July Reviews

I've really got into the grove of reading these past few months. I'm making more effort to have my book with me at all times, and I'll admit, the kindle is really helping with that. being able to finish one book and immediately switch onto the next is great. Plus it fits in nearly all my bags. I might be a convert!

The Moth
Various
4/5
Serpent's Tail 07/08/2014 Paperback
Internship Haul
I picked up this book from my internship at Profile, and largely chose it because the marketing was absolutely brilliant. They did gorilla marketing where they did up the shutters of a bookshop and all sorts of other really cool stuff, like High vis cycling jackets. Anyway, it was a total whim and it sat on my shelf as a book of short stories for ages.
The title The Moth comes from people sitting on their porches telling stories while the moths hit the bare bulb above them. The idea of oral history is kept alive by The Moth which is an event held in New York where speakers come on stage and tell their true life stories, usually around a theme or prompt from the organisers.
The book is a collection of these stories set down. Some I had heard before, as the show is recorded and released as a podcast. I liked re reading them in the speakers voice and wondered what the ones I hadn't heard would be like spoken aloud. The book is brilliant. The podcast is better. If they released an anthology every year I would read it. It's such a simple idea. Come on stage and tell your story.

Binge
Tyler Oakley
4/5
Simon & Schuster 20/10/2015 Kindle
Amazon
Ah Tyler, he never fails to bring a smile to my face. Binge had been on my list since it was available to pre-order. If I wasn't already such a big fan of his, I'm not sure that this would have got 4 out of 5. There are a number of typos. Which I realise is probably S&S's fault, but it still stood out to me. And It is fairly obvious that each chapter is stand alone and they edited it together into the most sensible order, but it means that for instance chapter 6 refers to something that happened in chapter 3 but refers to it as in the future because of the chronology of his life. I think Tyler's life is and was deserving of a more respectful rendering and I think the publisher has treated it like any old celebrity bumf. He's not, please check him out, he's amazing and my greatest advisory to being an accepting and evolved human. Plus points for him being just as hilarious in text as on screen.

The Widow
Fiona Barton
3/5
Transworld Digital 14/01/2016 Kindle
Amazon
Another Gone Girl. With revolving perspectives (bar one crucial one) the story slowly unfolds from several unreliable narrators. Its a page turner but ultimately let me down in the ending. I think I needed more resolution or a more surprising turn. Maybe I missed something. I really enjoyed the book, but it's no gone girl or before we met.

Armada
Earnest Cline
3/5
Cornerstone Digital 16/07/2015 Hardback
Christmas Haul
Stop.
Have you read Ready Player One? Go read that. It's much better than this one in my opinion. Armada doesn't have the same multi layered gorgeousness of RPO and there's a lot about space that I don't care about, it just doesn't feel as well planned. Still and easy read and a familiar voice makes it worth picking up. I would just re read Ready Player One though...