paranormal

Book Review: Odd Hours

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Odd Hours
Odd Thomas #4
by Dean Koontz

My rating: 2.5 / 5
Genre: Paranormal thriller

In a foggy coastal California town, Odd Thomas crosses paths with a mysterious young woman who seems to be in danger. When that danger engulfs him, he will have to use all of his wits and psychic abilities to save his own life and many others.

Like the previous book, this one is a bit of a departure from the main premise set up in the first book of this series, that being Odd getting into situations due to either ghosts visiting him or Bodachs alerting him to some pending danger. In this book, a combination of prophetic dreams and the cryptic woman he meets because of his dream start him off on his latest quest, and though some of his psychic abilities do come into play, they’re more vague and, well, just confusing to me. Not to say that no ghostly activity occurs here, but somehow it’s just not as good as the celebrity ghost from the first three books. And there is at least one paranormal element that I either didn’t follow or isn’t explained at all (even as much as paranormal elements are ever explained in this book). 

One thing I’ve noticed about these books in the past and was amplified here is the tendency for scenes to run on. When it really comes down to it, not a lot actually happened in this book, but when Odd would get into a situation—trying to escape from bad guys or track someone down, things like that—the scene would take several chapters, more than it really seems like it should. The combination of that and the aforementioned issues, and then an unsatisfying ending, made this my least favorite book in the series. I still like Odd as a character and some of the other odd characters he tends to run into, but I’m really hoping the series gets back to its earlier roots going forward.

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Book Review: Brother Odd

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Brother Odd
Odd Thomas #3
by Dean Koontz
Read by David Aaron Baker

My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Paranormal thriller

While living in a guest house at a monastery in order to simplify his life, Odd comes across something completely new, even with his penchant for seeing ghosts and other paranormal connections. The bizarre creature seemingly made of bones, combined with the Bodachs that have appeared around the area, leads Odd to believe something bad is about to happen.

This was my favorite book in the series so far. There are a lot of amusing moments in the book, from Odd’s interactions with Elvis to his banter with the suspicious Russian man also staying at the monastery. I continue to enjoy Odd as a character—kind and modest almost to a fault with a strong desire to protect those who are weak. The mystery kept me engaged, though I have to admit that the reveal was a little confusing, even convoluted. But that was really my only issue with the book. I was sad about a chapter that closed at the end of the book, but I look forward to seeing where the series goes. Sadly, I’ll have to fit the rest into my normal reading schedule, because the rest of the audiobooks don’t seem to be available from any of the library services available to me. But I enjoyed this third book enough to be willing to continue on my own.

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Book Review: Forever Odd

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Forever Odd
Odd Thomas #2
by Dean Koontz
Read by David Aaron Baker

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Paranormal thriller

When Odd’s best friend’s recently deceased (like, super recently) father visits him, Odd starts off on a mission to find his friend and save him from whoever seems to have abducted him and killed his father.

After finding the first book in the series interesting but a bit slow, this book is just as slow and less interesting. I still like Odd himself as a character. He’s very different from what you normally see in fiction in a lot of ways, a kind of throwback to a different time. Some reviewers seem to see this as a fault with the book, but I appreciate that his gifts have led him to live a simpler life—he has no real ambition, no need for vices, and in fact, what most people would see as a minor complication would throw his life out of whack completely. However, the first book really felt like a stand-alone. There’s usually a very different feel to a book that is the intentional first in a series compared to a book that was written to be a one-off, and though plenty of times a sequel or two may come after an original stand-alone, to me, this just didn’t work as a sequel. The main thing that I felt was seriously lacking in this book was the use of Odd’s gifts. His psychic magnetism gets plenty of play (and a new angle, unless I’m just forgetting something being mentioned in the first book), and he does see a few ghosts, but it seemed like a huge chunk of the book was just trying to escape from, hide from, and outwit the bad guys. It dragged down what was already a fairly slow read for me. Good thing I listened to the audiobook, or it might have taken me a really long time to get through this book. As for recommendations, if you haven’t read the first book, you probably shouldn’t start here, since it definitely references back and spoils some things. If you have and liked it, you may or may not like this one, depending a lot on which aspects of the first book you particularly liked or didn’t. That’s all I can really say.

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Book Review: Odd Thomas

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Odd Thomas
Book #1
by Dean Koontz
Read by David Aaron Baker

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Paranormal thriller

Odd Thomas can see dead people, but he can also see dark shade-like creatures that tend to congregate at sites of future disaster. Between these two things, Odd is drawn to help bring justice for victims and prevent future tragedies. He works as a short order cook in a small town in California, and when he sees a large congregation of these creatures, which he calls bodachs, interested in a particular customer, he does his best to investigate so he can try to stop whatever future catastrophe might have drawn so many bodachs.

