DEAD(ish)

DEAD[ish] by Naomi Kramer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a fun read! I enjoyed this so much that I cannot wait to read the next book in the series.

We meet Mike. He has a problem. He murdered his girlfriend and now she's haunting the crap out of him. Not just run of the mill Caspar the Friendly Ghost pranks, but mean and nasty ones. I especially enjoyed when he woke up to discover Linda has coloured his hair blue, eyebrows green and skin orange - as Mike puts it, "I look like a smurf, a munchkin, and an oompa loompa had an orgy and I was their love child." At the brink of despair, he seeks out assistance from an "exorcist" to rid himself of his vengeful ex. Unfortunately for him, his "exorcist" is actually a private investigator hired by Linda to help her find her body.

After the cops arrive to his house due to a noise complaint (Linda blaring the stereo early the in the morning), he ends up going to jail thanks to the pot plants Linda has placed in the living room. While he is in jail, the sordid tale of Linda's demise becomes apparent through discussions with Mike's neighbours - a flamboyantly gay couple who are a lot closer to Mike and Linda then we are initially led to believe.

This story is filled to the brim with foul language and suggestive scenes. The tone is very casual and the dialogue is exactly what you would expect from the characters. It all comes together in such a skillful way that you really find yourself feeling close to the characters - which can be rare in short stories.

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The Massive Hole Theory

The Massive Hole Theory by Michael S. West
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book truly deserves a 3.5 star rating. Not quite 4 star material, but despite the story starting off with some redundant and odd statements it really did improve as I kept reading.

We meet Ryan in the process of getting fired as a real estate lawyer at a big firm. He is obviously angry and heads to his local bar. Calls up a buddy of his who went through the same thing five years ago (but has since set up his own little grassroots criminal firm) for some drinks. His friend, Alex, arrives and tries to cheer him up by offering him a job at his firm. Considering Ryan's lamentations about his future job prospects, he is surprisingly hesitant about going to work with his friend. Personally, I would think he'd jump at the chance - at least it's work!

Now, I admit that the whole bar scenario had me a little confused as to the timeline of events. It was hard to tell how much time was passing in the story - not sure if this was the author's intentions, perhaps in an attempt to pull the reader into Ryan's confusion as he gets drunker. For example, after a quick conversation involving two shots and a Jack & Coke, Ryan is suddenly belligerently drunk. He argues with Alex about his intoxication, to the point of Alex admitting his rather stalkerish habit of secretly recording the people he's drinking with - just for the sake of playing the recording back to the people the next day because "they never believe how they sound after a few".

Let me take a moment here to talk about Alex. At this point I thought he was a complete freak. His creepy habit doesn't exactly make him out to be an overly upstanding guy. And his fixation with pointing out that he's not "taping" people because there's no "tape" on his iPhone got on my nerves, I admit it. This is also the same guy who is apparently capable of being "the most serious Ryan had ever seen" in the presence of a cop (who really tracked Ryan down fast!), yet seconds later blurts out a pretty incriminating statement. But as the story progressed I honestly began to enjoy his sense of humor and he turned out to be my favourite character of the book.

Now, back to the bar scene and the muddled time sequencing. Enough time passes that several other lawyers from his firm show up, also fired. And a higher-up lawyer shows up with a posse of gawkers, who heard about the congregation of fired folk. Ryan supposedly drinks like a fish the whole time and is fine holding a conversation, then BAM he's belligerent again.

Anyways, fast forward to the next morning when he awakens at 10:18am with a massive hangover. He is rushes to meet Alex about the job offer, even though Alex told him not to rush in "first thing in the morning". Minutes after getting to Alex's office, a detective shows up to question Ryan about the murder of Karl - the guy who fired him the day before! And Ryan's the prime suspect! Oh no!!

I won't say too much more, for the sake of not spoiling the rest of the story for anyone. But their "investigation" is pure hilarity. The whole time I was thinking to myself, "no way anyone would try this stuff. Are you freakin' kidding me??". But it was a fun read nonetheless and I found myself flipping the pages quicker and quicker as I continued to read. If you want a fluffy and quirky quick read, give it a go. If nothing else, finding out exactly what the "Massive Hole Theory" is will give you a good chuckle.

A side note: I find it extremely weird that the law firm didn't shut down at all when the body was found. I would've thought they'd shut off the whole floor, possibly the entire building. Or maybe I just watch too much CSI.



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A Land of Ash

A Land of Ash by David Dalglish
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

HOLY CRAP! This book had me nervously looking out my window at an incoming storm cloud. What makes it so scary is how easy it is to relate to the characters in the book. It's so easy to put yourself in their shoes, to feel their same desperation and despair in a world now destroyed by ash.

This book delivers 11 gut-wrenching short stories about different people in different areas trying to survive after an eruption in Yellowstone. As you progress through the book, you find yourself at further time points from the initial eruption. The stories are all extremely well written and they all manage to grip the reader with the amazing characters found within.

Seriously, go read this book. Don't even bother with the rest of this review, just go read it.

If you are still planning on reading the rest of the review, here's my two cents on each story:

1. One Last Dinner Party: A 65 year old couple enjoys one last dinner party with their friends before an ash cloud envelopes them. The story ends on a very sad note, but it's heart warming at the same time. I loved when the characters all got to enjoy one last moment of beauty (you'll know what I'm talking about) - it sort of lightened the mood of the whole story. When the ash begins to fall like snow, it paints quite the mental image. And sets the stage for the ash-filled stories to follow.

