A Reading Diary
Day 1
Off to a mixed start! Three bodies, frozen under the snow in Gorky Park in Moscow, faces and fingertips mutilated to prevent easy identification. Bit of tension between our hero-to-be, Arkady Renko, and the boo-hiss stereotypical baddie from the KGB. The writing is messy with sentences quite often requiring more than one reading to try (or fail) to work out what the author is trying to communicate, but maybe it will improve. Or maybe it won’t.
“Vodka was liquid taxation, and the price was always rising. It was accepted that three was the lucky number on a bottle in terms of economic prudence and desired effect. It was a perfect example of primitive communism.”
Eh?
Day 2
No movement in the plot whatsoever. I say plot, but I fear one has yet to appear. We’ve had our first naked woman though, complete with nipple description! Arkady’s wife, who seems to stroll around their apartment naked despite the Arctic weather outside – who knew Muscovites had such effective heating systems in the 1980s? Impressive! And fortunate, since she and Arkady generate no heat of their own, clearly disliking each other quite a lot. Arkady meets another girl, though – a weird and quirky twenty-one-year-old, with whom our middle-aged hero is obviously destined to have sex at some point. I wonder what her nipples will be like…
Day 3
Still no identification of the corpses. Still no movement in the investigation. Arkady and his wife have split up after Arkady got into a punch-up with her lover. Arkady has been beaten up by someone whose identity we also don’t know, but despite being punched in the heart twice and kicked in the head, next day he’s fine. To summarise – three unidentified corpses, no suspects, no plot, two beatings, one naked woman, and endless lectures about Soviet history and how awful life is under Soviet rule (because presumably we didn’t know that). To quote Chandler Bing, could I be more bored?
Day 4
Apparently I could.
* * * * *
Abandoned at 19%. Life is too short and the book is too long.
* * * * *
This was The People’s Choice winner for November. Thanks for getting it off my TBR, People! 😉
Well done for not sticking with it!
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Haha, I’m getting so much better at abandoning books at last! 😉
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So what did you think of the book, FictionFan? Were you drawn in? Did you feel swept away? 😉 Seriously, I am sorry to hear you didn’t like it better. But there is so much to read, and life is limited. I give you credit for stopping if you could see it wasn’t for you.
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Yes, I loved every word – could you tell? 😉 I’m afraid when a book is long it needs to grab my interest quite early on or I have too much time for boredom to set in, and then I become hyper-critical! Haha, my abandoned pile this year could fuel a power-plant… 😀
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Hmmm, let me guess: you just could not warm up to it?
I cannot remember anything about it, it’s been so long since I read it, but it seems to be a favourite for many spy thriller fans.
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Yes, I’m definitely in a tiny minority – it seems to have worked for most people. But not me, I’m afraid! 😂
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The quote you chose was enough of a put-off for me. Life is too short indeed!
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I’ve read that quote about twenty times now, and it simply doesn’t make sense! He must have missed out the sentence that would have told us what the heck he was trying to say… 😉
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Oh my word! 😨 Good call on the DNF.
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Haha, I’m becoming an expert at DNFing! I hope they make it an Olympic event soon… 😉
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Oh dear! I’ve had this on my Kindle for 5 years -the only good thing about that is that I only paid 99p for it. On the other hand – I paid for it! Not sure I’ll read it now …
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Haha, I suspect I got it on that same Daily Deal! The only thing I’d say in its favour is that most people seem to love it, so don’t let me put you off completely… though sometimes I think it’s better just to accept the financial hit and move on… 😉
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hilarious and great it’s off your pile, to the charity shop I suspect and big admiration for giving up
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Sadly a Kindle copy, so all I could do was delete it in a marked manner! I’ve discovered throwing the Kindle at the wall is expensive… 😉
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Hoorah! I’m so pleased you were able to cut yourself free. It sounds like he wrote this under the influence of a few gallons of vodka….
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Aha! Obviously that’s where I went wrong! I should have downed a bottle or two before I read it! Then at least I could have put the incomprehensibilities down to my drink-addled brain… 😉
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Brilliant review, think I’ll skip the book though. I seem to remember voting for something else that month, as the blurb for this didn’t exactly appeal anyway. At least it is ticked off your list now.
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Haha, thank you – sometimes I just need to get a book out of my system! 😉 I was actually really pleased when this one won – I expected to enjoy it. Wrong again – oh dear! 😂
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I’m almost positive I didn’t vote for this one, so I can’t take any blame here! Good for you, FF, abandoning it when you did. I can only imagine how much worse something like this could get, ha!
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Haha, I can never blame The People anyway since it’s me who bought all these silly books in the first place! 😉 I think it was fear of how much worse it could get that led me to cut and run… 😂
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I feel certain I didn’t vote for this one. It didn’t interest me then and it SURE doesn’t interest me now!! Thanks for a thoroughly entertaining review! 😃 I’m glad it’s off your TBR.
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Haha, glad you enjoyed the review! I’m glad it’s gone too, although I really did expect to enjoy it – wrong again! Doh! 😂
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This might be my favorite of your 1-star reviews, FF. I literally LOL’ed. I’m glad it was chosen so I could read this!
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Haha, glad you enjoyed it! I could see my notes were getting more and more sarcastic every day, so it seemed the only thing to do was type them up as they stood… 😂
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I read it long ago, and barely remember it. On the other hand, this was one where I liked the movie better.
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As usual I haven’t seen the movie either – I hardly watch films these days. But I can imagine the film would be better, because they’d tend to get on with it a bit faster! 😉
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This was one I read as a teen and quite liked, who knows what I’d make of it now, but it really does have a plot! Well, it least it’s off your list.
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Haha, I did flick to the end as I often do before finally abandoning a book and I could tell there was clearly a plot at some point – but I was bored waiting! 😉 I know a lot of it is me – I just don’t seem to have had the motivation to stick with books that aren’t quickly grabbing me for the last year or so. I blame Covid…
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I didn’t vote for it as had found the blurb pretty pedestrian. Now can I say: I told you so😉😆
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Haha, I shall pay more attention to what you say in future… 😉
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I think I voted for Gorky Park, although I never had any intention of reading it for myself.
Your diary entries are even funnier than Bridget Jones!
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Haha, sometimes when I read my notes back I realise what a sarcastic old so-and-so I really am… but I usually edit them a lot before posting them! 😀
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Sarcasm is very amusing in your hands 🙂
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Yes, I’m sure that’s what the authors think too… 😉
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This is one of those books where the name is so familiar that I think I should pick it up one day… good to know I don’t need to bother 😀
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I think that’s why I bought it all those years ago, and it may well have felt much fresher when it was newer. But it felt pretty run-of-the-mill now, I fear!
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Wow nipple descriptions, that’s a new one! I’m cold just reading this review hahah
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Haha, clearly you don’t read many books by middle-aged men! It’s freezing here tonight and funnily enough I have no desire whatsoever to wander round my house with no clothes on… 😉
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