August brought the end of my wonderful summer and sent me back to work. I know I have nothing to complain about though, I had an amazing vacation and I have a job I truly enjoy and was even a little excited to return to.
Adjusting back to work and my hectic schedule definitely put a damper on my reading, and I only got through two books.
1. The Cuckoo’s Calling-Well, this book took me most of the month of August to get through. Partly because of my busy schedule, and partly because of some hang ups I just could not shake.
For starters this book was written by the almighty J.K. Rowling, under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, which was just….odd. I am not sure why the pseudonym was used, especially because it even says on the back cover that the book is written by Rowling, under the pseudonym.
I am (obvs) a huge fan of hers (who isn’t? No, seriously.) The Harry Potter series is a huge part of my life and I was ecstatic to read her first post Potter novel The Casual Vacancy. I did not expect a HP book for adults, and I was not disappointed, I was pleased to see her range and scope as an author.
I had high hopes for The Cuckoo’s Calling, but one hang up that is still getting to me is the front cover. This book is about a beautiful model who seemingly commits suicide, yet her death becomes investigated as a murder and the story begins to unfold. The model in the book is half African and half white. Maybe it’s just me, but I would never get that sense from the cover. I read a great blog post (that I could not find the link to) about the lack of diversity in book covers. This particular cover seemed to tone down the ethnicity of the main character and I wondered how it would have been perceived, if a more ethnic model was portrayed. I may be reading too much into this, but it was a feeling I could not shake, each time I looked at the cover.
The story itself draaaaaaaged. The main character is actually the detective who is investigating the model’s death. He is a complex, interesting character and I enjoyed getting to know his story. However, I felt the investigation itself was tedious. I felt like I was hearing the same details over and over again from various witnesses. It did not feel like the story picked up till about the last 100 pages and it also felt like everything fell into place a little too easily and *boom*, mystery solved.
I know there is another novel, about the same detective that was recently released, The Silkworm. I am currently debating back and forth whether or not to read it….
2. All Men Are Brothers-This was a short, but complex read. It was excerpts from Gandhi on some of the topics he lived, fought and died for. There was some amazing quotes that I still do not think I have quite digested. It will be a book I will need to re-read again and again throughout my life.
Have you read The Cuckoo’s Calling? What did you think of it?
Angie Eats Peace 