Reading recommendations

I don’t review books much even though I read a lot. I don’t know why, it’s just never been something I’ve been compelled to do, I guess? There’s a certain skill to reviewing things, especially books, and it’s not one of my strengths. Or I’m just too lazy, that could be the reason.

Anyway, I received several books for my birthday, two of which I was excited to read right away, despite my tottering To Be Read pile that they really ought to have been queued to instead. But you know how it is, when you’re in the mood for something and it grabs you just right? That’s when you say defiantly to your TBR pile that it’s not the boss of you and you can read whatever you damn well feel like.

I may be somewhat henpecked by my TBR pile.

I enjoyed these two books quite a bit so thought maybe instead of a review, I’d give a couple of recommends instead. In case you, like me, are in the mood to read something but nothing in your TBR pile is immediately compelling you to pick it up. These are both quick and diverting reads, suspenseful enough to keep you entertained but won’t sit heavily with you for weeks afterward.

• I Am Not A Serial Killer, by Dan Weaver:

John Wayne Cleaver is dangerous, and he knows it.

He’s spent his life doing his best not to live up to his potential.

He’s obsessed with serial killers, but really doesn’t want to become one. So for his own sake, and the safety of those around him, he lives by rigid rules he’s written for himself, practicing normal life as if it were a private religion that could save him from damnation.

Dead bodies are normal to John. He likes them, actually. They don’t demand or expect the empathy he’s unable to offer. Perhaps that’s what gives him the objectivity to recognize that there’s something different about the body the police have just found behind the Wash-n-Dry Laundromat—-and to appreciate what that difference means.

Now, for the first time, John has to confront a danger outside himself, a threat he can’t control, a menace to everything and everyone he would love, if only he could.

An interesting premise coupled with a compelling protagonist kept me turning the pages fast and furious. A little bit Dexter, a little bit Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a whole lot of something else entirely. Even though the story’s POV character is a sociopath, it’s not hard to empathize with him. Which is ironic, since he can’t empathize at all.

Also, even though it’s about a potential serial killer and an actual serial killer, it’s not as gruesome as you might imagine. Sure, there’s some blood and guts, but this is as much a character-driven story as a plot-driven one, and there wasn’t anything in the story that gave me nightmares. (Which should say something, since I have a legendarily vivid imagination and can freak myself out pretty easily.)

• Bad Monkeys, by Matt Ruff:

She says she’s a member of a secret organization devoted to fighting evil. She says she’s working with the Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons — aka “Bad Monkeys.”

Her confession lands her in the jail’s psychiatric wing and earns her countless hours of poking, probing, and questioning by a professional. But is Jane crazy or lying?

Or is she playing a whole different game altogether?

I could not turn the pages fast enough for this one. The story wastes no time immersing you in the world of the Bad Monkeys and its witty, imaginative world coupled with non-stop twists and turns had me saying out loud, “HOLY CRAP WHAT” multiple times throughout. And who doesn’t love an unreliable narrator? It also reminded me somewhat of The Subheroes, an online serial story by Sarah Bunting that she posted years ago on her website, Tomato Nation. I loved, loved, loved The Subheroes, so it’s perhaps not surprising that this book scratched that itch for me.

The weakest part of Bad Monkeys is the ending — or more accurately, the last 30 or so pages just before the end — which felt somewhat unearned. But the actual ending itself was satisfying and the rest of the read more than made up for the weaker part.