Latest Book Reviews and Comments

This was a quick and fun Retelling of Snow White and Rose Red and was my favorite book of this series. I enjoyed getting to know both sisters in this story as well as Bear and seeing how everything ties together. While this book is connected to both stories in this series and I read them all in a row I believe this one could probably stand on its own.

I am not familiar with King Thrushbeard so I don't know how true to the story this retelling is but I thought it was a quick and entertaining story that continues Olivia & Kieron's story from the previous book in the series.

I enjoyed this Retelling of Brother and Sister and am glad to have been able to read it since I enjoyed the original by the Brother's Grimm and it isn't one with many Retellings. I loved all the characters and seeing how the story came together as well as the various couples that were together by the end.

I loved this Retelling of 1,001 Nights and getting to know Kamaran & Rana. The two animal companions Spot (tiger) and Zade (Rana's fennec fox) were both amusing and entertaining characters. This story has a lot of fun scenes and the fun banter I have learned to expect from a Sarah Beran story and the epilogue was really sweet as well.

Love, Mom is a thriller that offered a clearly positive reading experience—not exactly an everyday experience. In it, a young woman investigates the death of her famous author mother with the help of mysterious diary entries. The story is full of plot twists and momentum, but fortunately, it stays firmly on track. I read the whole book in one sitting. Of course, the story has its predictable moments and some implausibilities, as well as a few stereotypes, but they didn’t detract from my reading experience.

I found this to start very slowly but it was okay by the end.  If I didn’t know this was a good series from my reading friends, I might not be continuing.  I still recommend reading to get character backgrounds, etc. 

I think it was not a bad novel, considering it was her first, but not up to the hype.  The story was interesting in that everyone (after they are past teenage) is a Mono ( can only remember the past 24 hours) or a Duo (that can remember 48 hours).  Interesting story but left me with so many questions how that world could even function (like how they remember prior schooling).  Told from separate points of view from 4 main characters which was interesting and kind of held my attention.  I also liked the twist of the ending which I did not see coming.

Interesting to read about the events that lead up to the James Cameron film "Aliens", released in 1986.

This was my first book by Lisa Carlisle and I really enjoyed this Beauty and the Beast Retelling between Hadrien (Gargoyle) & Lilia (Green Witch). I thought this was a very well done retelling and thought it was creative how the curse affected Hadrien's Gargoyle abilities as well as the various nicknames he uses for Lilia. The epilogue at the end was sweet and I look forward to reading the upcoming Red Riding Hood Retelling Red and the Gray Wolf.

I believe that it is a good story, it needs a bit more to follow up. I also think adult topics can be in a book without also accusing the reader nor the writer of being into those topics. Many books where murder takes place are not written by murderers. Many books lack sincere evil. That is why pushing sincerity can be interesting. Plus the writer is a Mormon. I'm not a Mormon, but no way a Mormon is thinking ill or fetishizing in a book publicly. It's just good dark adult writing.

This is the first book by Erin Halbmaier that I have read and I thought this was a really fun Retelling of The Goose Girl full of interesting characters that worked well as a standalone but is probably even better when you know the world better. I loved getting to know Raoul & Daphne in this story and their relationship while Daphne was River- Bug and unable to tell Raoul who she really was was entertaining. I look forward to exploring this series more and hope to discover the truth about what happened with Daphne's brother.

Someone You Can Build a Nest In is a book whose protagonist is neither a human nor any other clearly defined creature. From a human perspective, Shesheshen is a monster that kills people. The creature uses both the bodies of living beings and objects to create a body for itself. Shesheshen’s body is associated with a great deal of physical horror; the descriptions are at times excessively graphic. From the monster’s own perspective, existence is something else entirely. She wants to reproduce and falls in love. She wants to understand what her love is. In all its graphic horror, the work is, in a way, beautiful. It grants permission to be exactly as one is, to feel needs and be demanding, to be accepted. Even love is frightening; it can kill. The work is more than just a story.

Halcyon Years is a standalone novel of about 330 pages, with Yuri Gagarin as the main character. Gagarin does odd jobs as a private investigator aboard a generation ship. However, not everything on the ship is as it should be, as people are being murdered and even the robots are no longer as reliable as they once were. Gagarin finds himself investigating events that are too dangerous to ask about. Halcyon Years is a noir detective story set in a science fiction world. The atmosphere is fitting. Of the books by Reynolds I’ve read before, Permafrost has been the most interesting. This one reaches at least the same level—maybe even a little higher. Reynolds knows how to wrap things up!

