The basic premise of Stephen King’s Under the Dome is very simple: A mysterious dome falls over the town of Chester’s Mill, cutting the town and its inhabitants off from the rest of the world. Families are split apart. Electricity is cut off. No more shipments of food or other supplies. Worst of all, even the town’s air supply is isolated and quickly becomes stale and filled with pollutants. And like a window left unwashed, the dome gets dirty, blurring the sun and turning the stars strange colors.

The opening chapters of Under the Dome can be overwhelming because of the large number of characters that are introduced. But as you keep reading, the characters take on a life of their own and you stop thinking: “Okay, who’s this? What does he do?”. In the end, only a handful of characters emerge as important. Once I got into the book, the characters were easy enough to track.

One central figure in the novel is Selectman James “Big Jim” Rennie: A power-hungry, violent and dangerous member of the city council, who, after the dome falls, assumes responsibility for the town. He takes control fast, mostly by recruiting some of Chester’s Mill’s more shady characters to work as police officers. The only comparison I have for Big Jim is that he’s like a modern day Hitler.

He uses fear to gain support, however irrational that fear might be, and rallies as many of the town’s citizens as he can to support his cause – complete control of the town. This control can be seen by the blue armbands his supporters wear in a show of support for Jim and his army of young police recruits.

Dale (Barbie) Barbara is Big Jim’s opposite. Barbie is a former Army officer and Iraq War vet who worked as a short-order cook at the Sweet Briar Rose Diner until the dome fell. Barbie is unwillingly thrown into a leadership position when the President of the United States reinstates him in the Army and promotes him to Colonel – making him the de facto leader of Chester’s Mill. This, however, runs in direct opposition to Big Jim’s plans. A lot of scenes throughout the novel show Big Jim trying to finish Barbie off for good – and he almost succeeds.

The novel reminds me of those apocalyptic and end-of-the-world scenarios,  only on a micro-scale. As soon as the dome falls Chester’s Mill quickly descends into unruly chaos that one would expect in the midst of a major catastrophe that, for the citizens of the small town, could very well mean the end of times.

But only their world of Chester’s Mill is nearing the end, while the outside world continues on with normal life. It’s a strange dichotomy. Citizens of Chester’s Mill can go right up to the dome and see the outside world, but have no access to it. Likewise, those on the outside can see the pain and suffering inside the dome, but are powerless to help.

As the novel progresses, conditions under the dome worsen; partly because of the obvious difficulties the dome itself throws at the town, and partly because of the decisions Big Jim makes. It becomes very obvious near the end of the novel that the Big Jim’s poor management of the town and corrupt tendencies made the dome even more dangerous than it should have been.

The novel is peppered throughout with scenes and “incidents” filled with heads being blown off and people being killed in all sorts of creative ways. It just wouldn’t be a Stephen King book without a healthy element of horror and gore. Characters are killed off at a surprising clip – which left me to wonder just who would survive until the end, if any.

At the very least, seeing characters die off so quickly makes the novel a page turner. Although I can’t help but wonder of Stephen King just likes to kill people off for the sake of killing people off.

The ending was satisfying. King doesn’t leave the reader hanging. However, I’m very picky when it comes to endings and I would’ve liked to see more. I always feel a bit of disappointment when the action continues right up to the last few pages, leaving only a page or two for the story to resolve itself. King did a decent job here, I didn’t feel ripped off by the novel’s ending.

Yes, I will recommend this novel. If you have the option of buying Under the Dome as an ebook, I’d would definitely suggest it. The hardcover version is big, bulky and heavy -  not the type you want to carry around and read in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. The ebook version is cheaper too. I bought mine from the Sony ebookstore for $9.99.

Have you read Under the Dome? If so, leave a comment and share your thoughts.

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The Arctic is one of the most inhospitable regions of the earth with constant snow storms, temperatures dropping to -50°(F) and colder. During the long winters the sun never makes an appearance for months at a time. This is the environment that the crews (126 men total at the beginning of the novel) of the ships HMS Terror and HMS Erebus must endure. For two years they have been stuck in the ice. Their rations are dwindling and the coal that heats the ship is quickly running out.

Captain Crozier of the HMS Terror is very much the lead character. However, the third-person narrative jumps from character to character with each chapter, providing the reader with many different perspectives on events as they unfold. This use of limited third-person is a clever way to present this epic adventure to readers.

Much of the time spent by the crew is just trying to survive. They hunt polar bears and other wildlife to extend their rations and try to conserve as much coal as they can to heat the two ships, turning the ships into virtual freezers. Yet as far as daily life on the ships go, it is as if they are out at sea and not stuck in the ice. Men still stand watch around the ship. The officers struggle to maintain order and discipline by enforcing the Royal Navy’s rules and regulations.