Leaving aside the paranormal aspects, this book is a thriller mystery and a race against time to stop a massacre. Adding the paranormal aspects back in, and the overall story here is engaging and inventive. Odd himself is a sympathetic hero, if maybe a little too naïve and Gary Stu-ish. He tends to draw people to himself by being a nice, quiet guy and has more than one mentor-type character. The background Koontz shows us for Odd make me happy for him that he has these other people in his life to counter-balance some truly awful parents.

I’ve only read one Koontz before this, and I loved it, but this time, I found that his tendency to describe things in way more detail than necessary slowed the story way down. There was also a lot of focus on sex and references to body parts for a book with a main character that isn’t sleeping with his girlfriend. And a couple of the major side characters I did not particularly care for. They were just over the top in their personalities. I listened to the audiobook, and I don’t know if it would have been better to read it, so I could skim some of the descriptions or worse, because then I would have struggled to get through some of it and taken a lot longer to read it. Either way, I enjoyed the book more than not and was actually kind of annoyed with myself for not clocking the slight twist at the end before it happened. Also, I am very glad that I had already read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie before reading this book, because Koontz full-on spoils it! Overall, I like the world Koontz has set up here and Odd Thomas himself enough to continue the series. I think most people who enjoy paranormal thrillers would enjoy it, but just keep in mind the slowness.

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Book Review: Rest in Pieces (DNF)

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Did Not Finish: Rest in Pieces
Mrs. Murphy #2
by Rita Mae Brown

My rating: DNF, no rating
Genre: Cozy mystery

I’ve heard about this series for a while, seeing books at thrift stores often and knowing that my mom seemed to enjoy the series. I also watched a movie based on one of the books once, though I don’t remember much about it, other than that Ricki Lake plays the MC and the animals talk to each other. Still, I’ve enjoyed another series of cozy mysteries with animals (particularly a cat) in prominent roles, so I had good reason to think I might like this series.

The fault here may have been with those preconceptions, but I just don’t think I’m a good fit for the style of this book. It’s weird enough to me that the animals talk to each other (especially considering that the cat hunts mice…which it can talk to), but the animals cussing at each other, sometimes harshly, really threw me off. The inclusion of some very harsh language overall and talk of who likes to sleep around led me to start thinking I might not have it in me to keep going. Still, I plugged ahead, because I already owned 5-6 books in the series (picked up over the years from thrift stores, thankfully), and my mom did like the books, after all…for goodness sake, my parents’ dog is named Mrs. Murphy after the main cat in the series. But then when we’re introduced to Mrs. Murphy’s ex-husband (a cat, don’t forget), and we’re told about how he tends to sleep around…with other cats…I decided it was just too ridiculous for me to invest any more time into it. Maybe the series smooths out later, but I don’t care enough to find out.

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Book Review: Blood Rites (DNF)

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Did Not Finish: Blood Rites
The Dresden Files #6
by Jim Butcher
Read by james Marsters

My rating: DNF, no rating
Genre: Paranormal mystery

I’ve never DNF’d a book this far into a series, but I had to. I’m also calling it quits on the series, which I’ve rarely done this far into a series either. Though I mostly enjoyed the previous books, I commented about the amount of sexual content in each of my reviews. Jim Butcher’s main use for female characters seems to be as sexual objects, and their body parts are described often and in far too much detail. This makes me uncomfortable both as a woman and as a Christian.

So you can imagine my discomfort and frustration with this book that has a main setting of a porn movie set. At the 26% mark, I realized that just wasn’t worth it. I have enjoyed James Marsters’s narration, which might be the only reason I continued as long in the series as I did, but that’s it for me.

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Book Review: Death Masks

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Death Masks
The Dresden Files #5
by Jim Butcher
read by James Marsters

My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: Paranormal mystery

Professional wizard Harry Dresden is still dealing with the backlash of his crimes against the Red Court and now has to try to track down the missing Shroud of Turin.

I’ll be honest—I never really cared about Harry’s relationship with Susan. She was just kind of there, and suddenly they were a couple. Then she was gone, and he was devastated in a way I didn’t really understand, given what we’d seen of their relationship. So when she comes back in this book…I still don’t really care. Besides, the sex scene was far more graphic when I prefer, so it just made me all the more glad she’s not around more.

The rest of the book was sufficiently interesting. The duel hanging over Harry’s head while he tries to solve the mystery of the missing shroud makes it all the more intense, though of course we know he’s going to make it out okay somehow, since he’s the start of the series and by now we know several more have been written after this. So the outcome of the duel wasn’t a huge surprise, but I didn’t know how it would come about, and it all comes together pretty well. I was super excited in general to see Michael again in this book, though his wife, while I can understand how she feels, is starting to annoy me. I really hope that at some point, Butcher will include female characters for more than sex appeal (though Murphy is the exception to that), but so far, I plan to continue the series. If you’re interested in these books, I highly recommend the narration by James Marsters.

