Michelle
I read/listened to this a couple weeks ago. It devastated me at the time. It devastates me now.
The story is in 2 parts. The first part is from the POV of an Israeli soldier, I don't remember his exact rank, except that he had authority, as he discovers a Bedouin girl. It's based on a real case, and we see the tragic end of this child. I say child because the actual girl seems to have been under 15.
The tone of this first part is very matter of fact. This man is cold, emotionless, fastidious, and regimented, and so this is the way the story is expressed even as atrocities happen. As he allows and participates in atrocities.
The second portion is the story of a Palestinian woman who reads an account of the first part of the story, and realizes this happened on her birthday, albeit a different year. She feels compelled to find out more, even though this involves her going to places forbidden to her by the occupation.
She is not as detached as the man in the first portion, and yet her perspective is not overwrought either. I say this because there's something compelling about the matter-of-fact sharing of all the Palestinian villages that simple have disappeared from the map. That Israeli maps and old maps of the area tell conflicting narratives.
I don't think you can read this erasure of lives, or villages, alongside the almost forgotten incident with the girl, without hearing the voices of so many Palestinians saying this – that the goal now is to literally and metaphorically erase a people from not just maps but from history.
As she explores where the girl was assaulted and murdered, the past echoes in ways she can't know, but the reader does, as as the divide between then and now is thin. A dog shows up in both timeline, and it's left to the reader's imagination if it's somehow, mystically, the same dog connecting the two girls/women. If that dog is somehow a ghost demanding justice, or acknowledgement, for the thing he witnessed.
The ending feels inevitable and packs a punch.
Good book. I'm at a place where it's hard for me to read about innocent people having to be strong around bigots, because we allow too much cruelty.
Lisa Rinna is likable, but the book is thin and filled with the things that most women, most people know, about health and beauty. The author is big on fads, and plastic surgery to make a woman feel sexually confident, but I doubt this works for most women.
I won my copy in a Goodreads Giveaway.
Although I'm a bit older than the target demographic, and don't have kids, I loved this book and can't wait to donate it to my Little Free Library in order to start it on the next leg of it's journey. I enjoyed it so much, I'm a little tempted to keep it.
The stories of the various princesses are simple and moving, perfect for bedtime. The illustrations accompany the text beautifully.
I appreciated the message that a princesses can be proactive and active, but that the author didn't forget to honor the introverts and storytellers. Natasha Farrant also made clear a princess doesn't have to technically be royalty. Most of the princesses are surrounded by love, but some feel like outsiders, and have to find their own place, or fight to be understood.
While the stories take place in many different cultures, which I love, none of the stories are so steeped in their cultures as to not feel universal. They present a wonderful opportunity for exploration of different places and times. I think it would be cool to have a story be the key to talking about diverse cultures and expectations for girls and women.
I teared up a bit at the ending, and during the tale of a princess and her pet crocodile. Being me, I'm a sucker for encouraging kindness toward animals by promoting empathy.
I would love to see this become a standard on bookshelves everywhere. While boys might balk, I think they will also find a lot to related to in these stories.
This was a terrific read/listen – I bought the Kindle edition, and then realized I was an idiot for not getting the audioversion for B.P.'s narration. I mean, right? So I am the person who really does the immersion reading Amazon is always talking about in order to increase their sales.
Anyhow, the author comes across as honest, personable, tough, a terrific friend, and quick to own her flaws. I pretty much read/listened in two sessions because I didn't want to stop.
(Originally published at Red Adept Reviews.)
I obtained The Elect, by James Gilbert, through a copy submitted to Red Adept Reviews.
Overall: 3 Stars
Plot/Storyline: 4 1/4 Stars
The plot was great. The events were interesting and made for a good story, with plenty of twists and turns. Clearly, a lot of work went into creating a story that would keep the reader interested and wondering what would happen next. If I were to sit across from someone at dinner and tell them what happened, I believe your average person would enjoy hearing about it, even if there was a sense this all could have been streamlined and arranged better to give more bang for the buck.
