Wulf's Book Reviews

Finlay Donovan Is Killing It by Elle Cosimano My rating: 3 of 5 stars Well, “ Finlay Donovan Is Killing It ” by Elle Cosimano has certainly and clearly managed to kill any link to reality early on… Finlay Donovan, desparate housewife, mother of two, divorced from her serial-cheating husband and in a custody battle with him over their kids, who has probably swatted a fly or two at worst, accidentally murders a person, tries to hide that together with her children’s nanny and goes on to stumble from one mess into the next. Ok, I knew I would likely have to suspend my disbelief a little more forcefully with this one than with other books but the premise didn’t prepare me for the utter nonsense that this book consists of. Not only is Finlay an uncoordinated mess, massively behind at writing her book, drowning in bills and debt, no, she doesn’t really get anything done but hopes things will magically resolve themselves somehow. And, in fact, in this book they actually simply do: Her ...

Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood My rating: 5 of 5 stars » Annie used to have a funny theory: we all have a Year Zero around which the calendars of our lives pivot. At some point you meet someone, and they become so important, so metamorphic, that ten, twenty, sixty-five years down the line you look back and realize that you could split your existence in two. Before they showed (BCE), and your Common Era. Your very own Gregorian calendar. « “ Love on the Brain ” by Ali Hazelwood is - for the time being - my gold standard for romance. It’s the lovechild of romance and nerdiness; it’s The Ultimate Nerdy Romance! Almost every sentence was pure joy to read! » I will slay a murder of dragons for you.” - “I looked it up,” Levi says from the doorjamb. “It’s a thunder of dragons.” « Bee Königswasser meets her arch-nemesis from graduate school, Levi Ward, again when she’s taking up a position as a co-lead with him on a NASA project. She has a lot of good reasons to believe Levi hates h...

Die Geschichte der Bienen by Maja Lunde My rating: 3 of 5 stars “ Sie findet den Weg hinaus aus dem Flugloch, dreht eine Runde vor dem Bienenkorb, ehe sie allmählich den Abstand zu ihrem Zuhause vergrößert. Aber noch ist sie nicht bereit. ” Ein weiteres Mal läßt mich ein Buch recht ratlos zurück: “Die Geschichte der Bienen” von Maja Lunde ist zweifellos intelligent, kritisch und zutreffend. Am Ende – und immer, wenn es auch zwischendurch “menschelt” – ist es auch ein kraftvolles und berührendes Buch. Leider sind die Längen zumindest am Anfang spürbar: Bemüht erzählt Lunde in drei Zeit- und Erzählebenen von der Geschichte der drei Protagonisten, ihrer Familien und ihrer jeweiligen Beziehung zu den Bienen. William, im Jahr 1852, ist mäßig erfolgreicher Saatgutkaufmann und Naturforscher, der – so meint er zumindest – seiner Familie seine Leidenschaft für die Forschung geopfert hat und daran zerbricht. George, der vermeintliche Realist mit großen Träumen, der als Imker in den...

A Soldier's Quartet by Colin Baldwin My rating: 2 of 5 stars DNF at 58%… I really hoped I would like " A Soldier's Quartet " by Colin Baldwin but it was not to be for a lot of reasons. First of all, we’re jumping around in time as if we were Doctor Who’s new companion - from 1918 to 2018 to 1914 and so on and on… This is not only confusing and exhausting, it actually wastes the chance to actually make us care about the German soldier Wolf who first dies and only later do we get insight into some of his life before. Also, the narration about Conrad’s contemporary research into the letter doesn’t really work for me: It’s a thinly veiled memoir of Colin's endeavours and it feels entirely authentic (including some “classic” German habits and traditions) - but, to me, it’s just not very interesting. A lot of it would totally work and amaze me if told briefly and anecdotally in person. Not so much as a book, though. There’s also at least one instance in which a l...

