Unreliable – DaneCobain.com

Louise Candlish – The Other Passenger | Review

Title: The Other Passenger

Author: Louise Candlish

Type: Fiction

Page Count: 411

Rating: 4/5

I was sent a signed copy of this book for free as part of a bookish subscription box that reached out to me, but I don’t think that will influence my review. Still, I guess that’s a disclaimer for you.

The theme of the box that I received was all about the commute and this was pretty much the perfect book for it because it was mostly set on the commuter boats that people take to get into the city. As for the genre, it’s basically as close to generic contemporary thriller as you can get, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

We have a lot of the classics tropes here, from an unreliable narrator to tons of twists and turns, complex interpersonal relationships and of course that little technique of jumping backwards and forwards through time to advance what’s happening in the present by bringing up something that happened in the past and which changes the way we look at things.

Other than that, I don’t really want to say too much about the plot, purely because as with most of these, half of the point is being taken by surprise. And I will say that while there were one or two things that I called pretty early on, there were also a couple of twists here and there that I didn’t spot.

It probably also helped that I received quite a nice edition of this, a hardback with the author’s signature in it, and so it was quite an aesthetically pleasing read, too. I can’t say that I’m the biggest fan of thrillers in general, as I tend to prefer either cosy mysteries, private detectives or gritty police procedural novels, but it certainly did the job and was a pleasant enough read, keeping me going until the end to find out the truth about what happened.

And that brings us on to the question of whether I’d recommend it or not, and that really depends upon the type of reader that you are. If you’re really into modern thrillers and you loved Gone Girl and Girl on the Train, you’re probably going to like this one. There are a ton of twists, more than I’ve seen in a novel of this size in quite a long time, and the characters are just warped enough to keep them interesting.

Learn more about The Other Passenger.

Stephen King – Dolores Claiborne | Review

Title: Dolores Claiborne

Author: Stephen King

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 308

Rating: 4*/5

Stephen King – Dolores Claiborne

Dolores Claiborne is interesting because the entire book is essentially the narrative of a woman who’s been arrested for murder. We join her in the interview room at the local police station as she explains what happened, and I can’t actually tell you too much more than that without spoiling the plot.

What’s cool here is that despite the entire book being essentially just Dolores’ dialogue, it actually adds to the characterisation at a whole. It’s almost like the ultimate unreliable narrator, but it’s also impressive to see how strong the characterisation was. Considering all of the characterisation had to be conveyed by Dolores’ dialogue, I think he did a pretty strong job.

Similarly, King deployed dialect to great effect, and the way that Dolores speaks is itself a great little indicator of her personality, her upbringing and other key characteristics. Honestly, I found her to be a highly likeable character, and I was impressed by her resilience and how she stood up for what she believed in, even if that did lead to her spending time in the interview room at the station.

Overall then, this is a solid book and very much worth reading. It’d actually make a pretty decent introduction to Stephen King’s work as a whole, partly because it’s relatively easy to read and it doesn’t take a huge time commitment. But on top of that, it touches on themes like domestic abuse and alcoholism that crop up elsewhere. The good thing is that he doesn’t tackle those subjects just for the sake of doing it but rather because they’re integral parts of the story line, and it’s also a story of empowerment, in a way. I mean, Delores is pretty badass. What a character.