review of 24 hours

24 HOURS --- that's how long it takes a madman to pull off the perfect crime. He's done it before, he'll do it again, and no one can stop him. 

But this time, he's just picked the wrong family to terrorize. Because Will and Karen Jennings aren't going to watch helplessly as he victimizes them. And they aren't going to let him get away with it. (Goodreads)

After reading Room and the latest Stephen King novel Dr Sleep, I was in the mood for something more pulpy. I thought this would be it, my mind needed the junkfood, but I was in for a surprise.
24 hours is actually a nice constructed story that gripped me by the throat several times. I'm not going to boast about the stylishness of the prose, because it's just a story being told and despite the language used isn't as refined as most novels I try to finish, this novel has a message that's surely being delivered.

Will, Karen and Abby form a family who are going to become terrorized by someone out to gain a quick buck and with a vengeance to match his money thirst.
Abby is taken, to be held in a location not known to her parents, while they are being harassed for money. Karen gets stuck with Joe Hickey, the male antagonist, the kidnapper asking for money and in the meantime wanting to rape her, while her husband Will, out at a convention for doctors, is stuck with Cheryl, the wife of Joe, and apparently there to soothe Will into being sane and not doing something that might jeopardise his daughters life.
Quickly things turn ugly when Karen isn't the meek wife to just allow Hickey to take advantage of her and when she finds out that he has an alterior motive for picking their family as money pigs, she goes every which way to save her daughter.
In the meantime Will tries to convince Cheryl of abandoning the cause and help him save his daughter.
I'm not going to give away too many spoilers, because I'd like you to read the novel for yourself without knowing how it ends.

Of course I'm well aware that this message hits home because I would give terrified a whole new meaning when someone took my child from me. But beside me being an emotional wreck when it comes to my family, as with most moms I presume, this was well crafted, even though the ending got a little 'deus ex machina' feel to it. I enjoyed it and not all books I read can accomplish that much. It's like watching a good action movie, you enjoyed it but you know you're never going to watch it again. This novel is like that. It's a one-time-thing.

Personal score: 3 stars (maybe 3,25)

Review of Doctor Sleep

First of all, I'm a huge fan of Stephen King, I've read almost everything he's written over the years and I like most of it tremendously much.
He's been my favourite writer since I was 12 and they let me take Christine home with me at the local library. I wasn't supposed to, because his books were in the adult section but I persevered and never regretted it. Christine was a very well written novel and made me a fan for life.

First of all the short of it..
Mostly I copy the summary from Goodreads but I think it gives away much too much detail. In my opinion all you need to know that this is the story of Dan Torrance, the little boy from the Shining (REDRUM anyone?) and a new evil is around the corner zoning in on his special ability. For people who've never read The Shining, this story might have some 'huh? paragraphs' but you don't need the read the first to appreciate the latter.

I liked it. Maybe not as much as I liked the Shining, and I don't think that it's the highlight of his career. The shining was something else, much like Misery and Pet Sematary. Most people remember the movies, but I'm more a fan of his grand fiction, aka The Stand, The Dark Tower, It and other more unknown work like The Long Walk and Duma Key.
Doctor Sleep is like stepping into a familiar house where you haven't been a while. You know every nook and cranny, but somehow it doesn't feel as familiar as it supposed to be, and it also appeared to have shrunk. Although the shining was set in a much smaller environment, it felt much grander than his sequel. Maybe the bombastic nature came from the more explosive pen Stephen King handled back then. Doctor Sleep feels more sedate, but it crawls under your skin just as well and I stayed up well over bedtime (don't I feel old when I talk about going to bed on time) to read as far as I could. It was well worth the redrimmed eyes and mornings filled with yawns.

I liked the character of Dan Torrance, a middle aged man dealing with the phantoms of his youth, made to come to the rescue of a young girl. It's a great adventure and as it deals with supernatural powers, you don't expect someone to tuck their tail in between their legs and run, but somehow the fictional truth of everyone standing up for one person, someone not even known to them from before feels a little fictional. Especially in today's world where look but don't even consider helping is becoming a firm cornerstone.
But don't get me wrong, It doesn't make the book any less good. That's why I love to read books, because in general the people portrayed in there are of the good and responsible kind, sometimes even the heroic kind.

It's written in the style of Stephen king that I come to love and like also in other novels. Short bursts of chapters that keep you on the edge of your seat. An easy to read english, full of nowadays slang without being too confusing. And the descriptions are just enough to set the stage without unnecessary details, so you can fill in the blanks with your own imagination.

Can't wait for the next one, I just might grab one of his early ones and reread it for old times sake.

