Welcome back to part 3 of my quick catch up reviews of the books I've been reading so far this year.
I'm trying catch up on reviewing these before I get on to my frequent main reviews which will be the point of this blog.
Inside These Walls - Rebecca
Coleman
This tells the story of Clara, who is spending time in a women's prison for murder. She's already served around 25 years of her sentence but that could all be about to change. I'd been watching Orange is the New Black around the time I watched this, but that's such a harsh thing to judge the book against! Despite being famous for her well known case, Clara has never granted a single interview about what happened, but she starts to reconsider after a surprise visitor and starts talking to a journalist who is writing about her former boyfriend and partner in crime. Clara is an interesting narrator and I liked the story but this book didn't quite capture me emotionally which left me feeling a bit...let down.
Tags: crime, fiction
Girlvert: A Porno Memoir - Oriana
Small.
This is the memoir of Oriana Small, also known as porn star Ashley Blue and I'm going to admit, she's not the most likeable of characters but I still enjoyed this book. Basically, Oriana and her boyfriend get into porn because they need the money but the whole vanilla porn seems to go out of the window pretty quickly. Oriana is a self-proclaimed "girlvert" and she seems to be very good at what she does. She prides herself on never crying or complaining on set and views her job as though she is a performance artist, which is guess porn essentially is! Small seems to have no regrets about her chosen career and it does seem like she's done well for herself. Although it's not something I'd do myself, I find books like this incredibly interesting to read.
Tags: non-fiction, memoir, adult.
Diary of Ellen Rimbauer - Joyce
Reardon.
This ties into a TV-Movie which was originally written by Stephen King called Rose Red and it is a pretty damn good book! Ellen begins writing in her diary as a way to process her thoughts and feelings on her new marriage, which also includes the construction of an immense mansion known as Rose Red. Trouble was brewing from the start when one of the construction workers dies and there's rumours of a Native American burial ground. Lots of weird and scary stuff starts happening in the mansion and Ellen's account of this kept me totally enthralled from beginning to end. I'm now plannign on watching Rose Red, as this book isn't the screenplay of the book, but actually the "history" of the building.
Tags: horror, mystery
Indecent: How I make it and fake
it as a girl for hire - Sarah Katherine Lewis
I started this book after the Girlvert book as it's in a similar vein however not quite as hardcore as Small's porn career! Lewis has been working in the sex industry for years and this memoir starts at the beginning, when she began doing lingerie and striptease shows. She upgrades to live sex shows and also erotic massage amongst other specialities. Lewis has a great sense of people and provides wonderful insights into the minds of her clients and employers. I found Lewis to be much more likable than Small, but her story is just as interesting and insightful. We are with Lewis through all the lessons she learns from working in and industry which she neither condemns or condones. If this is something that interests you, I definitely reccommend this reasonably light-heart but serious book.
Tags: non-fiction, memoir
This Won't Hurt a Bit (and other
white lies) - Michelle Au
This is the memoir of a medical student who grows into a doctor of the course of the book. We see both the grim and the good sides of being a modern medical student - some of her stories are heartbreaking, other amusing, but Au keeps on going. We see both her and her husband struggle with making the decision of what their specialities will be, as well as dealing with becoming parents early on in their residences. I actually really enjoyed this book - Au is an engaging writer who draws you in and you don't feel lost or bogged down in medical information.
Tags: memoir
99Nine - Al Sarrantonio
This book will be hard to review, mainly as it's a book of 29 original horror short stories. Obviously you can't expect me to review them all! Like most short story collections, they can be hit and miss and not every story is going to be amazing. The stories come from a range of authors, including big names like Stephen King and Neil Gaiman. It's a tough one to talk about because it's a massive 700+ pages and took me ages to read, even taking breaks from the horror stories to read another book but if you're a fan of horror, I definitely think you'll love this.
Tags: horror, short stories
A perfectly acceptable question don't you think? Apparently Symons, the author, is king of pointless trivia and he's decided to put all that knowledge into a book! The tagline promises to answer a range of "naughty" questions and while they're not groundbreakingly shocking, there were some that made me go "huh, thats a good question!" Obviously this isn't an amazing work of writing but as a fan of useless facts and trivia, I found it interesting and if thats the sort of thing you're into, I'm sure you'll like it too.
Tags: humour, trivia
Uganda Be Kidding Me! - Chelsea
Handler
I'm going to put it out there - I LOVE Chelsea Handler! I read her first couple of books in a few sittings over about two days and could not put them down. I read one on a plane to Florida and was wetting myself laughing all the way through it. I love that she's famous but doesn't really seem to take herself too seriously and doesn't mind talking about her mishaps and adventures when she's drunk. This new book sees Chelsea travelling to Africa and undertaking a safari holiday and if you've read her previous books then you know it's not going to happen without some sort of misadventures and hilarity. As usual, she didn't disappoint and I was laughing all the way through this book so I was not disappointed.
Tags: humour, essays, memoir
So that's the end of part three of my short and sweet book reviews! I think I'll have another 2 parts in this series and then I'll be getting onto single book reviews.
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