Comics Will Break Your Heart
Book
Miriam's family should be rich. After all, her grandfather was the co-creator of smash-hit comics...
Wreck and Order
6.0
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Book
A boldly candid, raw portrait of a young woman's search for meaning and purpose in an indifferent...
The Simple Art Of Flying
9.0
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Quirky characters, plucky humor, and a heartwarming message come together in this big-hearted debut...
Three Black Boys: Tomorrow After Supper
6.3
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Book
Three Black Boys: Tomorrow After Supper is an urban-fiction novel by Zangba Thomson that is intense...
If... by Bill Ryder-Jones
Album
Ryder-Jones' debut solo album If... was written as a musical adaptation of Italo Calvino's 1979...
Merissa (12051 KP) rated Rare Form (Descended of Dragons #1) in Books
Apr 19, 2023
So many characters in here to draw you in! Stella herself is cracking! She deals with life-changing events with attitude and aplomb, whilst committing herself fully. Gresham is simply gorgeous and I can't get enough of him. Timbra is sweet but with a sassy edge. Ewan - what can I say about him? He intrigues me and I can't wait to see where this story will take him.
Well-written, smoothly paced, and laced with humour, this is a book to savour! Definitely recommended by me and I can't wait for book 2!!
* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book; the comments here are my honest opinion. *
Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
Oct 6, 2015
Exile (The Last Roman #1)
8.0
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Gaul, 37 AD Seasoned imperial officer Marcus Sempronius Gracchus leads the 9th Roman Legion into...
The Knowhere child
Book
‘Her name is Sammy Went. This photo was taken on her second birthday. Three days later she was...
Goddess in the Stacks (553 KP) rated American War in Books
Sep 27, 2017
And it’s FANTASTIC.
El Akkad did an absolutely amazing job of weaving together the North/South rivalry of the US, climate change, the changing nature of energy generation, and US wars in the middle east to write an all-too-plausible novel about the US, seventy years from now.
Alternating between narrative chapters following his protagonist, and “historical documents” about the time period, he masterfully tells the story of how a terrorist is made. Because that’s what Sarat, his protagonist, is. Let’s make no bones about that. She is a terrorist. But she is a terrorist whose reasoning makes sense to us. Perhaps because the territories and the peoples are familiar to us, perhaps because we see how she grew up and what drove her to it – but the end result is a terrorist act on an unheard-of scale.
I’d like to think this book would make people look at refugees and terrorists in a new light – with more understanding and compassion and maybe with ideas to help actually combat the attitudes and circumstances that lead to terrorist acts. But I doubt it. I doubt this will change any minds that don’t already understand the underlying reasons.
My only quibble with this book is while he manages to weave together so many other issues facing our country right now, he doesn’t really wrap in racism. And I have a hard time believing our country is past racism 70 years from now.
I was very pleasantly surprised to find the protagonist is a bisexual, gender non-conforming woman of color. How awesome is that? And her bisexuality isn’t mentioned, it’s shown, her one on-screen sex scene (and it’s only barely on-screen) being with a woman. (She’s also attracted to a man in the book.)
The author was born in Egypt, grew up in Qatar, and lived in Canada, earning at least one award for his investigative reporting while working at The Globe and Mail. He’s one of the Canadian Broadcasting Company’s 17 writers to watch this year, and I see why. American War is definitely one of my favorite books of 2017.
You can find all my reviews at http://goddessinthestacks.wordpress.com
Holding is set in Duneen in Ireland and focuses on three main characters – Sergeant PJ Collins, Evelyn Ross and Brid Riordan – and the way the mystery affects them as people.
The mystery itself – a buried skeleton found at a building site – was surprisingly on the back burner when you consider this was a mystery novel, however, it was well written and kept me interested in the story.
For me what made the story was the characters. PJ Collins is a Garda and is basically an overweight, middle aged, lonely shoddy copper.
Evelyn Ross is a middle aged woman who fell in love with the wrong man.
Brid Riordan is a middle aged woman who also fell in love with the wrong man – the same man – and is stuck in a loveless marriage drinking her sorrows away.
The book was more about how the finding of those bones affect PJ, Evelyn, Brid and even Mrs Meany and it was written in such a way that you felt for the characters – I personally felt more for Mrs Meany than I did the other characters but the next one would be Brid.
The dynamic between the three main characters was brilliant and the consistency towards the end was good. I think the only thing that put me off was the lack of distinguishing factors between point of view for example, one paragraph would be PJ and the next would be Brid and there would be no line break but other than that it was a very good book!
Definitely recommended.