Book Forty of the Book-a-Week QuestShutter Island
by Dennis Lehane (2003)
If you've been to any movie in the past five months, you've probably seen the trailer for the movie version of this book. The flick was delayed 'til next year, but after seeing the trailer tens of times, I figured why not read the book.
It's the mid 1950s and patient Rachel Solando has disappeared from a psychiatric hospital located on Shutter Island. Two U.S. Marshals are called in to investigate the case. Little do the two marshals know that the island is home to some interesting and perhaps unethical treatments and they may be the hospital's next "experiments."
As a story, Shutter Island proved intriguing. It was a quick read, well-paced, and never really got boring. That being said, it just didn't work as a whole. Characters (with the exception of main character marshal Teddy Daniels) weren't really fleshed out. They were introduced and then disappeared -- providing one piece of information to solve the mystery and then quickly dismissed by the author. Add to that, some odd dream sequences featuring completely random stream of consciousness ramblings (which, at first, were kind of neat, but then just got old) and the book didn't quite click as a whole.
Not a bad read, by any means, but it really wasn't anything special either
It's the mid 1950s and patient Rachel Solando has disappeared from a psychiatric hospital located on Shutter Island. Two U.S. Marshals are called in to investigate the case. Little do the two marshals know that the island is home to some interesting and perhaps unethical treatments and they may be the hospital's next "experiments."
As a story, Shutter Island proved intriguing. It was a quick read, well-paced, and never really got boring. That being said, it just didn't work as a whole. Characters (with the exception of main character marshal Teddy Daniels) weren't really fleshed out. They were introduced and then disappeared -- providing one piece of information to solve the mystery and then quickly dismissed by the author. Add to that, some odd dream sequences featuring completely random stream of consciousness ramblings (which, at first, were kind of neat, but then just got old) and the book didn't quite click as a whole.
Not a bad read, by any means, but it really wasn't anything special either
this trailer makes me laugh because leonardo di caprio has a suuupppper thick accent in the beginning of the trailer. absolutely and completely loses it halfway through. and then a real mild accent comes back in the end.
ReplyDeleteI'm reading this now!
ReplyDeleteI'm expecting some type of response after you read it!
ReplyDeleteI think I'm a little harsh on it my review because it's a decent book...nothing special, but certainly better than average...there's just something about it that I can't quite pinpoint that didn't quite click with me.