Weekly wrap up 25th January: A disappointing week

[@MrWillis95]

Books I've read this week: Falling by TJ Newman, a pretty formulaic thriller, almost like reading an action film in book form, it was a quick read. Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King, I really enjoyed this, I thought the way the book was structured was really engaging, Dolores is one of my favourite Stephen King characters. Red Dragon by Thomas Harris, I've had this on my shelf for over a decade but finally got round to it, I've never seen any of the film or tv adaptions but I thought this was really suspenseful with a great villain. Today I've started 11.22.63 by Stephen King, so far I'm really enjoying it! Happy reading!

[@Kira-nu5xm]

I think one of the main things I love about your channel and content is that you’re trustworthy as a reviewer. You’re honest even if it’s a popular book, you don’t go with the crowd regarding how you feel. You’re very clever with your reviews where you give away a lot of information to help viewers decide if they want to try a book, but don’t give plot and spoilers away. Happy follower right here. 😊

[@CriminOllyBlog]

Thank you, for me that’s the trick of reviewing - tell people what the book is like not what it’s about

[@constancecampbell4610]

I encourage to love your reading experience. If pushing through to 100 makes you happy, do it. If not, shift and rotate. 👍

[@BadBeardMan-uw4yz]

Your thoughts re THE DEEP match mine exactly. I found the last quarter or so a complete shambles and got quite irritated by it. By contrast, I quite liked THE TROOP. Even so, not an author I'll be visiting again. With regard to the 100 books challenge, I shall NEVER indulge in such craziness. Why deny yourself the pleasure of buying novels? If you want to be ascetic, give up bacon or sugar or something that does you harm. Novels are incredible. What other creature records imagined events? If I had limitless money, I'd live in a massive non-lending library!

[@Nicole-dh3um]

Sorry to hear that you had a disappointing reading week but well done on reading through 41 of what you own. I've been really enjoying my reading this week. I read Old Man's War by John Scalzi and am currently enjoying Voices of the Dead by Ambrose Parry.

[@MaisieStirfry]

I'm sorry you had a bummer of a reading week--I'm sure this week will be much better! I was initially interested in the Deep, but I read a review where someone said they were upset by the numerous instances of animal harm strewn throughout. They felt it was a bit of "cheap shot" and unnecessary, since the animal harm didn't even do anything to propel the plot. I'm glad for that review, as well as yours, and I'll choose something else for me next read. Thanks Olly and have a great day ;)

[@PokhrajRoy.]

“I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.” - Me after not achieving impossible reading goals.

[@cesarcarlos75]

I love The Troop. The Deep was a chore to finish. I tried to start his latest, The Queen, but couldn’t understand anything that was happening in the prologue so I set it aside (I still plan to pick it up but I’m currently reading Jonathan Janz’s Children of the Dark for a group chat).

[@Tim_with_Tomes_and_Tales]

Hopefully next week will be better for you, Olly. This past week, I read The Lunatic Cafe by Laurell K Hamilton and the short story Prey by Richard Matheson. I'm currently reading Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett. Happy reading everyone.

[@statusboom-x6348]

Keep giving people this work. Cheers!

[@kmwwrench]

I wish I had the willpower and stick-to-it-iveness to read any set number of the books sitting on my shelves yelling 'Me next!" before buying something new. I think getting to 41 and not succumbing is amazing.

[@jackwalter5970]

I liked The Sisters Brothers.

[@MyMessyBookshelf]

I had a very similar experience with the Agatha Raisin series. Read several of them back to back a couple years ago and by book 6 I was burnt out.

[@ewannkanowak7161]

I have whole series. Light reading. Just what i need when i have readers's block

[@eriebeverly]

Hopefully a better reading week will make the 100 book challenge more palatable. If it's any comfort I had a horrible reading week and I actually picked everything without restrictions.

[@halifirien]

The Nick Cutter book I liked was Little Heaven. It’s creepy but the main characters were fun and entertaining. It wasn’t nearly as grim as The Troop.

[@CathyHarrison-bd8vi]

Little Heaven is 1 of my favorite books and doesn’t get enough love in my opinion. Great plot, character development and payoff.

[@elliyo4286]

You can do it!! But if you don´t that´s okay too! 😊we all have our weaknesses I finished a very light teen-fantasy-book I was listening to, and started ´The Children of Jocasta´. My one, favourite genre is probably greek myths, so I hope it´ll get me back into reading after some weak weeks. :) So far I really like it.

[@FrankOdonnell-ej3hd]

The Sisters Brothers is one of those things where the reviewers start out saying “Well I really wanted to like this book but”. So I’m not surprised at all by what you said. I was a little disappointed with The Troop even though it was well-written but since you say The Deep is all over the place I’ll pass on that one. My advice on your goal to read all your old books before buying new ones is to forget about it. I’ve tried many times and failed and now prefer peace over war.⚛️❤

[@littlecitygirl]

Ironically I've just come back from the library where I'd picked up The Sister Brothers and then I saw your review when I came home! Hopefully I will get on with it as I've enjoyed the one other Patrick de Witt that I've read.

[@sandeesandwich2180]

I've been reading a lot of stuff (I have 16 books checked out from the library at the moment). The series I'm reading that fits in most with Criminolly is probably the Murderbot Diary series by Martha Wells. I'm listening on audio, but I may revisit them in print, because I think I am probably missing some nuance.

