Thursday Murder Club

I know what you've all been thinking..."When is she going to stop watching TV and read a book?" Well you're in luck. This week I did. 

It was clever but not funny. For that, I gave it 4 stars. The way it was written was kind of scattered and made it difficult to read. For that I gave it 3 stars. Overall rating: 3.5

I'm sure the writer did that on purpose because all the main characters live in an assisted living facility. The writing was probably meant to make it feel like an absent minded old person was telling the story. If that was the author's goal, then he nailed it. But, I was not a fan because it made parts of the story hard to follow. Anything that disrupts that sucked into the story feeling is a negative. 

The point of any good whodunit is to try and guess the murderer before you get to the end. I give the author credit because he killed off one of my prime suspects pretty early. Keeping me guessing was nice. Of course, it did take a while to get to the action bit (when the 1st person dies), so the book loses points for that.

Overall, it was a fun way to spend 2 days. I love a good crime novel and Thursday Murder Club is just that--good, not great. If you want something to compare it to, it's Murder She Wrote revised. But instead if Jessica Fletcher nosing her way into the investigation we have Joyce, Elisabeth, Ron, and Ibrahim.

Happy Reading!

Ascendance of a Bookworm

I know I probably should have talked about this little gem last year. But I was too busy waiting for Crunchyroll's weekly upload of the next episode.

Let's first talk about the title. Perfect click bait for all the book lovers around the world. And the story does not disappoint. We start with a young Japanese woman named Murano who dies and is reincarnated into the body of a sickly child named Main (pronounced 'mine'). Main lives in a different world, has blue hair and even has an older sister named Turi.

She still has all her old memories from her other life, including her obsession with books. Unfortunately, this new world lacks public education, libraries and all the daily luxuries that we take for granted. Armed with her knowledge of the modern world and her determination to be able to read books again, Main sets out to create books.

I could keep going, but I really don't want to spoil it for you. It's a slice of life style anime with great voice acting and even better artwork. Stream season 1 and 2 on Crunchyroll. And for those of you who are opposed to subtitles, Crunchyroll offers season 1 dubbed in English. Personally I give the entire anime 5 stars from artwork to voice acting to ingenuity! It might just replace Fruits Basket as my favorite anime of all time. But let's see how season 3 goes before making any life altering decisions.

Nightbooks

It's unusually rare for me to select a book without physically touching it. But when I saw the title of "Nightbooks", I was intrigued. After reading the description on the back, I knew I had to have it. 

The book is a nod to Scheherazade but flips the script a tiny bit. Instead of a princess fighting to keep her head and neck attached in the face of a blood thirsty king, the author gives us an elementary school boy who needs to save himself from a tricky witch. 

Now, were I still in elementary school, I might have thought this book was worthy of 5 stars (like my 10 year old daughter). Unfortunately, my pre-middle school days are behind me and the ending left me wanting something a little less cliche. 

Without spoiling too much of the story for those who have not had a chance to enjoy it, I will say that it was a great book worthy of anyone who wants to go where great stories are.