I was disappointed as well by the conclusion of the book. She set up that great discovery of the other man's body by Ham and George, and didn't tie up the loose ends. We heard about the video tape, but that was the end of that. She was also so vague about George, his relationship with the pious lady, his wife, the other woman, and his daughter. I suppose that since the sheep didn't understand the complexity of human relationships, that the author didn't feel the need to explain in more depth. I was also depressed by the lack of human happiness in the book. The book was full of unhappy marriage, drug abuse, unfulfilled dreams, etc. Where's "la joie de vivre"?
On the flip side, I did appreciate a lot of the humor. There were times that I laughed out loud over what one of the sheep said, or the conclusions that they came to. I was planning to quote a few examples, but I already passed the book along. It was a fun book to read, but not a real page turner for me.
I did have the little jumping sheep at the bottom of my page. Very cute.
Monday, February 9
Saturday, February 7
Three Bags Full
It’s been awhile since I read the book as well, so I’ve forgotten many of the details. Three Bags Full had so much potential. I mean, a detective story where sheep are your detectives? How unique is that? However, I think it fell short. I’ll explain why later.
The names the author gave all the characters (both sheep and humans) were very interesting:
Miss Maple for the older, female sheep – quite the nod to Miss Marple…Agatha Christie’s famous detective.
Ham was an interesting name for a butcher.
Othello as the black ram. Interesting choices, just to list a few.
The author, by necessity, gave the sheep human attributes – like the need to be counted: “All the sheep were afraid of being missed out of the count, because then they might disappear,” pg. 67. I think it’s a human need to “count,” to matter, to be important to someone.
I think the book lost some steam somewhere in the middle – it was just too long. The novelty of the sheep detectives wore off with some of the minutiae in the book.
SPOILER ALERT
But here’s where I really think the book fell short. What started off as a murder mystery ended as a suicide. I think that was a cop out – rather than have the sheep actually uncover a murderer (which I think would have been very interesting. How would you feel as a murderer to be found out by a bunch of sheep), the victim killed himself. I just think it was too easy.
Anyway, did anyone else have the sheep drawings at the bottom corner of the right-hand page? When you thumb quickly through the book you get a jumping sheep? That was kind of fun.
The names the author gave all the characters (both sheep and humans) were very interesting:
Miss Maple for the older, female sheep – quite the nod to Miss Marple…Agatha Christie’s famous detective.
Ham was an interesting name for a butcher.
Othello as the black ram. Interesting choices, just to list a few.
The author, by necessity, gave the sheep human attributes – like the need to be counted: “All the sheep were afraid of being missed out of the count, because then they might disappear,” pg. 67. I think it’s a human need to “count,” to matter, to be important to someone.
I think the book lost some steam somewhere in the middle – it was just too long. The novelty of the sheep detectives wore off with some of the minutiae in the book.
SPOILER ALERT
But here’s where I really think the book fell short. What started off as a murder mystery ended as a suicide. I think that was a cop out – rather than have the sheep actually uncover a murderer (which I think would have been very interesting. How would you feel as a murderer to be found out by a bunch of sheep), the victim killed himself. I just think it was too easy.
Anyway, did anyone else have the sheep drawings at the bottom corner of the right-hand page? When you thumb quickly through the book you get a jumping sheep? That was kind of fun.
Tuesday, February 3
Three Bags full
Spoiler alert: don't read if you haven't finished the book.
I read it about a month ago sooo... I don't remember it well enough to do too indepth of a review. I enjoyed it. I liked the perspective of the sheep and their understanding of people. I thought the names were a nice twist - They lived in Glennkill and George Glenn was killed (not sure if those are the exact names but it was something similar). I wished for a little more background on the humans. Because we only heard things mostly through the sheep whole stories were missing. George and Ham fought over Kate- George won but stayed good friends with Ham and yet their seemed to be some tension there still... It didn't quite add up. Ham still pined over Kate. Kate was clueless about everything. George had a child with a married woman somewhere else? And Beth and George were really in love with each other but George couldn't take pining and stressing over the "Evil" in the village. Things didn't quite add up for me and the way he died took all of the mystery out of the novel for me. I would have liked it better if he had been murdered. (is that kind of sick and twisted? oh well...)
That being said it was a fun and interesting read. It went quickly and had some nice twists. I liked when Mopple was lost in the fog- that was an interesting part of the book. I liked the wolf in sheeps clothing (the sheep for food shepard). I liked the twin sheep that reappeared and the adopted sheep from the circus. Their were some cool analogies in the book. There was a good amount of suspense and the author had an interesting way of feeding us info.
Sorry I can't be more in depth. Maybe I will remember more as I read your reviews? Thanks for the fun read!
I read it about a month ago sooo... I don't remember it well enough to do too indepth of a review. I enjoyed it. I liked the perspective of the sheep and their understanding of people. I thought the names were a nice twist - They lived in Glennkill and George Glenn was killed (not sure if those are the exact names but it was something similar). I wished for a little more background on the humans. Because we only heard things mostly through the sheep whole stories were missing. George and Ham fought over Kate- George won but stayed good friends with Ham and yet their seemed to be some tension there still... It didn't quite add up. Ham still pined over Kate. Kate was clueless about everything. George had a child with a married woman somewhere else? And Beth and George were really in love with each other but George couldn't take pining and stressing over the "Evil" in the village. Things didn't quite add up for me and the way he died took all of the mystery out of the novel for me. I would have liked it better if he had been murdered. (is that kind of sick and twisted? oh well...)
That being said it was a fun and interesting read. It went quickly and had some nice twists. I liked when Mopple was lost in the fog- that was an interesting part of the book. I liked the wolf in sheeps clothing (the sheep for food shepard). I liked the twin sheep that reappeared and the adopted sheep from the circus. Their were some cool analogies in the book. There was a good amount of suspense and the author had an interesting way of feeding us info.
Sorry I can't be more in depth. Maybe I will remember more as I read your reviews? Thanks for the fun read!
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