John Dies at the End

by David Wong
456 pgs

Every once in a while, I read a book that doesn't lend itself to an easy or concise description. To adequately describe it would probably take half as long as it would take to read the book itself. John Dies at the End by David Wong (pseudonym) is one of those books.

Somewhere in a small undisclosed town, somewhere in the heart of the country, a new drug has hit the streets. It's known as Soy Sauce, and it promises users an experience unlike any they've had before. John and Dave are friends who live in this undisclosed town and both are perpetual underachievers. John plays in a similarly underachieving band, and one night, at a party after a gig, John is introduced to Soy Sauce by a strange man pretending to be Jamaican. John calls Dave in the middle of the night while experiencing a "bad trip" from the drug. Dave picks up John at his apartment and the two end up at the local Denny's. While there, Dave gets another call from his friend John, whose sitting in the booth across from him eating and not calling him. John asks Dave whether he (John) has died yet, and from that point on, things only get more and more absurd.

John Dies at the End is a book with a cult following. It was originally published as an independent web series by David Wong (again, pseudonym) who was working as a a copy editor at a law firm. It became so popular that he eventually decided to turn the online chapters he had been releasing into novel and through word of mouth, the book became so popular it was turned into a movie starring Paul Giamatti.

While the book isn't fantastic, I enjoyed it enough that I'm interested in reading its sequels: This Book is Full of Spiders, and What the Hell Did I Just Read. I'm interested to see if the things I liked about this one improve in those books, and if the things I wasn't crazy about improve.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

The Holdout

by Graham Moore
322 pgs

Ten years ago, a jury found Bobby Nock, a 25-year-old man, not guilty of killing Jessica Silver, the 15-year-old daughter of one of the richest real estate moguls in Los Angeles. Bobby was one of Jessica's teachers and the prosecution argued that the illicit texts found on Bobby's phone from her, along with the traces of her blood, which were found both on the passenger seat of his car, as well as in the trunk of his car, proved beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Bobby had killed her, even though her body was never found.

The trial lasted four months and was a media sensation. and Maya Seale served on the jury. Maya was the only member of the jury who believed Bobby was innocent at the time the deliberation process began. She believed there was sufficient doubt surrounding all of the evidence which the prosecution used to argue Bobby's guilt and she eventually persuaded each of the other jurors to vote "not guilty," even though some of them did so begrudgingly. The trial, and the verdict they ultimately delivered, had shaped the last ten years of each of their lives.

Now, ten years later, a true-crime docuseries is being produced, and each of the members of the jury has been invited back to the Omni hotel, the one they had been sequestered in for the four month trial, to be interviewed and filmed for it. One of the jurors, Rick Leonard, who was the strongest believer in Bobby's guilt throughout the trial, has spent the last ten years trying to prove that Maya had been wrong and that they had made a grave mistake in finding him Bobby not guilty. He has told the producers of the show he can now prove Bobby's guilt and will reveal his proof on camera. 

But Rick is found murdered that night, his body discovered in Maya's room, and Maya is the lone suspect. The only way she has any chance to prove her innocence, is to try to determine once and for all whether she and the rest of the jurors delivered the right verdict ten years ago.

The Holdout is Graham Moore's third book, and they're all fantastic. Moore is probably better known for having won the Academy Award for writing the screenplay for The Imitation Game a few years ago, but I think his novels showcase his best writing so far. I couldn't say enough good things about his last book The Last Days of Night, and fortunately for me, The Holdout is just as good.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

The Chestnut Man

by Søren Sveistrup
516 pgs

The Chestnut Man is the debut novel by an author whose work I was already a big fan of. Søren Sveistrup is a Danish screenwriter who wrote the series that was adapted into The Killing here in the United States. The title of the book comes from the nickname given by the Copenhagen police department to the killer who leaves behind a small doll made of matchsticks and chestnuts every time he commits one of his grisly murders.

