Books Reviewed

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
What differentiates novels like The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo from other lengthy blockbusters like, say Gone Girl is that the former takes itself much too earnestly to be appreciated. TGwtDT is a bestseller, yes, but it deals with a serious topic no other book has touched: violence against women!…
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It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The 7 Secrets of Awakening the Highly Effective Four-Hour Giant, Today by The Gang
If you have never watched an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia then this book is not for a jabroni like you. But if you are a glue-huffing degenerate who enjoys the antics of the most wretched gang of drunks, this is a self-help book for written just for us.…
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A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin
After reading A Game of Thrones, I concluded that G. R. R. Martin is like a little boy who likes to create a big tower out of blocks, carefully laying one on top of the other, so the column reaches a great pinnacle that amazes. As mom’s running to take a picture, he gleefully smashes it down and watches the pieces scatter all over the room.…
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Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Gone Girl depicts how people forge intimate bonds with media images of beautiful crime victims while demonizing the suspects with perfect, biting satire. This book befriended me in my time of illness and self-pity. It was a twisted friend, one that fed upon my sickness and bad feelings. …
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Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
Known as the English bard’s most violent play, “Titus Andronicus” had all the foul elements to be right up my alley. As a lover of the horror genre in all its forms, a tale filled with dismemberment, filicide, abduction, murder, tongue-cutting, adultery, beheadings, throat-slashings, and regicide should have made me quiver with terror. While I enjoyed it, I was not moved by the ceaseless calamities nor by Shakespeare’s less than usually stellar dialogue.…
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The Da Vinci Code By Dan Brown
Far from being the engaging blockbuster that I had heard, I found The Da Vinci Code to be an unremarkable let-down filled with flat characters and silly “twists.” Christians of all stripes, Gnostics, atheists, agnostics, historians, lovers of art, readers who enjoy characterization or fast-paced thrillers or even mildly entertaining books, all these people should be offended, because if you’re paying good money for an appealing story, this isn’t it.…
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The Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille
Written in 1928 and denounced as blasphemous, The Story of the Eye by French author Georges Bataille, straddles the line between horror and sex in a manner that would offend most readers, both 100 years in the past and in today’s modern era.…
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The Dirty Parts of the Bible by Sam Torode
The Dirty Parts of the Bible by Sam Torode is a loose retelling of “The Book of Tobit” from the Catholic/Orthodox Deuterocanonical books of the Bible. …
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The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
From the moment I picked up Paulina Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train, the main character intrigued me. Here is a woman, Rachel, an alcoholic divorcee, unemployed and unable to have children. …
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Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories by Truman Capote
Breakfast at Tiffany’s is actually Truman Capote’s collection of one novella and three short stories. As such, the book should be rated for all tales included, which were underwhelming. Over the years, I’ve lost my tolerance for pretentious writing, and despite Capote’s earthiness, never once did I shake that feeling of pretentiousness.…
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Seven Noble Knights by J.K. Knauss
Seven Noble Knights by J.K. Knauss is historical fiction done right. Based on an old Spanish legend, this book takes the reader back to 10th-century Hispania, a land divided among different cultures, Christians to the North and a Muslim Empire to the South. Much bloodshed and calamity occur and many years later, a hero arises to avenge family honor.…
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