Search
Merissa (12934 KP) rated A Cross to Bear in Books
Dec 17, 2018
A Cross to Bear is the college life story of a young man who knows what he wants, but is unprepared for what he gets. Logan is happy to be at college; he has a full scholarship on the swim team, he has other classes to keep his brain active, he meets the girl of his dreams, and finds friends that he never knew he was missing. Of course, not everything is peachy, and both Logan and Bree have things to deal with, both in their pasts and present.
This book starts at the end, and then you go to the beginning, slowly working your way back to the end. Trust me, it works. So many emotions when I was reading this! So sad, so hard, and also so horrible in some ways. Ethan is the first class bad guy, he really was completely loathsome. I wish I could say that he gets his comeuppance in this book, but he doesn't. I will have to pray to Jet's Gods of Karma in the hope that he did!
Extremely well written, with no editing or grammatical errors to disrupt my reading flow, this was a book that I enjoyed, even though parts of it were hard to read, so well done to Julieanne Lynch! Definitely recommended.
* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book and my comments here are my honest opinion. *
Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
This book starts at the end, and then you go to the beginning, slowly working your way back to the end. Trust me, it works. So many emotions when I was reading this! So sad, so hard, and also so horrible in some ways. Ethan is the first class bad guy, he really was completely loathsome. I wish I could say that he gets his comeuppance in this book, but he doesn't. I will have to pray to Jet's Gods of Karma in the hope that he did!
Extremely well written, with no editing or grammatical errors to disrupt my reading flow, this was a book that I enjoyed, even though parts of it were hard to read, so well done to Julieanne Lynch! Definitely recommended.
* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book and my comments here are my honest opinion. *
Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
David McK (3562 KP) rated Quantum Leap: Carny Knowledge in Books
Jul 23, 2023
"Theorising that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Doctor Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished... He woke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own, and driven by an unknown desire to change history for the better ..."
Recently, I've started watching the Paramount+ revival of one of my favourite 'tweenage' years shows.
I'm not yet - as of the time of writing - sold on it.
Having watched an episode or two, I thought I would revisit the original, albeit in literary rather than audiovisual form - I know that, in the past, I had read Quantum Leap 00: Too Close for Comfort and Knights of the Morningstar, but I had never read this one. When I cam across it, therefore, I thought I would give it a go.
I have to say, also, that - unfortunately - I just wasn't really all that impressed by it. I don't know whether that's because this was #1 in the book series, or because of the subject matter - being from the UK, carnivals (and the people who run them, known as Carnies (or so I've heard) ) aren't really all that much of a thing here! Nor do I particularly like roller-coasters ...
In this, Sam finds himself in the body of one such 1950 Carnie, a childhood polio survivor, who seems to have visions of the future in which people die after a roller-coaster derails on its maiden run, with all the hopes and dreams of the Carnival workers pinned on that roller coaster. This, I found, was bit slow in starting, although it did pick up towards the end! There's also segments in the (1990s!) future, showing what is missing from the revival in the Waiting Room, and explains a bit better than that revival does why Al is Sam's hologram as opposed to Addison being Ben's.
Worth a read for nostalgia factor, maybe.
Recently, I've started watching the Paramount+ revival of one of my favourite 'tweenage' years shows.
I'm not yet - as of the time of writing - sold on it.
Having watched an episode or two, I thought I would revisit the original, albeit in literary rather than audiovisual form - I know that, in the past, I had read Quantum Leap 00: Too Close for Comfort and Knights of the Morningstar, but I had never read this one. When I cam across it, therefore, I thought I would give it a go.
I have to say, also, that - unfortunately - I just wasn't really all that impressed by it. I don't know whether that's because this was #1 in the book series, or because of the subject matter - being from the UK, carnivals (and the people who run them, known as Carnies (or so I've heard) ) aren't really all that much of a thing here! Nor do I particularly like roller-coasters ...
In this, Sam finds himself in the body of one such 1950 Carnie, a childhood polio survivor, who seems to have visions of the future in which people die after a roller-coaster derails on its maiden run, with all the hopes and dreams of the Carnival workers pinned on that roller coaster. This, I found, was bit slow in starting, although it did pick up towards the end! There's also segments in the (1990s!) future, showing what is missing from the revival in the Waiting Room, and explains a bit better than that revival does why Al is Sam's hologram as opposed to Addison being Ben's.
