I can see the potential with this writer, Blindsighted being her first published book. You can tell a lot of effort has been put into researching it aI can see the potential with this writer, Blindsighted being her first published book. You can tell a lot of effort has been put into researching it and, as an average reader, feels fairly realistic in terms of procedure and the characteristics of rapists and rape victims.
However, my biggest bugbear is Sara, the medical examiner and the town's paediatrician, keeping her prior rape a secret from her husband (now ex-husband) Jeffrey for a number of years. It seems unrealistic. She says that he taught her to enjoy sex, but in the early days of their sexual relationship, surely Jeffrey would've noticed her anxiety given his job in the police. I'm also surprised her family hadn't spoken to him about it in all the years they'd known him. And considering how closely her past rape resembled the first victim's case, she should've told Jeffrey sooner to help him with his investigation. This also seems part of the cause of the divorce. He cheated on her because she was keeping him at arm's length emotionally. And this is all complicated by them both wanting to get back together with only Sara's hesitancy stopping them.
Jeffrey, for being a police officer for a couple of decades and investigating murders every week, he sure does seem squeamish. Emergency service workers tend to be those with cool heads when everyone else is losing theirs. Jeffrey is not always one of those people.
As soon as we meet the second victim, less than halfway through the book, I knew the identity of the killer. When the he’s confronted, he seems unable to admit the most barbaric and repulsive of actions he committed on a blind young woman: (view spoiler)[raping the hole in the centre of the cross he'd carved in Sibyl's stomach and then vaginally raping her. He then drugs and crucifies his victims with their legs apart, pulling teeth to make it easier to rape them. He also raped his 13-year-old sister, and struggled to accept he killed her with sepsis when he botched her abortion. He appeared to accidentally kill Sibyl and almost kill Julia with a fatal dose of belladonna, despite being a pharmacist. He claimed to want to keep his victims alive to be found and saved by Sara so this was odd. (hide spoiler)]
The racist attacks were strange. An old, arthritic black man fingered as the rapist and killer who has had to lift and restrain his victims? I don't think so. Why he was targeted was unjustified and stupid, although racists aren't exactly known for their brain cells. Any excuse, right?
In my 2020 20th anniversary edition, there’s an introduction from the author giving her opinion on the novel now. It’s a bit spoiler-y in a good way. When she was first published there were only a handful of female gritty crime writers, and as a result sexism was rife. Slaughter was asked why she was writing about violence against women and why she wrote ‘such strong female characters.�
‘My early reviews were peppered with manly adjectives (when they were not taking me to task for being so un-lady-like � in particular, Lena’s use of the word ‘fuck� came up often, because it’s okay to rape and murder but a lady using the F-word is a bridge too far).�
In the aftermath of police brutality incidents being filmed and posted on social media, Slaughter is now anti-vigilante justice in the police. She takes aim at universities with an English Lit syllabus for their obsession with ‘Serious Literary Fiction� while viewing genre fiction with contempt, which is fair.
Slaughter describes Sara and Jeffrey as the adults and Lena as an inexperienced ‘very angry young woman.� She is definitely that, annoyingly so. Explosive, over the top and jumping to conclusions. She doesn’t feel like someone you can trust, so I find it suspicious that she was made a detective.
As I said, I can see the potential with this writer, and I don’t doubt that she's got better during the last 20 years....more
There's nothing like a bit of necrophilia in the morning.
Our RoboZombies  (the zombies are actually referred to as 'steins', as in Frankenstein) don'There's nothing like a bit of necrophilia in the morning.
Our RoboZombies  (the zombies are actually referred to as 'steins', as in Frankenstein) don't decompose and still retain all of their bodily functions so there are no ball sacks falling off during fellatio or penises detaching mid-coitus (oh look a new dildo!) so my tea and toast stayed happily in my stomach.
Our heroine, Josie, is a newly made RoboZombie sex doll. Her memories have been wiped in favour of rudimentary programming to engineer her to need, and be submissive to, a 'husband'. Her obviously abusive maker had no other use for her than that. Free will is only for the living. She's child-like in her curiosity and discovery of new concepts and sensations, but she's very much able to learn and grow beyond her original programming.
The hero, turned Peeping Tom during recon, is also a RoZo of the soldier / assassin variety with PTSD, employed by a pro-free will organisation. Bane's been working towards earning a memory and programming reset to relieve his mental anguish to become blissfully ignorant of the deeds he's done while his free will was taken from him.
