I was aiming to read 52 books this year. As Stephen King said, "If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot." I was able to surpass my goal, and here's the last batch of books I read in 2023:
FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH: A TRUE STORY by Cameron Crowe
Cameron Crowe was a Rolling Stone journalist who met, toured with, and wrote about some of the greatest musicians of the 1970s when he was just a teenager – a time that inspired his excellent 2000 film Almost Famous. He was in his early twenties when his job at the magazine came to an end, and that’s when he was inspired to write a novel about the modern youth of America, circa 1979. Since he hadn’t had a normal high school experience, he decided to go undercover at a California high school, 21 Jump Street style, so he could gather information on what the kids were up to in those days. According to Crowe, his classmates accepted him as just another high schooler, a guy named Dave Cameron, and never suspected what he was up to. However, some of those classmates have said that everyone knew he wasn’t a real student, that he was just there because he was writing a book. Whatever the case, Crowe was able to write a great novel that was then brought to the screen as one of the best high school movies ever made: Fast Times at Ridgemont High, directed by Amy Heckerling and released in 1982.
Crowe wrote the screenplay for Fast Times himself and was able to perfectly translate most of the book to the script... which is a good thing, because the book has become exceptionally difficult to get your hands on, unless you want to pay a ridiculously high price or just download the text off the Internet. That’s because Crowe decided to let it go out of print, liking the idea that it would become like a hard-to-find album that you have to go searching for or bootleg. So yes, it’s totally fine with him if you decide to take the “download the book text off the Internet” route.
If you like Fast Times: The Movie, chances are you’ll also enjoy Fast Times: The Book, as they are very similar to each other. Some circumstances are different, some things happen in a different order, but the movie was a very faithful adaptation. The book allows you to experience even more scenes with some of the characters (most notably a Grad Nite adventure with Rat and Damone at Disneyland), and to get deeper insight into their thought processes. It’s great, which is why it made such a great movie.
GODZILLA AND GODZILLA RAIDS AGAIN by Shigeru Kayama, translated by Jeffrey Angles
My review of this book can be found at THIS LINK.
THE DEAD ZONE by Stephen King
Stephen King never works from an outline when he’s writing a book, he just lets the story flow out of him. I feel that approach is evident in books like The Dead Zone, which probably would have told its story very differently if written by an author who had the structure and scenes figured out before they began writing. For most of its 500+ pages, this one plays like a drama about a man named Johnny Smith, who spends five years in a coma. We see how Johnny’s tragic accident impacts the lives of the people around him, we follow him as he tries to resume his life and tie up loose ends from his past after emerging from his coma. He does wake up with the ability to get psychic insights into people’s lives when he touches their hands or possessions, but for the most part that’s something he tries to avoid. Unless it means saving a friend from a fire or helping police solve a serial killer case. The book gives us regular updates on the political situation in the country as the years go by, but we’re deep into the page count before Johnny realizes there’s one politician in particular that he should be paying attention to...
Even though The Dead Zone isn’t “on point” most of the time, I still find it to be an engaging read because King did such a great job writing about Johnny Smith’s life. The book is a good, interesting drama that also includes some welcome weirdness.
THE AFFAIR by Lee Child
Lee Child occasionally writes more pages than necessary for his Jack Reacher novels, but there is one element of these books he doesn’t seem to spend much time pondering: the titles. The book Night School doesn’t have anything to do with a school beyond the first chapter. There’s one book called The Enemy, which is as generic as you can get. And right up there with it is The Affair. Thankfully the stories aren’t as bland as the titles are.
The sixteenth Jack Reacher book to be published, The Affair is (as of right now) the fourth book in the chronology. Set in 1997, it sees our Military Police hero being sent to the town of Carter Crossing, Mississippi to investigate the murder of a local woman. The town is close to the Fort Kelham Army base, training ground for special ops Rangers that are secretly being sent to Kosovo, so Reacher is meant to do what he can to help solve the murder case before local authorities go snooping around the base in search of suspects and find out about the Kosovo situation. Once he reaches Carter Crossing, his cover is blown almost immediately because Sheriff Elizabeth Devereaux is a former Marine MP who recognizes her own. He also finds out that the murder he was sent to look into wasn’t the only murder in the town, it was just the latest in a string of murders. So Reacher and Devereaux work together to find the killer while also taking every opportunity to explore each other’s bodies – allowing Lee Child to write multiple cringe-inducing moments where Reacher drools over her spectacular looks. Of course, she’s not spectacular enough to convince him to stick around and pursue a relationship, but they have their fun until the case is solved.
