Let the Right Book In

Special Agent John Douglas is the man who helped usher in a new age in behavioural science and criminal profiling. With 25 years of experience and having hunted some of the most notorious criminals of our time, Douglas has a unique insight into the minds of serial killers. “Behaviour reflects personality. The best indicator of future violence is past violence. To understand the "artist", you must study his "art". The crime must be evaluated in its totality. There is no substitute for experience, and if you want to understand the criminal mind, you must go directly to the source and learn to decipher what he tells you. And, above all: Why + How = Who.” True crime is my thing. If someone can hold a conversation with me based on murder and serial killers, you are automatically my new best friend. So excitement was at an all-time high starting Mindhunter. I’m not one for binging TV shows, I usually like to prolong my enjoyment for as long as ...

Behind the scenes of Le Cirque des Rêves, there is a competition underay between two magicians who have been trained since childhood for this exact purpose by their mercurial instructors. “The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.” Magical. Enchanting. Atmospheric. Breathtaking. Stunning. These are just a few of the words that can be used to describe the experience that is reading The Night Circus. Now I don’t read many books like this… magical and enchanting aren’t usually the words I would use to describe my favourite stories! But boy, am I glad I relented when Abbie forced this book into my hand when we were charity shopping together. A lot of people have commented on how the plot maybe isn’t the strongest, and perhaps that’s true, but this is the kind of book where the entire experience is what makes it a fascinating read. I fell in love with the characters (namely Poppet, Widget and Cel...

A couple, Julie and James, move into a new home as a means of getting away from James’ gambling problems. Pretty quickly, the couple are tormented by strange occurrences - stains appear on the walls, bruises form on Julie’s body and they keep finding hidden spaces within the walls of their home. Together they try to investigate what is happening as more and more strain is placed on their relationship. “We can lose ourselves behind a trapdoor, whether in our mind or in the house.” If I had to use one word to describe this book, it would be: MEH. I was pretty excited for a haunted house tale, and at no point did I feel anything other than ambivalence. It wasn’t creepy, it wasn’t scary… it was just monotonous. The characters themselves didn’t help – boring, bland, unlikeable. Short chapters are a great way of flying through a book, but in this instance, the short chapters were just too short? The narration went back and forth, with the story being told from both Julie and...

Following the death of his wife, Ralph Roberts has trouble sleeping. He finds himself waking up earlier and earlier each night. During his late night vigils, he observes weird goings on in his hometown of Derry, Maine. Pretty quickly he realises that the strange things he is seeing are not the result of sleep-deprived hallucinations, but something much more significant.   “It was life, often unsatisfying, frequently cruel, usually boring, sometimes beautiful, once in a while exhilarating.” I got a lot of thoughts about this book… and you’re gonna hear all about it! I honestly don’t think I’ve ever felt so polarised reading a book before. At times I wanted to tear my hair out and scream “OMG JUST END ALREADY” – which I expressed countless times on Instagram – and then at other points, I was legit fangirling over the Dark Tower connections and Derry references. Oh, and I absolutely ADORED Ralph Roberts. So I’m quite literally torn when it comes to this book. ...