The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

Title: The Silence of the Girls
Author: Pat Barker
Publisher: Doubleday
Rating: 📖📖📖 / 5


The Silence of the Girls, different look into the Trojan War, follows the story of Briseis a former queen of a neighboring city to the infamous Troy. After her city is ransacked, she becomes the famous Achille's slave. This is often the fate of women during war; a fate that isn't often written about and often forgotten in history. Briseis finds herself in the middle of a personal fight between Greek leaders while struggling personally with her role in the world.

When I was choosing what books to get from my monthly Book of the Month subscription, reviews for The Silence of the Girls were pretty good. Being a sucker for historical fiction and the ancient world, I thought I would give this book a try. Though I have to say I was not overall impressed with this story. I really wanted to like it. A story like this doesn't often make its way onto the page. It started off well enough, but never seemed to really find its footing. Briseis is an interesting enough character but never has any depth. While I felt for her, I didn't really like her. I don't know if it's because there isn't really any history to base the character on or if Barker didn't do enough to develop the character.

Barker's writing is strong which helps the story. Barker obviously did a good deal of research to paint a picture of what could have been happening in a war camp during the Trojan War. And I must admit that the writing does make you feel like you are there. I could almost smell what it must have smelled like (ie: burned bodies and...crap). But it does struggle from conflict by way of point of view. It goes between Briseis' point of view and a sort of third person view but as Achilles. I often had to figure out who's eyes I was reading the story from. Unfortunately it took away from the story for me. I also felt it dragged in the middle and I often found myself skipping to the end of the book to figure out how many pages I had left to go.  Overall, it is a good story even if it wasn't my favorite to read. I do recommend it if you have any interest in this time period and would like a different point of view on the Trojan War.

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Tyrannosaur Canyon by Douglas Preston

Title: Tyrannosaur Canyon
Author: Douglas Preston
Publisher: Forge Books
Rating: 📖📖📖 / 5

Tyrannosaur Canyon starts off on the moon. The moon you ask? Yes, the moon. The reader learns that a rock sample from the moon has gone missing. While this seems to not make any sense in a dinosaur story, it will later. I promise (though I won't give away how). Anyway, we are soon thrown into the desert where our main character, Tom Broadbent, finds a dying treasure hunter who gives him a notebook and the last request to give it to his daughter. Broadbent finds the notebook is not what it seems and is only a series of numbers in columns. Broadbent soon finds himself tangled in a web of murder and treasure. Along the way he enlists help from a number of people including a monk who helps him discover that the murdered man had discovered a T-Rex in the desert. An intact and nearly full specimen at that. We also meet a lab technician who is tasked with figuring out the secrets of a rock sample taken by the murderer off the dead man. What ensues is a scientific adventure filled with fossils, lies and deceit that will leave you turning the pages to see what happens next.

Alright, I'll confess: If there is a mention of dinosaurs in the title of a book, I will at least pick it up. So when I saw this book at the library I had to read it. One of the reviews I saw about it says, "Better than Crichton!" Well, I wasn't going to believe that blindly. Crichton is one of my favorite authors and I have not read any dinosaur book as intricate and entertaining as Jurassic Park, though Tyrannosaur Canyon holds its own for different reasons. I also didn't realize that Preston was the same Preston as in Preston & Child. I feel really dumb for not realizing this until writing this review.

I wanted to like this story more. I really did. The science in the book was pretty awesome, which is also a reason I love Crichton books so much. Preston even throws in a side story from the T-Rex's point of view before it died. In many ways, I found this short story more interesting than the real story, which is kind of sad because this book had so much potential. All in all, the story lacked focus and I often found myself confused about who's point of view I was currently in. There were at least four or five different characters to follow when the chapters changed. Some chapters were even just two pages long which didn't help with continuity. By the last third of the book I was hooked though. I couldn't stop until I knew what would ultimately happen. If you're looking for an adventure story with dinosaurs (not living ones, sorry), science and even mystery then this is a quick, fun read for you!

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