This is the book we should have picked for book club last month, instead of The Wife. Not that there was anything wrong with The Wife, but there wasn't anything terribly right either. And reading it in parallel with Watchmen made the Wife so much more dull by comparison.
Watchmen had me all excited, nervous, angry, tense - everything a well written book should put you through. If you don't have the ability to read graphic novels and see speech bubbles with sounds like "argh!" written inside them, I understand. Wait for the movie. But if you like your dark comics, buy yourself a copy presto! Watchmen had characters I could relate to in bits and pieces (is that scary?), characters that grew, back stories that put everything in place, and an ending that wasn't quite a finish, leaving you salivating for more.
Wikipedia has done a great job of summarizing the plot and explaining the characters, so I'll let you get the facts from there. I loved the portrayals of Dr Manhattan and Rorschach - both of them stubborn in their beliefs, methodical in their approach and operating without stalling. Not that I would want to live with either of them, but they made for good comic book heroes :) I'm sad the women weren't strong characters - Laurie annoyed me and I wanted to give her a good shake. Sally Jupiter's "I was raped but maybe it was my fault" had me ready to throw a book at her, but dammit she was IN the book. Instead I ignored her, skimmed over bits like that and enjoyed everything else the book had to offer.
This month's book club read is "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao". I still need to order a copy but meanwhile I've started The Famished Road by Ben Okri and am LOVING the writing so far.
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