Hush, Hush, by Becca Fitzpatrick

Hush, Hush, by Becca Fitzpatrick.  Simon and Schuster, 2009.  400 pp.  978-1416989417.

... in which we have Twilight, but with angels instead of vampires.

The story in Hush, Hush revolves around Nora, a high school sophomore.  One day in biology, the seating arrangement gets changed and Nora ends up with a new biology partner.  The partner, a mysterious bad-boy named Patch, seems to know exactly how to get under Nora's skin and drive her crazy.  He also knows way too many details about her life.  After meeting Patch for the first time, Nora begins to run into him all over town, suggesting that he may be following her.  She also survives several near-death experiences, and begins to suspect that someone is trying to kill her.  When she does a little research into Patch and some of the other unusual people she's met since meeting him, she finds out that Patch is a fallen angel... an angel who fell to earth and lost their wings.  Despite all of the evidence suggesting that Patch is dangerous, Nora finds herself inexplicably attracted to him.  Nora ends up in a conflict between fallen angels and the Nephilim (offspring of humans and fallen angels), which could have life-threatening consequences for her.

Naked Heat by Richard Castle

If a sequel is better than the original, does that guarantee it gets a better rating than the original?

Why I do this to myself I have no idea. I read something bad and at the first opportunity to read more of it, I pounce. The sequel to Heat Wave, Naked Heat, is the book Richard Castle ostensibly wrote during the second season of Castle and once again it reads like an episode of the show, rather than a story the character himself would write. It's far less egregious this time, but characters continue to be direct copies of their show counterparts, sexual tension between the detective and the writer who follows her continues to be central to most character-focused interaction.

One problem with this is that during the 2nd season, Castle was intensely jealous of a rival for Beckett's affection, and it was even mentioned Nikki Heat got a boyfriend that Castle was toying around with killing before the end. This character never appears in the book. Also, the last half of the book was supposedly finished while Castle was sleeping with his publisher, but the publisher's character in the book wasn't portrayed flatteringly and mostly Castle wrote Rook just wanting to avoid her. Considering his relationship with that character, he wouldn't have written that character that way, I don't think.

The characters have a few things to say and do that aren't in the TV show, and the mystery itself is much more interesting and intelligently plotted than Heat Wave's was. However, in the end, it's not a new, unique experience that makes use of the medium and reflects the character of the writer. It's just an episode of the show in book form, but at least this one was an okay episode.

I waffled a lot about my star rating for this book. On the one hand, it is better written and more interesting than its predecessor, which earned its 1 star pretty hard. On the other, I still wouldn't recommend it except to fans of the TV show who have already seen the whole show and still want more. I guess I give it three stars for people who are already fans of the show, one star for people who actually just want to read a mystery thriller.

Heat Wave by Richard Castle

This book is ostensibly written by Richard Castle, a fictional character and main protagonist of the TV show Castle. He's supposed to be a James Patterson, Dean Koontz, Tom Clancy style blockbuster author, with a focus on Mystery Thrillers. Heat Wave is, within the context of the TV show, the novel he writes over the course of the first season, using the show's other main character as inspiration; Kate Beckett, an NYPD detective.

However, this book is really more of a book written by 'some guy' inspired by watching the TV show than by 'Castle' inspired by Beckett. Every character in the book has a direct analogue to the TV show, to the point where the book may as well not have even replaced the names. Within the context of the book, there's a journalist following Nikki Heat around named Jameson Rook... yeah. Heat and Rook have an intense attraction to one another hiding behind a veneer of sarcasm and mild resentment (on her side at least)

So really, it isn't actually a book, it's one episode of the TV show in book form. It's not a terribly good episode either. The plot unfolds so predictably that it's almost painful. The millionaire industrialist is actually broke. His trophy wife is a former stripper. The virtuous accountant is less than virtuous. The crazy Russian giant loses an identifiable ring in a key location because he needed to lose it there to connect the two crime scenes. The only original idea comes near the end, and it's the only salvagable part of the experience.

Overall, it doesn't read like a book written by the character Richard Castle would, it doesn't give fans of the show anything new for these characters to do, and the plot is noticeably less intelligent than plots on the show tend to be. All the humor falls flat as does the romance. The action scenes are okay though, and those are hard to write. Skip this book and watch the TV show, after all, it stars Nathan Fillion. If you watch it all and can't wait to watch more, the book might be worth your time... all 3ish hours it'd take to finish. It's only about 180 pages long.

