Books of the Week
By Millie the Bookie
Contributor
The Da Vinci Code
By Dan Brown
5 stars
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown is a highly revered work of fiction, and by ‘highly revered,’ I mean this book is crazy big. It sold 80 million copies and became a #1 worldwide bestseller. Now, I understand that a New York bestseller doesn’t sound very impressive (since every book and their mom has that title), but a worldwide bestseller is no small feat! Going into this book, I was a bit suspicious. I have read popular books before, and they were not always guaranteed to be great. But Dan Brown… he never, never disappoints.
The Da Vinci Code itself is part of a bigger series of books. They don’t need to be read in order, but there are minor spoilers if you decide against it. It goes Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci Code, The Lost Symbol, Inferno, and finally, Origin. Just to point out that The Da Vinci Code isn’t even the first one!
The book is an extremely intelligent piece of fiction. Each book in the series begins with a page titled Fact, describing how all the places, art and organizations are accurate and actually exist. The only fictional part of these books is the characters. The research Brown put into this book gives the story a vivid quality, so much so that it reads more like a work of true crime. Reading this book makes you feel smart as it doesn’t dumb anything down and explains everything in a way that’s almost as if it’s teaching you.
The story is nice and fast-paced, with engaging and unique characters. Despite the high number of pages, you just can’t put it down. It has short, easy chapters that switch from perspective to perspective so that you can get every angle of this incredible story.
I’m giving as little context to the actual story as I can because it really is so fun to delve into it completely blind.
Spoilers
Even if you have seen the movie, the book is worth the read. The ending is completely different, Bezu Fache isn’t an asshole (honestly, I don’t know why he’s so mean in the movie), and Sofie isn’t super useless the entire time! And just a little fun fact, Robert Langdon is described as a young Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones. Nothing against Tom Hanks, but… it’s a young Harrison Ford.
After Dark
by Phillip Margolin
3.8 stars
I wanted to include a throwback in this lineup to get in as much variety as possible. So, After Dark is a mystery thriller with layers. It’s a very technical book, so if you don’t know anything about the legal system, it might be challenging to follow along because he does not explain a lot of it. That being said, it’s still very interesting. Some parts of the story are even told through the court records, and I love it when authors get creative with that sort of thing.
The story goes back and forth between the courtroom and the characters’ day-to-day lives, which is very exciting. To give you an idea of the atmosphere of this book, someone blows up. I’m not trying to spoil anything, but it features a serial killer, stalking, blackmail, and much, much more. It’s, therefore, somewhat harder to get into than most books. I’m just giving anyone wanting to try it out some momentum.
The style of writing is similar to that of Dan Brown’s novel Origin in that it imitates true crime, but what makes After Dark special is really the subject matter. There are a ton of different perspectives in both novels; the criminals in Origin and the Supreme Court justices in After Dark are perfect examples. This book lives and breathes law and order from every angle.
There’s a subtle exploration of the theme of women’s empowerment interwoven within the story. It doesn’t shove the message down your throat, which is nice. I always find that books that overly concentrate on a certain political view or theme fail to be as immersive. Keep in mind that this book was written in 1995, so it has that old-writing feel. There are also the flaws we see when men attempt to write female characters; it’s honestly pretty funny from today’s perspective.
This book is just so outside of the norm of modern popular books. Even for me, reading this made me think about branching out in genre. We all need more variety both in our lives and in our reading.
Spoilers
The storyline follows multiple characters, but the main perspective is that of a lawyer being framed for the murder of her ex-husband, a judge. She goes to her rival Matthue (another lawyer) and asks for his help because he is the best and only person who can help her. From there, an enemies-to-lovers romance ensues, which is followed by more action and murder than you would expect. This is not a boring book!
Under the Whispering Door
by T.J. Klune
4 stars
This book is the romance and fantasy one of the group, and it straight-up made me cry. The general consensus from what I’ve seen is that T.J. Klune’s books are very well-loved. I’ve seen many of them make their way onto my Tiktok For You page. This book, which focuses on an LGBT romance, was nominated for Best Fantasy in the 2021 Goodreads Choice Award. Despite all the praise this book gets, I have to admit that it isn’t my favourite. I say this for one reason, and one reason only; it’s a slow burn. That might make you love it more, but personally, I prefer it when things burn at a normal pace.
