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Quotable quotes |
Here is a quick recap for the week that we call Week 09. Yippie, my FB page like count has risen to 350 Just go ahead like this page, and don’t forget to share it forward.If you want to go read our previous posts. Here they are:
057
“The thing I’m most afraid of is me. Of not knowing what I’m going to do. Of not knowing what I’m doing right now”
― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84
058
“I stopped looking for a Dream Girl, I just wanted one that wasn’t a nightmare.”
― Charles Bukowski, The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship
059
“If you aren’t on Goodreads, you should be. I’ve said it before, it’s like Facebook for readers on crack.”
― Colleen Hoover
060
“Sometimes people use thought to not participate in life.”
-Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
061
Do not put off till tomorrow what can be put off till day-after-tomorrow just as well. – Mark Twain
062
“I don’t care about whose DNA has recombined with whose. When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching–they are your family.”
― Jim Butcher, Proven Guilty
063
“Respect yourself enough to walk away from anything that no longer serves you, grows you, or makes you happy.”
― Robert Tew
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Quizzes & Tags |
Well we crossed our grand 50 days of quotes! Here is a quick recap of the week that was.
050
“I have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad. Or I can go mad by ricocheting in between.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
051
“All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.”
― Charles M. Schulz
052
Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.”
― Robert A. Heinlein
053
“The truth is, it’s hard to get people to like you, but it’s even harder to keep people liking you.”
― Mindy Kaling, Why Not Me?
054
“Books, which we mistake for consolation, only add depth to our sorrow. ”
― Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red
055
“Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
056
“He used to love me,
and now
he’s just a stranger
who happens to know
all my secrets.”
– Clementine Von Radics, “It’s Just So Strange”
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review, Thriller |
How far would you let a stranger into your life? How far, if he was a convicted murderer? How far, if he would proclaim it in public?
About the book
Book Name: The Killing of Mummy’s Boy
Author: Joan Ellis
Genre: Fiction – Thriller
Characters: Sandra, Carl, Ben, Lee Elliot, Debs
Setting: Isle of Wight, London, The UK
Disclaimer: I received this book from the Booklover Catlady Publicity Reviews free of cost in return for an honest review.
The plot
Sandra has had always a careful life, watching her back and her son’s. Her son, Carl is under the Witness Protection Programme for helping convicting the local thug Lee Elliot on a murder. Carl is a reckless youngster, who doesn’t seem to understand the grave danger that hung over his neck and blames his mother for making him choose the Programme. She loves him terribly and only the concern over his safety that stops her from rushing to her son’s side.
Sandra inadvertently spells out her address to a stranger, who insists on calling her Rosie and proclaims to have been just released out from jail on her journey back home. She learns Ben was in for slitting someone’s throat, and she is filled with paranoia that she is being watched by Ben and her house being visited, her rest rooms used and her food tasted.
She realizes the cop were not taking her complaints seriously and won’t be around to help her unless there were any crimes committed. She is also a wine aficionado, which helps her get through her days and nights while she dread the unannounced visits.
Things get worse when Carl get back home with his pregnant girlfriend in tow. Read The Killing of Mummy’s Boy to find out more if Sandra gets through alive.
My initial thoughts
I have read and enjoyed Joan’s other novel, ‘I am Ella. Buy Me‘, yet I was surprised by the premise of ‘The Killing of Mummy’s Boy’. We don’t think twice much before spelling our addresses out in public these days, and the possibility that this could happen to anyone of us, made it all the more intriguing.
I loved all the twists in the plot (maybe except the final one) and was genuinely pleased that the character I liked didn’t turn out to be the stalker. I had to stop myself tapping my head every time Sandra made a stupid decision, thanks to her being an alcoholic. I disliked Carl and his using his mom as a shield from his own responsibilities even before the plot fell open.
Things that worked for me
- I found the dysfunctional mother-son relationship credible and intriguing, kudos to the Joan’s attention to detail and writing style.
- I loved the writing of Joan Ellis especially as she did a commendable job on bringing out the pain and fear of Sandra and the vivid backdrop of the 80’s.
Things that didn’t work for me
- It was a bit difficult to get into initially but the pace increased as it got past 30% of the book.
- Some may feel that there were too many things happening at the same time, which may be overwhelming.
Bottom-line
Joan explores the subject of moral righteousness and integrity against family values and loyalty without be judgmental, which worked well for me. I would love to see a movie on this story-line. Now, I should read Joan’s other novels for sure.
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Let us chat
Do you like books with such flawed characters? What about books that scare you by being too close to reality? Do let me know what you think of the book or my review in the comments. Let us talk.
review, Thriller |
‘How would you commit the perfect murder?’ is my perfect party question. Discussions about serial killers, their motives for the killing spree and of course psychological thrillers are my thing. And when there is a book out there that speaks about India’s number one serial killer I just had to read, don’t I? And here is my take on it.
Book Name: Raakshas – India’s No.1 Serial Killer
Author: Piyush Jha
Genre: Fiction – Thriller
Characters: Raakshas, ACP Maithili Prasad, Kalantak Baba
Disclaimer: I received the book for an honest review from the publishers.
The story follows the protagonist, the killer from his birth to the end. He becomes the notorious Bundi-cut killer, who terrorizes Mumbai by leaving a trail of headless corpse. He begins his spree by killing his own father, who may or not have played a part in him turning into the psychopath he is. Not so fortuitously, the strangers he meets during his journey as an adolescent seem to instigate the actions of the devil within him, especially the fake saint who uses the boy to help him lure women and to dispose of their dead bodies. The narrative accelerates when he starts to visualize all women to be evil and starts a killing spree. Diametrically opposite to him is the ACP Maithili Prasad who pledges to catch him to silence the inner devil from the past. The media also adds oil to the fire, by stroking his ego down. The duo – ACP and the killer form a bond through telephone, trying to understand each other.
Another murder piles on the shrouds over Ms Prasad’s conscious due to a mishap during an operation to catch the killer. She is ripped off her post and she eventually resigns. But the killer by now takes things personal and decides to kill to Ms Prasad. How does he reach her? Did she arrest him or become another victim to his psychopathy? These questions are answered in the rest of the story.
The novel alternates between the stories of the main characters starting at the births and constantly reminds us of how coincidence (destiny?) can make a person a police officer while the other a killer on the run. Both the characters have met death and have been responsible for deaths, before their adulthood. They have an extremely contrasting family brought up and thus arising the question if that had anything to do with the killer’s actions.
I finished the book in a single sitting, thanks to the long train journey to Bengaluru and the fast pace of the book. The writing was crisp and an easy read, yet I was unable to reach out to any of the characters. Even after all the tragedy that killer has gone through I could not feel bad for him, and much lesser for the ACP. In fact, after a point my mind lost the ability to react to the innumerable murders, however gruesome they were. I would have felt happy if only there were more actions from the police to catch the serial killer, at least as such as the media seemed to be contributing.
I always get excited for a serial killer (fictional, obviously) and this book promised to show me the psychology behind their action. Thanks to shows like Dexter and Hannibal Lecter which have showed us a glimpse of the persons that the killers are, my hopes were too high and I was more than curious to read about the psychology of the killer from the book but was left to be satisfied with the appendix. Oh I loved the other part of the appendix which had a brief about the lesser known serial killers from India.
Though it might be due to the ‘soon to be a motion picture’ tag on the cover, that I read the whole book like it was a movie, rather than a novel and I felt there were traces of the yesteryear’s movie called Sivapu rojakal (Red Rose, Hindi) in the story line.
If you want to read about an Indian serial killer, this might be a sure catch up.
