Book Review: The Big Dark Sky by Dean Koontz

 

    Dean Koontz is a renowned, prolific writer who is known for his thriller, mystery, and horror novels. Koontz is highly praised by distinguished publications such as the New York Times and Rolling Stone. Since senior college, he has never stopped writing. He is not only a writing machine but a generator of best-selling novels: fourteen of his books were number one on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list, and sixteen were number one in paperback. The Big Dark Sky is his 158th book that tackles synchronicity, blind faith, belief in humanity, and nefarious technology.

OVERVIEW

    A strange dream, a strange cry, and a strange call from her dead mother pressured Joanna Chase to go back to Rustling Willows Ranch in Montana, her childhood home.  Since she left Montana, she had forgotten her past including her childhood friend who was depreciated by most people because of his strange looks. Glimpses of her past memories intermittently flashed in Joanna's mind as if someone was turning a light bulb on and off in her brain.

    Entirely unaware, other people whom she didn't know were also led to Montana:

Book Review: Embrace Your Almost by Jordan Lee Dooley

 

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

    Jordan Lee Dooley's second book, Embrace Your Almost, illumines the path women can take after failing to achieve a life goal or a dream. As a Christian, writer, podcaster, and entrepreneur, Dooley helps women materialize their dreams without compromising overall well-being. She is an achiever and her journey in building her career and creating her business has its peaks and valleys, corroborating the fact that life indeed has wins and losses, highs and lows, successes and failures. 

OVERVIEW

    Jordan Lee Dooley is familiar with what happens after a dream falls flat. She had great dreams for her career and marriage but hope, excitement, and contentment were replaced by doubts, frustrations, and dejection after her endeavors failed. She becomes personal in sharing her own struggles that pushed her to a bumpy place between starting a dream and achieving it. 

    The feeling of being swallowed by darkness could make it easier to surrender and believe there's nothing to expect in the future anymore but Dooley didn't give up. Instead, she used failure as a beacon of light that reveals what's more important in her life, veering away from what the world tells her what she should be.

    Dooley demonstrated that it's possible to create a life that you really like even if you are stuck in the middle.

Key Takeaways

Book Review: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

    In her debut novel, The Thirteenth Tale, British writer, Diane Setterfield, crafted a peculiar, Gothic tale about the twisted life of a family living in a monstrous Angelfield House. The Thirteenth Tale is Setterfield's breakthrough novel as it has sold more than three million copies in 38 countries and got her to win the Quill Award, Debut Author of the Year in 2007. In 2013, the story was turned into a BBC film with the award-winning scriptwriter, Christopher Hampton, and award-winning actresses, Olivia Colman and Vanessa Redgrave. Setterfield was an expert in nineteenth-century French literature before shifting to writing novels. Her literary style in the writing of The Thirteenth Tale is influenced by Gide, the father of modern French literature.

OVERVIEW

    In The Thirteenth Tale, popular, prolific writer, Vida Winter, had a secret life that she meant to bury forever. But, as she was dying, she divulged her secrets by telling the missing thirteenth tale of her book Thirteen Tales of Change and Desperation, a compilation of common stories about princes, peasants, and maids with dark twists. The title was changed to Tales of Change and Desperation since it only contained twelve stories.

    Margaret Lea was handpicked by Winter to write the latter's story. She almost gave up the opportunity but Winter was able to convince her after saying the word 'twins '. The sound of the word echoed in her heart and triggered a painful part of her own history. She acquiesced and, beyond her awareness, she was hauled into a rabbit hole filled with grotesque stories of a ghost, loss, survival, identity, and love.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 

1. Vida Winter was a virtuoso in creating stories that are not necessarily true. How did this affect her credibility?
2. As a biographer, what was Margaret's attitude toward Vida's stories?
3. Describe the Angelfield House and its symbol in the story.
4. Are there questions left unanswered in the book? What are these questions?
5. Discuss the realizations of the main characters at the end of the story.

QUOTES