Did The Affair need to crack 600 pages? Probably not, but the story remains interesting throughout, with plenty of twists and turns.
FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelley
Just over two hundred years ago, an 18-year-old girl named Mary Shelley began writing a story that would become one of the most popular works of sci-fi horror ever crafted: Frankenstein. The story follows Victor Frankenstein, a student of science and alchemy who is inspired to build and bring to life his own version of a person – eight feet tall, assembled from pieces found in dissecting rooms and charnel houses. Frankenstein expects his creation to be beautiful, but one it has been brought to life he finds it to be so hideous and frightening that he rejects it and runs away, leaving it to fend for itself. The creation, “the monster”, does not appreciate this rejection. And while The Monster does some terrible things over the course of the story, there are also passages that are narrated by this being and allow us to understand why it does what it does. We understand why it would hate Frankenstein so much.
Frankenstein is a great book, and the Monster written about by Shelley probably doesn’t match the one most readers expect to hear about when they start reading the story. This being can hold conversations and is fast and nimble, not a lumbering creature that speaks like a caveman. There’s even a substantial section of the book that is told from the Monster’s perspective, and that’s my favorite section to read.
DRIVE by James Sallis
A character we know only as Driver works as a stuntman by day, and by night he uses his driving skill to work jobs as a getaway driver for criminals pulling off heists. He befriends a single mother who lives in his apartment building – and when the woman’s husband is released from prison soon after and goes back to his life of crime, it’s Driver at the wheel of his getaway vehicles. Soon enough, a heist goes wrong. People get killed. And Driver has to seek revenge against the crime bosses responsible for the murders. If that description sounds familiar to you even though you haven’t read this book, it’s because director Nicolas Winding Refn and Ryan Gosling brought Drive to the screen as a great movie (one that actually has more emotional substance than the source material) back in 2011.
James Sallis wrote his book Drive in a breezy style that allowed him to wrap up the story in just about 150 pages. He also took a nonlinear approach to tell the story, jumping back and forth in time from chapter to chapter. The book begins after things have already gone bad, then proceeds from there while also giving the back story on the situation (and Driver’s life) in a scrambled-up way. This makes it difficult to really engage with the story or get invested in any of the characters – and yet there’s such a cool tone to Sallis’s writing, the book ends up being an enjoyable read anyway.
THE HELLBOUND HEART by Clive Barker
I have watched the movie Hellraiser many times over the thirty-six years since it was first released, but this was my first time reading the source material, The Hellbound Heart... and while reading this book, I was pleased to find out that Hellraiser is one of the most scene-for-scene faithful adaptations I have ever seen. This is basically the movie on the page. It makes sense that the movie was extremely faithful; not just because author Clive Barker wrote and directed the film, but also because the book is quite short, just over 150 pages. In fact, it was originally published within an anthology. So Barker didn’t have to simplify or trim out moments (he actually added some), he just had to change the writing into the screenplay format. He did make changes along the way, most notably the relationship between two characters, but nothing major.
You probably know how it goes. A man named Frank is staying in his childhood home when he solves a puzzle box that unleashes supernatural beings known as Cenobites, who proceed to tear him apart. Soon after, Frank’s brother (Rory in the book, Larry in the film) and his sister-in-law Julia, who had an affair with Frank right around the time of her wedding, move into the house. When Frank’s brother accidentally cuts his hand and drips blood on the floor of the room Frank was destroyed in, Frank is able to escape from the dimension of the Cenobites and start regenerating his body. He just needs help from Julia: she brings him human victims so he can feed off of them, fueling the regeneration. Problem is, the Cenobites don’t like it when people escape from them. And soon a character named Kristy – who was Larry’s daughter / Frank’s niece in the film, but in the book is a mousy friend with a crush on Rory – is able to find out what’s going on with Frank and alert the Cenobites.
The Hellbound Heart is a smart, original horror story that reads well on the page and became a great, disturbing, disgusting movie.
STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE by Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson crafted one of the most popular stories ever told with Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, putting forth a concept that has been further explored through many different adaptations over the years. So when I read the book, I was surprised to find just how little substance there was in this famous source material. Of course, this comes down to its short word count. Although the simple and quick story was spread out over around 150 pages in the copy I read, it has a word count of just over 25,000 – which would usually result in a story that’s “50 pages single-spaced or 100 pages double-spaced.” This is why it’s considered a novella rather than a novel, and Stevenson made those 25,000 words a breezy read.
