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Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2200 KP) rated Survive or Die in Books

Mar 7, 2019

World’s Worst Team Building Ever

The employees of Bender Clips are going on a corporate retreat. Jack Bender, the owner, has shut things down for a week and rented out the Survive or Die camp in the Colorado mountains. The camp was used as the location for a reality TV show of the same name a decade ago, and the host is still basking off the fame that show brought him. Jack has a surprise for his employees. The winner of the week will get a raise, and the loser will get fired. Leave early? You might be fired as well. The employees, and a few spouses tagging along, are less than enthusiastic at this turn. And some of the employees have their own agendas for the week that go beyond the challenges.

Before things get too far, a small group of employees find a death threat left on Jack Bender’s car. The first night, someone dies, only it isn’t Jack. Was it a tragic accident? Is there a killer at camp? Who will win the raise? Or will accidents befall more people?

This is a creative book. The plot is as much about the competition as the murder, and I got caught up in both stories. One part of the climax turned things darker than I was expecting, but overall, I enjoyed the book and everything is explained by the end. While we have a core number of characters, there are a lot of them, and I had trouble keeping them all straight at times. Fortunately, we usually got the needed context when someone entered a scene. The core characters are well developed, and we get some nice growth in most of them. There is subtle humor aimed at corporate life in the book; as a corporate employee during the day, I found it fun while hitting too close to home.

Kudos

Hazel (1853 KP) rated The Orphan Train in Books

Dec 17, 2018

<i>I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.</i>

Steve Brigman’s historical novel <i>The Orphan Train</i> takes place in the Missouri Ozarks during the late 19th and early 20th century. Large groups of orphaned children were transported from New York across to the west where other families adopted them. Ten-year-old James was one of these children and this is his story.

Initially the title implied that the story would be about the orphan train itself or at least the life of James as a child however it was his adult life that the book was focused on. The novel opened with the train journey and James meeting his new parents, Clara and Joshua Crawford but this, as well as his remaining childhood on the Crawford ranch was over in a short amount of chapters. By this point both his parents had died in accidents before James had reached the age of twenty. The story goes on to show how James improved and built on the ranch with the help of friend and employee Luke as well as Henry, an older black man who he let live on the ranch with is daughter and grandchildren – something that sparked prejudices in town.

James soon finds himself a wife and the remainder of the book recounts their life together. I admit that I was a little disappointed not to read more about James’ childhood but I began to enjoy reading about the love he had for his wife and his friendships with those living on the ranch.

One issue with this novel is that it lacks much of a climax. I was forever waiting for something bad to happen as it all seemed too good to be true and slightly predictable. That said, it was a good read and it was easy to become attached to the characters.