Worth a read for nostalgia factor, maybe.
![The Girls on Chalk Hill (Detective Lexi Bennett #1) [Audiobook]](/uploads/profile_image/741/d09ec1cd-9c4a-4cea-9388-9df13c5e0741.jpg?m=1685882567)
The Girls on Chalk Hill (Detective Lexi Bennett #1) [Audiobook]
9.0
Rate It
Book
They lie on the hillside, wearing matching white dresses, tiaras in their blonde hair. Each of them...
Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk
John Doe and Tom DeSavia
Book
Under the Big Black Sun explores the nascent Los Angeles punk rock movement and its evolution to...
Where You Are
8.0
Rate It
Book
Former model and B-list actor (B meaning really bad) Isaac Seidel is now a NYC firefighter on...
MM Contemporary Romance
ClareR (5885 KP) rated The Second Sight of a Zachary Cloudesley in Books
Nov 11, 2023
I don’t quite know how I can write anything about this book and still do it justice! It’s a wide sweeping novel, that takes the reader from a clockmakers in London to Constantinople.
Starting in 1754, Zachary is born on the day that his mother dies. His father, Abel, loves him fiercely, and wants to always do his best for him, which brings a Mrs Grace Morley and her baby daughter Leonora into their lives. She’s a strong, forceful woman who is to leave an impression on everyone that meets her.
After a near-fatal accident leaves Zachary blind in one eye, his father sends him to live part of the year with his Aunt Frances. This is another strong, independent woman who is determined to make Zachary the son she never had. She sees in Zachary the gift that his mother had: the ability to read people and see inside to their hopes, wishes and dreams - and also their not-so-positive thoughts.
Abel finds himself forced to go to Constantinople, and Zachary begins to have visions that send him on a chase across Europe to find his father after he loses contact with him.
The descriptions of London, Frances’ house and land, and those of Constantinople are rich and detailed - I could have been there. I was gripped from the first page, immersed in an 18th century world where lives were at stake and a boy had to be brave to save the life of his father. I loved Aunt Frances and Tom, Abel’s apprentice, who both join the Cloudesley’s in Constantinople.
The love between the characters is bright and clear, and their losses are the readers losses as well (I cried). This is historical fiction, an adventure story with a dash of fantasy and the love of family and good friends.
Highly recommended.
Starting in 1754, Zachary is born on the day that his mother dies. His father, Abel, loves him fiercely, and wants to always do his best for him, which brings a Mrs Grace Morley and her baby daughter Leonora into their lives. She’s a strong, forceful woman who is to leave an impression on everyone that meets her.
After a near-fatal accident leaves Zachary blind in one eye, his father sends him to live part of the year with his Aunt Frances. This is another strong, independent woman who is determined to make Zachary the son she never had. She sees in Zachary the gift that his mother had: the ability to read people and see inside to their hopes, wishes and dreams - and also their not-so-positive thoughts.
Abel finds himself forced to go to Constantinople, and Zachary begins to have visions that send him on a chase across Europe to find his father after he loses contact with him.
The descriptions of London, Frances’ house and land, and those of Constantinople are rich and detailed - I could have been there. I was gripped from the first page, immersed in an 18th century world where lives were at stake and a boy had to be brave to save the life of his father. I loved Aunt Frances and Tom, Abel’s apprentice, who both join the Cloudesley’s in Constantinople.
The love between the characters is bright and clear, and their losses are the readers losses as well (I cried). This is historical fiction, an adventure story with a dash of fantasy and the love of family and good friends.
Highly recommended.
Laura Doe (1350 KP) rated The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman in Books
Jul 1, 2021
The thing that really attracted me to this little gem of a book was it’s title and wondering whether there was actually a character named Norman Foreman in it or not. Then when I read the blurb I knew that I just had to read it.