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Book Review: Summer Knight

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Summer Knight
The Dresden Files #4
by Jim Butcher
read by James Marsters

My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Paranormal mystery

Professional wizard Harry Dresden is recruited by the Winter Queen of Faerie to solve a murder, which ends up having bigger consequences than he originally imagined.

This book had all of the good of the previous ones in the series with almost none of the not-so-good. The stakes are high, Harry seems stronger and less generally unlucky, and the side characters are interesting and different. I like the way Billy and the werewolves sort of act as disciples of Harry’s, but also come in really handy when he needs help. And the humor…it was one of the things that first interested me in this series, and it seemed doubled in this installment. I chuckled quite a few times, and there was one particular moment during the climax that I had to back up and hear again. It’s one moment that I can say for certain would not have been as funny if I’d read it, rather than listening to it. James Marsters is a great narrator, and that moment in particular was brilliant.

There was a lot less sexual content in this book than previous ones, which I appreciated, though it still seems like most of the women characters, large or small, are just there to be leered at in text. If you’re interested in the series, I highly recommend the narration by James Marsters.

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Book Review: Grave Peril

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Grave Peril
The Dresden Files #3
by Jim Butcher
read by James Marsters

My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: Paranormal mystery

Professional wizard Harry Dresden teams up with a knight named Michael to attempt to figure out what has the spirit world so worked up. But they may get more than they bargained for, and Harry stands to lose more than his life in the end.

My favorite thing about this book is definitely Harry and Michael—their friendship, how they work together, and how they contrast each other. Some really funny moments came out of their interactions. The mystery of the Nightmare is engaging, as is the introduction of Harry’s godmother, which is sort of just dropped in like we should have already known about it, Butcher’s signature way of world-building.

I did like this book more than the previous, though I still hope for some improvement as the series continues. The formula I was concerned about becoming part of the series after the first two books was all but shattered in this one, which is good. Though I can’t say I’m a big fan of the super long-battle scenes that seem to be part of every book. I found it strange that every vampire seems to purr when they talk—actually, not just the vampire, but all of the bad guys. Dresden seems to use that verb a bit too heavily.  And if you ask me, there was too much Susan and not enough Murphy in this book. I still wish there was less content of a sexual nature, but it wasn’t as bad in this book as it was in the previous. And I definitely recommend the narration by James Marsters.

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Book Review: Fool Moon

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Fool Moon
The Dresden Files #2
by Jim Butcher
read by James Marsters

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Paranormal mystery

Harry Dresden is the only professional wizard available for hire in Chicago and is sometimes called on by the police to help solve crimes where magic is involved. So when a series of murders that happen around the full moon show other signs of involving werewolves, Harry is on the case. But will it prove to be too much for him to handle?

I was not as big a fan of this second book as I was the first in the series. I’ve read that the series gets better after you get into it (though how far into it varies widely), but while this one started off similarly enough to the first, it did not have as much of interest to me. It wasn’t so much a mystery as it was police procedural, and even after the case was basically solved, there was a lot of book left, which turned out to be mostly fighting. It doesn’t help that I usually find werewolves boring in any iteration. I did appreciate that there were various types of werewolves, but since I was listening to the audiobook and couldn’t easily go back to remind myself of which was which, it mostly confused me.

I’m finding some formula in the series that I really hope Butcher steers away from soon enough—like how Murphy keeps believing Dresden to be a bad guy (not that he helps the situation by not telling her the full truth, but she can’t manage to be understanding of how his hands are tied) or how Harry just gets beat up…so…much. Still, I enjoyed some humorous moments and lines, and there was a bit of a twist at the end involving one of the werewolves. Overall, the book just felt like it dragged on, but I’m still looking forward to continuing the series. I can’t pretend that I’d recommend this book in general, but it shouldn’t be enough to dissuade anyone from trying the series, especially if you’re a fan of mystery and detective noir novels, and enjoy or at least can tolerate the addition of supernatural elements (and the content warning below). In particular, if you like to listen to audiobooks, I recommend the narration by James Marsters.

One final note, something that was worse in this book than in the previous—there is quite a bit of sexual content. After my husband finished the audiobook, he commented on how, with the couple of female werewolves, every time they were in a scene, whether they were fully clothed or not (one of them was naked in at least 75% of her human-form page time), the narrator felt the need to remind us that they had certain female parts. And he was right…they were referenced often. I really hope this doesn’t remain at this level. There’s also some language, but not actually as much as I anticipated. And there’s certainly some violence, much more than the previous book (werewolves are beasts). My tolerance on things like these is fairly low, especially compared to the average reader, and while I do plan to continue, I really hope the level of sexual content, at least, doesn’t stay this high.

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