Synopsis:
A new house in a suburban Atlanta neighborhood spells disaster for all its inhabitants.
Review:
It’s awfully hard to be frightened when you’re sitting on a rooftop deck in West Hollywood, letting the setting sun dry your bathing suit after discovering that you can float like a cork in the saltwater pool. Continue reading
Synopsis:
After their alibi is busted, three girls spin a whopper of a lie to keep from getting in trouble with their parents. Continue reading
Synopsis:
An investigation into cosmetic surgery, mainly in America, with a focus on the extremes to which people have gone. Continue reading
Synopsis:
When an author stubs her toe on a piece of metal buried on her property, she uncovers a force which begins to change her from within–and this force might be guided by a malevolent consciousness.
Review:
I have begun The Brothers Karamazov, but it’s not exactly a “before-bed” book. Enter The Tommyknockers, a lesser work by Stephen King that deals with a pretty big whatif: “What if there was a spaceship buried in my backyard?”
Bobbi Anderson stubs her toe on some metal, and feels compelled to start digging. Soon she’s realized that the metal is only the tip of a huge vast saucer-shaped chunk of something. As she digs, she begins to change–and soon everyone in her small town (Maine, natch) is starting to exhibit odd, savant-like powers and telepathic flashes. Bobbi is joined by one of King’s most memorable characters, Jim “Gard” Gardener, an alcoholic poet with a penchant for self-destruction. Gard has a steel plate in his head, so the ship doesn’t seem to affect him, but he digs with Bobbi hoping to save her (and perhaps himself to boot).
The Tommyknockers has almost none of the humanism that elevates King’s work. The plot travels on a relentless, hopeless downward spiral. It’s clear from very early on that Bobbi, a character whom King set up with a great deal of detail and affection, isn’t going to make it, and as a result her scenes grow tedious. There’s nowhere for her to go. And watching Gard stay with her is like witnessing a slow, inevitable suicide–King draws it well, but it’s freaking dark, y’all.
It is not until the final 2 pages of the book that King allows in some light, yet the story line he chooses to redeem is the expected one, and as such the resolution is soothing but not satisfying. Despite the book’s flaws, it’s still a good read (I think this is the fourth or fifth time I’ve read it), not something I can say about his later, gentler works like Hearts in Atlantis or Bag of Bones.
Synopsis:
A survey of the state of affairs in campus counseling, presenting the argument that sexual activity is being left out of the equation with disastrous results.
Review:
The full title, Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in her Profession Endangers Every Student, offers a very good sense of the writer’s agenda, and she provides a great deal of evidence to support her claims. The term “political correctness” seems designed to tip off the right that she’s “one of us,” but really it’s the politicization of sexuality on both sides of the aisle that leads to the sorts of scenarios that are causing her and her patients so much angst and pain. Continue reading
