***
NOVEL: The Rook
AUTHOR: Daniel O’Malley
YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 2012
REVIEW:
***
The Rook is a little bit Harry Potter, and a bit of James Bond, and a lot of Jason Bourne, with a female lead. Myfanwy Thomas is an operative in a secret supernatural agency in London, and also an amnesiac. Can she save herself (and the rest of us) from threats inside and outside of her organization?
Well, of course she can–what else would you expect from a supernatural thriller? It’s funny, and pretty clever, and extremely, extremely weird. It’s hard, no, make that impossible, to take The Rook very seriously, with its preposterous story line and quirky protagonist (her memory loss has, fortunately, resolved much of her past trauma, although somehow her new personality has incorporated an awful lot of what feminist literary theorists call “the male gaze”). The world-building is imparted through huge data dumps (Myfanwy’s prior personality, realizing something was seriously amiss, wrote extensive letters to herself in anticipation of losing her memory).
If you can get past the overused tropes and the very-much-not-believable female perspective, and just go along for the ride, it’s a fun (and very silly) adventure. Intriguing premise, interesting characters, humor, snark, and all kinds of strange happenings kept me turning the pages, despite the novel’s flaws. Best not to give this one too much thought…this is entertaining beach reading, not immortal literature.
***
RATING (one to five whistles, with five being the best): 3 Whistles
***
HOW TO PURCHASE: Amazon
***
Laura LaVelle is an attorney and writer who lives in Connecticut, in a 100-year-old house, along with her husband, two daughters, and two cockatiels.
Laura can be contacted at laura@newswhistle.com
***
IMAGE CREDITS
Book Cover Image & Book Cover – Hachette Book Group
***
ALSO ON OUR BOOKSHELVES:
A Countess Below Stairs, Eva Ibbotson
A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles
A Journal of the Plague Year, Daniel Defoe
A Man Called Ove, Fredrik Backman
A Patchwork Planet, Anne Tyler
A Room With a View, E.M. Forster
A Wandering Eye: Travels with My Phone, Miguel Flores-Vianna
Airs Above the Ground, Mary Stewart
Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
An Almond for a Parrot, Wray Delaney
An Exaltation of Larks, James Lipton
An Infamous Army, Georgette Heyer
Anne Of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery
Arthur & George, Julian Barnes
Ayesha at Last, Uzma Jalaluddin
Beezus and Ramona, Beverly Cleary
Belles on Their Toes, Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. & Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
Blue Highways, William Least Heat-Moon
Bonjour Tristesse, Francoise Sagan
Books for Living, Will Schwalbe
Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?, Roz Chast
Cheaper by the Dozen, Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. & Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
Cockpit Confidential, Patrick Smith
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
Death in Profile, Guy Fraser-Sampson
Decorating a Room of One’s Own, Susan Harlan
Dept. of Speculation, Jenny Offill
Diary of a Provincial Lady, E.M. Delafield
Ed Emberly’s Drawing Book of Animals, Ed Emberly
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman
Endangered Pleasures, Barbara Holland
Envious Casca, Georgette Heyer
Everything Happens for a Reason–and Other Lies I’ve Loved, Kate Bowler
Fever Dream, Samanta Schweblin
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
Gaudy Night, Dorothy L. Sayers
Ghostly, edited by Audrey Niffenegger
Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Gmorning, Gnight! Little Pep Talks for Me & You, Lin-Manuel Miranda
H is for Haiku, Sydell Rosenberg
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, & Jack Thorne
Hemingway Didn’t Say That, Garson O’Toole
Heretics & Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton
Hide My Eyes, Margery Allingham
Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen, Laurie Colwin
How to Bake π–An Edible Exploration of the Mathematics of Mathematics, Eugenia Cheng
Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
I Will Always Write Back, Caitlin Alifirenka & Martin Ganda with Liz Welch
If on a winter’s night a traveler, Italo Calvino
In the Last Analysis, Amanda Cross
Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor, Stephanie Barron
Jim Trelease’s Read-Aloud Handbook, edited and revised by Cyndi Giorgis
Kenny & the Dragon, Tony DiTerlizzi
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, Anthony Bourdain
Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
Lizard Music, Daniel Pinkwater
Loveboat, Taipei, Abigail Hing Wen