I loved the writing. There’s a reason that this isn’t the only T.J. Klune’s book that is absolutely blowing up. It’s because of the voice. The narration has a personality, one that can only be compared to that of the king himself: Brandon Sanderson(I’ll review one of his books next time, I promise). I can only think of describing it as practical humour that is embedded in the description, which also blends perfectly into the dialogue.
There’s a cartoonish feel to both the characters and the environment. Bright colours, exaggerated personalities, magic and opposing extremes make the serious parts of the book more manageable. Klune gives it a unique vibe I haven’t seen any other author accomplish. That being said, there are still some serious themes in the book: death, grief (mainly its five stages), murder, infanticide, mental illness, the exploitation of the bereaved, etc. So, it doesn’t shy away from the heavier side; it just makes it digestible.
I’ll have to admit that I read this as an audiobook. Don’t get mad, I told you it was a slow burn, so it slowly burned as I did my laundry. (Achoo! Oh no, ezaudiobooks!. Whoops, I seemed to have dropped a free audiobook site. My bad!)
Spoilers
I’m pretty sure this book is a paranormal romance. It doesn’t list that as any of the tropes on Goodreads, but one of the guys is a ghost, so it must be, right? Anyway, there’s also a ghost puppy if you need more incentive to pick up this book. And a savage old grandpa. And a magic deer boy. I’m creating intrigue, be intrigued.
The Cruel Prince
by Holly Black
DNF
DNF? What could that mean? Did Not Finish… yeah, I’m reviewing a book I did not entirely read. To be fair, I did read most of it and got the rest of the plot summary from a YouTube video, so I think I am qualified enough to write this.
I hate this book. There’s no way around it; this is a bad book. It has a Goodreads Choice Award, a 4.3-star rating, and was written by a New York Times bestselling author! How, like how? Oh, I know though. This book’s popularity on Book Tok made it many people’s introduction to fantasy, a brilliant and rewarding genre. So, of course, people fell in love with it since they had not read anything like it before. But oh, God, close your eyes and pick any fantasy book; there’s a 90% chance it’ll actually be good (unlike The Cruel Prince).
But why, Milly? Why do you hate this book enough to have literally thrown your copy down the stairs (which it unfortunately survived)? Well, the style of writing is one thing. One of the many things. It’s so disjointed that it gets lost. The thought lines are hard to follow, and much of it spans several pages. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, thought lines are the frequency with which ideas are introduced in a book. For context, they usually span about a paragraph because paragraphs are separated by idea. Someone might want to tell the author that.
Moreover, the story is boring. Many would disagree with me on that point, but Jude is boring. There’s going to be spoilers now! Jude, the main character, is selfish and stupid and never learns. She is swept away into a fantasy land (that is generic, uncreative, and just excessive) where she feels out of place because she’s a human among faeries. But this is a girl who constantly thinks about how she wants to stay lowkey and then does the most disruptive things you could think of. She pranks the fae prince and then starts dating one of his friends. She yells at this prince, humiliates him in front of people, and kicks his ass. I don’t mind that she’s doing these things, but I hate that she does them and then rants about how she wishes she could blend in. I WONDER WHY YOU’RE NOT BLENDING IN! Her rash decisions also cause people to assault her sister, who begs Jude to stop, but she just doesn’t.
This story gives me nothing. The magical dynamics are too much; it feels like the Lord of the Rings with half the information. I never know what’s going on and why. The characters react so strangely that I can’t pinpoint their personalities or relationships. The most consistent character in the story is the murdering father figure, Madock. Overall, it’s just muddy.
If you want to get into fantasy, read one of the Secret Project books by Brandon Sanderson, Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo, V.E. Schwab’s Vicious, Dance of Thieves by Mary E. Pearson, or The Orphans and the Ogress by Kelly Barnhill. There is a wide variety of fantasy books written by brilliant authors who deserve your time and attention with their expert storytelling.
