Book Review: R.A.C.E. by Mobashar Qureshi

Title: R.A.C.E.
Author: Mobashar Qureshi
Publisher: CreateSpace
ASIN: B004HO5XL6
Release Date: 01/01/2011
















RACE (Radical Association of Criminal Ethnicities) is a dangerous and violent group on the verge of creating an illegal drug.


Parking Officer Jon Rupret wants desperately to move up from handing out parking tickets. An impulsive act from his past throws him into Operation Anti-RACE—a unit set up to stop RACE. He is partnered with veteran detective, Phillip Beadsworth, a mild mannered Brit who doesn't much like Rupret and knows more than he reveals.


Along the way Rupret encounters Mahmud Hanif, a qualified engineer, who drives a taxi to pay his bills; DJ Krash, the second best disc-jockey in the world; Cal Murray, the owner of the House of Jam, the hottest club in Toronto; and of course, his mother, a grade school teacher in Guelph, who thinks Rupret is a financial advisor working on Bay street.


RACE is a compelling mystery and a humorous look at Toronto through Jon Rupret’s eyes.


I had to kind of mull this book over in my mind for a while before writing this review because overall, this wasn't a bad book. It just wasn't a great one, a novel to end all novels.


The author has an easy style of writing to him that really suited Rupret's narrative. I found the main character to be a fairly easygoing person that I could connect with at the beginning. I saw him as a sort of bumbling Seth Rogen kind of character that was occasionally endearing. I have to admit, his initial antics at the beginning couldn't help but make me smile & draw me in.


Unfortunately that pace just wasn't ultimately kept up here. The general story idea is a good one & the author does his best to keep us interested, but I just felt like it took a while to get where it was trying to go. I really wish that certain things (such as details about the leader of the operation, Zee) were more spaced out in the book. I was a bit surprised about the twist at the ending, but I couldn't help but feel like it was just a teensy bit overly complicated. It came across as something that would work better if it was more spaced out or had a little more development earlier in the story.



I'm aware that this was the author's first novel & that comes through in this book, so I'm optimistic that further novels will be a little less green than this one was.

Final diagnosis: It's not a bad book but it just felt a little unfinished at times. Since it's only $2.99 on the kindle, I'd recommend it as a purchase for a breezy weekend or holiday/vacation read.



(Reader copy provided by author)

Book Review: Love Like a Dog by Anne Calcagno

Title: Love Like A Dog
Author: Anne Calcagno
Publisher: CreateSpace
Release Date: 06/10/2010
ISBN: 1452834989







Once in a while you'll read a book that you just breeze right on through, something that you can't stop reading because it's so addicting. This is one of those books & I'm honestly surprised that this is only released through CreateSpace, Amazon's self-publishing branch. This is a book that not only deserves to be picked up by a major house but also deserves to be on the bestseller lists.

This debut novel is a page-turning drama about familial devotion. Set in contemporary Chicago, it is the harrowing story of Dirk, a young motherless man starved for his self-centered father's approval. A rescued pit bull alters their lives irrevocably, embroiling them in the terrible misuses to which the breed is prey. As Dirk's father becomes entangled in criminal activity, Dirk must quickly come to terms with a series of legal and moral crises and determine for himself what it truly means to be a man.

This book was just awesome & I honestly can't say enough great things about it. I'm a sucker for stories where dogs are rescued or saved from the streets & I got both of these in this book. The characters in this book are wonderfully fleshed out, causing you (the reader) to really understand how events in the book unfolded & why some things happened the way they did.

You'll really root for Dirk & his best friend Bull's Eye because Calcagno really shows the loving friendship these two have for each other. She didn't make Bull's Eye into just "a dog owned by a boy"- she made him into a true companion, which is how our relationships with our animal friends really is (or at least should be). As the book comes to its conclusion you'll be ripping through the pages at lightening speed to find out exactly what happens- it's just that good.

If you love books about dogs, books about true strength & heroics, or just great books in general, you need to read this book. Not should, NEED.

(Reader copy provided by author.)

Kindle Singles: Shorter books with (hopefully) a smaller price

Hi all!

Part of the big buzz on the internet is that Amazon has come out with Kindle Singles, a platform that will allow authors to publish shorter books or stories (30 to 90 pages). While Amazon hasn't announced what they'll be charging these books, it should be less than what normal ebooks go for.

The only part of this that makes me wonder is what is meant by "normal ebook prices". Amazon has had more than their fair share of complaints over ebook pricing (the whole $9.99 boycott thing), so I'm assuming that the new pricing would be at & under $5. The more well known authors would sell for higher while the newer & the more obscure authors would be able to have lower price points so they could appeal to a broader audience. Hopefully this will take effect also on the newspaper articles that are regularly sold through Amazon normally for about $10. I'm sure that buyers would appreciate being able to purchase newspaper & other articles for lower prices as well. I'm also wondering if this would also impact the sale price of CreateSpace books, Amazon's own self-publishing avenue. (The prices there go for as low as 99 cents.)

In any case, this is an interesting development & I can only hope that it also helps to eventually lower the prices with other ebook companies as well.

Book Review: Cypress Lake by Joe Basara

Title: Cypress Lake
Author: Joe Basara
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 1453636528
Available through: Amazon.com







When Owen Cloud sees Tina, he's immediately smitten with her. Imagining her as his Venus de Milo, he spends much of his time daydreaming about her. Owen's fantasies don't stop there. He often finds his mind drifting off into flights of fancy not only during his orderly shifts at a local hospital but also during the off hours. As Owen moves from fascination to fascination to personal loss, he discovers that sometimes the person he really needs in his life is the one right under his nose.

Cypress Lake is just a little too slow to start off for my tastes & I'm just afraid that some readers might not be willing to put forth the effort to read through to the resolution. Also, while Basara does do a decent job of establishing that Owen is a Mittyesque character, at times Owen's visions are just a little too abstract to come across as clearly as some readers might desire. The imagery does become a little easier to read as the book progresses, however. Readers might also be thrown by the often usage of names such as Dr. T. Ali Hassee & Rosetta Stone, not knowing if those are the characters' true names or names Owen assigned them in a flight of fancy. In this aspect the book might just be too surreal for some.

That's not to say that there aren't some strong points to the book. Basara does a fine job of painting his portrait of the late 1970s, an era where the idea of free love was beginning to wane & what the mentalities of the 1980s would become start to creep in. He also does a good job of portraying the lack of depth to Owen's crushes on Tina & Nikki, foretelling what will ultimately become of his affections for either girl.

It's just that in the end this book just didn't appeal to me overall. Perhaps it might be just my personal preference, but I do think that this book will only really be appreciated by a niche readership of people into the surreal & abstract or perhaps by people more familiar with the era. For those readers I recommend this book. For everyone else, this might not be the right fit.

(Reader copy provided by author)