Review - Stephen King Desperation

What?  Stephen King's Desperation.

What’s it about?  Several travelers traversing the country --  a hotshot writer, a family on vacation with cute kids, a professor and his 'supposedly' cute wife -- who are forcefully confined in a little mining town called Desperation, Nevada, by a crazy policeman who is controlled by prehistoric evil forces.  This motley group of people has to stick together to survive and to find a way out of the town, i.e. Desperation.

Backcover Description:  There's a place alone Interstate 50 that some call the loneliest place on Earth. It's not a very nice place to live. It's an even worse place to die. It's known as Desperation, Nevada...

So, is it worth reading?  The backcover description is catchy enough to make you interested in the book even before you start reading. Stating that 'It's not a very nice place to live. It's an even worse place to die' to describe the eponymous place is enough to make you want to pick up the book.  But does the book live up the expectations set by the back cover? Somewhat yes.

The novel starts off quite well and you get a constant ominous feeling that something bad is about to happen and when it does, it comes unanticipatedly and adds to the impact of the first few chapters. There's this continuous feeling of something sinister going on.

However, ultimately it's only so long you realize that it is the quintessential (and boring) story of a group of survivors trying to well, survive. An idea that has been repeated in too many hollywood movies to count. Stephen King or no King, it's only a while that the suspense carries the book and you feel that it's the same old survivor story, just written in the twisted SK style with a lot of beating around the bush.

The ending is typical deus ex machina that King is infamous for and leaves you feeling unsatisfied just like a bad coffee.  The first part of the book is really good and if you want to read a survivor story done in Stephen King style, this just might be the book.

Rating: 3.5/5 (find out about ratings here).

Final Word (Go or no go?): Go! (read above though)

Where do I buy this?  See link below. 

Review - John Grisham The Brethren

What?  John Grisham's The Brethren. 

What’s it about?  Basically, a gay mail scam scheme gone wrong, a presidential election and three former disgraced judges.

Backcover Description:  They call themselves the Brethren: three disgraced former judges doing time in a Florida federal prison.

Meeting daily in the prison law library, taking exercise walks in their boxer shorts, these judges-turned-felons can reminisce about old court cases, dispense a little jailhouse justice, and contemplate where their lives went wrong.

Or they can use their time in prison to get very rich -- very fast. And so they sit, sprawled in the prison library, furiously writing letters, fine-tuning a wickedly brilliant extortion scam ... while events outside their prison walls begin to erupt.

A bizarre presidential election is holding the nation in its grips -- and a powerful government figure is pulling some very hidden strings. For the Brethren, the timing couldn't be better. Because they've just found the perfect victim...

So, is it worth reading? The Brethren starts as any Grisham novel, starting slowly and developing the plot page-by-page. The Brethren are 3 former disgraced judges serving time in a minimum security prison who decide they need to get rich quick and they develop a gay mail scam. But their scam ensnares a wrong victim, a presidential candidate. And thus starts the true plot. 

But does the plot work? Only partly. The plot is dependent and seems to focus more on the victim(s) rather than the protagonists (the brethren) themselves. The pace is slow and you wonder where the novel is going. The quintessential John Grisham chase comes very late in the novel but does help in making the proceedings a tad interesing.  However, it is too short, too late. The ending is somewhat better and actually complements the plot. Just don't expect the usual top-notch Grisham writing and you might have a good time with it.

Rating: 3/5 (find out about ratings here).

Final Word (Go or no go?): Go!

Where do I buy this?  See link below.

Testing

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Testing have to do a lot of testing and find out what's wrong