"Though they spent so much time trying to make themselves beautiful, you were not supposed to admit to women that beauty mattered."
I finished The Silkworm just before the start of RIP so THIS TOTALLY COUNTS. Also, the fact that I'm writing a review at all is an achievement in itself, so it's all good. Before I say absolutely nothing about The Silkworm (come on, it's a detective novel- CAN I tell you anything about it? Not really...), I think it's important to just say I'm really really glad that the Cormoran Strike novels are going to be a whole series, JUST LIKE I HOPED THEY WOULD BE when I reviewed The Cuckoo's Calling last year. So, what I'm saying is, thanks for listening to me and doing what I wanted, international bestseller and millionaire, JK Rowling.
SO. The Silkworm. I enjoyed this book a lot, to the extent that I managed to read it in a couple of days which really doesn't happen at the moment, and the fact that I only did that because I had to take it back to the library is neither here nor there. It's got a lot of the great stuff from the first book (Cormoran, Robin, mystery solving awesomeness) but it also deepens the things we know about the main characters AND, I think, sets the main crime in an area I'm more interested in than the fashion world, which is the literary world.
What's especially cool about this is that, in my brain, this means that a lot of the characters could easily be caricatures of real editors and authors in the literary world, and since this is kind of a theme of the novel, I'm choosing to believe that's true. There's a murder in this book. I realise that's not incredibly shocking for a detective novel, but at the same time, the only reason I'm telling you about it is that it's almost definitely written in the blurb on the back of your copy, which is annoying. And it's annoying because the murder doesn't happen (or get discovered, I should say) until the middle of the book, which meant that for the first half I was just sitting around WAITING for the murder, which I didn't really appreciate because I knew I was MISSING stuff, but I also knew MURDER was afoot and I couldn't focus.
But still. This is all really swings and roundabouts, cause when it comes right down to it, I just really enjoyed this book. I think that, as someone who reads a LOT of literary fiction, when I get down to it and read something more genre-y, I really enjoy it because OMG STORY STORY STORY, and then I wonder why I don't read more detective novels. (And then I read more detective novels and remember that most people can't really write, and THAT is why I read Lit Fic). So that's part of the deal with this, but also, you know, characters and plot and some really gross and disturbing stuff and JK can WRITE, man. She really can.
I feel like this was very rambly, and for that I apologise. Really all I want to say is this: I feel like I've seen some people going 'I feel weeeeird about reading anything by JK that isn't Harry Potter', and you know what? I get you. But, the thing is, weird feelings or no, you're really going to be missing out on something awesome if you keep living your life like that. Cormoran Strike not only has an awesome name, but is a really excellent character, his lovely assistant Robin is, you know, lovely, and I kind of love everything about these books. You probably will too, so just stop worrying and learn to love this brave new world of JK's writing. It's pretty great.
But still. This is all really swings and roundabouts, cause when it comes right down to it, I just really enjoyed this book. I think that, as someone who reads a LOT of literary fiction, when I get down to it and read something more genre-y, I really enjoy it because OMG STORY STORY STORY, and then I wonder why I don't read more detective novels. (And then I read more detective novels and remember that most people can't really write, and THAT is why I read Lit Fic). So that's part of the deal with this, but also, you know, characters and plot and some really gross and disturbing stuff and JK can WRITE, man. She really can.
I feel like this was very rambly, and for that I apologise. Really all I want to say is this: I feel like I've seen some people going 'I feel weeeeird about reading anything by JK that isn't Harry Potter', and you know what? I get you. But, the thing is, weird feelings or no, you're really going to be missing out on something awesome if you keep living your life like that. Cormoran Strike not only has an awesome name, but is a really excellent character, his lovely assistant Robin is, you know, lovely, and I kind of love everything about these books. You probably will too, so just stop worrying and learn to love this brave new world of JK's writing. It's pretty great.
