The book equivalent of a Chinese takeaway meal. Looks super tasty, but it’s quickly devoured, somehow not as satisfying as you’d hoped and then quickly forgotten. The full review is on my blog here.
Tag Archives: popcultureboy
Popcultureboy’s #CBR5 Review #77: Fallen Land by Patrick Flanery
What an absolutely epic book. A literary thriller focussing on a farm stretching back generations and the broken dreams of its present day occupants, this book gripped like a vice and didn’t let go until it had broken my heart. Highly recommended. Full review is on my blog here.
Popcultureboy’s #CBR5 Review #76: The Burning Girl by Mark Billingham
Tom Thorne is a much loved creation by Mark Billingham. The first three books in the series are really very enjoyable, but sadly this one is much less so. The full review is on my blog here.
Popcultureboy’s #CBR5 Review #75: The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane
Already being talked up in the UK as “THE debut novel of 2014”, this is a painfully bad book. Overwritten, underplotted and entirely dreadful, the hype on this one has me well and truly baffled. Read my full review on my blog here.
Popcultureboy’s #CBR5 Review #73: May We Be Forgiven by A.M. Homes
Weighed down by plaudits and awards, maybe the expectations got the better of me. I certainly enjoyed, but by no means loved this book. Full review is on my site here.
Popcultureboy’s #CBR5 Review #72: Life! Death! Prizes! by Stephen May
A surprisingly gorgeous little novel, that will undoubtedly have been compared to A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. I wouldn’t know, since I refuse to read anything by Eggers, but I highly recommend this story of a nineteen year old boy coping with raising his six year old brother after the senseless murder of their mother. Read the full review on my blog here.
Popcultureboy’s #CBR5 Review #71: The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes
A fascinating premise that I found to be clumsily and flatly executed. Massively disappointing for me. The full review is on my blog here.
Popcultureboy’s #CBR5 Review #70: Where’d You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple
As you’d expect from a writer on Arrested Development, this is a super smart and brilliantly funny satire novel that also makes you care about what’s going on. That’s because Semple has given us characters where you’d normally find caricatures. Loved it. Full review is on my blog here.
Popcultureboy’s #CBR5 Review #69: Joyland by Stephen King
Stephen King continues his quest to be recognised as a freaking genius and not a “horror writer” with this absolute beauty of a ghost story/murder mystery that’s mostly a heartbreaking coming of age novel. The full review is on my blog here.
Popcultureboy’s #CBR5 Review #68: Transatlantic by Colum McCann
An unsurprising disappointment which I only read due to setting myself the Booker Longlist challenge for 2013. The full review is on my blog here.
Cannonball Read V 