Monthly Archives: December 2017

Mind Games

Book Review of Mind Games, by Polly Iyer

I grabbed a copy of Polly Iyler‘s Mind Games when it was free on Amazon last year.

Description from Goodreads:
During a New Orleans Mardi Gras Ball, psychic entertainer Diana Racine touches the hand of a masked Cyrano de Bergerac and is instantly transported into the icy-cold body of a dead woman submerged in water. As Diana crumples to the floor, water filling her lungs, she hears Cyrano whisper that the game has begun. Diana has been called every epithet in the book: charlatan, cheat, publicity hound…and genius–all at least partially true. But convincing New Orleans police lieutenant Ernie Lucier that her vision of the dead woman is the real thing may be her hardest act yet. He becomes a believer when Diana leads him to the alligator-infested bayou and the woman’s remains. When another vision leads to another body, it’s clear that the two dead women are a prelude to the killer’s ultimate victim–Diana.

Review:
I’m torn about how I feel about this book. The writing isn’t bad, though the first half is better than the second. The pacing is fine and the editing is too. Here’s the thing though, I am just so damned tired of reading books predicated on female victimhood, whose plot hinges on some obsessed man stalking and abusing a woman (or women). How many times have I read this?!!! This book spices it up a little by including psychics, but even that I’ve read before (Example: Conduit, by Angie Martin). And that’s not even the only over used plot device here. Sexual sadist with a history of sexual abuse and identity issues? Nope, neeeevvveeerr seen that one used before. (Silence of the Lambs?) I mean, this book could be ok, except it all just BEEN DONE BEFORE ad nauseam.

Book Review of We Are Making the World a Better Place, by K.I. Hope

I won a copy of K.I. Hope’s We Are Making the World a Better Place through Goodreads.

Description:
In the tradition of Albert Camus’ The Fall and Vladimir Nabokov’s The Eye, K.I. Hope navigates the internal workings of one mind as it steadfastly trims and skims speech in the main medium of modern communication: the Internet.

As new content is created constantly online, who shapes what we ultimately see? Speech may be free but it is still limited in scope, and those boundaries are further defined not by the government, but the platforms used for expression. Being subjected to terms of service is only the beginning, as the consequences of limiting language extend beyond the screen, spreading across cities, silencing certain parts of society from speaking on the issues that affect them most.

We Are Making The World A Better Place traces the narrative of a person who is in such employ, as they remove words with all the fervor of a zealot, hell bent on bringing every conversation to a quiet, harmonious conclusion.

Review:
This was an interesting read, full of adroit commentary on life in the age of Silicone Valley and social media. It starts out quite slow and maudlin. It felt quite disconnected and I wasn’t sure it was ever going to coalesce into a single, followable story. By the half-way mark, however, it did. It was still more of a series of interconnected vignettes of a single character’s life than a plot-directed arc, but it developed an identifiable moral and meaning. The ending did seem to come about quite quickly, feeling a little rushed. But all in all, not a bad read.