We follow a mother and son, Sadie and Norman Foreman, through a challenging time in their life - Norman’s best friend Jax dying from an asthma attack. Norman and Jax did everything together, and loved watching comedy sketches and comedians and had big dreams of becoming a comedy duo and performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival when they were 15.
However, that plan drastically changes when Jax dies aged 12 and leaves Norman not really knowing what to do and not particularly coping very well. Norman then comes up with the idea to get himself to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival that year as a tribute to Jax and also along the way decides he wants to finally find out who his dad is.
Sadie is also struggling with Jax’s death and struggling to help Norman grieve as she never truly grieved her own dad’s death. She has to come to relive her past where she spent a month after her dad’s death completely off the rails and now has four potential fathers for Norman. Along the way she confides in a work colleague, a little old man called Leonard, who decides that he wants in on this adventure and helps Sadie organise her thoughts and helps them both get to the Edinburgh Fringe and to find the four potential fathers.
Some of it may be a little far fetched at points, but that doesn’t stop it from being a really heartwarming story of a child trying to come to terms with the grief of losing his best friend and how you don’t have to be sad all the time in order to grieve.
I loved the whole book from start to finish, and I’m so glad that I got to read it courtesy of Pigeonhole and Julietta Henderson!
We follow a mother and son, Sadie and Norman Foreman, through a challenging time in their life - Norman’s best friend Jax dying from an asthma attack. Norman and Jax did everything together, and loved watching comedy sketches and comedians and had big dreams of becoming a comedy duo and performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival when they were 15.
However, that plan drastically changes when Jax dies aged 12 and leaves Norman not really knowing what to do and not particularly coping very well. Norman then comes up with the idea to get himself to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival that year as a tribute to Jax and also along the way decides he wants to finally find out who his dad is.
Sadie is also struggling with Jax’s death and struggling to help Norman grieve as she never truly grieved her own dad’s death. She has to come to relive her past where she spent a month after her dad’s death completely off the rails and now has four potential fathers for Norman. Along the way she confides in a work colleague, a little old man called Leonard, who decides that he wants in on this adventure and helps Sadie organise her thoughts and helps them both get to the Edinburgh Fringe and to find the four potential fathers.
Some of it may be a little far fetched at points, but that doesn’t stop it from being a really heartwarming story of a child trying to come to terms with the grief of losing his best friend and how you don’t have to be sad all the time in order to grieve.
I loved the whole book from start to finish, and I’m so glad that I got to read it courtesy of Pigeonhole and Julietta Henderson!
Flaming Bags of Crap and the Rarity of Clarity: Not Your Mother's Romantic Comedy
Book
What’s worse? To want something desperately but never be able to have it or to have it but feel as...
Not Her Gargoyle (Not This Series Book 5)
Book
Ruby is done with jerks, dead-end jobs, and eviction notices. Everyone else she knows is finding...
paranormal romance shifter adult romantic comedy humor
Hadley (567 KP) rated A Luminous Republic in Books
Aug 13, 2020
Well-written (1 more)
Unpredictable
Andres Barba's A Luminous Republic has feral children, senseless murders, and a plot that keeps the story moving enough that the reader won't want to put the book down. This story creatively combines politics, murder, fear and family - - - but the best part is, the book is unpredictable.
We first meet our main character, whose name is never given throughout the entire story, when he and his family are moving to San Cristobal because of a job opportunity. He works for the Department of Social Affairs, and has just received a promotion because he has come up with a very successful plan: " I had developed a social integration program for indigenous communities. The idea was simple and the program proved to be an effective model; it consisted of granting the indigenous exclusive rights to farm certain specific product." Our main character believes that this plan will bring the farmers more money. And he is more than happy to go back to the city where he fell in-love with his now wife, Maia - - - a violin teacher who had a daughter before meeting him, who he calls 'girl' throughout the story because she is also named Maia.
While on his way to work one day, our main character comes across one of the unknown children of the jungle, which shakes him up a bit. The unknown jungle children were known to beg at street lights for money and food, but one of the grimy, frizzy-haired boys stared the man down, only to end up giving him a very wide smile. "The boy's smile unsettled me because it confirmed that there had been a connection between us, that something had begun in me ended in him." Pretty soon after, he begins to notice these unknown jungle children running around a lot more, and that sometimes their intentions are not always innocent - - - he and the 'girl' witness an elderly woman get robbed of her groceries by a group of these children in the middle of the street in a subtle but violent way.
