time.

The writing was magical. The author achieved an incredible description style that requires few words and leaves the rest to the imagination of the reader, letting the scene free to be comprehended and imagined different from each one of us. It was scary and the element of horror was there.

Mara and Noah as the main characters of the story were real. What I didnt like a lot was the cliché ''troubled girl meets amazingly-rich-British-womanizer-guy who of course happens to hide a secret of its own. Cliche much?(It took me a while to get to like Noah). The conversations between those two were clever and funny with a lot of humor and sarcasm hoping along on the way. The entire story plays around the same school as Twilight, Hush-Hush and every other paranormal YA book out there. Somewhere here I started noticing that the story started taking a different turn.

For me the horror element in the story had a lot of potential. It could take 15 different routes and explote 15 different things and it still would be awesome as long as Mara did not become one of those girls that kind of revolve around their crush. Suddenly, everything was around Noah. Feminism was a book  Mara closed and threw in the garbage in the name of love.

Her mother from an annoying b*** became a lenient girlfriend that did not object Mara going out as long as it was with Noah (15 mins ago she could not even get out of the house to go to school without the usual interrogation).

Apart from the sizzling romance...ok I am joking...the emotions were strong. Fear was there, in a lot of scenes I was trembling with anticipation although, it was pretty obvious what would happen next. Curiosity on Mara's part made me cringe because she was curious about the most obvious get-the-hell-away situations ever. Ugh!

This is your classic Paranormal book that will appeal to all the fans of Hush Hush, Twilight and all the rest of this genre, despite the romance that made me gag at times I will be reading the second book of the series because the ending left me curious and I need to know what will happen.

Until next time.

Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino (book review by Eleni)

Author: Natsuo Kirino
Release Date: March 13th 2007 (1st published in 2003)
Publisher: Knopf
Pages: 480
Rating: 3 stars
Buy on: Amazon ,Barnes and Noble

Tokyo prostitutes Yuriko and Kazue have been brutally murdered, their deaths leaving a wake of unanswered questions about who they were, who their murderer is, and how their lives came to this end. As their stories unfurl in an ingeniously layered narrative, coolly mediated by Yuriko’s older sister, we are taken back to their time in a prestigious girls’ high school—where a strict social hierarchy decided their fates — and follow them through the years as they struggle against rigid societal conventions.

Shedding light on the most hidden precincts of Japanese society today,Grotesque is both a psychological investigation into the female psyche and a work of noir fiction that confirms Natsuo Kirino’s electrifying gifts.

Review:

This book confused me so much when it comes to the rating. It;s one of those books that belong in the in between and I really didn't know how to rate it. So I closed my eyes and gave it a 3. 

Like all Natsuo Kirino's books you get to see the story from multiple POV'S and I guess that's a good thing but not in Grotesque. At some point the narration becomes really boring while we get to know the background of Yuriko's murderer , and my opinion is that it was unnecessary for the author to do so in this book. I would like the book a lot better if it was based on two POV's instead of 3. It would me more mysterious and more fast paced and enjoyable rather than painful. Although , I wanted to commit suicide from boredom I couldn't put the book down because it was enjoyable from a whole different aspect...modern Japan.

While the main protagonist lives her life and tells the story of her sister Yuriko we get to see a Japan so much different than the cuteness and the happiness that we know. It's a Japan dark and grey where people judge from appearance and are nosy and above all they see mixed Japanese as ''bastards'' . You get to know the ''goods'' and bad's of prostitution and why people choose this kind of life. Kirino did a really good job with the writing in this one, although the translation had a lot of mistakes and at some points you couldn't make sense, blending fiction with reality in a book that was really intriguing and in the end sad. 

I didn;t enjoy this book as much I did with Out and Real World but I have to give it to her for her writing and the way she makes you see the real world people live in.

Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma book review

Author: Tabitha Suzuma
Release Date: May 27th 2010
Publisher: Definitions
Pages: 432
Rating: 5 stars
Buy at: Barnes and Noble , Amazon

She is pretty and talented - sweet sixteen and never been kissed. He is seventeen; gorgeous and on the brink of a bright future. And now they have fallen in love. But... they are brother and sister.

Seventeen-year-old Lochan and sixteen-year-old Maya have always felt more like friends than siblings. Together they have stepped in for their alcoholic, wayward mother to take care of their three younger siblings. As defacto parents to the little ones, Lochan and Maya have had to grow up fast. And the stress of their lives—and the way they understand each other so completely—has also also brought them closer than two siblings would ordinarily be. So close, in fact, that they have fallen in love. Their clandestine romance quickly blooms into deep, desperate love. They know their relationship is wrong and cannot possibly continue. And yet, they cannot stop what feels so incredibly right. As the novel careens toward an explosive and shocking finale, only one thing is certain: a love this devastating has no happy ending.

Review:

I didn't even know such book existed...someone recommended it to me and i thank them so much.
The author is british and i have to say that i admire her guts to write and to publish such a book...in the western world.

i have read a lot of manga that have to do with incest or brother - sister love and sex and all of that (Angel Sanctuary,Boku wa Imouto ni Koi wo Suru) there are also anime...
what i dpnt understand is why Asians seem to be a little cooler with that issue. i know that is genetically weird to have a physical relationship with your brother or with a cousin but i know that a lot of us have seen a cousin and thought something improper..its just the nature of the human...we love to play with fire and when something is off limits subconsciously we want to make it ours.

Apparently the book wants to teach us not to be so judgemental of people and their likes. through my early childhood to my late adolescence i experienced a lot of judgemental people and i dont really do that. i know a girl that she has a relationship with her brother (not a broken family) and i have no problem with them since they dont do anything to anyone.

of course i am not saying that everyone has to go and have sex with a family member cuz after a generation the earth would be full with hybrids due to genetic anomalies but i want to say is that things happen and instead of judge people we should put our feet in their shoes and think how we would react if we were them.

To the book
i have never ever read something like that in my entire life. the book itself it was provoking and great. i would not recommend a hormone-unstable teen to read this due to descriptive sexual scenes and the theme of incest. it falls under the category of young adult but i would totally put it under the category of adult.

the characters were greatly developed to the point i cried with them, laughed, anguished and *hhmm* wanted them epicly bad to find some time alone. the book itself is good written, i felt like i was in the same room as Maya and Lochie watching them.

To be honest with you i didnt really like the ending but thats just me. i could have turned out completely different and i felt it was not fair for the characters.