Finally....

After a long period of not finishing any books at all I can now report that I managed to get the better of one! Started it on Saturday and finished it of this evening. Might even go on a bit of a spree with the reading. Get in a couple of ones that are quick and easy to read... see if I can get the numbers down a bit.
Also, to move things further along I have decided to take one book out of the total books to be read. It is called You are what you Eat and is about food and eating habits. I do not think that I ever really intended to read it completely. It is more of a reference work than a book to read. No use protesting the logic of this decision.. it's my blog and I make the rules. It's out and that's the end of it (insert smiley face with tongue poking out).
This makes the total of books to be read: 84.


SPOILER ALERT


The Darkest Evening of the Year - Dean Koontz
Unfortunately I found this one a bit disappointing.
When reading it when I got to about page 100 there seemed to be two separate stories in the book: one dark, one light or to use an analogy more in line of mr DK: one good, one evil. The strands seemed very individual and I was not sure how they ever would be able to converge. No character in either of the story lines seemed to have anything in common with those in the other. Usually with DK if there is one thing you can bank on (apart from the references to religion, there is a struggle/battle of good versus evil and dogs are smarter than we give them credit for) it is that the separate stories will interlink at one point. With these there seemed to be no way in which they would be able to.
You get nothing in the background of any of the characters that seems to link them to any of the others at first. At one point I felt myself getting a bit impatient and thinking "come on DK, give us a clue on how this all fits together" but he kept me waiting for a wihle longer.
In the Good Guys Camp there is Amy Redwing... but this is not her real name. She rescues dogs and spends all her money on doing the right thing for them. Cares about them more than people but we are not given any clue as to why that might be. There is the man she loves, Bryan. He is an architect, normal reliable kind of guy who gets weird emails from some chick. We also have the dog, Nickie. She is rescued from a house by Amy and she sees something in the dog that touches her. Again we do not find out until we get to the last hundred pages or so what that link is.
In the Bad Guys Camp we have Moongirl (probably not her real name). Nutter to the core who seems to spend most of her time teasing someone initially only known to us as Piggy. Then there is Harrow (fitting name, he is a bit of a harrowing character). Harrow is a nutter but knows he is and is thus perhaps more dangerous than Moongirl. He is involved with Moongirl for some reason and obviously wants her around for some reason but we are not told why and what for. There is definitely a sense that something about him is not what it seems. They both like to just burn people for fun and abdicate all responsibility for their actions. They seem to be working towards something but what? Whatever it is it is not going to be good once it happens. Then there is Billy Pilgrim who evolves from a focused gun for hire to a second guessing fool. In his line of work that will only get you one thing.. killed. Nice touch on him; his real name turns out to be Philip Marlowe.. only my favourite fictional detective!
There are a load of side characters that turn up in the story but the main focus is really around Amy and Bryan and their nemesis Moongirl/Vanessa and Harrow/Michael. The way it works out in the end is that Harrow is Amy's ex husband who married her when she was 18 and then tried to kill her. This was after he managed to kill their daughter and all the staff in the house they lived in. They had served their use in getting him his inheritance and he got bored of them so they had to die (where is a good divorce lawyer when you need one). The only reason that we are given for Michael being the way he is, is tucked away in a few lines at the end of the book which say that Michael had a nanny that made him what he is. To be honest, not a very satisfying or well explored explanation for someone who is a pivotal character and went postal the way he did. Moongirl/Vanessa turns out to be Bryan's ex out for revenge. Vanessa seems to be simply deranged and intent on getting her own back on Bryan for saddling her with a defective daughter (never heard of adoption love?). No explanation is ever given for her madness but I suspect she was left at the school gate on her own once too often?
Piggy turns out to be the true innocent in the story. She is Bryan and Vanessa's  daughter. A girl with Down Syndrome held captive by her mad mother. Dragged from house to house. Thrown into violent situations and subjected to humiliation and abuse for all the ten years of her life so far. Part of me feels that she is the one the story should have been more about. However, DK seems to want to at times push the dog (Nickie) to the forefront more. The dog is redemption and in the dog lies salvation and the way out of the bad stuff. The only reason we are initially given for this is that the dog reminds Amy of a dog she rescued when she was at an orphanage and that she called Nickie. Then at the end of the book it turns out that it is the same name that Amy gave her daughter. So the dog is also supposed to be her re-incarnated daughter sent back to earth by the Angels to help Amy and Bryan in their struggle? To give them Hope. Literally.. as Bryan's daughter is called Hope.
It just feels that mr DK has tried to over-think this one a bit and made the story a bit too intricate. Too many things are not explained in enough detail and the connections between things, people and events are saved unti the very end. Had I known more at the beginning it would have helped me get more involved with the characters and make me understand why they did what they did in their lives.
What I also missed were the insightful one-liners. What DK is usually very good at is giving you the truth in a nutshell and making you stop and think about what whole train of thought or idea he has just condensed down into one perfect sentence. I did not find any gems in this book that made me want to write them down or remember them.
Best supernatural moment of the book: the phone call from the dead nun! Brilliantly set up did not see that one coming at all.
All in all, as usual easy to read but not that coherent, not that together and not that great.


Title: The Darkest Evening of the Year
Author: Dean Koontz
440 pages
Harper
ISBN nr 978-0-00-722662-7

Books to be read: 83