Most of the book isn’t told from the perspective of Dr. Jekyll, who found a way to transform himself into an evil fellow called Mr. Hyde. Instead, it’s told from the perspective of other characters who wonder why they don’t see much of their pal Jekyll anymore and are appalled by the actions (and appearance) of this guy Mr. Hyde they see around town. The fact that Jekyll and Hyde inhabit the same body is the shocking twist near the end of the book. There are adaptations that go much deeper into the complications of Jekyll’s situation and his struggle with the Hyde transformations. They also give us more information on the Hyde character.
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a good, interesting read... but it comes off as a set-up for the idea rather than an attempt to meet its full potential. It’s a solid foundation that many others have built upon.
THE INVISIBLE MAN by H.G. Wells
A strange fellow has moved into an inn in the English village of Iping. His clothing covers his entire body. His face is wrapped in bandages. All that sticks out from under all these layers is a prosthetic nose. Hundreds of glass bottles are delivered to his room, where he proceeds to conduct mysterious experiments. And he’s a real short-tempered pain in the ass. Much of H.G. Wells’ novel The Invisible Man is about the people of Iping being suspicious of this guy, named Griffin. But eventually we’ll learn that he is indeed an invisible man, a medical student who has figured out a way to turn himself invisible with chemicals... and has now decided to use his invisibility to commit crimes.
If you’re familiar with the story of The Invisible Man from the 1933 Universal film adaptation, you’ll be surprised at how little Griffin manages to accomplish in Wells’ book (some of the flashier things in the movie’s story were taken from Philip Wylie’s novel The Murderer Invisible), but you’ll also recognize the set-up. While Wells had an intriguing idea here – as is evident by how many other invisible person stories have been inspired by this one – I was a bit underwhelmed by the execution, and at times found The Invisible Man to be a slog to get through, even though it’s a relatively short book with a page count around 150. There wasn’t a whole lot going on most of the time, and even when something was going on the chapters were excessively wordy. I have previously read and enjoyed Wells’ War of the Worlds, but I didn’t get a lot of enjoyment from reading this book.
FIRESTARTER by Stephen King
Stephen King doesn’t make outlines for his novels before he starts writing them, and that was very evident in The Dead Zone, which didn’t have the sort of structure you’d expect from something that had been completely planned out beforehand. But the novel he wrote after that one, Firestarter, is completely different. This one does flow as if it had been planned out scene-by-scene. King even starts the story in a different way than he had started most of his previous novels. With Salem’s Lot, The Shining, The Stand, and The Dead Zone, he had started at an early point in the timeline and spent some pages with the characters while building up to the action, horror, and strangeness. He followed a vampire outbreak step-by-step. He showed the collapse of civilization from day one on. But with Firestarter, he drops us right into the action already in progress. Andy McGee and his young daughter Charlie are on the run from a government organization known as The Shop, and have been for a while – ever since Shop agents killed Andy’s wife / Charlie’s mother and attempted to abduct Charlie.
The Shop wants the kid because she’s the offspring of two people who participated in an experiment that left Andy with the skill of “mental domination” and Mrs. McGee with psychic abilities and mild telekinesis. Their daughter, as the title indicates, is a firestarter. She can start fires with her mind – and the government wants to either use that incredible ability for their own purposes, or destroy Charlie before her gift gets too dangerous. The McGees’ back story is told in flashbacks as we follow them through their attempts to evade The Shop. Then they’re captured... and it all builds up to a climactic sequence that makes you wonder if King had been told he should try to write “something like Carrie” again.
Firestarter is a great read that had me completely wrapped up in the story throughout, and it also features one of those despicable villains King is so good at writing into existence. This one is an assassin named Rainbird, who weasels his way into Charlie’s life and manipulates her, making friends with the little girl just because that will make it more special for him when he gets to kill her. With people like this around her, the reader is fully on board when Charlie puts her firestarter skills to use.
FLETCH, TOO by Gregory Mcdonald
Picking up just days after the events of the novel Fletch Won, the follow-up Fletch, Too begins at the wedding Fletch and his fiancée Barbara were building up to in the previous story. As soon as vows are exchanged, Fletch receives a letter from the father he has never met with an invitation to come meet him in Africa, complete with pre-paid plane tickets. So he and Barbara ditch their honeymoon ski trip plans and head off to Africa – with the clothes and skis they had packed for their original destination. Once they reach Africa, Fletch witnesses a stabbing murder in an airport restroom, then discovers his dad’s a flake. The guy never shows up, so Fletch and Barbara end up spending their time with his associate Peter Carr, a bush pilot and amateur archaeologist who is searching the countryside for evidence of a lost Roman city he’s certain has to be out there somewhere.
