I'm Reading: Lee Child

Lee Child is an author that people are constantly returning to the library where I work. By which I mean, people borrow Lee Child books and return them to the library. I haven't had people bring back missing authors to me. My theory is that if people are returning books, then they're borrowing and reading them, so they must be good.

I have a very long list of books on request at my library. I thought I had paused them all until uni was over, but a couple somehow made their way onto my bookshelf. One of them was the first book featuring Lee Child's Jack Reacher.

I thought Killing Floor would be something like Matthew Reilly meets Sue Grafton or something. In a way, it was: Ex-Army Guy Turns Detective, Solves Murder. But it was also very Isolated Small Town, Bodies Piling Up And No-one To Trust. And when I got my head around it being that, it turned into Massive International Conspiracy. Which is not to say I didn't like it. I really did. It just didn't fit into the box I'd assigned it.

Jack Reacher is smart, and can make connections, and does his research, all three of which I like in an investigator. He's pretty hardcore re: shooting people who will cause him trouble in the future but aren't actively holding a gun on him in the present. He does what has to be done. But he still comes across as a decent guy, who cares about (some) people and will do the right thing by them.

I just knew there was an extra bad guy close to them, I just knew it, but my really strong feeling about who it was was totally wrong. Good thing I'm not a detective.

I liked Child's writing style. I'll be interested to see how the series progresses - does he just keep stumbling on small towns with big problems and hot chicks he can hit on within a few pages? I will definitely keep reading because (a) I enjoyed this one, (b) uni holidays are coming up, and (c) do you know how awesome it is to not have to wait for the next book in a series?

Challenge 1: 'The Way of Shadows'

Today we see a momentous event, one which has potentially world changing consequences:

The inaugural Victory Book-Sharing Challenge challenge!

For our first ever challenge I will be assigning to Emma:
The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks.

The Way of Shadows is a dark-ish fantasy which centres around Kylar Stern, an assassin-in-training, and his master, Durzo Blint. There is a lot of Light / Dark contrast in this book (Enough so that I wrote an essay on it in high school), and that is partly why I love this book so much. It is also fairly action packed, but also detailed - lots of minor plot lines, most of which eventually converge, but I won't post any spoilers. Oh, and there's some epic Evil villains.

I think Emma will like TWoS, it has a couple of reasonably strong female main characters (More-so in the sequels - maybe you should keep reading to get to them *winks*) as well as a good storyline and engaging characters. I don't think she is as massive a fantasy fan as I am, but for this book, you don't really need to be.

In the Beginning...

Ok, so I gave Emma a book to read, one that I had really liked. And three weeks later she *still* hadn't read it (yes, I know she has a massive book pile, but this should obviously have gone on the top), so I decided we needed some rules to go with book lending/advising. (Emma: Well I'm sorry I read your library book first. Next time I'll just let you get a fine!) Obviously, we are both reasonably busy, so we don't get a huge amount of time to read, so constantly giving each other books is unreasonable, as is completely ignoring anything given to you. And thus, the Victory Book-Sharing Challenge was born.

Basically, on alternate months, we choose a book for the other person to read. They have to read it at some point in the month, and then they put a small review, like/dislike, etc. on this blog. We will also, when we choose the book the other person to read, write a thing about how we think they will find the book, whether they will want to read more, etc.

I hope you (whoever you happen to be) enjoy reading about our reading, the first book will be up soon. :)