Book Review

The River at Night by Erica Ferencik [book pictured in Swedish]

Winifred and her friends Pia, Rachel and Sandra have known each other since they were really young (and sometimes got really drunk). Now they’re all grown ups, with teenage kids, ex-husbands and full-time jobs. But every now and then, they go on vacations together, or rather on (often dangerous) adventures. This time they’re aiming at a full week of exploring the wilderness of Main. They start off with a white water rafting tour, that doesn’t end up anywhere near what the girls planned … After that, it’s all about surviving, in the deep forest. Alone. Or are they really?

Rating 🐖🐖🐖🐖

I got recommended The River at Night by a friend, and started the book without any particular expectations. Every now and then I like my average thriller, but by this book, I was pleasantly surprised. You see, this is a deeply unsettling thriller, without it being gory. I was just really scared (in an exciting and page turning way) throughout this whole read. It also totally got that Stephen King-claustrophobic thing that I love going on.

I found the book to be well written and interesting both when it came to the scary “something is watching us”-parts and concerning the “we have been friends forever and this is our life stories”-passages. And that is, in my opinion, quiet unusual when it comes to thrillers. It certainly helped to build up the story in an interesting way, since I wanted to know more both about the characters back stories, and about how everything was going to end.

The only remark I have is that I wish the author had dragged out the beginning of the story for a bit longer. ‘Cause those moments before everything escalates, is almost always the most creepy part of uncanny stories like this.

Dr. Bea approves

If you liked this book, you will probably also enjoy In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware. It’s packed with intrusive forest environments, life long friendships, and conflicts boiling just under the surface.

                                            The Extinction Trials by S. M. Wilson

The continent of Earthasia is overpopulated, and the cities are full to the brim. It’s gotten to the point where people work in shifts in order to be able to share beds, sleeping in assigned hours during either the day or the night. Food is lacking, health care is non-existent, and the crowded cities are plagued by a rapidly spreading disease no one knows how to cure. But there might be a solution to all this suffering.

Just across the (somewhat deadly) ocean, the untouched continent of Piloria is sprawling. There’s clean air, endless space, and a plenitude of eatable plants. The only problem is that Piloria already is populated. By people-eating dinosaurs. 

Rating 🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖

The Extinction Trials has been described as a fusion of The Hunger Games and Jurassic Park, and after having read the book, that depiction feels point on. This is a dystopian adventure story, fast paced and plot-driven, but it’s also resting on a fine net of personal background stories and political conflicts.

The two main characters of the story, Stormchaser and Lincoln, both tells their life stories while competing in the insane trials to qualify for the (even more insane) Piloria-expedition. Together with the ongoing adventure, these stories, and secrets, contribute to further reflections about life and extinction, as well as that of human rights, unfair rulers, and a not too comfortable but alarmingly possible future if we keep on treating our planet this way. But unlike Jurassic Park, which I recently wrote a review about, those discussions doesn’t take over the novels story. So for those of you that are just looking for some good old velociraptor action: you won’t be left disappointed.

In my opinion, The Extinction Trials is the perfect dystopian adventure. It’s trustworthy, it’s emotional, it’s full of political tension, and it’s packed with hungry dinosaurs. There’s simply nothing more to wish for.

Dr. Bea approves

If you want more dystopia, check out The Lunar Chronicals or Outwalkers. And if you just can’t get enough of  dinosaurs, this surprisingly new book may float your goat.

Monday’s Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson

Monday Charles is missing, and only Claudia seems to notice. Claudia and Monday have always been inseparable—more sisters than friends. So when Monday doesn’t turn up for the first day of school, Claudia’s worried. When she doesn’t show for the second day, or second week, Claudia knows that something is wrong. Monday wouldn’t just leave her to endure tests and bullies alone. Not after last year’s rumors and not with her grades on the line. Now Claudia needs her best—and only—friend more than ever. But Monday’s mother refuses to give Claudia a straight answer, and Monday’s sister April is even less help.

As Claudia digs deeper into her friend’s disappearance, she discovers that no one seems to remember the last time they saw Monday. How can a teenage girl just vanish without anyone noticing that she’s gone?

Rating:

This review may caontain spoilers. I will also say a trigger warning for abuse, child abuse, violence, mental health. Now here we go:

Claudia and Monday have been best friends since forever, but now Monday’s not back at school and Claudia knows there is something wrong but she just can’t get enough evidence, and no one seems to believe her.

This part was what I found really hard to accept. I mean, Monday and Claudia spend most of their time at Claudia’s house. And if Monday had come to my house every day and spent lots of sleepover nights with my child, I would most certainly listen if my daughter said her best friend was missing and try to do something!