Life on board the HMS Terror is made more interesting by an Eskimo girl (spelled ‘Esquimaux’ in the novel) who lives aboard the ship. The crew named her Silent because her tongue had been removed sometime before she was found. She can’t understand any English and the sailors have no way of communicating with her. Captain Crozier ensures she is fed and assigns one of his officers to see that she is safe. Most of the crew despises her, calling her a savage, mostly because she is not Christian and is much different than them.

At one point, a group of sailors make plans to kill Silent. Captain Crozier quickly puts an end to the near-mutinous plan by telling the crew that Silent is the only one among them who knows how to survive on the ice. They need her. If Silent is killed, then they have almost no chance to survive when they must abandon ship because of the crushing ice.

But Dan Simmons does not let the plot limp on by writing only about daily life aboard a naval ship. To further complicate the plight of the sailors, a monster lurks on the ice. No one has really gotten a good view of the Thing, and those who have met a violent death. The vague descriptions of this monster make it sound like a polar bear on steroids – one that can bite off a man’s head with one bite. The monster terrorizes the sailors, snatching them up one by one on the ice, and then on the ship.

This mysterious beast is never fully explained or described.. Other than making for some action-packed reading, I think the beast serves another purpose – to act as a metaphor for the dangers of life in the arctic. Furthermore, I think the beast also represents the way the sailors think of the Eskimos, as savages with no moral conscience. Every time the crew tries to foil the monster, it somehow manages to outsmart them and survive the barrage of bullets. As the novel progresses, however, the beast becomes less and less of an issue as scurvy and freezing temperatures become more of a killer than any monster  on the ice.

I’m not going to give away any further plot details. I also won’t spoil the ending for those who want to read this novel. I will say, however, that the ending left me unsatisfied. There are too many unanswered questions by the time I reached the last page of the novel.

The ending was interesting and kept me hooked until the end. I just didn’t get the closure a lot of other novels provide by the end. Other readers might find this vague ending  as another one of the novel’s fine brush strokes that make it so interesting to read. Indeed, the ending is as mysterious as the beast on the ice. There is a huge surprise at the ending, though, that is totally unexpected. I never saw it coming.

I am definitely recommending this novel to all. The hardcover version is long, coming in at 766 pages. Don’t let that deter you, the story clips right along and you’ll find yourself shivering at the descriptions of the cold arctic weather like I did.

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The Lost Symbol takes place over a 12 hour period. This probably explains why the action is broken up by several flashback scenes. In fact, without all the flashbacks, the length of the novel could probably be cut in half. Some of the flashbacks were interesting and provided much-needed background to help propel the plot forward, but at the same time, they really brought the pace of the novel to a screeching halt.

One part of the novel I really enjoyed was the facts about Washington D.C. and many of its famous landmarks. I found myself putting the book down on several occasions to look up this or that landmark to see if what Dan Brown was saying was really true. By weaving these facts into the plot, the story seemed much more believable.

The characters were about like I expected. Most were two-dimensional and I didn’t learn much about them beyond what was required for the novel. Robert Langdon, being the protagonist was more well-rounded than the others. But he also had 2 previous novels to build up a history.

In the reviews I’ve read of The Lost Symbol, the flat characters have been a contentious issue among readers. Many criticized Brown for not developing his characters more. I do understand the point these readers are making, although I think the characters in this novel are about par for the course for popular fiction.

The novel’s ending is what really bothered me the most. If I were Dan Brown’s editor for this novel, I would have told him to cut out the last 50 pages or so. After the plot reached its climax, Brown milked the story even more by sending Robert and Peter on a truth-seeking trip to some famous D.C. landmarks.

Furthermore, we see Peter, who had been kidnapped and had his hand cut off, turn into a philosophizing academic who lectures Robert (a college professor) about truth, seeing things from a different perspective, critical thinking and so forth. Robert also had his own problems to deal with – mainly that he drowned, thought he have died, and then was rescued by a very callous CIA official.

And I found it very unbelievable that after the trauma Robert and Peter went through in such a short amount of time, that either would be up for an enchanting tour of our nation’s capital. Both probably should have spent that time in a hospital, but I guess that doesn’t make for very exciting reading.

The ending was also filled with numerous biblical references and talks about God, heaven, hell and other very religious topics. In other words, the novel was a little too preachy for my tastes in the last few chapters. While I understand Brown was trying to make a point, I think he was trying to hard to force that point onto his readers.

