Confessions by Kanae Minato

Confessions by Kanae Minato
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This review might contain spoilers.
I bought this book as soon as I read the premise, because it was just too intriguing. A teacher’s little daughter has been killed by her students and she seeks revenge. It sounded interesting and the beginning did capture my interest, but the more I read the more I rolled my eyes. There was too much of everything in one short book. How come there were so many sociopaths and bullies in a single class of 13 y.o. kids? And not just the kids: there were 3 mothers in the book and all 3 were weird in one way or the other. One was abusive, the other dotted on her kid too much and in the end decided to kill him and herself, and the third, the teacher, starts a revenge which results in the death of an innocent student, but she doesn’t even feel guilty. Not in the least. She does something else in the end, which again was just too unbelievable. I know that grief might drive people to madness, but that was too much.
Also, one of the evil kids was too genius, the other too stupid. In the age of internet and technology, a 13 y.o boy in Japan doesn’t think about testing his blood at a lab or googling AIDS which he thinks he has contacted? Not plausible. As for the genius, he was smart but also an idiot to tell of his evil plan on his website. Oh well...
A lot of things in this book were implausible and if I start writing about everything that bugged me, this will become a very long review.
As I said, the premise was interesting, but I was expecting something else. I don’t know, something more serious. This book read like a young adult revenge story, not an adult thriller.


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Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A book that broke my heart. Turned my world upside down. Made me a better person.
And isn’t it amazing that a single book can do so many things to you, break your heart and mend it, then shatter it again and squeeze the blood out of the shards? Someone might say, “it’s just a book, it can’t do so many things.” And I’ll tell them, “go read it yourself and tell me you’re still the same person.”
In the last decades whenever someone would ask me what was my favorite book, I wouldn’t know which one to name. I’ve read so many fantastic books and each of them has given me something, and it’s always hard to pick just one. Well, I know now that if I get asked that same question, I will always think of “Flowers for Algernon.”
Thank you Daniel Keyes for giving me this lesson on humanity.


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Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was such an interesting story, but so unbelievable. Everything was great: the writing, the pace, the characters, but I can’t make myself believe that the doctors and the whole asylum would go to such lengths. Guess I can’t suspend disbelief that much, because the truth was just too unbelievable for me.
And still, this was suspense at its best, when you feel that something’s wrong, but you can’t quite put your finger on it. I hadn’t watched the movie so I went into the book knowing only that there’s some kind of twist in the end. I took the wrong path at first, thinking that Teddy’s partner was never there and just his imagination, but because the other characters were interacting with the partner, I stopped suspecting something was wrong there. The author fooled me nicely and I loved it.
I recommend this book if you haven’t watched the movie. But then, read it nevertheless: it was so well written :)


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The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris

The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hannibal Lecter is unarguably one of the most chilling and creepiest book characters. And the scariest thing is that he’s not just the product of the author’s imagination. Serial killers like him lived through us, and my god, they still might be among us.
I decided to read the book after I rewatched The Silence of the Lambs few weeks ago. That movie is outstanding, and of course i was curious to get to know the source material. This is one of those rare cases when the movie is as good as the book, maybe even slightly better. Mostly because of Hopkins’s performance. I also think that they did some things better in the movie, like showing Buffalo Bill applying make up and dancing naked near the end of the movie, unlike the book. That scene in the movie made the hair on my nape stand up. It was the moment when I realized that he can never be reasoned with, and that made him so much scarier.
But back to the book. My favorite parts were of course the interaction between Lecter and Clarice. Whenever Lecter appeared on the pages, I’d read his scenes slowly and meticulously. The most interesting aspect of Lecter is that he can’t be categorized, ‘cause he’s simultaneously too smart and too evil. Is he a psychopath? Sure. But why? That’s the interesting part about him: the reason. Why is he a psycho? The book doesn’t give an answer. And it ends with him gaining freedom, making the story even scarier, leaving the reader with the knowledge that this person with no feeling of remorse or love is out, hunting someone just for fun.


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E-books vs Paperbacks

I took this photo for my instagram page and it led me to this thought: how many people still buy paperbacks?

I know I don’t. And probably never will. I just don’t have space for paperbacks anymore. But it’s not only that. Recently I received paperbacks as gifts, and I still haven’t touched them. I think I’ve become too used to a Kindle and don’t want to go back to leafing through a book, feeling it’s weight in my hands, to not being able to highlight a line or click on a word and instantly know what it means.

E-books changed my life. I love them.

And it seems that 99% of my readers are like me. I sell 1 paperback against 100 e-books.

And that’s just great!

The day is close when print-on-demand will be the only way to buy paperbacks. I don’t see anything tragic in that. On the contrary, this is one of the better changes happening in the world: saving trees.

I know that e-books are also about spending resources, but one e-reader against thousands of printed books is a good solution.