Every Dead Thing by John Connolly From a Personal Perspective

Every Dead Thing by John Connolly was not for me. I listened via Audible beginning to end, and the narrator was excellent, but there are crimes that I do not enjoy. Examples that I avoid at all cost being horror, true crime, and anything with child abuse or child death. I am glad that I've finally listened to a John Connolly, but I can't imagine I would seek out another. i realize that this is the first Charlie Parker, and perhaps the later books were more satisfying as he settled in as a character and the author as a writer.

For me, the police procedural information was wonderful, but then I didn't understand, with that depth of background information, how he could run around as a private investigator and claim he wasn't one (as he wasn't licensed etc.) There were other things that didn't stack up for me as well. As to John's writing style, the mix of personal to crime was off and came across as backstory rather than personal connective writing for me. The big problem I didn't care for was the depth and length of the backstories for every single character, including that character's parents, his children, his work buddies etc., and that single character might be a minor player or end up important. As the backstories are told, they don't necessarily make sense to the plot for several chapters. Often so much later that I couldn't remember who the individual was.

So for me, this was a sad and horrible read through the holiday season, but yet---I didn't put it down or move on to something else. That is an indicator of his abilities to hold me, but more likely the result that nothing else in my queue or what was coming out caught my attention.

I'll be more careful in the future. It is HORRIBLE when I turn away from something because the topic is too upsetting for me, but that is the way I am. I guess that's why I write young adult.

YA Edgar Award Winner Review - Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher

The Edgar Awards are given annually by the Mystery Writer's of America, which is a professional mystery/crime fiction writer's organization. Last year, I fell in love with an also nominated Emily Dickinson's Dress and Other Missing Stuff. That book lost to Verity. Okay, great book but I still loved the small press EDOMS more. :-) This year, Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher won the YA category.

From what I can see reading the other reviews, you either love this or you don't. I would have come down with a 4.5 rating.

Title: Love it.    

Interesting premise: young UK girl dealing with first love confusion and then guilt over a death begins writing to a death row inmate in Texas. That's cool. I like it a lot. it plays with the time line so you obtain memories from the letters as well as current action--that's cool and well done. Toss in the nice little subplots: a professional dad out of work and a guilt ridden stay at home mom over an incident involving their youngest deaf daughter, two brothers that fall for the same girl; the dead boy's mom trying to figure out how to cope and how her son died, another sister who is being bullied but isn't--those are nifty too. OK--maybe she over did the sub-threads.

Negatives: Although the young girl's voice is age appropriate, it rattles apart at various times. That was disappointing. She comes across as far too mature in some relationships (siblings) and far too immature in the romance triangle.

Mixed feelings: The inmate on death row is kinda important, but we miss his input since he's doesn't reply. As his death date arrives, I didn't feel it was tied into the story to bring about any resolution on the MC's part. That left me disappointed, and you don't want to disappoint your reader.

My ultimate guess? I'm probably going to fall in love with one of the other nominations like I did last year.