Overall though The Lost Symbol is an entertaining read. My observation has been that people either like it or hate it. There’s no shame in having either opinion and I hope that, at the very least, people read the novel with an open mind. I’d recommend this book to anyone who is looking for some fast-paced, escapist reading.

Did you read The Lost Symbol? If so, what did you think of Dan Brown’s latest novel? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts.

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The Solomon Scandals is a good mix of mystery, thriller with a dash of literary fiction. I found it refreshing not to read about your cliched characters of genre fiction, rather, the novel centers on a newspaper reporter, editors, a gossip columnist, government bureaucrats, a real estate tycoon and even the President of the United States. Add in a dash of humor and you have yourself a really great read.

Jonathan Stone, the small-time reporter for a Washington DC newspaper, the Washington Telegram, decides to take on a large scandal that is literally built in the nation’s capital city. Stone’s nemesis is a man named Seymour Solomon, who lands himself lucrative construction contracts with the government, then cuts corners and takes the cheapest route to getting a building erected (pocketing the difference).

To make matters even more interesting, Stone’s editor at the Telegram, a man almost as nefarious as Solomon himself, is 100% against his proposed story that will expose a scandal that goes straight to the President of the United States. And it doesn’t help that Solomon is a major advertiser in Stone’s newspaper. It takes a courageous act of insubordination during a late-night writing session and a favor from a friend in the layout department to get the story printed.

As the novel progresses, the Jonathan Stone comes face-to-face with one tragedy after another. The most serious, of course, being the collapse of the IRS building that Solomon had built. He also must deal with witnessing the very public suicide of a Washington socialite, and the grizzly death of his own editor at the paper.

I found it hard to pin down The Solomon Scandals. At times, Scandals reminded me of a good Robert B. Parker mystery novel. At other times, such as during the party when socialite celebrity gossip columnist Wendy meets her ultimate demise, the book reminded me of the elegant prose of F. Scott Fitzgerald in Tender is the Night. This mixture kept the reading interesting, exciting, stimulating, and I didn’t feel like my intelligence was being insulted, unlike many other popular fiction novels.

The novel is serious in its overall message that newspapers can only be independent if they are free from the corruption they should be reporting about. But when that corruption sinks into a newspaper, the results can be deadly. This novel gives the reader a much-needed appreciation for the important roll the press plays in keeping our government accountable.

Will I recommend this novel? Yes, in a heartbeat! No matter what format you decide to read The Solomon Scandals in, I’m sure you will enjoy it as much as I did.

And if you have already read this book, leave a comment below with your own thoughts!

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The novel follows Alice Howland, a fifty year old Harvard professor, married and a mother of three. She is, by any measure a successful woman at the top of her game. And this is what makes it so tragic and chilling when she is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. The symptoms start innocently enough; forgetting words, an occasional appointment and other lapses of absentmindedness we all fall into during the course of our lives. But when she is out running and becomes lost in Harvard Square, a place she has known for 25 years, her life is kicked off track.

It is that scene that many use as the defining moment in Alice’s life – when she gets lost at Harvard Square. But I beg to differ. At that time, her life is still relatively normal and she can still function at her job and with her family. For me, the real defining scene in the novel comes when Alice is alone for a moment in their vacation home, has to go to the bathroom and can’t find it. She ends up wetting herself and when her husband John returns shortly thereafter, she breaks down in tears and says "I don’t know where I am."

For me, that was the "Wow!" moment where the reality of her disease really hits home. Getting lost inside your own house, where you are supposed to feel safe and secure, can be one of the many scary parts about Alzheimer’s Disease. And as the novel progresses, we follow Alice through month after month of declining memory capacity. She forgets who her children are. She forgets what she just did two minutes ago, or what she went upstairs to look for. She even forgets about her successful career as a Harvard professor of psychology – a part of her life that really defined Alice’s identity.

From a technical standpoint, the novel is also interesting. It is written in third person limited. This means the narrator focuses only on Alice. We get to know her thoughts, feeling and fears as she struggles with losing her mind. Other characters are given plenty of detail and are well developed, by they are only the supporting cast around Alice.

This narrative makes the story even more intriguing because we (the reader) begin to view the world through Alice’s eyes. As she gets progressively worse, the other characters come in and out of scenes in a way that makes you think you’re the one who has memory problems, not Alice.

