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Ann's Reading Log 2008


aromaannie

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Cat - Freya North

 

Catriona McCabe, 28, only ever known at Cat, is trying to improve her career as a sports journalist and get over a failed relationship. What better way to do both than to spend the summer following the Tour de France? Plunged into a male press corps, Cat has to fight for space and for stories. From Provence to Paris, up the Pyranees and over the Alps, Cat and her entourage of podium girls, anxious wives, autocratic team directors and seasoned hacks pursue the boys on bikes. With sex, drugs, large bulges and larger egos, the soap opera that is the Tour de France unfolds, with Cat's life frequently mirroring the peaks and perils of the race. Take a ride on the wild side...

 

OMG did I struggle with this. I started it last summer and as I refuse to give up on a book I have been treating it a bit like medicine and forcing mysef to read a few pages evry now & then. I have no interest in cycling at all so the subject matter didn't help but I do feel if it was a good chick lit book then I wouldn't hve found the subject boring. I hated the fact that every now & then sentences kept popping up in French, a language I don't know, so had not idea what was being said. I didn't warm to Cat and quite frankly couldn't have cared less if she got the job/man etc. This is dfinately the first & last Freya North book I'll ever pick up.

 

3/10

 

Books read this year = 63

 

 

The Sleeping Doll - Jeffrey Deaver

 

California Bureau of Investigation Special agent Kathryn Dance is an expert in kinesics: the science of interpreting behaviour. It makes her a brilliant interrogator. But she's up against Daniel Pell, a master of control who mesmerises, seduces and exploits people for his own murderous ends. A convicted killer who is known as The Son of Manson for the chilling parallels between him and the notorious ritual murderer.To track down Pell before he destroys yet more lives, Kathyn Dance must enlist the help of four people from the killer's past. The three women who lived under his sadistic sway in the cult he once headed. And the young girl known as the Sleeping Doll, the only survivor of her family's slaughter at Pell's hands ...

 

I was a bit disappointed with this book. After reading JD's last novel during which the character Kathyn Dance was first introduced to the reader and enjoying it I was really looking forward to this book. I can't really put my finger on what was missing in this book as it's not a bad read at all, I just think I was expecting more.

 

7/10

 

Books read this year = 64

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Gregg & Gina Hill - On the Run NON FICTION

 

On the Run is a harrowing account of a childhood spent coping with an explosive father whilst dodging Mafia payback. Henry Hill's business partner, Jimmy Burke has whacked every person who could possibly implicate him in the infamous Lufthansa robbery at JFK airport. On his way to prison, lifelong gangster Henry is given two options: sleep with the fishes, or enter the FBI's Witness Protection Programme. Gregg and Gina are dragged along for the ride. Like nomads, they're forced to wander from state to state, constantly inventing new names and finding new friends, only to abandon them at a moments notice. Living in fear of being found and killed. But Henry, the rock Gregg and Gina so desperately need is a heavy cocaine user and knows only the criminal life. He is soon up to his old tricks and consistently putting their identities in jeopardy. And so, it continues until the kids, now almost grown, can no longer ignore that the Mob might be less of a threat to them than remaining under the roof of their increasingly unbalanced father.

 

Goodfellas is one of my favourite films so I was very interested in reading what life was like for Henry Hill's kids once their family were in the witness protection program. To be honest I can't understand how they stayed alive as Henry didn't seem to understand how to behave once in the program to stay unnoticed by the Mafia. He was also an abusive father to both of his children and at times this is a very sad read.

 

8/10

Books read this year = 65

 

 

Blind Faith - Ben Elton

 

Imagine a world where everyone knows everything about everybody. Where 'sharing' is valued above all, and privacy is considered a dangerous perversion. Trafford wouldn't call himself a rebel, but he's daring to be different, to stand out from the crowd. In his own small ways, he wants to push against the system. But in this world, uniformity is everything. And even tiny defiances won't go unnoticed. Ben Elton's dark, savagely comic novel imagines a post-apocalyptic society where religious intolerance combines with a sex-obsessed, utterly egocentric culture. In this world, nakedness is modesty, independent thought subversive, and ignorance is wisdom. A chilling vision of what's to come? Or something rather closer to home?

 

I normally really enjoy BE's books but was a bit releaved when I got to the end of this one. At times it is very funny but the humour can be a bit repetitive and towards the end of the book you start to feel you have read it all before. Worth reading but definately not up to his usual standard.

 

7/10

 

Books read this year = 66

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