The unknown jungle children soon begin to rob several people,and when a police officer is killed while being attacked by them, the Mayor and the police want the children off the streets as soon as possible. Working with our main character, the former and the latter try to figure out the strange language these children use, whom may be the leader among them, and where they disappear to at night. Since the story is being told from our main character's past, the book is written like a True Crime story, with names of professionals and such being cited throughout. Our main character brings up a woman, who was a young girl at the time of the jungle children's invasion on San Cristobal: Teresa Otano, who happened to 'publish' her diary from that time, which gives readers insights into the jungle children: "Often, some of the thirty-two [jungle children], on their nightly journey back to the jungle, congregated next to Teresa's house, on one corner of Antartida Avenue. At first, Teresa, enthralled, simply makes notes, logging the days on which they appeared, whether there were three, four or five of them, what they were wearing, and so forth. She establishes patterns and identifies a few of the kids..." our main character explains to the reader.
But soon, the children cross a line that they can never come back from; being told by our main character from the view of surveillance video tapes, he describes to us that the jungle children entered a supermarket after an incident with a guard that works there, they block the entrance doors and begin to destroy items throughout the store, but the chaos quickly escalates, and two adults are murdered by the children - - - fear now holds the town in its grip, causing search parties to sweep through the dense jungle after the children fled.
But murder wasn't something new to San Cristobal, our main character explains to us that the suburbs of this area usually had a murder a week all year long, and that on the outskirts of the jungle, there were known spots for drug trafficking and assaults. What made the 'Dakota Supermarket' murders scare the town was that the residents' own children began to behave differently afterwards - - - they start to play a 'game' where they put their ears to the ground, believing that they can hear the jungle children talking to them. Our main character even walks in on the 'girl' playing this exact game. "For a second it was as if I were witnessing a ritual invented by a twelve-year-old girl, and I thought of how afraid my daughter must have felt when I found her in the bathroom that day. People often remark on the self-assured quality of the invocation, its instruction-manual tone, but I'd say that its intensity actually stems from what it dispenses: adult logic, a world that no longer serves. How could our children possibly have explained to us what they were doing? We weren't prepared for their world or their logic. Somewhere out there, underground, that dissonant sound was being sent, in code: down below, chaos. "
This phenomenon attracts the attention of money/fame seekers, which includes the Zapata children. Four siblings, ranging from the ages of five to nine, claimed that the jungle children were speaking to them through their dreams. They would make drawings from what they were told by the jungle children, but state that even they didn't know what the drawings meant. The media quickly jumped on them and put them in front of a camera, causing the family's home to be surrounded by civilians at all hours of the day and night. One night, the crowd outside becomes anxious, and breaks into the house, stealing not only the drawings from the Zapata children, but also the life savings of the family. At this point, the Zapatas had had enough, and retreat from the story altogether for reasons I won't disclose here. I can't give away much more of the book without ruining the story.
Barba's attempt at making a different kind of Lord of the Flies was done well, but the lack of emotion is felt throughout the entire story which makes the characters flat, especially our main character, who I didn't find likable in any such way. He calls a grieving woman a 'whore,' and he seems rude towards his family, especially his step-daughter.
A Luminous Republic is redeemed by is unpredictability, which is something that doesn't come along in fiction that often anymore. I enjoyed that the story was written like a True Crime novel, with fictitious documentaries, news reports and books. So, I would recommend this book to people who like True Crime and Mysteries.
We first meet our main character, whose name is never given throughout the entire story, when he and his family are moving to San Cristobal because of a job opportunity. He works for the Department of Social Affairs, and has just received a promotion because he has come up with a very successful plan: " I had developed a social integration program for indigenous communities. The idea was simple and the program proved to be an effective model; it consisted of granting the indigenous exclusive rights to farm certain specific product." Our main character believes that this plan will bring the farmers more money. And he is more than happy to go back to the city where he fell in-love with his now wife, Maia - - - a violin teacher who had a daughter before meeting him, who he calls 'girl' throughout the story because she is also named Maia.