Bots of the Lost Ark by Suzanne Palmer My rating: 4 of 5 stars » “If I am so damaged that I would need to be reset, I would rather be decommissioned and my parts used to repair others. ”« (Highly relatable; I’m an organ donor - what about you?) " Bots of the Lost Ark " by Suzanne Palmer was a fun read! In this sequel short story to the earlier “ The Secret Life of Bots ” which took place 68 years earlier, the bots on the damaged spaceship “Ship” have gone haywire and Bot-9 returns to save the day. Some old acquaintances are back in new roles, the story is nice and amusing and the writing is good. Four stars out of five. Ceterum censeo Putin esse delendam View all my reviews https://turing.mailstation.de/bots-of-the-lost-ark-the-secret-life-of-bots-2-by-suzanne-palmer/?feed_id=661&_unique_id=6306348d2e2d2

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells My rating: 5 of 5 stars The Murderbot Diaries strangely appeal to me. As I’m still on my way to the full length novel, recently published, I’m wondering at the simple elegance and straightforwardness of the novellas. This second instalment in the series is, thankfully, pretty much more of the same in a very good way. We still get a good view of a “construct” that’s basically a robot with human parts - and it shows: Murderbot feels slightly like it’s a person on the autism scale. “ I skimmed it but most of my attention was on getting through the crowd while pretending to be an ordinary augmented human, and not a terrifying murderbot. This involved not panicking when anybody accidentally made eye contact with me. ” This time, Murderbot is literally and metaphorically on a journey: Having recently run away from its benefactor of the first novella , Dr. Mensah, it’s now literally on the way to dig into its own - murderous? - past. Metaphorically ...

The Dance of the Serpents by Oscar de Muriel My rating: 1 of 5 stars “ The Dance of the Serpents ” is book six of Oscar de Muriel's “ Frey & McGray ” series. The series started out interesting enough with Frey being the rational investigator during superstitious times. McGray on the other hand always was basically seeing the “supernatural” all around him and in everything in their cases. There used to be kind of an equilibrium between both of them: It used to be unclear if there truly was a supernatural force involved or if everything was actually due to “natural causes”. We, the readers, could be the judge of that. This worked well enough for the first four books. Along came “ The Darker Arts ” in which Frey’s no nonsense attitude became overwhelmingly dominant and McGray was pretty much demoted to an unhinged clown. cf. my review . This book reverses these roles to some extent: McGray’s superstition - bordering on obsession - gets to dominate everything else. Probably ...

I just got mail and - just as the title says - I'm ridiculously happy! Thank you, Genevieve! https://turing.mailstation.de/ridiculously-happy/?feed_id=637&_unique_id=6302572b115f5

Bretonische Idylle: Kommissar Dupins zehnter Fall by Jean-Luc Bannalec My rating: 3 of 5 stars » Himmlische Dämpfe erfüllten den Raum. »Wussten Sie, dass sich das Kaffeearoma aus rund tausend verschiedenen Einzelaromen zusammensetzt? Wein bringt es gerade einmal auf vierhundert.« Dupin hatte es nicht gewusst oder, genauer: Er hatte es immer schon gewusst. Schließlich war er aus gutem Grund süchtig. « Selten ist mir eine Rezension so schwer gefallen wie bei diesem Buch - dem immerhin zehnten Krimi um Dupin, der auch im Buch dieses Jubiläum feiert. Dabei stimmt die Mixtur eigentlich wie immer… Bannalec ist voll Sympathie für seine Figuren und läßt auch die Nebenfiguren wachsen: » Riwal selbst war ein Phänomen, immer wieder: in einem Augenblick ein bewundernswerter Rationalist, Techniker, bodenständiger Pragmatiker, im nächsten ein mystischer Erzähler. « Auch Dupin ist ganz er selbst - mal grantig und ungeduldig, mal empathisch und aufgeschlossen. Diesmal - vor dem reizvollen Hinter...

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett My rating: 1 of 5 stars We all know them: Those relatives at family reunions who insist on telling “terrific jokes” that make us cringe. If you don’t, let me put you into the right mood: »When asked if they would have sex with Bill Clinton, 86% of women in D.C. said, "Not again."« Or this one: »3 men are stranded in a boat with 4 cigarettes and no way to light them. So they toss the 4th cigarette overboard, which makes the whole boat a cigarette lighter.« Ok, you’re with me, right? Now imagine a book that’s full of humour like this. A book that tries so hard to be funny that it actually becomes tiresome. I’ve tried “ Discworld ” before and found it lacking in all departments but “ Good Omens ” made even that look good. Some actual samples of the humour? Here’s one about sperms: » And there were his fellow trainees—fellow sperms, to switch metaphors, all struggling forward in the knowl...