2. Alone on the Mountain: Interesting story about a man who has been living in a cave on a Kentucky mountain-side for the last 15 years. The story is about the three days he spends noticing the increasingly strange animal behavior precipitating bad earthquakes. My favourite element of the story was reading about how he adapted over the years to living in the wilderness. I also had to laugh when he was being chased down by wolves and thinks to himself, "so this is how it ends". Such a calm thought to have in the face of imminent death!

3. Shelter: This touching story features a man and his 6 year old daughter, holed up in his modular home sealed tight with duct tape. They are trying to weather the ash storm until it is safe enough to go out. The descriptions of how the ash coats and crushes anything was rather haunting. The mental image was burned into my brains days after I finished reading. When Jason reflects back on how he always meant to buy a generator, but it's "too late now, everything is too late now", it serves as a smack to the reader's head: get out and do those things you've been procrastinating on! The only thing I disliked a bit was that the reader is left wondering what happens to the characters. This is certainly not a fault of the author - this is simply my strange mental issue with feeling like I didn't get adequate closure from a book.

4. Beach Puppies: This quick tale circles around Harvey, who is sitting on the beach of "their island" with all his friends. They are living their last night, watching lottery/raffle winners escape on jet planes. We learn Harvey has a secret he's been keeping from his friends, simply because they mean so much to him.

5. Toward the Storm: A story about hope and faith. Gertrude and her cat are walking west on the highway towards the storm to "follow the food" - since everyone else headed east with only what they could carry, she knows they will soon run out of food. She, on the other hand, finds plenty of food and supplies left behind in abandoned vehicles. She awakes one night to find a stranger sitting near her - Samuel. He seems like a legit guy, but we soon learn that he has no tolerance for Gertrude's faith in Jesus/God. He tries to convince her that the eruption is proof enough God doesn't exist, but Gertrude remains faithful to the end.

6. Last Words: Here we meet Harold, who is trying to reach out to his distraught 30 year old son. Gary broke up with his girlfriend several months ago because she wanted to move to California and he did not. When they last spoke to each other, he got very angry and said something terrible to her. Now he is trying to come to terms with his guilt over the last words spoken to his ex, and Harold is hoping to alleviate some of this guilt.

7. Refugees: Carly is an aide to the president, and has arrived in Boston to prepare the mayor for the wave of refugees coming. The reader really gets a sense of how desperate things are becoming, as food and shelter become a luxury. Then we meet a man and his daughter, two of the refugees arriving in Boston. A massive riot occurs and their survival depends on their escape.

8. A Harmless American: This story takes across the border into Mexico. Javier is patrolling the Rio Grande to ensure no Americans cross into Mexico, with the order to shoot anyone who manages to swim across the now freezing, ash-laden river. However, when a little girl washes ashore on a log he cannot bring himself to shoot her. He instead takes her to his tent and manages to hide her underneath the bed when his partner, Sergio arrives. Sergio loves his "job" and has a very bold stance on why no Americans should be allowed into his country. As the two men smoke and conversate on the riverbank, the reader is constantly wondering if Sergio knows about the little girl in the tent. This is my favourite story out of the entire book.

9. Secret Mission: Okay, I'll admit it. I did not really like this story at first. It opens with a 5 year old boy, Derek, being sent on a "secret mission" by his mother. The two are in a crowded "refugee camp" in a football stadium with thousands of others. He has a "secret package" in his pants that he cannot open until he finds a private place. I was a little creeped out by the part where Derek is thinking about how beautiful his mother is and how often he tells her this. It just came off... weird for a 5 year old. Anyways, the story is about his search for a private place to enjoy his secret package. The ending is very heart warming.

10. The One That Matters: Now THIS is a tear jerker! Guido has spent 20 years builing a bomb shelter in his Conneticut home, even though everyone told him he'd never need it. But now he's looking smart and has refuge from "the Event". He also has Alyssa, a little girl that wandered into his yard as he was securing his shelter in preparation for the ash storm. Even though he turned away his own neighbours, he "adopts" this little girl and the two hide out in his bomb shelter (for 112 days). The reader begins to understand Guido a bit better when the girl asks to hear more of his stories. These "stories" are actually conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination, 9/11, and the moon landing. Then one day they hear on the radio that the French have arrived with ships to help the survivors. They set off towards the harbour, but are stopped by five teenage boys gone mad who want the girl. Guido fights with his baseball bat, but succumbs to their planks and rusty nails. Guido's only concern is the safety of his "granddaughter".

11. Let it Continue: This is the perfect story to end on. It's filled with hope for the future in this destroyed new world of ash. A married couple have traveled to Maine to meet Faye, a nurse. The reader learns that the husband has brought them here to terminate the pregnancy, whereas the wife thought they were going to have Faye assist with the deliver of the baby. The story is basically two parents-to-be struggle to decide what's best for their child - can they really bring a new life into a world filled with hunger and despair? But can they live with themselves if they choose to terminate?

Whew! Well that's that. Now go get this book, what are you waiting for?!?!

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