Drama – DaneCobain.com

Title: Jaws

Author: Peter Benchley

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 288

Rating 3.5/5

I’m not exactly a super fan of Jaws and so while I’ve seen the movie, I don’t particularly remember it. I have it on good authority, though, that the book and the movie are totally different, and I can imagine that. Certainly none of it felt familiar while I was reading it.

Unfortunately it took me a while to get into the book and so I ended up reading it as my bedtime book. I also thought there were a few problems with the way that Benchley wrote about women which carried through not just in the words and actions of the characters but in the actual narrative voice itself.

But once you get past that and you settle yourself in for the fact that this is more of a small town drama than a Hollywood blockbuster, it’s pretty easy to get drawn into the story and the subsequent hunt for the shark. Sure, the ending was a little bit of an anti-climax, but that almost didn’t matter. That wasn’t really what the book is all about.

I think what Benchley did well here is similar to what Stephen King does well. Both authors are able to tap into the inherent fears we have as human beings and to write stories that tap directly into them. Although in all honesty, I wouldn’t say that Jaws is particularly scary. Suspenseful, but not scary. But if you like the movie and you’re a fan of suspenseful novels, it’s got to at least be worth checking out. Make of that what you will! As for me, it’s time to read something else.

Click here to buy Jaws.

Ruth Ware – In a Dark, Dark Wood | Review

Title: In a Dark, Dark Wood

Author: Ruth Ware

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 360

Rating: 3.5/5

Ruth Ware – In a Dark, Dark Wood

This is Ruth Ware’s first novel, and if I’m honest, I think you can tell. It’s super slow for the first couple of hundred pages, with all of the action and the fairly predictable conclusion all jammed in right at the end. In that respect, it’s a little bit like the opposite of The Woman in Cabin 10, her second book, where it started really well and then just petered out towards the end.

I still read this book in just a couple of days, but then I also spent a lot of time travelling. I think that’s a blessing, because by condensing the story into a short period of time, it helped the momentum that there was to keep going. I buddy read this with a BookTuber friend of mine who said that he liked the flashes forward into the future, but I was kind of the opposite. I know that they were there because if they weren’t there, there wouldn’t be any drama. But at the same time, I didn’t think they really worked, at least until the end where it all came together.

I guessed who did it and why, as well as calling a few of the other “twists“, but I think that’s the point with novels like these. I’ve never really read one where something his totally taken me by surprise, and yet I’m pretty sure that’s the point of these modern psychological thriller style novels. Part of that might be because the people always seem to be fundamentally unlikeable and part of that is because it always seems to depend upon whatever weird relationships people got up to in the past. You end up feeling as though you need a pHD in gossiping just to follow what’s happening.

Still, for what it was, it was pretty good, and the fact that I read it so quickly can only count in its favour. I have mixed feelings about the book, but more positive than negative. I doubt I’ll re-read it, though.