Some of Gregory Mcdonald’s Fletch books are driven by their mysteries, but in others the mysteries are overshadowed by other elements. That was the case in Carioca Fletch, which reads like a Brazilian travelogue, and the same could be said for Fletch, Too. This book is primarily a hang-out story. Fletch hangs out with Carr, travels around Africa, learns about locations and the local culture. It’s not a particularly fascinating read, but Mcdonald has such a smooth writing style and crafts such great dialogue exchanges that it’s still worth checking out. A Fletch book always goes by quickly, and they’re a good time while they last.
MIDNIGHT RIDER by Charles Campbell
The small town of Belvedere, South Carolina was home to a serial killer called the Midnight Rider, who had a tendency to sneak into the homes of single women at night, murder them, and leave behind record players spinning classic rock albums. The Midnight Rider was stopped when Detective Jordan Sumner caught him in the act and shot him to death... but now there’s a copycat committing the same sort of crimes, and they clearly have a vendetta against Detective Sumner. This new Midnight Rider not only leaves behind albums and record players, but also taunting notes addressed to Sumner.
Some punctuation issues and the occasional typo made their way into the Kindle edition of this book (I can’t speak for the paperback edition), but those didn’t hinder my enjoyment of the story at all. Charles Campbell crafted an interesting mystery here, and I was invested in seeing Sumner and his associates figure out the identity of the new Midnight Rider and bring an end to their killing spree. The killer’s identity remains hidden until the very last pages of the book, it’s not even given away in the sections where we’re hearing about things from the killer’s perspective, and it was fun to try to figure out along with the characters which one of these people might be the homicidal maniac.
This is the first book I’ve read that was written by Campbell, and I’m glad to know that he has published several others, because I was left wanting to read more of his work.
SOUTH TEXAS BLUES by Christopher Garetano
The review of South Texas Blues can be read at THIS LINK.
DIE TRYING by Lee Child
So far, the Jack Reacher novel series has inspired two feature films and two seasons of a TV show – and I’m surprised that no one has attempted to bring Die Trying, the second Reacher novel Lee Child wrote, to the screen yet. The TV show started by adapting the first Reacher novel, Killing Floor, so you’d think Die Trying would have been the obvious choice for season 2. Nope, they jumped ahead to the eleventh book. The first Reacher movie was based on the ninth book, then for the second movie they jumped ahead to the eighteenth book. That movie wasn’t as well-received as its predecessor, so they probably would have been better off turning to the second book. That’s because Die Trying stands out to me as a book that’s crying out to be turned into an old school ‘80s or ‘90s style action thriller.
The hulking former MP Jack Reacher is doing his “drifting around America” thing when the book begins. While in Chicago, he helps Holly Johnson, a woman with an injured leg, carry her laundry out of a dry cleaners – and when three men abduct her at gunpoint, Reacher gets abducted along with her. Turns out Holly is not only an FBI agent, but also the daughter of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the goddaughter of the President. A high profile captive for a militia that owns a large plot of land in Montana and are planning to secede from the United States – while also plotting an act of domestic terrorism. Reacher is taken on the ride to Montana with Holly... and not long after he’s on the militia’s property, he’s stalking through the woods and taking down militia members with an M16.
At times reminiscent of a Rambo story (Reacher’s former CO even gets involved, much like Colonel Trautman in the Rambo films), Die Trying is a good read that should be getting a film or TV adaptation any time now.
ROADWORK by Richard Bachman (a.k.a. Stephen King)
THE SECRET by Lee Child and Andrew Child
As of right now, The Secret is the most recently published novel in the Jack Reacher series, the 28th to make it on to store shelves – but chronologically, it’s the second novel, coming in right after The Enemy. It’s set in 1992 and involves two women on a rampage of revenge, murdering a group of scientists who were involved with some secret government experiments that went terribly wrong in India decades earlier. Still working as an Army MP, Reacher is brought in to investigate the case.
A few years ago, Reacher creator Lee Child announced that he would be retiring from writing these books now that he’s approaching 70, handing the series over to his brother Andrew, who is 14 years younger. To make the transition a smooth one, Lee and Andrew are writing a few of the books together. This is the first Lee and Andrew Reacher book I have read, and it’s definitely a bit different from the solo Lee books I’m used to. It feels less in-depth, more like it’s coasting through the story. This results in it having a page count of almost exactly 300, which is about half the length of the earlier, solo Lee books. But I have complained about the longer books being packed with filler and unnecessarily lengthy descriptive passages, so I can’t say I minded this one’s brevity. It was still an interesting mystery thriller, despite feeling a bit half-hearted, and had some of the expected moments of action. It’s not top-of-the-line Reacher, but it’s a serviceable addition to the franchise.
LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY by Bonnie Garmus
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