Wulf's Book Reviews

Murder in Tuscany by T.A. Williams My rating: 1 of 5 stars I came to this book knowing nothing about it. I’m leaving it unfinished at 50%, knowing I hate pretty much everything about it… First of all, it’s rare that I read a novel and can tell after 5% that the author is an old white man. Why, you ask? Well, the hero, a retired police detective, never stops lamenting about his estranged and soon-to-be ex-wife while at the same time never stopping to ogle and lust after other women. Always commenting on their bodies, never on anything else… » She had short hair and was wearing no make-up but didn’t need any. « How very generous of him! The hero also keeps assigning “funny” nicknames to everyone around him, e. g. “» Agatha (aka Marge Simpson) « or the housekeeper/valet whom he calls “ Dracula ”. Of course, he’d never say that to anyone’s face. Also, our hero is full of entitled self-pity and oh-so-funny remarks… » This is justifiably reputed to be one of the greatest work...

Battle Royale by Koushun Takami My rating: 1 of 5 stars Wow, this was bad, really bad. It starts with the reason for this novel’s popularity: It consists of 98% pure violence porn: We get to witness how about 40 15-year-old classmates from junior high school brutally murder each other. Actually, they’re more like slaughtering each other and through my reception of the text, I had the very unpleasant feeling of watching a violence-obsessed author act out his most revolting fantasies. Takami almost gleefully presents his sadistical ideas with excessive and gratuitous violence. While I presume the novel is meant to be a commentary on societal pressures and the dehumanising effects of violence, I felt that the graphic descriptions of bloodshed and gore were used purely for shock value and did little to further the plot or develop the characters. Speaking of which: The next percent is the characters displaying the character depth of a paramecium, a single-celled organism… Taka...

The Princess Bride by William Goldman My rating: 1 of 5 stars “Not to be confused with William Goldman.”, Wikipedia helpfully told me when I looked up Golding - and yet I did confuse flashy, flamboyant Goldman with the unpretentious Golding. A grave mistake. “The Princess Bride”, supposedly the “good parts only” version of his alter ego’s novel, starts with an introduction by its author whom I immediately disliked after reading it. His often-occurring interruptions of an extremely banal and simple story were further aggravating. I also strongly disliked pretty much every single character: Buttercup, beautiful and an enormously stupid damsel-in-distress; the perfect Westley who is basically super-human from his first appearance onwards; Humperdinkh, the plotting prince of the land; the evil six-fingered count - I was almost bored to death by them all. The story is mind-numbingly daft: Girl rejects boy in favour of a prince, boy finds fame/infamy, girl gets rescued by boy, ...

The Inn Crowd by Melody Rush My rating: 1 of 5 stars Rarely have I read a novel that has no redeeming qualities to at least alleviate the pain from its issues. “ The Inn Crowd ” by Melody Rush is such a rare exception. It starts with the title which is a painful pun on the inn, run by the heroine and her past as an in-girl (“ Janey Dee ”) and influencer. It continues right on the cover below the title: Can someone explain why neither Haden nor Sarah Jane have eyes? Did the money for the artist run out before the eyes were done? Did the artist know they had no talent for painting eyes? Did the poor artist maybe actually read the novel and wished they had no eyes afterwards? The story is also… challenged: Former social media influencer Sarah Jane Darby has accidentally live-streamed her then-boyfriend and herself when the former confronted her with her sex toys, accused her of cheating him by using those and dumped her. In their world, Sarah Jane’s fans take his side and h...

Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center My rating: 1 of 5 stars Well, this much is clear: I wouldn’t bother to save this novel in a fire. This book is a whole new kind of bad. It actually made me annoyed and, at times, angry. Sexualised violence, PTSD, cancer, sexism, general violence, stalking, abandonment, arson, insta-love, and forgiveness (for all of the afore-mentioned) - all in this one novel and badly done to boot. Before anything else - even being human - Cassie Hanwell is an extremely successful firefighter. No doubt in large part due to the fact that this profession in the USA is dominated by men. According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) in 2020 only 9% of the firefighters were female. I couldn’t easily find my native Germany’s statistics but in the UK, the percentage of female firefighters is about 7%. So, I’m going to assume it’s the same problem in the USA and in Europe. Thus, Cassie - like many women - has always had (and still has...

