Asghar鈥檚 Year in Books

What did you read this year?

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2024

1,604

pages read

books read

Asghar Abbas

Shortest Book

255

pages

Longest Book

383

pages

Average book length in 2024

320

pages

Most Shelved

1,096,653

people also shelved

Least Shelved

11,229

people also shelved

Asghar鈥檚 average rating for 2024

3.5

Highest Rated on 欧宝娱乐

4.12 average

Asghar鈥檚 first review of the year

it was ok

I really cannot believe I bought this book from Indigo, at full retail price! I wanna say what a waste, except it wasn't completely, so I can't really say that. But what a waste, Jeff Winger! It started OK, and it was an okish thriller until it wasn't. It was okay for a while but after a while, what it had dissolved into was so ludicrous, I could only shake my head in utter disbelief and amazement. And it was so sloppily written, sloppy kiss or n
I really cannot believe I bought this book from Indigo, at full retail price! I wanna say what a waste, except it wasn't completely, so I can't really say that. But what a waste, Jeff Winger! It started OK, and it was an okish thriller until it wasn't. It was okay for a while but after a while, what it had dissolved into was so ludicrous, I could only shake my head in utter disbelief and amazement. And it was so sloppily written, sloppy kiss or not, no spitting involved, maybe. The writing itself was very pedestrian, I must add here. The type of pitfalls a novice couldn't possibly avoid. It was rather shocking to see such rookie mistakes from a published author, let alone a bestselling one. It wasn't just the writing though. The characters were okay, apart from the nonsensical way they behaved, cartoonish and dumb. There was no world-building whatsoever, no build-up or payoff of any kind. There was no dread, a setting like this should have been spooky, but nope, nothing here. A character would walk outside onto the terrace and it would be raining without any previous mention of that, or setup of any sort. All the action in the book blended with the characters' melodrama was just juvenile at best.

It is an odd thing but quite recently and painfully, or rather through the miasma of pain, I was reading something else when I was going through something else. THAT book was rather beautiful. It helped me get through that painful time, the odd thing being that book also featured a crumbling house on a cliff.

That book is The Book of Speculation the book I am talking about here. Other than the one I am talking about here, the much cherished Book of Speculation, oh how I loved that One. That book I mean, and not someone else, is the book I am slyly trying to sneak in whilst harboring something else as well.

Eerily enough, because I had just read it, The Book of Speculation had a similar concept of a collapsing house slowly edging off a cliff and toward the ocean. Just like the people who were once very much a part of you slowly edge out of our consciousness. People who you couldn't even imagine a life without but then you are left without any imagination and are still living without them. Very sad. Anyway. Though The Book of Speculation was more of a slow-burn character study with a little bit of the fantastical sprinkled in, it did a better job of dredging up the perfect imagery of decay, neglect, and a house finally crumbling off the cliff and into the sea with the finality of its own.

And this one, just this One, frustrated me to no end. I am far too jaded to be this old. But over the years the more I learn of the publishing industry the more I realize how it is more about luck than anything else. How sometimes talent is more of a hindrance. Foolishly picking up this book from a selection at Indigo, I wanted to settle for a cozy, cheap thriller. What I settled in was neither cozy nor a thriller. It was just cheap.

...more

础厂骋贬础搁鈥橲 2024 BOOKS

it was amazing

Asghar鈥檚 last review of the year

it was ok

Whilst this was an extremely well written novel, I simply didn't get it. We like Krimson Rogue, we did not like this novel at all.

For the first time ever I was left wondering after finishing this, what was the point here? ...more

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