Paranormal, review, YA |
This week has chosen to be dark themed on its own. I have been reading on and off these days, erm.. actually took a long break from reading and that is for sure going to affect my yearly target of 52 books. I know it sounds an easy mark for few, but seems such right now a difficult one to reach. Hey don’t hold it against me, there were many books that I read and decided to not continue further.
Anyway coming back to the topic, I received ‘
The Girl Who Couldn’t Come Up With an Original Title‘ for review and I picked up not knowing that it contains two short stories both based on the above mentioned dark themes like suicide, depression and despair. All I knew was it had a intriguing and title and it came in highly recommended by Maxine herself. So go ahead find out if I was satisfied.
Author: The Behrg
Genre: Fiction – Short Story
The first short story is about ‘the girl’ who is a writer with incessant suicidal thoughts. She attempts to commit suicide thrice but fails miserably. The story starts with her struggling to find a title for her writing all through the story, falling and travelling between lines. I loved the word play and her struggle to cope up with depression and the thin gap between survival instinct and to give up and choose the easy way out.
It took a few pages for me to get into the story, and once we are past that we are worried if she is ever gonna return back to the land of normalcy. The pain of not feeling anything and having no one to speak to hits too near to home to not understand her frustration.
The second story is about another struggling writer again fighting his emotions to go ahead with his decision to die. He knows Despair too well and his tug off war with Insanity and Reluctance creates the necessary suspense in the reader to know if Dave is going ahead with his decision.
I loved the second story better even though it was shorter of the two. It was like watching the Inside Out (the movie) but only darker and more grown up. I know this may not be a fair comparison but I liked the personification of our emotions.
Both the stories wouldn’t make you love them or feel happy after you read them, many might be put off by the theme, but they struck a chord with me and make me mull over it for a while.The author’s note made a lot of sense and her call to understand and help people affected by depression and suicidal tendencies is welcome.
I picked up the book for its quirky title and I wasn’t disappointed and all in about 36 pages!
Watch out for this space where I try attempting to review one of those much hailed author’s book pretty soon!
![#100daysofbookquotes: Quote week: 14]()
Quotable quotes |
The last stretch before I reach my milestone of #100daysofbookquotes. Stay back and take a look at how things have been around here.
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092
There were always in me, two women at least, one woman desperate and bewildered, who felt she was drowning and another who would leap into a scene, as upon a stage, conceal her true emotions because they were weaknesses, helplessness, despair, and present to the world only a smile, an eagerness, curiosity, enthusiasm, interest. – Anaïs Nin
093
“The battle you are going through is not fueled by the words or actions of others; it is fueled by the mind that gives it importance.”
― Shannon L. Alder
095
“We cross our bridges as we come to them and burn them
behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and the presumption that once our eyes watered.”
—Tom Stoppard, Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead
095
“Of course it’s possible to love a human being if you don’t know them too well.”
― Charles Bukowski
096
“I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year.
Scout”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
097
“When people don’t express themselves, they die one piece at a time.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak”
098
“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
review, Thriller |
If you had been following my blog for a while now, you would know how excited I become when I get my hands on a serial killer, erm I mean a book on serial killers. The blurb of the book was so intriguing promising me tale with ‘a serial killer, an execution and an after life with a dosage on morality’, how could I pass it up?
If death is all you can sentence a killer of 28 women to, especially when he feels no remorse towards his deeds, would you be satisfied if one of the victims was your family? What could be a worse punishment than death itself?
If every child with a bad home doesn’t turn into a killer, what makes the notorious few to turn into one? Rather, how much does a broken family and abused childhood affect a killer’s mindBook Name: Hellbound: The Tally Man
Author: David McCaffrey
Characters: Obadiah Stark, Joe O Connell, Eva, Eve
The story begins with The Tally Man, Stark being executed by lethal injection at the high security prison at ADX Absolom in front of his victim’s families and the media. He feels no regrets, even till the last moment of his life, rather looks forward to whatever that may lay ahead for him. Joe O Connell, a reporter and follower of Obdiah Stark’s life, investigates the execution when he hears that there might be a foul play.
Stark ‘awakes’ after his execution and is shocked to find he lives at his hometown with a loving wife and affectionate daughter. Being true to his evil self, he goes around the town on murder spree only to be shot down by the cops. Much to his and the reader’s surprise, he wakes up the next day only to realize that the previous day wasn’t real after all. While his family seem to have reasoned his mood swings and confusions to the effects of his medications, he continues to feed his ego by rampaging around killing people only to find that the days to be restored.