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón My rating: 5 of 5 stars " “Is it true you haven’t read any of these books?” “Books are boring.” “Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you,” answered Julián. " “The Shadow of the Wind” is one of those books that leave me deeply satisfied and in tears. It’s a sweeping epic about Daniel Sempere, a bookseller’s son, who – by accident or preordained by fate – learns about an obscure and mostly forgotten author, Julian Carax, whose book “The Shadow of the Wind” will change Daniel’s life and those of pretty much everyone he loves. Even though there are some rather exciting and suspenseful scenes throughout the book, Zafón takes his time to paint a broad picture of Barcelona, the narrated time (1945 to 1966) and people. And, yes, at times this does make the book somewhat slow but only by giving room to everyone in this book to gain a character of his or her own can we really appreciate the maste...

Local Girl Missing by Lisa Regan My rating: 5 of 5 stars » “Live with it? That’s it? That’s your answer? What kind of adult are you, anyway?” « (A teenaged young woman to Josie; representative of what I believed about adults at that age…) For a police procedural in its 15th instalment , “ Local Girl Missing ” by Lisa Regan is simply outstanding - inventive and imaginative and really, truly suspenseful and thrilling. I will not resort to that horrible “unword” about being unable to put down a book but this is what happened to me here. I actually completely drained my Kindle’s battery and swore when it ran out of juice - during the final chapter, of course! Let’s not get too much ahead of us just yet: As mentioned, this is yet another instalment of a series of police procedurals featuring Detective Josie Quinn from the fictitious small town of Denton, Pennsylvania. Co-starring are Josie’s team consisting of her now-husband Noah, Gretchen, Mettner, their chief and others in “suppor...

The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James My rating: 4 of 5 stars It’s 1982 and Vivian “Viv” Delaney leaves her confining home to find fame and fortune in New York City. By chance, Viv ends up in Fell, New York, where she finds a job as a night manager at the eponymous Sun Down Motel. At the end of November 1982, Viv disappears. 35 years later, in 2017, her niece, Carly Kirk, follows in Viv’s footsteps after the death of Carly’s mother, Viv’s sister. Carly also flees her overbearing brother, her college courses and her life in general, in pursuit of Viv whose fate she’s determined to discover. Consequently, Carly, too, goes to Fell and also gets a job at the Sun Down Motel - as the night manager. She even moves into Viv’s old flat and proceeds to not only discover but experience the past… The book switches (mostly from chapter to chapter) between Viv’s story in 1982 and Carly’s in 2017. While this is currently an often-used storytelling device which would usually distract and, poten...

Bruno's Challenge & Other Dordogne Tales by Martin Walker My rating: 3 of 5 stars “ Bruno's Challenge & Other Dordogne Tales ” consists of 14 short stories featuring rural French cop Bruno who has already “starred” in 14 previous books . The full-size novels (that I prefer) went on a downward spiral around book 10 and mostly picked up at book 14. So I was curious to see how this short story collection would hold up. This was especially true because only six of the collected stories are actually new - the other eight have previously been published. The eponymous “ Bruno’s Challenge ” is one of those new stories and, sadly, a prime example of all that was wrong with the latest Bruno novels: Endless recipe descriptions, hardly any kind of story. 1 star. “ Birthday Lunch ” is an older story that I had already read: Another short story from the “Bruno universe”. Unfortunately, like the later novels, this one didn’t have any appeal for me. A large part of it is basicall...

The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell My rating: 4 of 5 stars “ The Night She Disappeared ” by Lisa Jewell was a truly suspenseful read! Tallulah, 19, mother to baby Noah, and her boyfriend Zach of the same age vanish without a trace. Left behind is Tallulah’s mother Kim who takes care of Noah. In three narrated time strands we get to better understand what happened in the eponymous night - in one from Tallulah’s point of view, in another from that of her mother Kim who cannot rest until her child is at least found and in the final strand we get to accompany mystery writer Sophie who literally unearths the key to the entire mystery… A mansion with a secret tunnel, a boarding school for “difficult” pupils, a new head teacher, an illustrious but shady prominent family - what could possibly go wrong in a novel with these ingredients!? And, in fact, almost nothing does: Every character feels real and convincing - up to and including the dog. The atmosphere shifts between village ...

