Skip to main content

Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith

 


**SPOILERS BE HERE**

This was a behemoth. I thought the length would bother me more than it did, but there was never a moment when I dreaded reading it because it seemed like an insurmountable task; I was genuinely interested and anxious for the conclusion. There were some times when it dragged a bit, but never enough to spoil the story.

As always with this series, my favorite part was the mystery, and I think it was done very well. I was completely wrong in my guess of whodunit--I was convinced it was Dr. Gupta because he was too unassuming, and then I thought it must be Irene. I fell into the same trap as all the characters! I didn't expect it to be who it was, and I definitely didn't see the extent of the murders coming. I did figure out what was going on with Shifty's Boss early on, though! That was pretty obvious, so maybe I shouldn't celebrate that easy win. 

For a while, I also thought Margot must still be alive and transgender because of all the hullabaloo around the book being transphobic, which I don't think it is. There are a few sentences about the possibility of a woman being a man dressed as a woman because of her stature. It's a minuscule amount of the book, so I'm not quite sure how it got so blown out of proportion. It's too bad it's keeping people from reading the novel, but that's their choice!

In terms of where this ranks in the series....Honestly, the previous books are pretty fuzzy in my mind even though I just reread them all this year, so I can't really say, but my gut is saying this is toward the top. Part of that may be because this one was less graphic--don't get me wrong, it still had some completely horrifying parts that I was tempted to skip over, but they were very brief. Compared to descriptions of severed limbs and heads, I'll take it. Another part is ease; I really think this one was easier to follow than some of the others, and maybe that's because of the length. We had an abundance of time to keep all the suspects and characters straight. 

I don't think anything was missing from the book--how could it be at 927 pages--but there were some things I could have done without, and they're almost all side plots. 

  • The Charlotte plot doesn't interest me in the slightest, nor does the Johnny Rokeby plot. I know they are there for Cormoran's character development, but they're overdone at this point. 
  • I'm glad Matthew is finally out of the picture because I was getting tired of that, and especially with Robin for staying in such a toxic relationship. 
  • The Cormoran/Robin will they/won't they is also getting a bit old. They just need to get together! The books are more realistic than I want them to be because they do have valid reasons for not pulling the trigger; I'm glad to see they're moving in the right direction (the last chapter literally brought a smile to my face). 
  • The Joan storyline was very sad, but I think it could have been tightened up a bit. 
  • The dinner party was bizarre and seemed extremely out of place to me.
  • I suppose all the zodiac stuff tied into the mystery, but I couldn't keep any of it straight. I also didn't feel like the zodiac sketches really added anything--I examined the first few, but then completely skipped over the rest.

Completed: 22 November 2020
Rating: 3.75/5
Recommend: Yes, but read the others in the series first

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

  **SPOILERS BE HERE** I am whelmed. I'm also ignoring that this is a fictionalized account of William and Kate. The beginning of the book was great! I was super into it and it was cheesy cute, which was exactly what I needed after reading the very dry  Presidency of William Howard Taft . I love how Bex and Nick bonded over a trashy TV show and Twinkies. They were so cute together. But it went south pretty quickly after Part 1. This book was just so long . It does span eight years, but I couldn't have told you that because the time jumps were difficult to follow. Has a year passed? Have three? Who knows? What could have been the most interesting parts were completely skipped over—Bex goes home to finish university but it's only briefly mentioned. Visit the long-distance relationship and her decision to move to England! Her father dies but we barely get to see her grieving (not due to a time jump). What about her settling into a new country full time? Or her job, which is ju...
Post a Comment
Read more

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (Translated by Norman Denny)

  **SPOILERS BE HERE** Last year, I decided to read War and Peace  and Les Miserables  in 2020. They're both around 360 chapters long, so reading two chapters a day would enable me to finish them both by the end of the year.  I succeeded!  I actually finished War and Peace  in April (cuz COVID) and then waited until July to start Les Miserables. I've also already read Les Miserables  twice before now, but this was my first time reading this translation. I prefer the Fahnestock/MacAfee/Wilbour translation; I wasn't a fan of how this one cut out two sections and added them to the end.  Oh wait! I've read an abridged version, too, one based on the 1998 film with Liam Neeson. That one is terrible; unabridged or bust! Ok so maybe not unabridged or bust. If you had asked me about 10 years ago (the last time I read it), I would have said that, but now I think some sections could be reduced or cut out. Those two that were slapped onto the end weren't very...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline

 SPOILERS BE HERE Trash. This book was trash. I had no idea what it was about beyond it probably being a sequel to Ready Player One , which I really enjoyed. But this was just a rehash of Ready Player One , and done really badly. Wade was awful. The relationships were awful. The story was awful. That Prince segment was sooooooooooo overly long. It would have been much better if we could have followed a different set of characters on the quest (those five who called themselves something I can't remember). Or if it had just been about how the winners were using their money to try to help the world. Or a prequel. Anything but what it was.  That's it. That's the review. It doesn't deserve anything else. Parts were fine but overall it was just plain bad. Completed: 7 March 2021 Rating: 1/5 Recommend: Absolutely not
Post a Comment
Read more