Because there was so much going on, sometimes it felt like the author temporarily forgot about a character or a subplot. There was a nice ambition to this, but with that came a more difficult task to honor all the aspects of storytelling.
If you like a lot of conspiracies and an intricate web of deceit, you should be pleased with the plot. I know that, whatever issues I had with The Elect, I never stopped wanting to know what was going to happen next or how various issues were going to be resolved.
Characters: 2 1/2 Stars
The Elect featured a huge cast of characters. Heck, the plot demanded it. I found the characters to often be rather flat however, with a sameness of speech and personality. While the narrative offered a wide variety of motives and world views, when they spoke they meshed into one, with the talk show host turned candidate sounding like the new paper reporter who sounded like the college kid who sounded like the middle-aged guy. The female characters, almost without exception, felt even more similar to one another.
We're told the conservative radio host's wife was whip smart (with the looks of an aging supermodel) and other characters refer to her this way, and yet I never felt this was true. In addition, we're told that she is successful in her own right, but that didn't feel right either. Her husband is running for president, but she wants to keep her day job and, I suppose, moonlight as first lady. Does anyone anywhere find that feasible? The whip smart aging supermodel doesn't see the issue with this, and neither does her husband.
It seemed like various characters who should be politically savvy ... weren't. I suspect some of this is so that the author, by informing the characters, could explain how things worked to the reader. However, it just made it seem like politicians and insiders are, for the most part, idiots. Yes, yes, I know - insert your own quips.
I needed to believe that two of these characters were presidential material - either in the old-fashioned sense of intelligent and principled or in the new-fangled Cult of Personality sense. One of them was supposed to be a bit of a Rush Limbaugh or even Glenn Beck type, but I never got the impression this man could command the attention of a huge audience in the way that these people, rightly or wrongly, do or that he had the first idea about strategy or the workings of D.C. (I laughed when someone I wasn't supposed to like called him a “nitwit.” Come to think of it, this was the same guy who found the candidate's wife to be na??ve about what it takes to be first lady. Um, he might be my favorite character.) People in a militia group use the word “ain't” to show, I suppose, that they're uneducated and working class. I'm not a fan of these groups, and I was still vaguely insulted on their behalf.
Conversations often felt clich??d and repetitive. While characters, in theory, would be on different sides of an argument, their general sameness zapped all the electricity out of scenes. Potentially interesting conflicts were nipped in the bud in what seemed to me to be a need for the characters the author liked to like one another.
I simply didn't feel like I knew these people as well as I should, well enough to root for some, and root against others. I also felt like there were clear opportunities missed to make that happen.
For example, the author wrote several scenes leading up to a debate – and then chose to have the debate “off-screen.” I was disappointed because I thought it was going to be interesting and dynamic and really show the differences between arguably the two most important people in The Elect. While reading the book there were moments I wish he'd focused on, for the good of both plot and character, and others that I felt were needless or redundant. The debate wasn't covered, but we got a scene of the candidate's wife having an anemic argument with a news anchor in which she quotes Mommy Dearest - and not even the line you're probably all thinking about, so that she can be touted as being sassy.
Writing Style: 3 stars
Mr. Gilbert's writing often lacked vitality. He had a habit of not using active verbs, which might not register consciously, but tends to sap the energy from writing. Along with this, he often used passive voice. (Reviewers can get away with it, or so I tell myself.)
Sometimes sentences read as clunky and convoluted. (“Senator, the heliport is over here,” the nondescript young man standing alongside grabbed the senator by the elbow and gently led him past the photographers.) Other times, I felt the author was unsure or uncomfortable about dialogue tags - the “he said/she said” moments and these were occasionally handled awkwardly.
There was also a scene that is told from the point of view of a man driving home. In the midst of this we're told he's being followed. For a few paragraphs I wondered how he was going to deal with this until I realized the author had switched points of view for all of one paragraph and the man didn't know he was being followed.