[@BookwormAdventureGirl]

Wanted to watch this as I just finished The Sisters Brothers myself. My book club is reading it for January. We haven’t discussed it yet so I will just say that I enjoyed French Exit by Patrick de Witt better and of course it would be hard to beat our western read of Lonesome Dove. 😊💙

[@francesmeyer8478]

Can't beat "Lonesome Dove". 🇺🇸

[@chris9gonzo]

Enjoyed Incidents Around The House by Josh Malerman..well, I say enjoyed, but I'm going back and forth on whether I like the ending...lol

[@erinharris7663]

I've been listening to the Reformatory by Due. So crazy good. So much going on. It's been great Listening to it. Very disturbing. Very complex. Still so timely. So much about race but with ghosts. I think you would really like it.

[@BobbyHall-eu1xv]

I read The Deep last week and for me I was hoping for it to be more like the Abyss but it didn't have the Sci-Fi elements and as a horror I felt it relied on disgusting descriptions and flashbacks too much. I was wanting it to be tense and claustrophobic, being as it was set eight miles under the sea, but it just wasn't - it felt like it could have been set almost anywhere so ultimately I found it disappointing and it will probably be quite a while before I try a Nick Cutter book again.

[@sandeesandwich2180]

M. C. Beaton has another mystery series, the Hamish MacBeth series set in Scotland. There are 34 books, and I found the first bunch decent, but it lost me after a while, mostly because the main character's personality did not stay consistent. (He's a funny guy, because he really wants to do as little as possible, but he keeps getting dragged into murder investigations, which he finds tiring.) It was his character changing and also, just how many murders can a very tiny town in the highlands have before the military has to step in and wall off the place? (JK)

[@patlockwood6207]

I can't wait to read your work. Pretty Girls was disappointing. Waiting on my shipping company here in CR to bring me "Jane." Now reading Veritas and Shiver. I can't remember if you reviewed them. Thanks for the reviews in this video. I really do respect your opinions. .

[@maryloy967]

Agreed on the deep. It started off intriguingly enough but then in the second half, the whiplash from everything all trying to happen all at once brought me out of the flow of reading. It’s a shame. I felt there was potential for something quite good there.

[@BigDog366]

I agree entirely about The Deep. If I recall, the second half of the book under the sea had nothing to do with the virus of the first half? There was just too much horror all from different genres (body horror, supernatural, apocalyptic, pandemic, abuse...) and none of it meshed well with any other part. With so much gore, the genuine horror of the virus or, for example, the claustrophobia of crawling through those tunnels was lost.

[@CriminOllyBlog]

That’s right, the disease ended up feeling completely irrelevant - it was almost like he forgot about it (ironically)

[@worldobserver3515]

I finished the four Max Allan Collins books about Nolan (a thief) that I hadn't read and am now starting on the new Robert Crais novel, in his Elvis Cole series, The Big Empty. The Nolan books were good, and the Elvis Cole novels have always been good, and I am hoping the new one is, as well.

[@CriminOllyBlog]

Awesome! MAC is great. I need to read more of his work

[@francesmeyer8478]

I agree!🇺🇸☕❄❄

[@Fantumh]

The movie The Sisters Brothers is great, although I only ever watched it the one time. But it's a very memorable movie.

[@CriminOllyBlog]

It does have a great cast

[@timmyb2507]

Man. I’m a slow reader. Any advice to read faster or how you read multiple books at a time?

[@oldmanshreds]

Weird mix of reading this week. A warhammer novel, poems from 70's by Finnish writer Eeva Kilpi, Julia Armfields Our Wives Under The Sea and one trashy steamy romance novel. Reading never ends...

[@judemoore1248]

Hey Ollie. Have you ever read and/or critiqued And Then I Woke Up by Malcolm Devlin? Short, sweet and in my humble opinion brilliant.

[@gronskeibooks]

number streaks are arbitrary! read what you want! go back to your goal later. we all need a cheat meal. a cheat book. whatever

[@carolinec3951]

Penric’s demon by Bujold

[@jasonlockwood7992]

I enjoyed The Troop far more than you, but I agree about The Deep. Too much going on, and not enough tying together of the disparate elements. The Queen, Cutter's latest, is far better, and quite a taut read.

[@sid1gen]

I had a bad reading year in 2024, not just a week. Then the elections came here in the US and I realized I'm a character in a fascist dystopia, so that puts my disappointing readings in perspective

[@CriminOllyBlog]

Hope 2025 ends up a better year for reading and other things.

[@Jordan-calver1993]

Was the other underwater horror/sci-fi film Sphere (based on the book by Michael Crichton)? I was also disappointed in The Deep by Nick Cutter but that was mostly because of the hype from others.

[@CriminOllyBlog]

It wasn’t, but only because I’d forgotten about it. I think I imagined another low budget one like Deepstar Six

[@Aslowfade]

The Sisters Brothers was turned into a film in 2018 the film was also disappointing.

[@annarose7525]

I didn't like the deep at all. It had a strong start but fell off pretty quickly for me. Mainly because all the horror and creepy stuff happens in his head or dreams or what have you, so it feels like there's no stakes. Like just think about something else dude? You had a scary dream? Don't care. Really sad because cutter is a great writer

[@MaisieStirfry]

I completely agree about "scary" dream sequences! As soon as I realize it's a dream, it has little impact on me and I just want to get back to the "meat" of the book.

[@DDB168]

The Sisters Brothers sounds like a book for writers, not readers. Proving you're a reader, so no more cat books 🤭 I already weakened with my RWIO.