While on his way to work one day, our main character comes across one of the unknown children of the jungle, which shakes him up a bit. The unknown jungle children were known to beg at street lights for money and food, but one of the grimy, frizzy-haired boys stared the man down, only to end up giving him a very wide smile. "The boy's smile unsettled me because it confirmed that there had been a connection between us, that something had begun in me ended in him." Pretty soon after, he begins to notice these unknown jungle children running around a lot more, and that sometimes their intentions are not always innocent - - - he and the 'girl' witness an elderly woman get robbed of her groceries by a group of these children in the middle of the street in a subtle but violent way.
The unknown jungle children soon begin to rob several people,and when a police officer is killed while being attacked by them, the Mayor and the police want the children off the streets as soon as possible. Working with our main character, the former and the latter try to figure out the strange language these children use, whom may be the leader among them, and where they disappear to at night. Since the story is being told from our main character's past, the book is written like a True Crime story, with names of professionals and such being cited throughout. Our main character brings up a woman, who was a young girl at the time of the jungle children's invasion on San Cristobal: Teresa Otano, who happened to 'publish' her diary from that time, which gives readers insights into the jungle children: "Often, some of the thirty-two [jungle children], on their nightly journey back to the jungle, congregated next to Teresa's house, on one corner of Antartida Avenue. At first, Teresa, enthralled, simply makes notes, logging the days on which they appeared, whether there were three, four or five of them, what they were wearing, and so forth. She establishes patterns and identifies a few of the kids..." our main character explains to the reader.
But soon, the children cross a line that they can never come back from; being told by our main character from the view of surveillance video tapes, he describes to us that the jungle children entered a supermarket after an incident with a guard that works there, they block the entrance doors and begin to destroy items throughout the store, but the chaos quickly escalates, and two adults are murdered by the children - - - fear now holds the town in its grip, causing search parties to sweep through the dense jungle after the children fled.
But murder wasn't something new to San Cristobal, our main character explains to us that the suburbs of this area usually had a murder a week all year long, and that on the outskirts of the jungle, there were known spots for drug trafficking and assaults. What made the 'Dakota Supermarket' murders scare the town was that the residents' own children began to behave differently afterwards - - - they start to play a 'game' where they put their ears to the ground, believing that they can hear the jungle children talking to them. Our main character even walks in on the 'girl' playing this exact game. "For a second it was as if I were witnessing a ritual invented by a twelve-year-old girl, and I thought of how afraid my daughter must have felt when I found her in the bathroom that day. People often remark on the self-assured quality of the invocation, its instruction-manual tone, but I'd say that its intensity actually stems from what it dispenses: adult logic, a world that no longer serves. How could our children possibly have explained to us what they were doing? We weren't prepared for their world or their logic. Somewhere out there, underground, that dissonant sound was being sent, in code: down below, chaos. "
This phenomenon attracts the attention of money/fame seekers, which includes the Zapata children. Four siblings, ranging from the ages of five to nine, claimed that the jungle children were speaking to them through their dreams. They would make drawings from what they were told by the jungle children, but state that even they didn't know what the drawings meant. The media quickly jumped on them and put them in front of a camera, causing the family's home to be surrounded by civilians at all hours of the day and night. One night, the crowd outside becomes anxious, and breaks into the house, stealing not only the drawings from the Zapata children, but also the life savings of the family. At this point, the Zapatas had had enough, and retreat from the story altogether for reasons I won't disclose here. I can't give away much more of the book without ruining the story.
Barba's attempt at making a different kind of Lord of the Flies was done well, but the lack of emotion is felt throughout the entire story which makes the characters flat, especially our main character, who I didn't find likable in any such way. He calls a grieving woman a 'whore,' and he seems rude towards his family, especially his step-daughter.
A Luminous Republic is redeemed by is unpredictability, which is something that doesn't come along in fiction that often anymore. I enjoyed that the story was written like a True Crime novel, with fictitious documentaries, news reports and books. So, I would recommend this book to people who like True Crime and Mysteries.