Madeleine’s Ghost, Robert Girardi
Magpie Murders, Anthony Horowitz
Malice Aforethought, Frances Iles
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, Helen Simonson
Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town, Jon Krakauer
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan
My Life in France, Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
New York New York, Richard Berenholtz
Night Train to Lisbon, Pascal Mercier
Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
No Time to Spare, Ursula K. Le Guin
Notorious RBG, Irin Carmon & Shana Knizhnik
One Summer: America 1927, Bill Bryson
Out of the Blackout, Robert Bernard
Parnassus on Wheels & The Haunted Bookshop, Christopher Morley
Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar, Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein
Plotted: A Literary Atlas, Andrew DeGraff
Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors, Sonali Dev
Sanditon, Jane Austen and Another Lady
Secrets and Lies, Selena Montgomery
Selected Poems of Langston Hughes
Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Carlo Rivelli
Solutions and Other Problems, Allie Brosh
Sorcery and Cecelia: Or the Enchanted Chocolate Pot, Patricia Wrede & Caroline Stevermer
Still the Promised Land, Natwar Gandhi
Straying from the Flock: Travels in New Zealand, Alexander Elder
Strength in What Remains: Tracy Kidder
Super Sad True Love Story, Gary Shteyngart
Tales of the Unexpected, Roald Dahl
Tall Blondes: A Book About Giraffes, Lynn Sherr
The Art of Eating, M.F.K. Fisher
The Beauty in Breaking, Michele Harper
The Billionaire’s Vinegar, Benjamin Wallace
The Book of Forgotten Authors, Christopher Fowler
The Book of Imaginary Beings, Jorge Luis Borges
The Cat Who Went to Heaven, Elizabeth Coatsworth
The Cuckoo’s Calling, Robert Galbraith
The Daily Jane Austen: A Year of Quotes, Devoney Looser
The Dancer of Izu, Kawabata Yasunari
The Design of Everyday Things, Don Norman
The Franchise Affair, Josephine Tey
The Great Passage, Shion Miura
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson
The House in the Cerulean Sea, TJ Klune
The House with a Clock in Its Walls, John Bellairs
The Ice House, Minette Walters
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot
The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick
The Jane Austen Book Club, Karen Joy Fowler
The Longbourn Letters, Rose Servitova
The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P., Adelle Waldman
The Madwoman and the Roomba, Sandra Tsing Loh
The Making of Jane Austen, Devoney Looser
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, Oliver Sacks
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, Kate DiCamillo
The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories, P.D. James
The Missing Piece, Shel Silverstein
The Monogram Murders, Sophie Hannah
The Mother & Child Project, Hope Through Healing Hands (ed.)
The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, Thad Carhart
The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark
The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue
The Rosie Project, Graeme Simsion
The School of Essential Ingredients, Erica Bauermeister
The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss, Theodor Geisel (illustrator), Maurice Sendak (introduction)
The Sense of Style, Steven Pinker
The Shrinking of Treehorn, Florence Parry Heide
The Snowy Day, Ezra Jack Keats
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, Gabrielle Zevin
The Strange Library, Haruki Murakami
The Summer Before the War, Helen Simonson
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
The Swans of Fifth Avenue, Melanie Benjamin
The Tale of Despereaux, Kate DiCamillo
The Tender Bar, J.R. Moehringer
The Three Questions, Jon J Muth
The Thursday Murder Club, Richard Osman
The Truth About Unicorns, Bonnie Jones Reynolds
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce
The Unrest-Cure and Other Stories, Saki
The War on Normal People, Andrew Yang
The Weird World of Wes Beattie, John Norman Harris
The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
The Woman in Black, Susan Hill
The Women in Black, Madeleine St John
They Call Me Naughty Lola, David Rose
Thing Explainer, Randall Munroe
This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader, Joan Dye Gussow
Touch Not the Cat, Mary Stewart
Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck
Up At the Villa, W. Somerset Maugham
We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson
When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
Worth a Thousand Words, Brigit Young
You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life, Eleanor Roosevelt
84, Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff
— # —
