The Secret City by C.J. Daugherty & Carina Rozenfeld
This ridiculous sequel to ‘The Secret Fire’ features oafish morons and their innate feelings of self importance which miserably bores the reader. This horrible sequel is full of rampant Americanisms and a heroine called Taylor. There are no inspirational acts and the bimbo Taylor has no real emotional involvement and her banal French boytoy has a depressive flatness of tone and tortured self-absorption.
There are sinister goings on, clear and avoidable mistakes, bleak resignation, moral anguish, no emotive appeal and a dull baddie. Everyone has bored insouciance and are a moral stain. People are irony-bored and exclaim slightly too enthusiastically. Things happen without any consequences and the brutal thug baddie is incredibly ugly and evil.
This was not a finely wrought twisted horror, just a really offensive mess full of expositional speeches on morality meters, manic insecurity, dark practices and a lack of ethical standards. This is a tale of coincidences, a felonious past, the least insightful people ever and this invoked a coldly dismissive response to the stupefying and deeply irrational behaviour therein.
Best Lines:
“Who is that guy and why aren’t they fighting him?”
“To him, it was just two lines of people, glaring at each other.”
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The Scorpion King by Max Allan Collins
A modest novelisation of the 2002 movie. It was written with workmanlike precision and hyperbole. This was slightly off kilter with the movie.
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Roger and Other Cats by Hugh Leonard
This slim 1992 volume tells of the authors many adorable pet cats and their misadventures.