The Game by Michael J. Sullivan My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is another short story by Michael which he published separately as part of one of his Kickstarter campaigns. It’s about Troth, a previously minor Non-Player Character (NPC), who “lives” in a Massively Multi-player Role Playing Game (MMORPG) and suddenly develops sentience. The premise is interesting and the story well-told (how could it not be, it’s a Sullivan!). It’s just that it’s a bit… short. Given that this is a short story, well, I guess I’ll let it slide… ;-) Recommended to anyone with 30 minutes to spare. View all my reviews https://turing.mailstation.de/the-game-by-michael-j-sullivan/?feed_id=577&_unique_id=62f7cab49532c

The Happy Ever After Playlist by Abby Jimenez My rating: 4 of 5 stars After not just one but two less than stellar reads in a row, I wanted to read something that was a) unlikely to disappoint (because I didn’t have high expectations in the first place), b) uplifting and c) easy to “digest”. “The Happy Ever After Playlist” was almost exactly that. It started right by being funny… “ I snorted and descended into manic laughter again, putting a finger to my twitching eyelid. ” … and went on to be just “nice”, good-natured maybe or - as my daughter might put it - “wholesome”… “ Ten days. I’d had Tucker for ten wonderful, fur-on-my-bedspread, wet-kisses-in-the-morning, tail-wagging days. ” It felt pretty much like watching an old favourite TV show from childhood. Exactly what I wanted. Of course, a (mostly) simple romance like this, featuring a hot bone-marrow-donating (to save a little girl!) rock star, Jason, and a curvy blonde, Sloan, who falls for him, is pretty much as cliché a...

Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx My rating: 3 of 5 stars I feel a bit like a philistine when it comes to “ Brokeback Mountain ”: The relationship between the two farm hands, Ennis and Jack, made sense to me and felt real. Sadly, both the story this short story tells as well as the style in which it is told, fall somewhat flat for me. Annie Proulx laconically and unemotionally narrates her story and while there are some powerful scenes (the shirts…), I cannot help but feel that some of this story’s potential hasn’t been fulfilled. I’m late to to read this, though: First published in 1997 and the narrated time starting quite a bit earlier, western societies at least are changing: We’re still farther from true equality than I had would have hoped for but at least in my native Germany, we’re making progress: With Nyke Slawik und Tessa Ganserer we have two openly transgender people elected to the German parliament, the Bundestag. And there are more members of the German parliamen...

Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez My rating: 4 of 5 stars After landing her car in the ditch, Alexis Montgomery is “rescued” by Daniel Grant and introduced to the small rural town of Wakan. Alexis, 37, is a hot-shot emergency room physician from a dynasty of physicians who have traditionally been closely linked to the hospital at which Alexis herself works. Daniel, 28, on the other hand is from a founding family of Wakan and his family has always lived there and has risen to very local prominence. He runs a B&B in his ancestral home and lives in and above the mansion’s garage with his dog and the carpentry pieces he works on as a hobby. Of course, after meeting each other, both Alexis and Daniel fall in love with each other and what follows is a nice ride through a plethora of large and small problems before the inevitable happy end. So far, so good… Sadly, there are a few issues: From the very beginning, Alexis finds issue after issue with actually having a real committed r...

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett My rating: 5 of 5 stars I didn’t have the slightest idea about how to write this review. The story still resonates within me; simple, and yet hauntingly beautiful. Soul-devouring and yet hopeful. I still have no idea how to write this review so I’ll start with the characters since those will be who make or break this book for you. Desiree and Stella Vignes, twins, grow up in Mallard; a small town not on any map comprised of mostly coloured inhabitants. In addition to the ever-present racism of the time - we’re starting in 1968 - the inhabitants of Mallard are proud of their town which was founded by a man for “ men like him, who would never be accepted as white but refused to be treated like Negroes. ”. Adele, their mother, whose husband - their father - has been murdered by white people for no particular reason, stays in Mallard for all her life whereas Desiree and Stella flee it as soon as they reasonably can, at 16. While at first both twins ...

