Review: Memory Man

Memory Man by David Baldacci
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Very Sherlock Holmes-y. Amos Decker is a professional football player and a hard hit knocks him out and turns him into a "memory man"--he's a savant who remembers everything and also associates colors with everything. This book is full of unbelievable occurrences, but I'm willing to suspend belief when I'm listening to a Baldacci book. His books are beach reads for me--fast and easy, and I could listen the Ron McLarty narrate books all day.


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Review: Far from the Tree

Far from the Tree by Robin Benway
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sweet YA contemporary coming-of-age novel that is powerful about families--biological, adoptive, and the ones we choose by our friends around us.

Told by three teenage voices, the siblings have the same biological mother, but only find out about each other when they are teens. And so they begin to meet and tell their stories. All have a lot of crap happen to them, like most high schoolers, but they find that their support systems are stronger than they think, even if unconventional.

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Review: The Pearl Thief

The Pearl Thief by Elizabeth Wein
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I can't believe I didn't love this book. I struggled--I ended up skimming the last few chapters. The tone was just so off compared to previous books. The main character didn't seem true to her age at all.

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Review: Thunderhead

Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Oh, this series is good. So appropriate to what's going on in the world (reminds me of the articles about how teens flock to reading dystopia). Of course, it ends with another cliffhanger, but there is hope in the world--hopefully the Thunderhead will straighten the humans out and save the world. This book is a tad too long though, but can someone please make a movie out of this?

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Review: Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar--Your Brain's Silent Killers

Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar--Your Brain's Silent Killers by David Perlmutter
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Huh. Well, I go into these types of books knowing that they only want to make money. And knowing that they only present the scientific studies that back up their opinion, and not the opposing ones. Librarians are also skeptics, thank you.

However, some of this does hit home to me. I've always been very allergic to trees, grasses, weeds, molds, dust mites, cats, dogs, horses, and fun things like corn pollen. Alcohol always makes my face flush, and my face flushes after eating something like a McDonald's Southwest salad. When I'm on an all HMR lactose-free shake diet, I don't have any of those symptoms, but when I start eating "regular food" the flushing occurs again. What's causing it? MSG? Gluten? High fructose corn syrup? lactose? I have no freaking idea.

So this book made me think about the whole elimination diet process. I may have to try it--simply to figure out what causes my face flushing. But, like almost every diet book out there today, this one says the same thing--eat simple food, the less processed the better.

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Review: Creatures of Will and Temper

Creatures of Will and Temper by Molly Tanzer
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

For a hundred pages, I thought this was a great historical fiction about Victorian London, the upper class, and homosexuality. And all was good.

But then, all of a sudden, demons are thrown into the mix. Too much, too late, which means that it just didn't feel right. It didn't fit into what I already knew about the characters and didn't seem natural so I stopped reading.

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Review: The Only Girl in the World: A Memoir

The Only Girl in the World: A Memoir by Maude Julien
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I read the first half--read a few bits every other page for the last half. This was billed as a "Glass Castle" type of book, but the only correlation is that the author had a horrible childhood. Her parents were mentally and physically cruel to her and I feel sorry for her. First published in France, the English translation may have lost some of the writing quality--I felt like I was reading a list of bad things that happened to her, instead of a true memoir with reflection and good storytelling. But maybe that is a product of her upbringing? Any child made to read and understand Karl Marx by the age of 8 is bound to have some emotional and writing deficits.



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Review: R Is For Ricochet

R Is For Ricochet by Sue Grafton
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I had to give up on the audiobook. I haven't read this series in years, and now I remember why I stopped. Things are repeated so much in the books, and it's like a step-by-step of everything Kinsey does throughout her day. This isn't good for audio--it's better to read the print book so I can skim and scan to the action. I love her character, but, whoa, so much talk about Henry and his siblings and girlfriends--I was so bored listening to it.

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Review: Midnight at the Electric

Midnight at the Electric by Jodi Lynn Anderson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved this tangled web of historical fiction. Three time periods--England after WWI, the Midwest during the Dust Bowl in the '30s, and the future America in 2065. All are tangled together through letters and pictures and stories--the genealogist in me loved it! I would have loved this book when I was a teen. A bit of romance to keep things interesting, but it's really about friendship and family. And Love. I kept thinking of Love as I read it, which is a good thing.

