Zoo by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
I flew through this book, as I do with most of Patterson’s books because of his fantastic use of pace.
The opening scenes and introduction to the theme – ecological warfare – were fantastic. It probably helped that I had been to Botswana and Maun airport and could imagine the landscape, buffalo herds and the lions prowling around.
The book was interesting until about halfway through and then it fell flat. It got repetitive, their were too many characters and it jumped five years. Plus there was a romance that was just way too easy and the authors obviously just needed the characters together…they couldn’t be bothered exploring that storyline.
The key problem (huge – earth ending stuff) was solved by a guess and righted in a day….
and then it ended.
I loved the ending and want to have a chat with anyone who has read this.
This really explores the selfishness of human nature and our reliance on technology and comfort.
House Rules by Jodi Picoult
This was a decent sized book which equals some serious time investment on my part. I love Picoult’s depth of research and the way she tries to get in the minds of her characters.
I always find her subject matters fascinating and this book concerning a boy with Aspergers did not disappoint.
The plot, however, I was disappointed with. Picoult popped the answer to the death of the young girl right in the middle of the book (well, it wasn’t a well-hidden twist in any case) and then it was quite a drawn out process trying to wrap it all up. There was a lot of repetitive scenes from differing point of views which I found myself skipping over.
Unfortunately for me, my copy of the book on my Ipad was not a good one and I didn’t even have the ending.
I read 1127 pages (on my Ipad which equals about 500-600 pages of a normal book) and then it finished. Just stopped before the end. I had to search online to find out what happened. Turns out not many people found the ending satisfactory but they didn’t have my problem!
Both books were entertaining enough but it’s only on reflection that I am seeing their major flaws. So if you fancied reading them I won’t discourage you because the subject matters are interesting enough for lively discussion and would be pretty good as book club books because of that.
I used to be such a James Patterson fan – his early work was brilliant. But the last four or five books have been really bad. I get the feeling he is just churning them out and cashing in on his previous success (as he always as co-authors now!). I have the new Ken Follett book to read over Christmas and I am super excited!!
What is a co author anyway? Is it a cool story that needs heavy editing and some readability so in steps patterson? He is sick of crime and needs another specialist in another area so co authors? Or do they write one chapter each? Confusing!
Sent from my iPhone
No idea – maybe James doesn’t even write them anymore and just adds his name to them!!