I think the most important part of this novel, is how it shows Alice’s humanity from beginning to end. Even when she’s in the tight grips of Alzheimer’s, she still has feelings and emotions, has opinions about things, and can still give her children worldly advice (even if she doesn’t know who they are). In a way, Alice becomes like a kid again, experiencing the world through the eyes of someone who is not burdened with the memories and reality of functioning in the every day world. She lives in the moment and learns to appreciate little things, like the butterfly necklace she wears that her mom gave her.

Yes, this is a great book and I highly recommend it. After reading Still Alice, you will never think of Alzheimer’s Disease the same way again. Nor will you think of dementia and those who suffer from it the same way again.

Many people have said they couldn’t put it down. I was one of them. So I highly recommend reading this book on a weekend, or when you have a good chunk of time to devote to it without any distractions. Trust me, it’s worth every page!

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The plot of the novel is intriguing: An event called "The Pulse" makes people using their cell phones go crazy and start killing each other. On that premise, the story follows a character named Clayton Riddell is in Boston. He’s an artist and just managed to sell his comic book series to a publisher. Clay happens to be in Boston when The Pulse hits and takes cover from the ensuing violence with a few others in the lobby of the hotel he’s been staying at (and that’s where I stopped reading).

My problem is with the characters. They are simply not believable and I have not really been given a reason to care about them. For example, Clay is supposed to be an artist, yet when he and a few other survivors are trying to figure out how many cell phone users are affected by the strange event, Clay says:

"So how many of the damn things are there in Boston?" Clay asked. "What’s the market penetration?"

The bold emphasis is mine. When was the last time you heard an artist use the words "market penetration?" I don’t know, maybe I’m just being too picky after reading too much literary fiction, but Clay’s character isn’t very convincing. And after reading that bit of dialogue, I knew the book wasn’t going to be finished. Maybe sometime in the future I’ll return to this book and form a different opinion.

Has there been a novel that you have given up on? What was it and why did you give up on it? Leave a comment below!

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The novel starts off modestly enough, showing the difficult life of a girl named Mariam who lives in a small hut outside a village in Afghanistan. Mariam’s life is complicated by the fact that she was born an illegitimate daughter to the mistress of a wealthy businessman. After a family tragedy, Mariam is quickly married off to a man named Rasheed and the two move to Kabul. Needless to say, her life doesn’t get any easier.

Then the story shifts gears and begins to follow the life of a young girl named Laila, who has a life quite the opposite of Mariam’s. Her father was a teacher and places Laila’s education above all else and is very loving. Her mom suffers from severe depression, only made worse when her two sons are killed fighting the Russian invasion of Afghanistan.

Laila is shown as a normal girl with a special friend named Tariq. They are almost inseparable. But as they get older, the strict custom against boys and girls mixing forces them to spend more time apart.

Then, through a string of very sad events, Laila loses her home and her family. Tariq has moved away, seeking safety in Pakistan as the fighting in Kabul reaches epic proportions. Laila ends up in the care of Mariam and Rasheed. Eventually, Rasheed takes Laila on as a second wife.

Rasheed himself is a caricature of a man who uses his religion, Islam, only when it benefits him. He has a heated temper and something as small as an overcooked meal can set him in beating his wife Mariam. He forces her to live in seclusion, in the name of modesty, and when she can’t give him the son he’s always wanted, he looks at her with contempt and stops any of the signs of affection he once gave her.

As a character, Rasheed doesn’t change. He’s the same throughout the novel. The only change was my dislike of him, which rapidly turned into hatred. He is one of those characters that is easy to hate.

Tariq, on the other hand, is the total opposite of Rasheed. Where Rasheed is selfish and violent, Tariq is giving and caring. When we finally see Tariq as a husband and a father, he embraces the ideals of an honorable man that views himself as equals with his wife. He loves his children unconditionally, even when one of them is a daughter – which the culture usually dictates is weaker and less desirable than a son.

By the end of the novel, I began to view Tariq as a hero. Not because of any one thing he did, rather, he was such a breath of "fresh air" compared to Rasheed that he almost seemed saintly.

Of course, I left a lot of details out of this book, so as not to ruin it for anyone still contemplating reading it. I will definitely recommend A Thousand Splendid Suns and hope you will read it and enjoy it as much as I did. I’m looking forward to reading Hosseini’s other book, The Kite Runner.

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If I were to take an art history class, or even a class on basic Catholic theology, I’m sure The Miracles of Prato would fit right into the reading material of either class. Within the first three chapters, I was immediately given a lesson on life in an Italian convent during the Renaissance. The art lessons were sporadic throughout the novel, but admittedly much more interesting than the nuances of Catholic life.

