This week I started thinking about writing younger novels. I tend to be upbeat, so that meant reading some kids books.
I finished The Day is Dark by Yrsa Sigurdardottir. I read I Remember You last week. the Night Is Dark was not as good. I find that they drag a bit for me and I don’t really enjoy them as much. They aren’t bad but they aren’t something I get really excited about.
Then I read The Midnight Tunnel which I did enjoy. It was simple, but it’s a kid’s book. It was a child’s mystery and it was quite enjoyable.
I also picked up Dragonology’s The Dragon’s Eye. I found this okay. I didn’t like the adult in the book and that really made me struggle with the story. Kids might not mind it and it was a fun idea but I wish they had made the professor more human.
Finally. I started in on John Ajvide Lindqvist . People who had commented on I Remember You recommended him. I read Little Star which was good although I wouldn’t call it horror. I think I’d call it suspense. There wasn’t much supernatural there. I’d say more weird. It’s the sort of thing that could almost happen. I think it does him a disservice to be compared to Stephen King. These are very different books.
In addition to Little Star, I also read Handling the Undead, by Lindqvist, which I really liked. Again this is not Stephen King, although they are compared, this is more of an odd tale with sort of a dark twist. I highly enjoyed this because we don’t often get this type of dark fantasy in English and I’m glad that Lindqvist’s works have been translated.
Finally, one non-fiction in the group. Albert Bernstein’s Emotional Vampires. This is pop-psychology by a psycho-therapist who isn’t afraid to laugh a little at himself and his profession as well as those of us who read pop-psychology books. I actually had a friend who was treated by Bernstein about twenty years ago and she spoke very highly of him so periodically I check out what he’s writing. This is a new version of the book and I think he has updated it well.