Dreamcatcher

Stephen King is the undisputed King Of The Freaks, in my humble opinion. Heck, it's even in his name! The King of things that go bump in the dark, that are born out of your nightmares, gooey and icky and full of teeth and eyes made out of the night, tapping on your window by moonlight, asking very nicely if you could please let them come in, just for a little while? They only want to play, and they're not really all that noisy.

Dreamcatcher, in my opinion, is one of Mr King's freakiest works. His wife, Tabitha King, in fact often refers to it as "the one with the shit-weasels".



Basically it is the story of four men who were once boys. And as young boys they did something noble and good, but one that would end up altering their lives beyond belief and comprehension. An alien invasion in the woods of Maine, unexplainable powers, and the one little boy with Down's Syndrome who links these four friends and everything that happens around them.
I won't go into the plot much. I bought the book knowing next to nothing about the story, and I think I enjoyed the little flashbacks and revelations much more that way. It is one of the joys of a Stephen King novel. Step into it, as clueless as possible, expecting nothing and everything, and just let that man, the storyteller, do his job. My only complaint is that the novel is just a tad too long. At least a hundred or so pages could be cut off, really.
But apart from that, this book was a godsend for me. I had flu and a throwy-uppy virus for about a week, and Dreamcatcher (along with warm orange juice) was my constant companion on those long, feverish, sweaty nights, when sleep was as far away as the chance of Jessica Simpson winning the Pulitzer Prize.
It goes deep into the depths of human psyche and awareness and psychology without you ever realizing it at first. It plumbs at your fears so tactfully and unobstrusively that you almost never realize what's going on. And not just fears of what's hiding in the shadows or what's going to pop out at you from behind those bushes. But also the fear of losing your grip on that line between reality and fantasy, and losing the people you love, and losing that carefree innocence of your childhood, and losing yourself in the overwhelming insanity of the world around you.

Stephen King may never be considered as particularly intelligent literary reading material, but you cannot deny the fact that the man makes his characters so very human that it's almost ridiculous. Their thought processes, their fears, their minds and hearts become part of you, that's how powerful it is.
All in all, Dreamcatcher is another extremely satisfactory King reading experience, with one of those ambiguous you-decide-what-the-ending-is finishing touches. Bloody Awful Poetry highly approves.

There is also a movie version of the book, starring the likes of Morgan Freeman and Thomas Jane. Apparently it is quite good, but all I'm saying is that, compared to the novel, the movie ending supremely sucks.

PRETTIES ~Scott Westerfield

Somebody has probably already posted on this book, but I love it so much! I just finished it, and I loved UGLIES (book 1 in the series) almost as much.
Westerfield has created a future world, where you are divided by how you look. When you are young (a.k.a. 'Littlie') you live with your parents in 'Middle pretty Town'. (Ignore the crappy city names!) When you are twelve, though, you are sent to 'Uglyville' (again with the stupid names,). There you are raised by computers, fed, clothed, and taught by a hole in the wall. You are also taught to think of yourself as a hideous creature who can't wait to turn 16.

Once you are 16 you are sent to an operation. An operation where they sand off your face, smash all your bones, and then make you look beautiful. Pretty. You look like everyone else in 'New Pretty Town', sweet, innocent, and vulnerable. And gorgeous.
In this new world, killing animals and trees was considered barbaric. You instead used metal.

All Tally ever wanted was to be a Pretty. She was always tricking the technology, to sneak into New Pretty Town to watch the partying and fun going on with the pretties. (Did I mention that that was all Pretties had to do? Have fun?) But then she is told what terrible things that the operation can do to you, and she changes her mind a bit about turning 'Pretty'.
I can't tell about Book 2, without giving away Book 1!

Go. Read. It.

two very different header options for IM's other blog!

update to yee

I had two reviews already done and I was working on several more. I HAD. Now I don't know where the notebook is and I never got around to typing them up....

I'm really awful at this, aren't I?