Ghost hunting using modern Police techniques.

Not the best of the series, but still a good story where the Chinese are the bad guys trying to destabilize Thailand with a bomber (a for hire former seal) blowing up different several locations around the country while making it look and feel like the bombs are being created by Cambodia.

This book was cyberpunk which I don’t normally read but this fit the tomorrow category of the Goodreads ATY challenge.  Overall, the author did a great job building the dystopian world of Pittsburgh and the characters.  In this world, everyone was hardwired with adware in the brain and constantly received news and ads related to their location.  Solving a few related murders was the theme and it held my interest.  I downgraded my rating because I thought there was way too much pornography and violence throughout.

The second book of the Wayward Children series, Down Among the Sticks and Bones, tells the backstory of Jack and Jill, the twins who appeared in the first book. The beginning was like a Grimm’s fairy tale, and the ending was like something out of a classic horror novel. The series’ title aptly captures the twins’ essence and helped me understand what happened in the first part and why. In that sense, it’s a very successful sequel.

This is the first book in this new series of standalone stories and I enjoyed the introduction to the world this series takes place in. This book centers around Vraag & Riona and I really liked both their characters and seeing how the two of them worked together as well as how they helped one another grow as individuals. The children in Riona's class were fun and I loved their interactions with Vraag. I look forward to continuing this series and reading about Kragen in the next book The Orc's Gift.

“George" and "Lennie" are wandering day laborers traveling together.  They travel from one job to another, leaving due to trouble caused by Lennie. George is cunning whereas Lennie is a giant and retarded. George shows great loyalty to take care of Lenny despite the burden. Their dream is to save enough money to buy their own farm and be their own boss.  A place where George can work the land, and Lennie tend the rabbits. You will root for them to realize their dream, but in the end Lennie's innocence and unintentional brutal behavior cause too many problems. It is dark and depressing but a very good novella.  Worth the read.  

Strictly speaking not all the stories are Ghost Stories and are closer to being Gothic Tales.

I enjoyed the book very much.  While touted as mystery/thriller, it was not a true thriller.  It was so easy to read, it was filled with tongue in cheek humor.  The main character, Edison Bixby, is a former LA police detective with a brain injury that makes him spout uncomfortable truth whenever he opens his mouth. Certainly not at all politically correct, not sure if some of it is intentional.  His sidekick is an infrequently employed character actor, Walter Nash, who tells the story, hired to keep Bixby out of trouble for his mouth.  It was a strange character pairing but somehow Goldberg made it work.  I look forward to the next book and plan to read his other series.  

The book began with an almost shocking chemical detail related to human agriculture, as well as the drug addictions of prominent figures in Nazi Germany. After this chemical introduction, the book moves on to well-known physicists such as Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and de Broglie. As great as these individuals’ achievements were as pioneers of quantum mechanics, as people they were somewhat obsessive in their research. The ideas and achievements of the World War era, which revolutionized our understanding of the world and the universe, can even give rise to tormenting moral dilemmas that may lead to extreme acts. The line between genius and madness becomes blurred.

You can tell from the book’s title alone what the main character’s primary goal was. The text seems to underestimate the reader and occasionally contains strange thoughts, such as when the man proves to be good in bed, the woman thinks that if he decides to quit his job as a doctor, he would have another career option. A gigolo? Light reading.

The title of Benjamín Labatut’s book The MANIAC refers to the computer developed by John von Neumann (Mathematical Analyzer, Numerical Integrator, and Automatic Computer Model), but also to von Neumann’s life’s work as a thinker and developer possessing an incomprehensible mathematical intellect, particularly in the fields of quantum physics, functional analysis, and game theory. The book explores the breathtaking achievements of this unique individual, which also include his unfinished work on the development of artificial intelligence. Von Neumann was involved in the Manhattan Project, and Albert Einstein, known as a pacifist, called him a “mathematical weapon.”

Rue is on old woman who was once a member of the Academy of Kindnesses, an organization of women who are human avatars of the vengeance-minded Furies. When a raiding party kills her entire village (including herself!), she is duty-bound to seek revenge on behalf of her murdered friends. The novel rotates between three story threads: one of old-age Rue's vengeance quest and two of her younger years before and during her time as an acolyte at the Academy. The time-displaced narrative maximizes the twisty, shock-fueled storytelling that Lawrence is known for. Another hallmark of his writing is bone-crushing, blood-splattering violence, and there is no shortage of it here. A great writer is one who understands why his readers are showing up to the party.