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Review: Bang

Bang by Barry Lyga
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Lyga doesn't disappoint. A bit preachy about gun violence and how Muslims are treated though, and I wonder if teens can see through that? This is when I miss working in a high school library--I would love to talk to teens about this novel. Teenage Sebastian is living with regret--when he was four he shot and killed his baby sister. Of course, it was an accident, but he still lives in the same house and the same town (why, parents, why???) and he can't escape being THAT kid and living with the guilt. When a pretty (and different) Muslim teen girl moves in over the summer, the two become close friends, creating a YouTube cooking channel that gets a lot of hits, but eventually explodes when viewers figure out who Sebastian is. Suicide figures prominently in this book, as well as vengeance, dysfunctional families, mental illness, and regret.

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Review: Odd Child Out

Odd Child Out by Gilly Macmillan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ah, secrets. When young Noah and Abdi are down by the river and Noah falls in and hits his head, everyone assumes it's an accident. But Bristol has been racially excited lately, thanks to white power demonstrations, and when a witness comes forward and said that the she saw Abdi push Noah, a police investigation ensues. Detective Clemo is assigned this case with another underdog on the force, and the two of them must try to sort out the details without jumping to conclusions about the Somali teen.

I appreciated the P.S. extras at the end of the novel--the author lives in Bristol and has a child who suffered like one in the story.

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Review: Strange the Dreamer

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

Unfortunately I couldn't finish this audiobook because the production was horrible. The narration was fantastic, but the producer forgot to manage the audio levels--I was constantly turning my volume up and down as different characters spoke. Finally at disk 5 I gave up because I was pissed.

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Review: Alone

Alone by Lisa Gardner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This series should be quick to read! Pop mystery/thriller, with all that goes along with it. Plenty of unbelievable scenarios and police doing things that I don't think they would do, but I enjoyed the speed of the book. These books will be easy to smoosh in between more dramatic contemporary reads.

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Review: The Burning Girl

The Burning Girl by Claire Messud
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Wonderful example of how excellent audio production and narration can elevate a mediocre book. If I had read the print version, I would have skipped ahead to the end and called it quits. But the audio really was a treat.

Too many repeated phrases, and the main character's obsession with her childhood best friend was scarily borderline sketchy. Too many "he said she said"s made for a boring read, and it felt like writer group developed adjective strings were thrown into the novel at whim. The concept should have worked--troubled teen girl hates her mom's boyfriend and goes wild, while the "good" childhood friend watches her deconstruct from afar. But it was slogging and too much telling.

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Review: Silence

Silence by Anthony Quinn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Not as good as the two previous novels in the series, mainly because Inspector Daly is in a dark, dark place for most of the book. But, hey, who wouldn't be when finding out that their mom's accidental shooting during the Troubles was actually an intentional hit? Those cops were crooked back then in Northern Ireland AND Ireland--this book is full of spies and crooks and crazy nuts who messed up a lot of people back then. No wonder the Armagh area of Ireland/UK isn't in any of the travel books--just a few years ago it was covered in police checkpoints and bomb craters.

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Review: Landscape with Invisible Hand

Landscape with Invisible Hand by M.T. Anderson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I hope this is getting some serious discussion at the Printz table, mainly because he's successful at giving the reader a complex story in a little novella-length book. That takes skill, and I'm glad he didn't give us the 500p+ that Octavian was (I couldn't get through that one). Plenty of social commentary in this dystopia, and I love reading about believable aliens. Why am I impressed that he gave the the main character diarrhea?

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Review: End Game

End Game by David Baldacci
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Yep, I just gave a popular book a 5 star rating. Why? Because Baldacci is my favorite pop author, and, wow, he just writes what he does so well! According to this novel, there are way too many extremist groups in Colorado! Will Robie and Jessica Reel have some love friction in this one for some stupid reason, and they shoot a lot of people without having to answer for it. But I wanted an unbelievable romp with lots of action and weaponry, and this fulfilled that need!

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Review: City of Saints & Thieves

City of Saints & Thieves by Natalie C. Anderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What an awesome audiobook! I hate to think that the world is like Tina's world in this novel though. She has been training with the Goondas in Kenya for years to be a thief--she's great at sneaking into houses and picking pockets. But she hasn't told anyone that she is training for her biggest mission--to sneak into the house of her mother's killer and get revenge. Truly a novel of friendship and family relationships and how those things mix together when needed.

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Review: Devils Within

Devils Within by S.F. Henson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Whew, Morris committee, this one was a tough read! White supremacists are difficult to read about, and this poor main character grew up in one. I can see high school kids eating this up, especially in rural areas.

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Review: Writ in Stone

Writ in Stone by Cora Harrison
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This was slow-going for me--so much talking and it was just boring. I'm quitting the series.

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