One thing was that it was very confusing because the chapters are named like “The Before”, “The After”, “X Years Before The Before”, so it doesn’t go in a straigth line and it isn’t until the very end when you realise that Claudia is stuck in a fantasy of not knowing yet what has happened to Monday (when she actually does) that the titles make sense, but it isn’t enough to make you want to go back and figure out what breadcrumbs were left there for you to guess this is what was happening and some of the story doesn’t match at all.

It is a very emotional read and very scary to think this may be possible and may happen, so it is a sad thing.

Moon recommends

Well, it seems I have been reading out of my comfort zone since I don’t have much to recommend here except Monday’s Not Coming and Where I Live. I aslo want to thank the publisher’s for a copy of this book!

One thing I have noticed is, I am not a big fan of contemporary unless it is dealing with stuff like this book does.

Lady Mechanika Vol 1 by Joe Benitez

Discover a beautifully illustrated steampunk world of airships, monsters, and one courageous but haunted heroine…

This volume collects the entire first Lady Mechanika mini-series The Mystery of the Mechanical Corpse, including its prequel chapter The Demon of Satan’s Alley, plus a complete cover art gallery.

Rating:

Steampunk graphic novel with a kick ass heroine at the front and gorgeous, yes please!

This first volume introduces you to Lady Mechanika as she searches to find who made her what she is and why. We also meet the rest of the cast and even a Romani circus that make things interesting.

The art is lovely and the extra covers are a delight to see. The story telling is fast paced and it is action packed so it was a very enjoyable read and difficult to put down. The details of all the steampunk victorian mesh give me a happy heart and it is a really lovely display of fashion and engineering.

So I definitely recommend this graphic novel, and I am on my way to buying the next one.

Jurassic Park & The Lost World by Michael Crichton

The eccentric millionaire John Hammond has finally figured out a way to recover dinosaur DNA from mosquitos capsuled in amber. With the world leading scientists at his side, and endless resources to spend, he has also managed to clone this DNA, and breed actual Jurassic creatures. To do a kind of test run of the theme park where he intends to show off his creations, John invites a small group of lawyers, insurance people, paleontologists and mathematicians to inspect the park. He also invites his own grandchildren. Everything is wonderous and epic, until a thunderstorm strikes, a biased computer expert hacks the system, and the dinosaurs suddenly runs loose …

Six years later some of the old crew, and also a few new professors and kids, sets out for an expedition to Isla Sorna, an island closely located to Isla Nublar, where the now destroyed and empty Jurassic Park once resided. Reports has started to come in from small villages along the Costa Rican coast, where strange-looking lizards are biting people and killing infants. But is it possible that dinosaurs still, or rather again, walks the earth?

Rating 🐖🐖🐖

The novels about Jurassic Park were first published in the early 1990’s. By now, a good 30 years and five movies later, we all know the story. However, I remembered really appreciating reading Jurassic Park the first time around, and decided to do a reread of it (and the sequel) before watching Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. All things considered, I’m glad that I did.

Jurassic Park turns out to mostly be what I expected; it’s an epic adventure story, with somewhat stereotypical characters, a lot of philosophical reasoning around life, extinction and humans manipulation of the planet, and never sleeping carnivores. A lot of background information around the scientifical processes are given, and sometimes the characters lines feels more like Michael Crichton sneaking in (what he think is) interesting theories more than anything that actually makes sense for the story. Jurassic Park balances on the thin line between fiction and non-fiction, where the non-fiction parts are mostly made up. It makes the book unique, but it also makes you yawn and scroll through endless reasonings about average growth in herbivore populations. When it gets interesting though, it feels nice that all of these thought gets this much space, and are not rushed through. In some way it’s both the novels strength and weakness to get lost in philosophic, mathematic and scientific reasoning. And before you grow too tired of it, there’s always a hungry T-rex to wake you up.

The Lost World on the other hand, is more of a bleak shadow of it’s precursor than anything else. While the scientific theories are still there, and now to the edge of being overwhelming, the adventureness is almost all gone. By now, we know what happens when you meet a raptor in the woods. Throwing in another pair of kids and changing the location to another island doesn’t do the trick. I would recommend you to read the first book, but leave the second to be. Cause what Crichton does best, is after all epic scenes about epic giants. The philosophy and math are better left for someone else to dig into.

Dr. Bea approves of Jurassic Park, but not so much of its sequel.

If you want more dinosaurs and a bit more dystopian adventures, I strongly recommend The Extinction Trials by S.M. Wilson, that is said to be “Jurassic Park meets The Hunger Games”, and that I after just a few chapters already love. (Review to come later on, so keep your eyes open and on this blog.)