PS. Bloody Awful Poetry - I. Love. Timeline. It's actually one of the two things that made me interested in quantum physics (the other's the Wikipedia entry on Schrodinger's Cat). (and I'm kinda nuts about quantum physics... um...)

PPS - to everyone else.... HEY, IS THAT A DEMONIC DUCK OVER THERE?! *runs away*

Jurassic Park

I am very serious when I say that Michael Crichton's book, Jurassic Park, is one of my favorites. I usually don't go for the gory books of death and destruction, but this one was intriguing.
It starts off with a young boy who has been ripped up by something, being shipped to a hospital. Read it!
Then it goes to a young girl and her parents, traveling to a deserted beach. She is studying wildlife, when a small birdlike reptile attacks her arm. That is one of my favorite parts.

And so launches the gory, tragic, horrifying, and freaky...Jurassic Park.

I am starting another Crichton book, and it has started off the same way. A guy comes into a hospital, puking blood. (Sorry for any visuals!)

I will post about Timeline (the above book), soon!

Happy New Year!

Well yes. We all have been just a tad lazy haven't we,Theatre? We embarrass ourselves. Anyway, I have indeed had the chance to finish a couple of books between Christmas and New Year's. Right now I'm halfway through Zadie Smith's On Beauty and Mark Haddon's Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-time. But for now I thought I'd settle for Audrey Niffenegger's extremely unconventional love story.

The very beginning of the novel presents a rather complicated scenario. The first time Claire meets Henry,she is 5 years old and he is 36. But the first time Henry meets Claire,he is 28 and she,22. If that alone doesn't at least slightly set your freakybook senses tingling,I don't know what will.
As the narrative unfolds,told from the first person's POV of both Claire and Henry,we learn that the hero of the tale suffers from a rare genetic disease,which the author refers to as Chrono-Displacement. Henry,at any moment of the day,can be literally sucked and thrown back and forth in time. He usually appears in his new surroundings completely naked,and must wander around and make do with what he can steal or scrounge until his cells decide to return to his proper timeline again. Very dangerous,and very inconvenient.
But it explains why Claire has known him all her life,whereas the 28 year old Henry hasn't the slightest clue as to who she is (he doesn't actually start going back into Claire's childhood and teen years until he himself is 36,remember?)
Told you it's complicated.

There are particularly touching scenes when Henry ends up visiting his daughter in the future,after his own death,and when he goes back in time and witnesses the death of his own mother countless times. Despite its freakishness which qualifies it for a spot in this blog,the characters in the novel are merely trying to hold on to a normal,real existence. It is particularly painful for Claire,who has to contend with her husband's sudden and often lengthy disappearances,wondering where he is o r if he's hurt and maybe,just maybe,this is the one time when he might never actually come back.
In one sadly comical scene,Henry pulls one of his Chrono-displacement disappearances moments before his wedding to Claire,but by a stroke of insane good fortune an older time-travelling Henry shows up to take the younger Henry's place.
Don't get me wrong,it's a rather fabulous book, but at times the sweet charming magic of "everything will work out somehow" tends to grate on my nerves. Because Henry can travel forward into his own future,he can basically be sure of how and when he gets married,his children,even the house they end up living in. And so the couple are wrapped in a somewhat lukewarm blanket of security,knowing that some part of their future lives are already mapped out and set. Indeed,for someone who is so disconnected from his own timeline, at times I feel like this Henry dude really gets it too easy.
In any case,this is definitely one for those warm fuzzies,and the Freaky Book Hall O' Fame.

If you're interested, a movie adaptation of the novel is also due this year,starring Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana.

We have got to get better at this

HAPPY NEW YEARS; CHRISTMAS; CAUCUS NIGHT; dudes what is with the silence surely at least one of us has finished a book or two of worth this Christmas? So I'm kinda in the middle of two different books both interesting one freaky (The Historian) and the other informative (French Women Don't Get Fat)

So whats with the sleeping you guys? I'm probably the last credible person to even bring up such a topic as posting regularity, but still, reading you guys' input is really a highlight, I think, in the blogosphere or at least our little corner of it (that is actually self contradiction statement somehow)