Feast of Souls by C.S. Friedman

I have a feeling Emma is going to kill me for this review.

This book is a fantasy novel by C. S. Friedman, the first entry into the Magister Trilogy. C. S. Friedman is the author of another fantasy book series that I was never able to get into thanks to unlikable protagonists and a hazy understanding of what the book's main conflict was supposed to be, but which had a really interesting magic system which drove most of the plot.


Now... well, at least I finished the first book of THIS series.

[The rest of this review contains spoilers]

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

I solemnly swear to never read a book again just because it is popular. OK, seriously. I utterly fail to see why people like this book. There are much better mysteries around. Unless people really like reading about sadism, torture and rape (in between incredibly long and dry stretches of the actual mystery's story, of course) I don't understand why this book is so popular. I am including spoilers in this review, so if I can't talk you out of reading this book you might not want to read further.


I read this book mostly because everyone seemed to be reading it and its sequels. I was also slightly intrigued because not once but twice, when I told people about my job, they said it sounded like what Lisbeth Salander does in this book. My job is not remotely related to hacking or private investigation so I have no idea how people get that, and it makes me think I must do a remarkably poor job explaining what I do for a living!

So this book was not at all what I expected it to be. I don't know what I was expecting but I was very disappointed. At first, reading this book, I was like ok, it's a mystery. I used to read mysteries I sort of like these patterns and tropes. Then, I was like wow. Nothing is happening. Something should probably be happening in this book by now. Then I was like jesus fucking christ why would anyone write a scene like that? How can I get these horrible descriptions of assault, sadism and rape out of my brain? Then, it was back to boringness in between a few scenes that I wish I could scourge from my mind.

OK, I'll admit. I am sheltered and sensitive. I cannot stand watching movies or television, or reading books that include much sexual violence, or animal cruelty. Those are two things I really go out of my way to avoid and I was not happy to be surprised with both of those things in this book. I literally got dizzy and nauseous from reading scenes in this book. I knew I was a little sensitive, but to be so disturbed and sickened by a book that is so incredibly popular was unexpected and it has really diminished my opinion of humanity. What really pissed me off was that after finishing the book I realized that the scene that upset me so much was totally unrelated to the plot. That scene could have never happened and nothing about the main plot would have changed. Apparently Larsson knows his audience though, because the teaser for book two at the end of this book was all about bondage, rape and child abuse. It was not subtle. Guess what books I won't be buying?

On to problems other than the grotesque, vivid sexual and animal violence, of which there were several.

I really found it to be a strangely paced book. It was SO SLOW until like half way through. Just plodding along, plodding along. No progress on the mystery, no progress on the plot. Then, over half way through, our heroes figure almost everything out in a few pages. And it is written in a way that kills any interest you might have had in the mystery at hand. Like, oh by the way, they figured out this and this and made that connection. There was no gradual piecing together of knowledge or sudden insight for the readers, oh no. It was like Larsson suddenly decided that brevity was to be preferred and crammed what should have been the meat of the story into a small, abrupt section of the book. What a waste of time.

It was impossible to like any of the characters, with the possible exception of Blomkvist. Lisbeth Salander (the girl with the dragon tattoo) was not a character you could relate to or empathize with. Her character was so absurdly contrived and eclectic. She could not have been less like a real human if Larsson tried. He tried so hard to write her thought processes but it just made her seem impossible.

It's a pet peeve of mine when authors mix perspectives and point of view characters. I know there is nothing technically wrong with it, but it makes me crazy. I find it incredibly distracting when you are cruising along from the perspective of one character and then suddenly and inexplicably the thoughts of someone else are interjecting. It's jarring. I especially disliked the contexts in which Larsson distractingly switched perspectives. It was just icing when I was reading about how *someone* felt to be butt raped, and then suddenly I was reading about what the rapist was thinking. Really Larsson? Was that necessary?

The story was over almost exactly a hundred pages before Larsson stopped writing the stupid book. After the epic conclusion, the final nausea inducing confrontations and discoveries, he spends a hundred pages wrapping up side-plots that I did not give a rat's tit about. I doubt I am the only one who was totally uninterested in the financial fraud tangents in this book. They were a nice break from reading about bondage, but otherwise not something I enjoyed.

In summary, do yourself a favor and skip this one. If you like reading violent porn, if that's your thing, whatever. You would be better off reading porn without windy descriptions of boring characters and financial fraud. If you do not want to read about incredibly disturbing things just pass on this book. It's not worth it.

