20-second book reviews.

For those of you who don't know our dark family secret, Mum has about 200 library books in our sun room, and she just keeps reborrowing them. If people reserve them, she returns them, then borrows them again later. She only does this with relatively (sometimes brand-) new books. I think the idea of having something that other people want makes her feel good. Anyway, I'm not here to complain about Mum's problems. The point is, I decided to read some of them so that Mum could return the crap ones.

Most of her stuff is chick lit and crime fiction. But after careful inspection of the covers I weeded out the most gag-inducing ones. Please note that these are books Mum borrowed, and if I'd gone to the library myself I would've chosen something different.

Serving Crazy with Curry
Amulya Malladi

Devi's lost her job, her baby, and had an affair with a married man, so she decides to commit suicide. Her mother (more irritating than Mrs Bennett) lets herself into Devi's apartment with her spare key and saves her. Lots of family drama, like if Bold were a book, and were less cheesy.

Earthly Pleasures
Heavenly Delights
Kerry Greenwood

I liked these books enough to read two[!] of them. There was nice characterisation, lots of cats, and a couple of Discworld references thrown in. In fact, at two ay em, I thought "These are fabulous. Let's email the author!" But then I forgot about it when I woke up and didn't get around to doing it. They're good, despite being chick lit.

A Long Way Down
Nick Hornby

Another book about people trying to off themselves. I liked it. Someone will probably make a movie out of it, like they did with High Fidelity. I bet you.


Darkly Dreaming Dexter
Jeff Lindsay

As fun as an economics textbook, and as interesting as LotR. In other words, I hated it, but you might like it. And if so, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, you freak? I thought it was poorly written. The first couple of pages were a mess, and I had to go somewhere dark and quiet to be able to shove the words into my brain. The characters were flat and unlikeable. I admit that I'm not big reader of thrillers (but I am a book whore and will read anything). I got through about 30 pages before I stopped trying to resuscitate the experience. About as boring as Not Yet (see previous post) but this time I knew when to cut my losses and run. To be fair, some seriously deluded crazies on Amazon liked it. You can trust their word over mine if you like. Oh, and the copy I read had a very interesting blurb. I liked that.

Fat, Forty and Fired
Nigel Marsh

Real-life story of man who decides to take a year off work to spend more time with his family and become a better person in general. If I didn't already live in Sydney, I'd want to after reading this book. It makes it sound like paradise. So instead, I just nodded and smiled smugly at the relevant parts. Very funny. Would recommend it to my friends.