Despite the novel’s penchant for "lecturing" about the above topics, it provides a backdrop for a clever story. A Catholic Monk, Fra. Filippo who works for a convent performing Mass, confession and other religious services, is also a painter who has several commissions, including one for the infamous Medici family. Filippo is a typical tragic character – caught between his religious devotion and the trappings of a hedonistic life that includes drinking and womanizing.

Filippo becomes even more torn when a young woman, Lucrezia, arrives at the convent to become a nun. She is young, beautiful, and everything Filippo desires in a woman. Of course, given her own tragic story, Lucrezia is also drawn to Filippo. The only problem – both their respective jobs require celebacy and forbid any kind of carnal relationship.

But, as I continued to read, I discovered there’s a big difference between the requirements of the Catholic Church and the lusts of the characters. The novel takes the reader through a story of Filippo and Lucrezia trying to be together against very tough odds, including a rape by a senior church official. Filippo must balance is devotion to the church with his painting commissions that demand much of his time and his growing love for Lucrezia.

I’ll conclude by saying that when Lucrezia is impregnated (I’ll not say by who), the story takes off and I was eager to see how things ended. While I doubt this novel will be the blockbuster hit of 2009, I think most readers with a penchant for historical fiction will feel satisfied after reading the last page. The interesting story, combined with a few unexpected surprises makes up for the lecturing on art history and religion that I discussed earlier. My final verdict: Recommended.

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Before I start, I have to admit something: I was reluctant to read this book. Why? Probably because it was released when I was in my last year of college and I was completely engrossed in my classes at the time. Not much of an excuse, I know, but better late than never, right?

Also, I should point out that this post probably does not qualify as a review. It’s more of a few general thoughts about the book I had. I just don’t want to be too misleading in the title of this post.

The Road (aff link) written by Cormac McCarthy, is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel about a post-apocalyptic world where a man and his son are trying to get to the coast because the man thinks they have a better chance for survival there.

One facet of the novel that really struck me was the vagueness of everything: None of the characters are given names, no cities are named, the ocean they are trying to reach isn’t even named. To add further to this vagueness is that very few details are given as to what the apocalyptic event was. Based on limited descriptions and a little outside reading, it appears to have been an impact event, like that of an asteroid.

The vague sense the novel gives the reader is enhanced further by the continuing descriptions of a world covered in ash. Even the sun and the sky are partially blocked by a lingering cloud of ash that, I assume, has enveloped most of the earth. The result of the catastrophe is pretty clear: Everything has pretty much died, or is in the process of dying and/or decaying. And with food sources extremely limited, the few survivors around have resorted to cannibalism just to stay alive (a few gruesome scenes really drive this point home).

The father and his son are shown mostly through their actions. Dialogue is sparse and utilitarian. Any other characters that appears throughout the novel appear only briefly and are looked at with suspicion by the two main characters. Of course, I think anyone would be suspicious of people if there was a good possibility that the person could kill you, steal your meager supplies, and then eat you for dinner.

The ending of the novel provides a bit of closure, but still leaves enough to the imagination that you’ll be thinking about it long after reading the last page. I won’t spoil the ending for those few people out there who still haven’t read it. But it’s a novel I feel confident at recommending to anyone looking for something good to read. It is probably a fitting book to read during autumn, when everything is dying and decaying. The Road is also a fast read, which in no way diminishes the story, but the language and short paragraphs will let you clip right along.

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First, I must say that in the beginning Harry Rent (the protagonist) is a very unlikeable character. Who goes to a diner and hits on Molly the waitress on the day of their dead wife’s funeral? Much of the stuff Harry does in the beginning of the novel is quite selfish and he comes off as very uncaring. Even when he tries to be a "good guy" by helping out the very overweight and unattractive Lucille (another waitress at the diner), he’s doing it merely to impress Molly. Of course, the reality of his plan is much different than what he conjures up in his overactive imagination.

Don’t get me wrong, an unlikeable character doesn’t make for a bad novel. Quite the opposite, in this case. The narrative moved along at a good pace and I enjoyed how the narration jumped from Harry’s present life trying to woo Molly, to the past with his (now dead) wife Anna.

His life with Anna started off on a good note until Harry learned that her upper class parents looked down on him. The "breaking point" came when he overheard her lying to her parents by saying he went to Harvard Medical School. While Harry is a successful radiologist, he did not go to Harvard, and the fact that Anna had to lie to her parents really weighed on him and is perhaps the catalyst for his future infidelities.

Without giving away the ending, I think Harry really does grow throughout the novel and is able to redeem himself by coming clean with Molly about his past and finally being honest with himself.

Overall, the novel is a great read and I’d highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good novel by a new author who is probably someone to watch.

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