The Sex Lives of Cannibals - J Maarten Troost

I can't remember the last time I read a non-fiction book that wasn't some sort of textbook.  I, by nature, am not a non-fiction person.  I live for fiction.  I believe that fiction is worth so much more than people give it credit for.  I even have a tattoo that says "Fiction is the truth inside the lie."  I am seriously all about the fiction.   Now I did not choose to read this out of the want to build character or expand my reading comfort zone.  I actually read this by accident.  I brought this with me to read at my office a few months ago when we had some downtime and on my breaks and lunch.  My mom sent this book to me after she read it and she really liked it.  I didn't look at the book in too much detail before selecting it.  It was a relatively small book, only 272 pages and was a paperback.  Easily transportable I figured.  However, once I started reading it, and discovered that it was a non fiction account of some guy and his wife living on a tropical island, I became quickly uninterested. 

The book stayed at work for no real reason other than I kept forgetting to put it back in my bag to bring home.  It sat on a shelf at my desk for a few months until one day last week when I had some time between meetings and I needed something that would help me kill time.  It was more out of necessity and boredom than anything else, but I'm glad I finally got around to reading it.  It was enjoyable enough that I'm considering putting the sequel (of sorts) on my to-read list.

The Sex Lives of Cannibals is the account of the two years J Maarten Troost and his girlfriend, Sylvia, spent living on a remote island in the South Pacific.  Sylvia was placed there for a job and Troost seemed to just tag along.  There isn't any real plot that carries the novel, just the chronological order of events that took place over the 2 years they spent on the island.  Where this book shines is the humor with which these scenarios play out. 

I have never been a fan of the tropical climes and after reading this book, I'm 500% sure I have no desire to be anywhere near the equator.  Troost is an excellent storyteller and I found myself flipping pages quite quickly to see what the next situation would bring.  As the book progresses, the reader can definately sense how Troost adjusts to island living.  My favorite part of this book was the matter of fact way that Troost recounts the events that happened.  I never got the sense that Troost thought he was better than the native people.  The chapters seemed to go:

1: this is a thing that happened

2: I was a bit confused

3: someone explained it to me

4: ah, i get it now

There were, of course, some comparisons to life back in America, but they became few and far between as the book progressed.

The only part I didn’t like about the book was when Troost went into the history of the island.  Now, I completely understand that this is 100% my personal preference.  I understand why the history was there.  I thought it did enhance the story and deepen the narrative, but I just didn't want to get away from the action of the story to delve into the history.  I would have preferred a bit less historical background, but I think that I wouldn't have this opinion if non-fiction was my go-to genre.  In any case, I skimmed most of the historical parts of the book and then continued on my way.

In the end, I thought this was a fun and quick read and it made me think about some of the everyday luxuries that we in the developed world take for granted.  I don't think I could ever do what Troost did, but I'm glad he took the time to write about it. 

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt

The Sisters Brothers – Patrick deWitt

You should read this book.  Seriously.  This book is freaking fantastic.  To be completely honest, I finished reading this book about 10 months ago and the only thing I can remember is how much I liked it.  This is the story of two brothers who are hired guns in the Wild West  and it is pretty much exactly what you think.  Lots of gun play, lots of tension, lots of horses.   What makes this story different, however, is that one of the brothers is having an internal conflict and is

My favorite part of this book is the amount of snarky-ness in it.  I grew up watching Clint Eastwood westerns and was really expecting this book to be that kind of dry, serious, very tense read.  However, there were more than a few times that I laughed out loud at a line or situation.  The humor did a good job of breaking the tension that slowly builds as the story progresses.  The relationship between the brothers is crafted tremendously well.  I usually have a fear when a story has two strong lead characters that it will be hard to follow or that I will have a problem being immersed in the story because the characters seem to be trying to one-up each other.  This was not the case in this story.  I found that each brother had a strong, but different personality.  One was definitely the protagonist of the story and I found that wonderfully helpful when it came to following the plot of the novel.  The two characters felt like brothers in the way they bantered and picked on each other and I found this aspect of the novel to be the most well-crafted.

The part of the book I liked the least is a bit difficult to explain without going into spoilers.  But, in general, there's a part in the book that delves into chemical science.  I just didn't find that aspect of the story at all believable.  Now, I didn't bother to do any research and investigate if that sort of technology would have actually been available back then so I can't say if it is factually inaccurate.  But what I can say is that it sort of abruptly appears in the story and I found that it didn't quite fit in the world that deWitt had created.  I feel like it fit in the plot alright.  I understood why it was there and there needed to be some sort of extra stuff revealed toward the end, but I'm not sure if the chemical stuff was the right choice.  

The Sisters Brothers – Patrick deWitt

A fun, a-typical, Western full of adventure, gun play, and snark.

325 pages

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

Why yes, it has been over a year since I last updated this blog.  I did finish two books in that time (only two! My middle school self would be ashamed) but I never got around to updating this with the reviews.  So here’s the first one: Gone Girl.

Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn

I would like to point out, first, that I finished this book before the movie came out and, second, that I have not seen the movie.  I’ve been horribly disappointed so many times by movie adaptations of books that I have stopped going to see them.  It seems no matter how much I temper my expectations it just never seems to help and I regret wasting 10.00 and two hours of my time. 

                But I digress…

I would characterize Gone Girl as a mystery-thriller.  On the day of Amy and Nick Dunne’s 5^th anniversary, Amy goes missing.  From the state the house was left in, possibly abducted.  And, as all we TV crime drama watchers know, the husband is always the prime suspect.  As the investigation unfolds in the small town in Missouri, the reader sees the happy façade of a young couple slowly crack and crumble.  But, the question remains, where is Amy?

I thoroughly enjoyed this book from beginning to end. It was a fast paced read for me and I couldn’t put it down.  It was just the book to get me back into wanting to read when I hadn’t touched a book in months.  The narrative switches point of view between Amy and Nick, which is a style I’ve always been a fan of.  In respect to this novel, I don’t think it would have been nearly as exciting as interesting if it wasn’t for the point of view changing.  The first half of the novel is set in the present in Nick’s chapters but in the past in Amy’s part.  The couple’s history is recounted through Amy’s chapters – from them meeting, falling in love, and their elegant life before moving to the Midwest.  When Amy’s story catches up with Nick’s in the present, about half way through, that’s where the twist in the plot occurs and the second half of the story is filled with tension as the reader follows the two parallel story lines.  The back and forth narrative structure really helps build this tension and keep the reader turning pages until the end.

The one thing I disliked about this novel was the ending.  Without going into too much detail (as this is a spoiler-free space) it felt like a deadline was approaching and Flynn needed to get the story wrapped up as quickly as possible.  In the last 20 pages or so, it felt like Flynn was getting all her little ducks in a row and then slapped a big bow on top and called it done.  I found it unsatisfying and felt like the ending didn’t do justice to the journey the characters had been on since page 1.  I would have preferred a sort of cliff hanger ending.  About 20 pages before the end there’s a huge plot event (this is real hard to describe without going into spoilers) and everything after that is just filler and lining the ducks up.  I would have preferred it if right after the big event, the story ended.  The relationships between all the characters in the novel are so complex and messy, it would have felt right to just leave the future up in the air and let the reader speculate.

Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn

A fast paced mystery thriller that will have you questioning how much you know about the people around you

415 pages