Books in February

I read some books in February that I can barely remember. Must read better books next time.

The House at Midnight

Very indulgent. I read an article by the author where she named the The Secret History by Donna Tartt as her favourite book of all time (it was on the Guardian website) and you can see how she's tried to do something similar here with the group of friends and the country house. Where The Secret History is kind of ethereal and mysterious this book is just banal and written in a prissy, humourless way that's quite depressing after a while. There was one joke in it about Dalziel and Pascoe but that was it for the whole book. The main woman whose name I've forgotten (it was something like Sarah or Michelle) is an exasperating pushover with a Babysitter's Club-esque obsession with sophistication, "So-and-so was dressed in a red dress and had dark hair and a cigarette holder. I looked down at my workaday shoes and felt insecure. Blah blah blah. Then I let someone swear at me and pull my hair."

We Have Always Lived in the Castle



A jolly, short read. Its blackly comic tone was a relief after suffering through The House at Midnight. I never have as much to say about books that I enjoyed as I have to say about books I disliked. I guess that's my failing as a human. In my book notebook I wrote scores of angry notes about The House at Midnight but for this one I just wrote, "Short. Too short?" and "Similar to The Wasp Factory" and it was a bit similar to The Wasp Factory, the unhinged, isolated siblings burying old bits of animal and nailing stuff to trees.

The Lake of Dead Languages



Utterly predictable mystery novel. What to say about it? It's about a woman teaching Latin at the school she attended oh so many years ago. There's a suicide; but is it a suicide? There's a brother and sister; but are they brother and sister? There's having sex with some dude in a mask; but is it the same dude in the mask who you think is in the mask and on and on until you want the book to end. Another one that drew me in with promises of The Secret History. When will I learn? Probably never.

Evil at Heart



Why did I buy and read Evil at Heart? It was on sale when Borders was closing down. It's part of a series, I'm a sucker for a series. There were a few stand-out parts that unnerved me a little, but for the most part I was unmoved. People were wandering around finding mutilated corpses, there was a kidnapping and someone with pointy teeth...that stuff's gross and scary but I just didn't care. The reason for my apathy is the hackneyed characters. Obnoxious "jounalist" and wacky dresser Susan has a Sweet Valley High-esque disregard for danger that gets her into all manner of scrapes. Detective and serial killer-bonker Archie Sheridan is so dark and intense that I read his dialogue in a Christian-Bale-is-The-Dark-Knight voice. Bumbling police man whose name I can't remember always shows up just in the nick of time. Tripe.