The Fireman by Joe Hill

(Sorry about the delay in posting! I was out of town for a few days)

From Goodreads/Front Flap:
From New York Times bestselling author of  NOS4A2 and Heart-Shaped Box comes a chilling novel about a worldwide pandemic of spontaneous combustion that threatens to reduce civilization and a band of improbable heroes who battle to save it, led by one powerful and enigmatic man, known as the Fireman.  

Stay cool, the fireman is coming.

No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophoton. To everyone else it's Dragonscale, a highly contagious spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks - before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe. 

The synopsis goes on for a bit longer, but for the sake of brevity and suspense, I cut off the last few paragraphs.

I read this book near the end of July to beginning of August; it was my first Joe Hill novel (full name: Joseph Hillstrom King - son of Stephen King, horror novel god - Hill cut off the last portion of his surname to distinguish himself from his Dad) and this is my unadulterated review: love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, LOVE this book. It was so amazingly good and well-written and wonderful and I can't wait to read it again. Sigh. Have I mentioned that I love this book? Because I do.

 Right from the get-go, Hill sets up his world, a post-apocalyptic, man-vs-man-vs-nature-vs-self world that is atmospheric and has just enough of a chilling tone that doesn't turn you off, and is scary without being overly scary or overly dramatic. Hill is a very good writer, his writing is not difficult to follow, but he does not make it too easy for the reader either. I found his characters to be compelling and dynamic, well-rounded, and every one of them (even the douchebag husband of the main character - thankfully not in the book for very long) had something interesting to contribute.

This was my first pleasure foray into the horror genre. I picked this book up at Chapters on a whim and I'm glad that I did. I really enjoy the cross-over genre of apocalypse with horror, but sadly, I don't think many of those books exist outside of this and maybe Cormac McCarthy's The Road, so if anyone has any apocalyptic horror novels like this or The Road, let me know! I love this genre!

Hill covers the bases of the apocalyptic horror genre well, also incorporating issues such as trust and loyalty. Who are we supposed to trust? Are we supposed to trust no one? There are certain characters that instantly are suspicious and Hill doesn't fall into the tired cliche of having an obvious villain, playing back into the man-vs-man theme. Have I mentioned that I love this book?

All in all, this was an amazing book, and I highly recommend it, especially to fans of the apocalyptic horror genre. It's well worth your time. I had a really great time with The Fireman, and I am giving it a 5/5.
I will be sure to check out more of Hill's works once I have money (I bought my textbooks for school and sheeesh they're not cheap).

(Side-note: I read Ulysses! I don't think I'll do a conventional post like this one and Dubliners, but more a "thoughts on" post, because I could go on for days about Ulysses and create entire blogs devoted to nothing but Ulysses. Expect that post in a couple of days.)

Dubliners by James Joyce

From the back cover: James Joyce was the singular figure of modernism, and to this day his grand vision looms large over contemporary literature and the entire Western canon. His stylistic innovations were revolutionary, yet nowhere is Joyce more accessible than in this volume of short stories, a brilliant collection that celebrates, critiques, and immortalizes the place that Joyce knew better than anyone else: Dublin. From the young boy encountering death in the opening story "The Sisters" to the middle aged protagonist of its haunting finale "The Dead," considered one of the greatest short stories of all time, Dubliners is a vivid portrait of the city in all its glory and hardship, and a seminal work that redifined the short form. Featuring a new Introduction by acclaimed novelist John Banville, this edition is not only a breathtaking portal into Joyce's "dear dirty Dublin" but a vital literary treasure from one of the great masters of all time. 

This was my first James Joyce book. I've started reading Ulysses today. While others may find Joyce's writing style off-putting, there is a simple complexity and a duality to it that I find interesting. I really enjoyed Dubliners. It's a short little book with fourteen short stories and a novella, making up fifteen stories, in which Dublin and its people are portrayed as accurately as can be. There is an ongoing thread throughout Dubliners and everything loosely and tightly interconnects. My favourite two stories are "An Encounter" and "The Dead" which both highlight Dublin and Dubliners in different ways. There is something so haunting and moving about "The Dead" and something so off-putting about "An Encounter" that those two stood out as my favourite two.

I really liked Joyce's writing style. It is like nothing else I have read. While it did take a little bit of getting used to, ultimately, his style fits what he is writing. His style is simple but hinging on absurd. All in all, I really, really enjoyed reading Dubliners, taking my time with the stories and allowing myself to really get into the narrative and the stories.

I give Dubliners 5/5 stars and I recommend it to everybody, as I think it is a book that everyone should read at one point in their lifetime.

Introduction

Hello blogosphere!

As I'm sure you have guessed from the url and blog title, I'm Gillian. I'm a 20-something Canadian, about to go into my third year at Trent University with a double major in English Literature and History (no, I don't want to be a teacher).

I like to read, listen to music, travel, watch movies and be out and about. This blog will be primarily about what I'm reading, but there will also be a few "life" posts sprinkled in here as well (I'm not that boring! :P)

I did say that I don't want to be a teacher. My career goal is literary agent or something else in the publishing field that involves reading and advocating for unpublished books to become published. In order to reach this goal, in all likelihood I will have to go on to get my M.A. following my B.A.H.

As I mentioned, I love reading, and it is one of my favourite things to do when I am not working or doing things for school. I have a long list of favourite books, that keeps growing. Right now, I'm currently reading Dubliners, a collection of short stories by James Joyce, and it's my goal to read his great tome Ulysses as well as the nonsensical Finnegans Wake. I've recently finished Joe Hill's book The Fireman as well as Thomas Olde Heuvelt's Dutch-to-English HEX, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed. Since I am an English student, I might post on the books I read in my English classes as well. School starts for me in a couple of weeks, and I'm getting my textbooks for the fall semester soon, in the next week or two, so I might post on that as well.

I did try to make a separate Instagram page for my reading posts only, but it wasn't letting me, and I prefer written reviews to photos with a quick blurb about my thoughts, so I figured a blog was the best way to express my thoughts on the books I read. I have tried blogging in the past, and I'm sure my abandoned blogs are still out there in the Internet void, but this time I'm really going to try and stick with it.

When I'm not reading, working or at school, I enjoy listening to music, watching movies, going on adventures and travelling. My ideal travel destination is Ireland, my favourite place I've never been to.

Happy reading!
- Gillian