There are three Point of Views (PoV) in the story; the afterlife of Stark with his family, Joe’s investigation about the irregularities related to Stark’s death in real time and the fact sheet based on the Dr. John Franklin’s psychological profiling of Stark right from his childhood. Though there were places I felt the shift among the PoVs little abrupt and disturbing the flow of the narration, they bring together the past, the present and the future of Stark side by side.
I am not sure what to feel about Stark. Should I say he was intriguing but that would be saying too little. I don’t relate to him per se, but how can I not feel awed at someone who knocks off people in such a gory fashion then walks into a bar and asks a mug of beer. Wow, now that is style. He preys on other’s lives not because he hates them nor for other petty reasons like vengeance, money or lust, he kills because he can.
He loves to feel the power over the victim, it gives him a high. And even after the job done he doesn’t feel a remorse, rather just moves on with his life. To say he was the evil personified would be closer to truth, and that is why I like him. In short, the best serial killer I have read. Did I mention he had a tattoo of his tally of 28 murders? Sigh, what is wrong with me. I would love to read more about him. Oh wait there is more to the series? I am picking them up for sure.
I should start with I am in love with the author’s writing style, dictum and everything that I could think of. I have been raving about the book and its author to everyone who would listen to, from the day I started reading the novel. I can not believe that Hellbound
is the debut of the author David McCaffrey, I am sure to follow his other works.
I clearly was hooked from the right beginning and the plot twists kept my pulse rising right till the last page. And the final twist made me go ‘Woah, did I read that right?’ Well played, David! For someone who reads too much about killers for her own good, Hellbound: The Tally Man 
has been the best read in 2016 (yet).
write |
You know what I miss the most these days? Long meaningful conversations. Thanks to Whatsapp, FB and every other social connect there is no dearth for ‘hey whats up?, ‘what did you cook?’, ‘Ain’t it too hot these days?’ and my abhorrence to talking over telephone nowadays, I cannot try and remember having a thoughtful conversation. Ahem.. Ahem.. add to it that I don’t write at all. So where does that leave me? Yearning to have an interrupted conversation devoid of frivolous talks about weather, events or persons.
A few years ago, I used to write these long e-mails to a pen pal, S. I can’t recollect how it started but there we were, exchanging mails for about 2 years. We had never exchanged numbers, or even a precise location ( I think). Neither did I even try to connect through any of the social networks, though Google and FB have shown him under people you might know in the social media platforms, REPEATEDLY, off late and hence the post.
This is how it went on for years. About once a week, without a fixed time line or anything, that is whenever either of us had time and a whim to write, we jotted down what was going on in each other’s mind, without having the need to actually explain anything more than necessary. Once in a while when we did miss to reply, but there was no once that we waited for the other to respond first.
Generally I used to fill my long letters talking about the dog we had then to the book that I was engrossed in during the week, just typical of me. He wrote me about his job, family, his other pen pals and his Tabla lessons and such. There were times that all I used to write was what I would write about the following week. I shared with him notes that I used to call ‘poetry’, stuff I scribbled during my school and college days. To be honest, there were no flirty messages or attempt to each other. I distinctly remember his interest on being a self employed, which he took a chance at but went back to being a regular techie with varied interest in life. His passion towards life and trying out new things would ooze out of his writing. And that is what I tried to imitate in my letters to him.
In fact, he was a probable inspiration for me to start this blog. Yeah, he was the first person outside of my immediate circle of friends that I shared something that I have created, be it sketches or the poetry or even my thoughts about random topics. What if he had not been receptive or even worse, was discouraging about them? May be I might have had not this space now where I rant about anything and everything under the sun, most of the time is of no use to the reader.
Now I am looking at those letters / mails, feeling not just nostalgic but also wondering what happened to that guy. The last mail I received from him ended in a sad note about the unexpected misfortunes that fell upon him. Something the 22 year old me couldn’t even begin to comprehend, let alone offer support or even grieve with him and yet I made an earnest attempt at it. Haven’t heard from him after that, until these internet Gods started prompting me that I should be connecting with him. (I am not going to, FYIP)
Coming to think of it I don’t think I would have spoken about him to any of my friends either, not to hide him away but more because his presence didn’t seem to make a huge impact then, but now I am filled with gratitude towards him. Hope that he made safe and happy out of his ill fate and have moved on in life. So why am I writing such a long post about something that happened eons ago? Despite having so many people that I talk, I miss writing letters. In fact the only letters I have ever written were to a faceless guy years ago. I don’t mind the quicker and shorter communication but I want to get back to writing long paragraphs about everything under the sun from why we named our dog Caeser to how to get back to writing blog posts. Is there an interested pen pal around? Let me know.