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn My rating: 1 of 5 stars This was an all-around bad book. Most of the story elements were pilfered from the abundance of old films mentioned here, e. g. “ Rear Window ”, “ Witness To Murder ”, and large parts from more recent films like “ Copycat ”. It also reminded me a lot of an old song by Tom Lehrer: Lobachevsky . It has basically no redeeming qualities. If you want more details, read on, but be warned: Spoilers ahead! [su_spoiler title="Spoiler"] The protagonist, Anna Fox, is an ex-psychologist who suffers from agoraphobia after both her husband and her child died after an accident. She drove the car and was the sole survivor. She still talks to both of them and pretends they’re alive but live separately. Anna is on strong medication but takes those with lots and lots of wine which she’s getting delivered in bulk. She doesn’t quite see dead people yet but suffers from lots of side effects. One day Anna witnesses...

The Stationmaster's Cottage by Phillipa Nefri Clark My rating: 1 of 5 stars The Stationmaster's Cottage (Rivers End #1), by Phillipa Nefri Clark A literary letdown of epic proportions: a painfully banal narrative filled with annoying characters, questionable dialogue, unending melodrama and a failed attempt at blending mystery and romance in the most abysmal way imaginable. This was a thoroughly, abysmally and disgustingly bad book. The worst book I’ve read in a very long time. I picked it up because it was shelved as Romance and Mystery, two genres that I usually enjoy and I was intrigued how this would play out. Little was I prepared for the almost unbearable banality of the "mystery" that turned out to be a silly family drama and the extreme levels of melodrama. » “How could you have done it?” Christie cried. “I will never forgive you. Never! ”« (On a graveyard, towards a dead person, during a thunderstorm.) Basically, in the past Martha and Thomas...

The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse by Charlie Mackesy My rating: 1 of 5 stars “My author owned lots of calendars!”, said the mole. “He cut them all up, collected all the calendar sayings and compiled them into one book.”, he added. The fox excitedly added: “He chose a font that makes the reader work to decipher it so that there’s a feeling of accomplishment!” “I did the drawings!”, the boy exclaimed. “They may not be pretty but they’re mine. They’ll make Charlie money, money, money because it’s funny!” “Wow”, said the fox, “and people actually buy that book?” “Yes, fox, they’re daft like that! Not that anything is totally wrong about these ‘pearls of wisdom’; they’re just so trite that nobody should pay money for this stuff!” The horse was neighing: “» Tears fall for a reason and they are your strength not weakness. « - they actually think that’s “profound”. Or so amazingly cute. Just because we’re anthropomorphized animals and we look good on Insta!” One star ou...

A Death at the Office by Frank J. Edler My rating: 1 of 5 stars This was a singularly weak book. In short, there’s not just death but Death personified (so far not too unusual) - and there’s a whole corporation of them. All called Death which leads to oh-so-funny encounters with the “ Help Death ” towards whom another Death insists on calling “Help Desk” and so on… Trying way too hard to be funny but having no discernible talent for writing (and humour) seems to be the primary issue here. Two examples so you can decide for yourself: » Tattered Black Telephone™ and a Tattered Black Notepad™. On the Tattered Black Notepad™, Death found an old Tattered Black Message™ scrawled a millennia ago, on the last shift change. The Tattered Black Message™ read: « The continued use of “TM" does not excuse the repetitiveness of the whole “Tattered Black something” stuff. It is just annoying and pretty much everything is tattered black… » move? To Acapulco?” “Acapulco? What? No. They say he...

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...