A new favourite!

 

Dark Matter, by Blake Crouch, was the group book for the Thrillerathon. I almost didn’t read it, I almost read The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle instead. But I did a Twitter poll and the vote went to Dark Matter, so I picked it up, and damn I’m so glad that I did!

In Dark Matter we follow a man who’s life has been stripped away from him. His wife, his child, apparently none of this ever happened and he’s actually a prize winning scientist who is a recluse and only talks to his coworkers.

I adore books with sci-fi twists and this one just really hit the right spot for me. I was drawn in to a point of obsession and every mark was hit just right. Every plot twist was exactly perfect for me, close enough that I was still enjoying the story but enough of a twist to really shock me. At the end of the book I was speechless for a time. Literally speechless. That doesn’t happen a lot for me!

I want to spill everything about this book, I was to rave about it, but I don’t want to spoil the experience for you. So. If this genre is your sorta thing, a thriller with a sci-fi twist, then I 100% recommend picking it up. Hopefully you’ll enjoy it and hopefully you’ll love it too, like me!!

What the HELL was this book?

Watching Edie by Camilla Way had been on my tbr for a long time, around 4 years probably. I had picked it up in a Poundland when they still sold new books (any Brits, they now sell secondhand books, it can be a good spot to check if you’re on the skint side like moi) and for some reason just never picked it up. It was my choice in the “shortest book” slot for the Thrillerathon in February and seeing as I was late to start this readathon I decided to pick this one up.

It started out promising, I personally enjoyed Way’s writing style and the storyline was interesting. However, as the book carried on it devolved and became a lot less interesting. It also felt manipulative towards the reader, trying to make you feel for the events and the characters when the writing hadn’t been good enough and the plot hadn’t been written well enough to justify these emotions.

I struggled with my rating for this book, and I still do. I’m between a one and two star. I did enjoy certain bits and as I said, I enjoyed the writing style, which is why I bumped it up to a two star. It is, however, a badly done concept and I don’t care for it at all. I’m glad it’s off of my tbr now and I’ll likely donate it to charity at some point. Hopefully someone else can enjoy it, but I doubt it.

 

My favourite Poirot in a while!

 

Book #26 in the Poirot series, The Hollow by Agatha Christie, was one of my picks for the Thrillerathon at the end of February. I was expecting to like it, but I wasn’t expecting anything more as I’ve not loved a lot of the Poirot books I’ve read lately. However, I loved it!

It took a little while to get into the story, with us following the various characters involved in the murder for almost 200 pages before Poirot gets involved. While at first I found this annoying I came to enjoy learning about them in their own environment and was still enjoying myself.

These extra pages for the characters definitely allowed not only for a little bit of character development, but also to allow me to get to know them better and care more about the outcomes at the end of the book. It was definitely a great decision by Christie and I’m glad that the book with the prettiest cover was also the one that I enjoyed the most!

Definitely a Poirot I recommend picking up, as you don’t need to read them in order, and one that I really did enjoy. Speeding through in just one day as always.