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Hi guys! It's been a while since I posted anything in this section. I'm busy with school work at university these days, so I unfortunately don't have much time or energy to update the site right now. However, ever since I recently started going to the library, I managed to make time to read all kinds of books! I have today off, so I'm taking the opportunity to start a new series on here where I talk about various books I've been reading lately!
For this post, I'll be talking about the first 2 books I borrowed from there: "Chase: A BookShot: A Michael Bennett Story" by James Patterson and Micheal Ledwidge. "Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History" by Art Spiegelman. I read these over a month ago, but never got the time to talk about them until now. These might not necessarily be super detailed or critical reviews, but rather little ramblings about what I like or dislike about them. I'm also going to try and keep things as spoiler-free as possible.
Now with that being said, let's get started!
This book is a crime/mystery short story which comes from a series of short stories called "Bookshots". Prior to reading Chase, I read a few other bookshots such as "Heist" and "The Hostage", both of which I absolutely loved. They were short, sweet and to-the-point, and Chase was no exception.
The book starts off wild already with a seemingly ordinary man at a bar being stalked by a duo of mysterious men who seem to have some personal beef with him. One fight and failed escape later has that same man plunging to his death off the side of a hotel. Now enter detective Micheal Bennett, who's on a mission to find out the truth about the nature of this case when it's initially ruled off as just a suicide.
I love the quick, snappy writing used in this book. It manages to say so much in quick, concise yet tastefully worded sentences that maintain the fast-paced flow of the story. I want to adapt this style of writing into my own, as I feel as though I struggle to figure out how much I should describe how something or someone is in order to adequately fresh it out. The pacing of this story is consistent and there's never a dull moment.
My favourite characters were Devine and Therkelson, who were the two mysterious men I mentioned just now. I especially took a liking to Devine, who was probably humanized and freshed out the most out of all the characters in the book (besides Micheal). As the story progresses, we get more information about his life as a kid, which turned out to be a bit sad sometimes. He also really admires his boss a lot in a way that (at least IMO) came off as homoerotic (which I mean in a good way. I'm a bit of a fujoshi afterall lol). He and Therkelson are probably really cute too. I couldn't stop imagining them as good-looking anime guys lol
Overall, the book was pretty good, though I wish the ending was a bit more fleshed out as it was kind of abrupt IMO. I would definately reccommend this book, especially to people interested in checking out the Bookshots series.
I heard a lot of good things about this book online for years, so when I spotted it in a little corner of a shelf in the young adults section, I snatched it up in a heartbeat.
This comic book/autobiography/historical documentation is based on Spiegelman's father experiences surviving WW2 as a Jewish man. The art style is so beautiful, and the panel layouts are incredibly creative and well-organized. The book constantly jumps between the past (the father's recounting his experiences) and the present (him at home, being interviewed by Spiegelman so he can gather info to write about), but it never gets confusing. The art inspired me a lot to get back into making comics again! I just need something fun to write out.
I'm honestly not sure how to write about this book without spoiling it too much or writing too little, but I will say that reading about the discrimination, struggles and atrocities the father and his family had to endure while living under Hilter's dictatorship was nothing short of tragic (especially when paired with some of those illustrations). This book is no easy read, but it's a damn good and important one. I highly recommend that you check this one out if you're interested.
Unfortunately, I don't think the library has the second installment (as yet, at least), but I could probably find it on some comic site online to read.
So that's it for the first installment of The Neo-Pangaea BookWorm's Digest. Hope you enjoyed it! Next time I'll be talking about Dragon Ball #1 by Akira Toriyama, Naruto #1 by Masashi Kishimoto and Underkill by Leonard Chang. Bye for now!