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

I ignored all the good advice I was given to never read this book. I should have listened. I bought the audio book to listen to on a road trip, and it was 11 1/2 of terrible writing, forgettable characters and simplicity that had me rolling my eyes. AND I just realized that what I was listening to was the abridged version! I feel like I dodged a bullet by not subjecting myself to the full version. This review contains spoilers because anything I can do so save people from reading this monstrosity is a good deed.


I read this book because I know people who want to argue with me about the benefits of Randian Anarchy who thump this book like a bible. I felt the need to read this to better understand where they were coming from. After reading it, I feel that I understand these peoples' tiny little brains much better. It was almost worth the repetitive stress injury I risked from the involuntary eye-rolling fits this book induced.

The story is about some delightful Pillars of Capitalism who are clever, hardworking, kind, etc. etc. etc. They just want to run their railroads, steel mills and mines but the evil, inept, selfish, immoral, etc. etc. etc. members of the government keep getting in their way. The Pillars of Capitalism get fed up and escape, leaving the 99.9% of people in the setting who aren't Pillars of Capitalism (and therefore are stupid, selfish and lazy) to bumble around attempting to feed themselves or whatever and largely failing.

I have so many problems with this book that I don't even know where to begin.

First of all, anyone who has paid attention through an economics class (or, you know, aced it like me) does not need this endless simplistic story Rand has given us to understand that capitalism as an economic system works very well, and can be harmed by government interference. That being the only "message" in the book I agree with, I recommend taking an economics class or reading an economics textbook instead of reading Atlas Shrugged. It might actually save you time.

In economics classes, they actually teach you even more than the concept that self-interest can drive progress and make rich people happy. They teach you about ways in which unfettered self-interest can be harmful. These are called externalities and Rand ignores them. As the real-world Pillars of Capitalism have made abundantly clear, their self interest won't protect, oh, I don't know, their investors and employees from getting bilked or companies from raping the environment. We need government to stop people from abusing each other and our world.

I could go on for days on the fallacies and freaking errors in libertarian anarchy. I approve of small government as much as the next person but there is an important place for the government in economics and it is, unfortunately, mostly to protect us against those who Rand reveres.

Dagny Taggart. She is the main protagonist and is completely a Mary Sue. The best part of the book was when I realized that Taggart was a total self-insertion character and I couldn't stop giggling. Characteristics held by Taggart that are commonly associated with bad fanfiction and Mary Sues are as follows, with certain descriptions from The Mary Sue Litmus Test.

• Highly attractive without having to work at it
• No less than the THREE most important male protagonists fell in love with and boinked her.
• Genius level intelligence
• Holds a position uncommon for women in the setting
• Freaking flew an airplane with no training, unless time spent in flight school was just left out of the abridged version for some reason
• Consistently radical and irreverent without repercussions
• One of several Pillars of Capitalism in the story who are apparently necessary for the setting's economy to function.

Again, I could go on but I doubt many readers are as enthusiastic as I am about making fun of "classics" for characteristics they share with bad fanfiction.

I had several other problems with Rand's portrayal of Taggart, mostly due to the inevitable sexism. Dagny Taggart is referred to throughout the story simply as "Dagny" while her much less important brother is referred to as "Taggart". Why do only men ever get referred to by their last names?

The single part of this book that made me rage more than any other was when Dagny visits the Pillars of Capitalisms' little mountain capitalism retreat. She shows up, gets stuck for a month, feels like being gainfully employed so what does she do? This accomplished railroad executive, this brilliant engineer and genius supply chain planner declares that she wants nothing more than to be Galt's maid. I raged. OK, the book was written in the fifties, but if it is still respected as relevant today that gives me the right to rage.

The stupid mountain capitalism retreat pissed me off in general. There was the strong implication that all we needed to do to create a utopia was to get rid of the government. Forget about how the Atlas Shrugged government was a straw-man, a ridiculous over exaggeration. Forget about how this setting completely ignores the old, young, sick or otherwise unable to work portions of the population. For his little utopia, Galt hand-picked all the (brilliant, young, healthy, industrious, ambitious) people he let come in and work. Let me pick several industrious, dedicated, brilliant young communists and I could make that work too. The tricky part about societies is they can't just work for the most fit segment of the population.

Again, I could go on indefinitely about things that I hated about Atlas Shrugged. I strongly recommend you skip this book, unless you like simplistic portrayals of good and evil, remarkably predictable stories and unsubtle propaganda all drug out over what feels like 10 billion pages of obnoxious writing.