Juliet, Naked/No Country for Old Men/Practical Demonkeeping

Juliet, Naked - Nick Hornby (2009)

Nick Hornby's most recent novel definitely isn't great, but was totally enjoyable. Great, exaggerated characters and intensely nerdy dialogue that reminded me of plenty of conversations about music that I've had with my closest friends. The plot and events that take place in the book are ridiculous if not completely unrealistic and serviceable at best, but the characters and dialogue make up a bit for that. Juliet, Naked is humorous, fun to read and is simply another solid novel by Hornby.

No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy (2005)

What I found most interesting when reading No Country for Old Men is how Cormac McCarthy uses so little detail regarding human description and characteristics that the events and characters of this story seemed blurred together at times, making a lot of sections hard to follow. Yet, he describes every character's most unimportant actions in insanely specific detail. It all creates a nice sense of ambiguity here, which made for a fascinating reading experience. Otherwise, for the entirety of reading this book, I couldn't help but constantly compare it to the Coen Bros' film. Both mediums that present this story are done masterfully. In retrospect, the Coens portrayed the violence and all of the themes and characters extremely well. The one main thing that I think makes the film actually better than the book is how they each ended. The Coens cut out McCarthy's nice yet somewhat pointless conclusion and ended it in a better albeit even more ambiguous place. However, I might only feel this way due to seeing the film first. Regardless, really great read.

Practical Demonkeeping - Christopher Moore (1992)

This is my first foray into the writing of Christopher Moore, and I probably shouldn't have started with his first novel. Moore's style is quirky, delinquent and supposedly funny, which is appealing, but Practical Demonkeeping is severely lacking in the laugh department. I don't know, maybe it was a little too childish, and it seemed that Moore was trying too hard to be edgy as well? What I did like about the book was how surprisingly complex the plot was. There are some really nice twists and random interesting details that pop up here and there (which can also be a turn off, as a lot of those were pretty pointless). Practical Demonkeeping may have been overtly juvenile and nonsensical, but, it still was fun.