Bane's mission is to retrieve the heroine from her maker by any means necessary before an evil RoZo corporation can swoop in and recover the scientist and his research. As the heroine had been designed to require biofeedback via touch and an electronic mental connection from a husband, the hero has to fill that hole role to prevent her programming from degrading to the point of leaving her a lifeless rotting corpse.
It's important to note that Bane doesn't rape Josie, the very thought disgusts him. Josie's personality, that of a 'virtual child', also unnerves him so he's very careful about how he handles her, leaving Josie to decide what she wants.
I'm riding the line between love and hate, hiding in the no-man's-land of meh. Predictable paranormal romance that isn't too cheesy, worldbuilding and character development of the supporting cast is lacking, but it possesses an interesting, and I suppose plausible, possibility of cyborg RoboZombies in the future. I'd still take Langlais's cyborgs over Harris's though.
Favourite Quote:
But all idealism faded if exposed to enough reality.
Merged review:
There's nothing like a bit of necrophilia in the morning.
Our RoboZombies  (the zombies are actually referred to as 'steins', as in Frankenstein) don't decompose and still retain all of their bodily functions so there are no ball sacks falling off during fellatio or penises detaching mid-coitus (oh look a new dildo!) so my tea and toast stayed happily in my stomach.
Our heroine, Josie, is a newly made RoboZombie sex doll. Her memories have been wiped in favour of rudimentary programming to engineer her to need, and be submissive to, a 'husband'. Her obviously abusive maker had no other use for her than that. Free will is only for the living. She's child-like in her curiosity and discovery of new concepts and sensations, but she's very much able to learn and grow beyond her original programming.
The hero, turned Peeping Tom during recon, is also a RoZo of the soldier / assassin variety with PTSD, employed by a pro-free will organisation. Bane's been working towards earning a memory and programming reset to relieve his mental anguish to become blissfully ignorant of the deeds he's done while his free will was taken from him.
Bane's mission is to retrieve the heroine from her maker by any means necessary before an evil RoZo corporation can swoop in and recover the scientist and his research. As the heroine had been designed to require biofeedback via touch and an electronic mental connection from a husband, the hero has to fill that hole role to prevent her programming from degrading to the point of leaving her a lifeless rotting corpse.
It's important to note that Bane doesn't rape Josie, the very thought disgusts him. Josie's personality, that of a 'virtual child', also unnerves him so he's very careful about how he handles her, leaving Josie to decide what she wants.
I'm riding the line between love and hate, hiding in the no-man's-land of meh. Predictable paranormal romance that isn't too cheesy, worldbuilding and character development of the supporting cast is lacking, but it possesses an interesting, and I suppose plausible, possibility of cyborg RoboZombies in the future. I'd still take Langlais's cyborgs over Harris's though.
Favourite Quote:
But all idealism faded if exposed to enough reality.
An incredibly frustrating start to the Poirot series. At 50-60%, I was ready to find out the murderer. From here on, the story dragged. Round and rounAn incredibly frustrating start to the Poirot series. At 50-60%, I was ready to find out the murderer. From here on, the story dragged. Round and round in circles we go until I didn't know or care who the murder was or how they did it.
While this isn't Christie's greatest work, it is her first, and for a first book it isn't terrible. The novel's setup, the murder and the events in the hours immediately after are well-crafted. The introduction of the humorous, dandified, OCD-afflicted Poirot and his ever genial wannabe detective Hastings are well drawn and compliment each other very well.
Mrs Emily Inglethorp, the wealthy victim, feels very much like an early version of Rachel Argyll, the victim in Ordeal by Innocence. Both women you cannot love, for their control over you prevents you from feeling anything other than resentment. Any kindness shown is for the sake of public approval, to elicit praise from neighbours and society at large.
My only criticism is the solving of the murder after the initial clue hunting. It was so confusing, going round and round in circles, I gave up on trying to guess where things were going. I felt Christie and Poirot withheld too much information. Just as Hastings is angry, frustrated and offended at not being privy to more of Poirot's knowledge, so is the reader. You need to give the reader a little more of a chance of solving it themselves, even if the clues are small and easily overlooked. Christie must come to understand this as she appears to act upon this criticism in later books. ...more
Guess How Much I Love You is one of those titles that screams 'Read me, I'm adorable!' Instead, I felt disappointment. I can't quite put my finger on Guess How Much I Love You is one of those titles that screams 'Read me, I'm adorable!' Instead, I felt disappointment. I can't quite put my finger on why, but it came across as more of a cynical money-maker rather than an endearing story of a parent and child expressing love for one another. And, after a quick look online, I see there's plenty of merchandise available.
I'm scratching it off the list of books to buy my niece and nephew....more
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