It’s the title because that’s where it happens: “In the Tall Grass” by Joe Hill and Stephen King

For those of you who don’t know, Joe Hill is the pen name of Stephen King’s horror writing son.  I was first introduced to Joe Hill’s work when I saw his book “Heart Shaped Box” on an “alternative valentines day” display at Borders (remember those?) and I picked up the paper back and devoured it in two days without knowing Hill’s connection to my favorite horror author.  Now that I do know the connection I have to admit I’m a little disappointed because it means I can never read another book by Joe Hill without comparing it to King’s work and I’ll never go back to enjoying his work like I enjoyed “Heart Shaped Box”.  But when I saw the father-son duo had come together to create a novella I knew I had to buy it for myself.

The title “In the Tall Grass” is such because the story takes place…you guessed it, in tall grass.  A brother and sister are driving home from school and decide to stop when they hear the voice of a lost child in the tall grass.  Of course, it wouldn’t be King if these were just any ordinary brother and sister.  They’re irish-twins with a psychic connection.  Oh, and our heroine is pregnant.

As you could assume (and probably are assuming already, without the book even in your hand or on your e-reader) the kid in danger isn’t actually in danger at all, and while the unsuspecting tourist go into the grass to save the not-so-endangered child the locals come out to pick the spoils from the soon to be abandoned forever car.  The story picks up pace as you discover there is more than just a child in the tall grass, and then our heroine goes into labour and things get weird, with an ending that will make you wish you read this one on an empty stomach.

I have to admit I came to this novella with expectations a little too high and walked away disappointed.  The plot just seems to be rehashing several older King plots (especially Children of the Corn) and nothing about it felt purely original.  I also didn’t see a lot of Hill’s voice in this piece and I was disappointed by that as well.  I was hoping for a melding of the two writing styles and instead came away with stale King.

Don’t get me wrong, I still read the whole thing in one sitting and couldn’t wait to make it to the end, but it didn’t give me the thrills or chills the way King (and Hill)’s other writing has done.  The novella is only $2.99 on kindle so I’d still give it a try if you’re a diehard fan, but I think I’m going to take my expectations and hang on to them until July when King’s new novel “Joyland” comes out.

 

The problem with pedestals: Oscar Wilde’s “An Ideal Husband”

I got my copy for free on kindle so it didn’t have a fancy cover like this. I think I may be in cover withdrawl…

I love practically everything about Oscar Wilde.  He’s not my favorite author, but something about him just makes me feel like, if I’m ever given a “midnight in Paris” moment to go back in time and visit with the literary giants of any time I will go back and visit Oscar Wilde.  Just to see how his mind works.

Honestly, any man whose dying words are (supposedly) “either this wallpaper goes or I do” is worth getting to know in life.

this is not at all how I imagined anyone in this book to look.

That being said, other than selected quotes here and there and a charming short in the movie “Paris, Je t’aime”, I realized the only full length piece of Wilde’s work I ever read was “The Picture of Dorian Gray”.  Which is, on its own, a spectacular novel.  At least I think so, you’re welcome to disagree all you want and I’m more than happy to debate you on the topic, but I think it’s as beautiful as the infamous painting of the title character himself.  The idea of art making you immortal but only preserving you best self, and then challenging the idea of art making you immortal at all.  How can you walk away from all the things there are to talk about in that novel without having a long chat (either in your head or with someone else).

But that’s really not the point of today’s review.  Anyway, while discovering I’m painfully unaware of Wilde’s other literary works I decided to change that, and the availability of free kindle books made that even easier.  So I downloaded a few and chose this one as the first of his plays to read. The story revolves around an upper-class, fashionable, and morally

another possible cover my e-book did not have

righteous married couple.  When an acquaintance from the past comes back into their lives our ideal husband comes to light as someone who isn’t quite the moral ideal, and his legacy might be challenged if certain information comes to light.

Of course, our femme fatale is willing to put all of that behind her…for a price.