Personal rating: 4 stars

Review of Room

To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough...not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, ROOM is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another. (Goodreads)

Room was a emotional ride for me. It made me think of how detached I've been from certain emotional themes in novel before I became a mom. The need you see in your child eyes almost always get projected in a novel whenever a child is being treated badly.
Room felt like a rollercoaster to me. The first 100 pages were a bit of a struggle. You don't have quite the right idea about what's going on and being in Jack's head can be a little tiresome. But halfway the first part, when Ma is trying to persuade Jack to help them escape their predicament, my water works started flowing.
You feel his panicky realisation that all he thought was just tv, suddenly turned real, isn't as wonderful as his mother described it. It's mostly just very loud and very confusing.
On the night he escapes 'Old Nick' you feel his sense of trepidation and I wanted so much to be by his side. To hold his hand and tell him everything would be okay. He wouldn't want that of course, the only thing he wants is to be close to his mother.
I'm not sure I could've done what she has done, because she relied completely on the wits of a five year old to get them out, in particular a five year old who's never seen anyone but his ma and their captor, who's never been outside their 'room'. I think it would be the hardest seconds in my life if I would've sent my daughter out there not knowing what was happening.
Then the relief of when a police officer is being called and they finally find his mother. When all this has happened you've only read about half of the novel and I was wondering what the rest of the story would be about, since I've shunned as much spoilers as possible.
Greatly was I surprised when now I followed the process of Jack learning to be a part of the big world, learning of rules and rules within rules, special amendments to those rules and how he feels when his mother isn't only there for him anymore. She tries to be Ma, but she also wants to be the woman she was before the abduction again and Jack doesn't know that woman and is confused when she doesn't need him as much as he needs her.
My heart broke in a million pieces when Jack, after a afternoon of confusing reality, comes back to the clinic where he and Ma are staying and finds his mother 'sick'.
I was so mad at her, trying to kill herself while Jack counted on her so much. I know kids can be a handful, but to leave him in the wide world without the only thing he's ever known was so cruel that I nearly tossed this book away. Luckily I don't have a fireplace.
I found this to be the most fictional part of the novel. I don't think that if she would have killed herself, she would have chosen to go alone. I think, however horrible it might seem, that if she really had thought suicide was the answer, she would've taken Jack along with her.

Of course, because Jack found her, rescued her a second time, she recovers and can look after him again after a while. In the meantime Jack stays with his grandparents, who show a tremendous effort in showing him what life can be like. Through all their efforts and innocent mistakes, Jack learnes that life isn't like on tv and that some things are better and others can hurt you.

In the end of the novel you get a sense of new direction. I was confident that they would make it somehow. Maybe Jack would always be a little peculiar, but not in a sense that life would lock him away with the loonies. Jack is in my eyes a lovely boy and I would be mad as hell if something were to happen to him.
When I closed this book, I did cry though, because in whatever sense that this book is only fiction, this sort of stuff does happen. Even here in my little country called Belgium, children have been locked away in a basement for years. You hear it sporadically on the news of people being held captive for so long, I only have respect for those people to have to endure that and prevail.

This must be the longest review I've ever written.
Well, I was seriously astounded by this novel and should have read it ages ago.

Personal rating: 5 stars

Review of Swan Song

We’re about to cross the point of no return. God help us; we’re flying in the dark and we don’t know where the hell we’re going.”

Facing down an unprecedented malevolent enemy, the government responds with a nuclear attack. America as it was is gone forever, and now every citizen—from the President of the United States to the homeless on the streets of New York City—will fight for survival.

Swan Songis Robert McCammon’s prescient and “shocking” (John Saul) vision of a post- Apocalyptic nation, a grand epic of terror and, ultimately, renewal.

In a wasteland born of rage and fear, populated by monstrous creatures and marauding armies, earth’s last survivors have been drawn into the final battle between good and evil, that will decide the fate of humanity: Sister, who discovers a strange and transformative glass artifact in the destroyed Manhattan streets . . . Joshua Hutchins, the pro wrestler who takes refuge from the nuclear fallout at a Nebraska gas station . . . And Swan, a young girl possessing special powers, who travels alongside Josh to a Missouri town where healing and recovery can begin with Swan’s gifts. But the ancient force behind earth’s devastation is scouring the walking wounded for recruits for its relentless army, beginning with Swan herself. . . .(Goodreads)

Swan song is a book that keeps you thinking and especially reading. I never even made up my mind if I actually liked the book or not. It made me think of The Stand, even the battle between good and evil made its way into this novel.
At first I found it difficult to find the right pace for this novel. I couldn't identify with the characters, only Swan herself seemed to me a plausible human being, the others felt rather empty. As the story continued I bonded with Sister and her quest to find Swan and eventually her task of keeping her safe.
Also Josh made it to the end with feeling. He must be the most lovingly giant this post-apocalyptic world has to offer.
The story made a lot of sense. A world being destroyed because people in high positions don't understand they're playing a game with real lives at stake. Something that back in de seventies and eighties wasn't merely in people's imagination. The aftermath shows signs of good battling bad, but I think when writing such novels you're kind of obligated to add this pinch of supernatural power because otherwise you're just writing a novel about people dying. There isn't a way people would survive such a holocaust.
I would recommend this novel to anyone who loves to read about the life or death struggles of mankind and how we always overcome evil. And just about anyone who loves a lengthy story about a world that could've happened.

Personal score: Between 3,5 and 4 stars