One year ago, the 12-year-old daughter of Rosa Hartung, a high-ranking government minister, went missing. The investigation into her disappearance led to the eventual conviction of a man now locked up in a high-security mental facility, but her body was never found. Now, one year later, a series of killings involving young women seems inexplicably tied to the Hartung case. At each of the sites where a body has been found, a small chestnut doll has been left, and each of the dolls bears the fingerprint of Rosa Hartung’s daughter. The two investigators on the case, Naia Thulin and Mark Hess, are faced with catching a killer who always seems to be two or three steps ahead of them.

I couldn’t put this book down. The fact that the chapters are short made it all the harder to do so. I‘d get to the end of one and think I really should stop reading and accomplish something, but then I’d flip through a couple more pages and realize I could read another chapter in a just a couple minutes more, and I’d decide to do just that—over and over again.

I’m excited by the fact that Sveistrup has tried his hand at writing a novel. The Killing was a fantastic series for the short time it ran, and all of the qualities that I enjoyed about it are found in The Chestnut Man as well. Hopefully it’s the first of many more books to come.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Earthfall

by Orson Scott Card
350 pgs  (Homecoming series #4)

Earthfall is the fourth installment in OSC's Homecoming series, and it follows the small group of travelers assembled by the Oversoul from the planet of Harmony back to Earth, the planet humans had to abandon 40 million years ago. From the very beginning of the book, the conflict between Nafai and his brother Elemak has intensified, and soon after they board the ship that will take them back to earth, it becomes violent. If not for the powers given to Nafai by the Oversoul, he would have died.

Once they land on earth, they discover two sentient species, which have evolved since humans left the planet into two separate but warring races. And it quickly becomes vitally important the colonists are able to make peace with these two races, as well as with each other.

As I've mentioned in the reviews of the earlier books in the series, Card borrowed heavily from the first book of The Book of Mormon for inspiration in this story (the space travel and alien races are all his), and it's that connection to the source material that, up until now, has kept me interest in the story so far. But with this installment, I found myself finally getting sucked into Card's own story. He picked up the pace with this one, and when it was done, I was more excited to pick up the next, which is the last book in the series, than I have been so far.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

A Short Stay in Hell

by Steven L. Peck
104 pgs

Soren Johansson, a faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, dies at a relatively young age from cancer. Upon dying, he's sent to hell, but not the hell he learned about in church, or from reading the bible, or even the Book of Mormon. Instead, he's sent to a seemingly infinite library with the promise that if he can find the book that contains the story of his life, he will be free to leave.

Peck uses this simple idea to craft a disturbing story, a story which, at the very least, will leave you unsettled about the concept of hell and an infinite afterlife.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Saints: No Unhallowed Hand

675 pgs

The history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1846 - 1893.

Bridge of Clay

by Markus Zusak
534 pgs

In Bridge of Clay, Markus Zusak tells the story of the Dunbar family. Penelope, the mother, who died of cancer three years before the book begins; Michael, the father, who abandoned their five sons shortly afterwards, and the five brothers, left to fend for themselves.

The oldest son, Matthew, narrates the story and begins it on the day their father -- whom they refer to as the murderer -- returns to ask whether any of the boys would be willing to help him build a bridge. Four of his sons don't want anything to do with him, but Clay, the second to youngest, decides to drop out of high school to help his father.

From there the story jumps back and forth in time, going back to tell the story of Penelope, who grew up in the Eastern Bloc of Europe when it was controlled by the Soviet Union, and who became an accomplished pianist under the tutelage of her stern father. She met Michael when the piano she bought was incorrectly delivered to his house further down her street. They fell in love, were married, and had five sons.

The story is nowhere near as simplistic as it sounds, which has its pros and cons. On the positive side, the story is packed full of symbolism and emotion. Zusak does a great job of telling the story of a family torn apart by death and grief, and the emotions and raw nerves they leave behind are on full display. But I think Zusak got in his own way too often in trying to tell the story the way he did. Part of my issues with the book may have been a result of me listening to the book, instead of reading it.The story jumps back and forth in time abruptly and I found it difficult to follow the shifts while listening. I'm assuming it was clearer on the written page. My other complaint was that I think Zusak tried to cram an 800-page story into a 500-page book. It would have been better had it gone through another round or two of editing.

One last thought on the book is this: in the United States, it was marketed as a young adult book. It's not, nor was it marketed as one in any other country.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