Horns - Joe Hill

Joe Hill is fast becoming my favourite author! After reading a couple of his books he just seems to be getting better and better at what he does!  I do honestly believe that anything he writes will be pretty awesome!! And it only made it even better when I found out that he is actually Stephen King's son. Which definitely explains where he gets his writing style and genre from! It must run in the family! Where I find King a little too scary for nighttime reading (yes I am 21 and scared to go to sleep after reading) I find that I can enjoy Hill anywhere and everywhere! Including at work, in the bath and in bed (even before I go to sleep!!) So here is the first of many.

Horns - Joe Hill

Horns is definitely not the book that I expected it to be!

Ig Perrish is a normal boy/man, depending on where you are in the book. He has a family, including a brother Terry Perrish, friends and eventually a girlfriend. Ig meets Merrin in church (of all places) when he is just 15 years old! Merrin flashes Ig (not like that, especially not in a church) with her gold cross! And from there on in they are inseparable! They are like loves young dream! However Ig and Merrin have a mutual friend Lee. Now Lee is a little strange! And he also has a thing for Merrin and was actually the first one to speak to her. Lee carries a torch for Merrin the whole way through the book! Lee is also a compulsive liar and a thief, he lies repeatedly about not being able to afford things, when he can. He also lies about his family life etc etc etc ... You get the point! He is not a nice character, but both Ig and Merrin seem to like Lee.

The book starts with Ig waking up after a very drunken night and finding that he has grown horns! By this time his girlfriend, Merrin, has been dead nearly a year. She was brutally raped and murdered at the same spot that Ig gets very drunk the night before he finds his horns. He soon realises that the horns have many uses and when people see them they feel the need to confess to everything that they have ever done, wanted to do or feel like doing! They tell Ig exactly what they think of him whether he wants to hear it or not. Many people truly believe that Ig killed Merrin, even his mother and his father. There is only his brother who does not believe he killed Merrin but he tells Ig who did kill her! I wont spoil it for you! Ig then finds out that if he touches a person he can see every sin that they have ever committed which will obviously make it so much easier for him to actually find out who killed Merrin.

Along the way he gets battered and bruised but he finally does find out what happened to his  girlfriend. And along the way we find out how they met, how they spent time together and how they split up the night before Merrin was murdered. It isn't so much a mystery like Hill's other novels but it is an amazing book nonetheless! He looks at life from different perspectives and shows how things can be misinterpreted by different people and how this can lead to the downfall of people and their morals. I love how Hill writes anyway but in this novel more than any other that I have read of his, he manages to weave the present and the past seamlessly. The couple of different stories do not jar and you're not left thinking why on Earth would he put that just in the middle there! He is an amazing writer and needs a lot more recognition than he actually gets!!

Ill leave the rest for you to find out by reading this!!!! You have to! Put it on you TBR list and move it close to the top!!

See you soon :)
Leanne

Cross - James Patterson

Anyone who knows me will know that I LOVE crime novels. In particular I love James Patterson. I have a little treasure hunt going on in that I only buy my Patterson books from charity shops. This way its a treat when I find one that I have been looking for for a long time!! So I went to the charity shop the other day and managed to get some more. I can read Patterson novels VERY quickly as they are usually short and easy reads. So here you go one of many Patterson reviews that you will see on this blog :)

Cross - James Patterson

Now if you don't know James Patterson writes many different series of books. His Alex Cross series is by far my favourite. I love Alex Cross he is just the best. This one is Patterson's earlier books. This documents the killing of Alex Cross' wife. I have read all these books out of sequence but it really doesn't matter as they are all great as stand alone books.

In this particular book Alex Cross has given up his job at the FBI in order to spend more time with his three children. After his wife died himself and his three children moved in with Alex's Grandma. Now she must be at least 300 years old by now!! But she is the one who runs around after the children and makes all the meals and does just about everything!

Cross has opened his own physiatrists office and has set up in private practice. It is when his old partner from the Homicide department comes to him it is clear that Cross is not ready to give up the life that he wanted away from his children. Sampson (Cross' old partner) comes to Cross to let him know he thinks he knows who killed his wife. In the end they end up chasing a pyscho serial rapist and killer called the Butcher as they think he killed Cross' wife also. The Butcher kind of is employed by the Mafia but does a lot of freelance work, mainly assassinations. He is seen as the best and the most feared. However he falls out with the mob boss and ends up killing most of the mafia while they also try and take him out! In and amongst this, he is also raping women and threatening to keep them quiet. It always amazes me how many murders Patterson can get into just one book!!! But he manages nonetheless!

As I say I love Patterson because they tend to be less than 400 pages long. They are an easy read and they never fail to entertain me for a day or so! I love crime and Patterson is definitely the king of crime writing and not to be messed with! I am sure he would know the most gruesome and best way to kill you and then cover it up!!

See you soon :)
Leanne

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ - Phillip Pullman

Now I know that this book has created a lot of arguments and controversy due to Pullmans outspoken opinions of modern Christianity. However here is my review (very late, I know, and I apologise.) But here it is anyway ...


The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ - Phillip Pullman.
So here we have it. Another rewriting in the same series as The Fire Gospel from Michel Faber. Now I can see why people do dislike this book and why they criticise it, however I do believe that many people are oversensitive and should get a grip of themselves!!

Anyway .. this book takes the story of Jesus and reworks it. Jesus is actually a twin and his twins name is Christ. They both live out their lives, with Jesus taking a very similar role to what he does in the traditional Bible stories. While Christ takes a backseat, writing Jesus' history while he is still alive. The part I love most about this book is that Jesus does not actually rise again from the dead but it is Christ that the disciples see. I love the fact that this book takes Jesus and makes him a human, not the half human, half God that was represented in those horrendous R.E lessons in school. In which we were taught that Jesus was beyond human nature and he was a saint for dying to save us.  

Again this is why I LOVED this book ... The fact that Jesus is presented as a normal person. Here Pullman has drawn on some of the earlier Gospels that are not in the Bible. He draws on these and paints a picture of Jesus as a man. Pullman also addresses in his book the way that writing can influence people at the time and also people in the future. A lot of the episodes that are recorded in this book are unremarkable, it is only Christ's recordings of what Jesus has done that spark the remarkable, dubbing them miracles. This idea is really thought provoking, especially for a history student. I can see how writing history at specific times and in certain ways can definitely make a huge difference in how people at the time and in the future view the subject. This is addressed by this idea of Jesus and Christ.

So really it has to be asked but is Jesus really the good man and Christ the scoundrel? If it was not for Christ, Jesus would just have been a glorified preacher, who some people may have listened to and other not. However because of his writings it is seen that Jesus becomes this massive religious figure travelling the country and influencing many people with his 'miracles'. I think its true to say that this is one of the unanswerable questions of the book as both the brothers do things that are good and bad in equal measure. It is something you will have to work out for yourself when you read it :)

See you soon :)
Leanne

NOS4R2 - Joe Hill

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So :) I have finally signed up to the wonderful website that is Netgalley! I am really looking forward to reading those books and then reviewing them for everyone! Very excited!! Watch this space :)