The name Candace was used for two different wives, one in Boston and one in, oh, I think it was D.C. I had to take time to search the name, because I didn't know if this was the same woman, but Candace 1 was married to Mitch and Candace 2 was married to Alec. There were also two characters named Ed, but this was much less confusing.
On the other hand, there were moments that genuinely worked, and lines that were genuinely good, and the author juggled a lot of plot and storylines and had everything come together at the appropriate moment.
Editing: 2 1/4 stars
Honestly? Beneath professional standards. Missing commas, missing words, misspellings, grammar issues. One character was called by another character's name at one point.
When we meet the talk show host's wife, Sandy, we're given these contradictory descriptions within pages, “Now, at age forty three...” and “As she settled into her late forties...” As a woman who is months away from my forty-third birthday, I object. Mother Teresa is referred to as Mother Theresa, a character worries she is “titling at windmills.”
The book never became unreadable, due to the solid plot, but the errors were frequent enough that they took away from the quality of book and I, frankly, got tired of making note of them. Few of the mistakes were huge, but the steady stream of minor errors reduced the reading experience significantly. Most of this stuff, absolutely, should have been caught.
There is not always a good guy. Nor is there always a bad one. Most people are somewhere inbetween.Conor shook his head. ???That???s a terrible story. And a cheat.??? It is a true story, the monster said. Many things that are true feel like a cheat. Kingdoms get the princes they deserve, farmers??? daughters die for no reason, and sometimes witches merit saving. Quite often, actually. You???d be surprised.
One of my greatest challenges in life is to stop being surprised when unfair things happen. I expect for good people to have good things happen to them, and for bad people to fail, but – in the words of John Green – the world is not a wish-granting factory.
This makes me very sympathetic to Conor, who doesn't want to believe there is a chance his very ill mother won't recover. He is a child, and his mother is a good woman, and in a fair world he would have her in his life for many decades to come. He tells the monster early on that he's seen scarier things, worse monsters, and to a little boy facing the loss of a parent, this is undoubtedly true. The monster, however, has lessons to share, and a confession to hear.I can't imagine reading this book, having lost loved ones, and not being moved by this child dealing with gigantic fears and extreme feelings of isolation.
Moving read about fear, loss, and dealing with undeserved pain.
Too short for what I believe Koontz wanted to do. The interactive feature took a while to download, but was cool! Yay, Golden Retriever.
Okay, it's an audiobook, but crushed it!
I liked it, for the most part. Took a bit of a surprise turn, which I have mixed feelings about. The narrators were really good, the main characters very appealing. Enjoyed Carla the Nurse and Maddy's mother, as well. Well, Maddy's mother had a few things going on, but I had sympathy for her.
Disclosure: I received a free arc through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
“There's no way there could have been a murder in this idyllic little town. Right?”
Wrong.
After a bit of a rocky start, I enjoyed Death Checked Out. It sure hit a lot of the cozy mystery marks – murder, a small town, a job involving books, and a cat. Oh, a main character who likes to snoop in ways I don't have the courage to emulate.
I have to say the start of the Death Checked out concerned me. The writing seemed stilted, and everything was told and over-explained. I wasn't really enthused with the first chapter, but it felt like the author really got her feet underneath her, and everything flowed better.
I could nitpick word usage now and again. The quote I began with is not something I see anyone saying non–ironically, but it turned out to be a small issue as I got into the story.
Greta was a quite likeable main character, and I found her to be really sympathetic, especially when encountering friends in peril. Being a mystery, this happened a fair amount. I felt sadness about the murder victim, as well as a potential romance that was nipped in the bud as a result.
The small town midwest setting on a lake is pretty spot on. My credentials are I live in a small town where you can't throw a rock without hearing a splash a state over from the setting off this book. Greta explains quite convincingly and accurately how nothing is a secret, although she has a more benevolent outlook on her neighbors, at least for a while, than I do mine. Well, some of them.
Greta does tend to tell everyone everything anyhow. Everyone. Everything.