Warden's Fury: A Sci Fi Adventure by Tony James Slater My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is the third book of the science fiction series “The Ancient Guardians” and – in a good way – it's more of the same compared to the two earlier books. But this book has a few things going for itself. First and foremost, that’s its author, Tony James Slater : I first learned about Tony when one of his books, the highly recommended “ Kamikaze Kangaroos!: 20,000 Miles Around Australia. One Van, Two Girls… and an Idiot ” was free for a limited time on Amazon. Of course, it was the last part of the title that made me take it. It was a hell of a ride – quite literally for Tony and metaphorically for me because Tony is not only a semi-insane traveller and writer but has a very decent sense of humour, never shy to make a joke on his own expense. Meanwhile, I’ve read every single book he has published and I ended up liking all of them! Why? Because we're all a bit of Tony: He’s clumsy, ...

Archer's Voice by Mia Sheridan My rating: 2 of 5 stars So, bad books, work sucks but it’s not too bad? A bit of escapism would be nice? Quickly, grab a fluffy romance novel and laugh, cry, cringe. Sometimes at the same time. That pretty much covers how I came to read this book - and for a long time, I was absolutely loving it because probably most of us have “ leaned back against [our] car and grinned like a fool ”. This is Bree Prescott, heroine in this wonderfully sappy romance, fawning over Archer Hale, “ the local, mute loner ” - well, you get the gist. This book features a lot of those moments and they were definitely a huge part of what made this book appeal to me. The writing is… adequate. It’s certainly not great but it fits the overall mood quite well: “ I stared at him, our eyes meeting and tangling just like the first time we had met. ” As long as you don’t actually think about “tangling eyes”, you’ll be fine. There are even a few insights in there that were unexpe...

Listen to Me by Tess Gerritsen My rating: 4 of 5 stars In some aspects, “ Listen To Me ” is a departure from earlier books in the series : The story is told (mostly) alternatingly from the perspectives of the main characters: There’s, of course, Jane Rizzoli, cop, married to Gabriel, mother to their daughter Regina. Another but rather disappointingly short and inconsequential major character is Maura Isles, Medical Examiner, but she’s playing second fiddle to Angela Rizzoli, Jane’s mother, who is also the local neighbourhood spy… » Yes, I’ve come to know them all a little better and they’ve come to know me, and even though we don’t always see eye-to-eye, and we sometimes stop talking to one another and occasionally even try to kill one another, this is my neighborhood. Someone has to keep an eye on it. It might as well be me. « Finally, there’s Amy’s point of view which becomes increasingly important. Apart from those familiar faces, things seem to have changed over the past five...

Homo Faber by Max Frisch My rating: 5 of 5 stars “ Ich nannte sie eine Schwärmerin und Kunstfee. Dafür nannte sie mich: Homo Faber ” Es muß in den frühen 90’er Jahren gewesen sein, als ich im Bücherschrank meiner Mutter ein Buch im recht nüchtern und sachlich gestalteten weißen Schutzumschlag sah - “Max Frisch”, “Homo faber” und “Bibliothek Suhrkamp” stand dort. Suhrkamp kannte ich - sonst nichts. (Heute weiß ich, daß es sich um die Hardcover-Ausgabe aus dem Jahre 1962 handelte.) Ich war damals 16, ein seltsamer Vogel, der immens viel Zeit am Computer verbrachte und ansonsten viel las. So traf ich zum ersten Mal auf Faber… Walter Faber, ein durch und durch unsentimentaler, nüchterner Techniker, der an nichts glaubt, sondern ein Mann der Wissenschaft ist, trifft nach diversen kurzlebigen Frauenbekanntschaften eine junge Frau - Elisabeth, von ihm jedoch Sabeth genannt- die ihn nicht mehr loslassen wird. Eine ganz besondere Liebesgeschichte. Doch letztlich ist dies eine auf vielfält...