9. Meg

9. Meg by Steve Alten (5/12/2011 - 5/13/2011)

Quite frankly, I only picked up this book because a newspaper ad on the cover said "Meg: Jurassic Shark" as a joke and I love Jurassic Park (movie and book) with a passion.  Unfortunately: this book was terrible.  It was poorly written and a little cliche -- by about halfway through, I started noticing the classic serial killer movie plot: those characters who were immoral in some way, be it by having sex or screwing over the main guy or whatever, got eaten by an insane prehistoric 60-ft shark.  Of course, this was highly entertaining at times, but the book got old fast -- there just wasn't anything that original about the plot. Also, Jaws is a huge favorite of mine, so that could have colored that too.

I've read reviews of this book that pointed out that you do learn a lot about oceans and submarines and such through the course of this novel, and I can't argue that. I also can't argue that it's essentially an action movie stuffed into a relatively short book.  What bothers me is that it is clearly poorly edited -- character names got interchanged at least once in an obvious (the character the woman's name changed to wasn't even in that scene) and unprofessional way, and character development was almost entirely absent, especially considering that the main character (who comes off as kind of a dick) is entirely correct in his theories so there is no need given for him to change as a person.

I guess, if someone were looking for a quick, easy, and action/gore-packed read, this would be a good choice. I myself would not recommend it to anyone :)