Last week I started a new job, so I’m still adjusting to my new rhythms. Between boxes of products and shelves to stock, I’m enjoying my twenty-minute commute by car, listening to audiobooks. I’m sorry to say I gave up on Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff because it wasn’t winning me over. I liked the horror element of the book, but I wasn’t enjoying the constant parade of stories and side stories, the jumping between past and present, like a spinning top that never stops. It doesn’t know where to stop, but it knows it has to fill pages.
All in all, this Kristoff book didn’t have the same effect on me as his Nevernight trilogy, pure entertainment with a fearless young female lead. The Australian fantasy author has announced a new book for next year, and I think I’ll give him another chance.
In print
- On my nightstand: I Lázár by Nelio Biedermann.
- Scattered thoughts: the reading is going slowly, but not because of the story. If anything, some chapters I’m enjoying a lot, dark and gloomy, with ghosts and heartbreaking first loves. I’m now past the halfway point, and I like this family saga that blends the true story of the author and his family with almost magical elements that are decidedly hard to explain. I also like the style of I Lázár, where a few words (or sentences) can say so much.
In audiobook
- For my commute: All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy.
- Scattered thoughts: I recently finished the first book of McCarthy’s Border Trilogy, the one that lays the groundwork for the rest of the story, with the pair of friends John Grady Cole and Lacey Rawlins setting out from the US with the dream of building a life far away from everything and everyone. In Mexico, where the two find very little luck. It’s a slow story, one I wouldn’t call full of adventure or adrenaline like other westerns I’ve read. To me, this first book feels more like an introduction to John Grady, a way of showing how the protagonist begins his story as a young, idealistic teenager full of dreams, only to quickly discover that the world isn’t just cruel: the world is unjust.
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