And as you can imagine not only does blackmailing ensue, but so does a variety of comical misunderstandings. The play is short if you read it on your own and it was enjoyable (although no Dorian Gray).  Now that I’m writing this I realize that I have seen “The Importance of Being Earnest” but as I haven’t actually read the play I’m not going to count that as one of my Wilde reads.

If you’re looking for a short classic to add to your to-read pile (let’s be honest, picking up a play is a lot less intimidating than finally reading that copy of Les Mis you bought because you had to read it before your friends started talking about the movie) this is one I’d suggest.  If you’re not a fan of Wilde’s satiric humor then, well, maybe you shouldn’t be reading this blog.  After all, what is life if you can’t laugh at it.

Don’t judge a (scrap)book by it’s cover: Cut, Crop, Die by Joanna Campell Sloan

Sorry about the blog post title.  I couldn’t resist.

The second book in the Kiki Lowenstein Scrap-n-Craft mystery series (quite a long name there isn’t it?) I picked this one up because it was the “deal of the week” according to my Pixel of Ink bargain kindle books email.  While it wasn’t clearly advertised this was the *second* book in the series (in fact I think somewhere in the email it said this was the beginning of the series) I didn’t have a hard time picking up the pieces and figuring out all the friendships, frenemies, family animosities, and love triangles that had happened in book 1 so the jump into the series wasn’t too difficult.

As you can tell from the blog title or if you’ve read any of my posts at all, you’ll know that the two things I love most are books and crafts.  While I’m not a scrapbooker by any means (I tried once but found I much prefer doing things the digital way) I like fellow crafters.  We all have to stick together, and even if we stitchers are the superior crafters by far, I hold scrapbookers close as kindred spirits.  So when I saw this cozy crafting mystery I thought I’d give it a try.

Now, when I think cozy-mystery I think Miss Marple.  I loved her books through grade and middle school in my Agatha Christie phase and have been trying to go back and rediscover the classics I haven’t read yet after my seven year trek into the world of Kingsian and Lovecraftian horror.  But tangent aside, I don’t really go in for the cozy mystery that’s really 90% romance novel with dead bodies popping up just so they can be called something else.  Which is really what this turned out to be.  Nothing wrong with it, I won’t say any genre isn’t legitimate because they all have fans. This just wasn’t for me.

Kiki works for scrapbooking store “Time in a Bottle” and her scrapbooking nemesis Yvonne is killed and a scrap meet after eating a scone laced with orange flavored aspirin.  The scrapbooking store is held under suspicion, with angry scrappers more than happy to leave hate filled messages on the voicemail and boycott their events.  Of course this means rival scrapbook store rises up to take advantage and beat the competition once and for all.  And if that’s not enough drama you have Kiki’s discovery her kind-of-sort-of-man-friend-boyfriend is really married, an introduction to hunky gardener, a teen daughter growing up, and a mother-in-law that likes to hunt gophers.  The mystery itself is well done for a cozy, not too many plot twists and a reasonable (if obvious) ending.

If the book had just stuck to that it would have been stronger.  However, Campbell-Slan goes off on a variety of tangents in her book.  The most out of place is a series of anti-semetic attacks on the scrapbooking store that have nothing to do with the murder and feel very out of place.  While it seems these were meant as red-herrings, they just come across as confusing and a little ridiculous.  Then there is the author’s obsession with Saint Louis.   As someone born and bred in the STL the setting was one of the main reasons I was willing to give this mystery a shot, but after reading the first couple chapters it became obvious the author has never been more than a tourist in my city and that’s the way her characters come across as well, as tourists in their home town, constantly rattling off statistics, random facts, and tourist destinations in their own city.  This would annoy me regardless of setting, but knowing my city as well as I do I spent most of time picking out flaws and misrepresentations.

An interesting mystery with a very creative cover, but not a series I’d go out of my way to stick with.  I’d only recommend to someone looking for a feel-good mystery that’s light on the gore and intrigue but heavy on the romance.