The detective investigating the case is set up to be a love interest, and I'm sorta here for it. They have nice chemistry, and I'd like to know more of his back story in future books, which I'm planning to read.
I figured out who done it instantly, as well as who else not to trust. I might be a genius. No, seriously, I think I've just read enough books that it popped out for me.
The book definitely ticks off the “sweet” or “clean” box. I don't like those terms, and it's not something I particularly seek out, but if that's what you like, here is a book for you. What I mean is that I think there's 0 swearing, and the potential romance isn't spicy not even in thought, let alone deed.
This is probably a 3.5 read for me that I'm rounding up to 4 because I can't deny I'm looking forward to the next installment. I can't give it higher because of that rocky beginning and a few small issues with the prose. And the title doesn't thrill me. Cover's cute!
If you are looking to spend time with the start of a very nice cozy series with a likeable heroine, a peaceful setting – when the bodies aren't racking up – a cat named Biff, and a stoic detective/cutie, I can recommend this.
Tim Gunn writes about his relationship with his father. I think like most adults who've lost one or both parents, it's a continuous process to make peace with that loss, and accept that there'll not be another change to get it right with that person. The most poignant part of me was when Mr. Gunn shared a story about the family dog racing through the nursing home to find the elder Gunn and what the junior Gunn believes is the reason for the dog one day failing to recognize his owner.
Classy guy, a story that will resonate for a lot of people.
I love the show, and this book was interesting and enriching in a similar way, but Jennifer Worth's personality was abrasive to me. She did a lot of great work, and memorialized a time and place in a lasting way, which is lovely, and so my not wanting to have met her at the pub does not detract from any of that.
If you do not feel anger on behalf of these women about 187 times, I don't know what to tell you. If after reading this you are not clear on why any argument about businesses regulated themselves is a load of manure, I don't know what to tell you.
These were young women, many in there teams, who dreamed of happy lives, only to have those lives destroyed through casual disregard. And when they seek justice, after spending all their savings, and the savings of their families, their former employers use every dirty trick, including lying, to deny them that justice.
Compelling read that will make you angry and break your heart.
???Go. Run,??? I snarled. ???I don???t ever want to see you again. And if you kill any more zombies, I???ll hunt you down and eat you. Then I???ll kill you.??? Heh. I cracked myself up sometimes.
This was a cute, fun, easy read. It resembled iZombie, but had its own vibe. I'd definitely read the next book in the series at some point when I was looking for something not too serious.
All the covers are amazing!
On the staff of Red Adept – Diana's editors – and so I don't think it would be right for me to rate this, but I believe it will appeal to anyone looking for a book about a woman overcoming the odds to make a better life for herself and for her son.
Nice read. Although this is YA, very similar to other books by the authors. The story is centered around the Clovis people and incorporates the science that speculates that a cataclysmic event occurred in North America around 13,000 years ago.
Parents who have an issue with religions other than Christianity might opt not to buy this for the younger suggested ages due to the prevalence of topics like spirit guides and possession, as well as some fairly gruesome descriptions of death and mutilation.
What a difference a decade or more makes? The story was solid, the characters pretty likable, but fat joke upon fat joke, a sassy black women who barely refrains at one point from saying “You go, girl,” a black man named Freedman who sounds like James Earl Jones? A strong, competent female officer who wanted her love interest to protect her, because that was the natural order?
I am at an age where 2004 was pretty much yesterday, but in this case the book shows its years.
The mystery itself was pretty good except the premise was shuffled aside, which I suppose could be seen as a twist, but felt a little like a cheat since it was time for the book to resolve. The result is all the police characters, contrary to how they were intended to be portrayed, seemed less than stellar at their jobs.
Also, small spoiler, there is a dog in the book that actually lives. I hate that the dog almost always dies if there's danger.
This isn't a bad book. I both failed to really engage with the characters, while still caring about them some, and felt the book was going to lean to heavily on the heroine consistently giving up her dreams. I just don't need that right now.