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ClareR (5711 KP) rated The List in Books

Aug 23, 2023  
The List
The List
Yomi Adegoke | 2023 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry, Mystery, Thriller
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
I can’t help but think that this is an important book about something that shouldn’t play such a major part in our lives. How someone’s life can be destroyed by hearsay, a trial without a jury, is beyond me. On the other hand, some of the men on “The List” are already well-known for their actions. They’ve just managed to wheedle their ways out of taking any responsibility for their actions.

When Ola opens the file on Twitter, she doesn’t expect to see her fiancés name on the list, but there he is. Someone has accused him of sexual harassment and assault at a Christmas party, and he’s on the same list as men who have been accused of far worse.

Interesting points are raised in this:
The duality of social media - it can raise you up and pull you down equally as quickly;
Everyone can have their say: free speech is important after all. But what if that opinion isn’t an honest one?
People’s anonymity gives the freedom to say whatever you like, and if you have a score to settle, what better way of doing it is there?

It’s a shame that the main characters Ola and Michael never actually seemed to talk to one another about what was going on. But perhaps this is the future that social media gives us: people are more interested in what they read about their prospective partners online, rather than getting to know them.

This was a sobering and a VERY frustrating read at times! That said, I did enjoy it.
  
Follow You
Follow You
Richard Jay Parker | 2017 | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
6
8.0 (3 Ratings)
Book Rating
Initially, I really hated the title of this book, it sounds super cheesy and weird, but after finding out it relates to the Twitter Killer plot, I actually thought it was quite cool. The plotline here is that there was Twitter thread called '#BeMyKiller' where you could advertise yourself up to be killed (in a pranky way) but then a few people who responded to this thread were murdered. I thought this was a really unique motivation for the crimes in this and so my hatred for the title dissipated.

This is a fast paced book, with never a dull moment! If you're one of those people who pushes themselves through "just one more chapter", this book is going to stop you from sleeping... There are 130 chapters in this book, with some of them being just a page long!

I liked the plot for this, that they were making a film about the murders, that then turned into more murders. The setting was in the dark and dreary murder place of Meredith, "Fun Central" and because it was an old kids play area, with ball bits and go-kart tracks, it had an eerie feel to it that worked well alongside the gruesome murders. And yes, they were gruesome murders.

Writing was well done. It's not a challenging book to read, there's no amazing descriptive passages or hard-hitting themes, it's just an easy thriller read. One problem I did have with the writing is something so stupid and very specific that it almost seems pointless in saying it, but it got on my nerves enough times that I have to mention it. "So why did you use the #BeMyKiller hashtag?" - how do you read that sentence? I read it as "hashtag Be My Killer hashtag"... yes that's all that's annoyed me, the double use of the hashtag... don't use a # if you're then going to write out hashtag!!!

Our main character in this novel is Hazel, and while she's creating this film to get justice for Meredith's killer, I didn't particularly like her. The blurb makes it sound like Hazel is doing her documentary to get justice for Meredith, but to me, it felt like she was making the film to save her company from going under. She was too deceptive with all the characters about her reasoning behind creating this new film, that her passion to catch the killer felt fake. As for Meredith being a "childhood friend", I'd say that wasn't very realistic, the book makes it feel like they were more acquaintances than anything, and that Hazel just sort of pitied Meredith. It's never good when you don't like the main character, but I was reasonably happy still going along with this novel. Hazel was dislikable but she was tolerable.

I had my suspicions of who the killer might be, which turned out to be wrong, but I think I would have preferred my scenario to play out because the real reveal was pretty dramatic and out there. Although the last 40% of the book was super tense and horror-movie-like it got a little OTT in my opinion.

Overall this is a great thriller if you're looking for a book with non-stop action, but it's not particularly clever and it's very dark, so if you're not into that kinda thing, you won't enjoy this one. It's clear that Parker has a talent for writing and I will definitely look out for more books of his, but this, for me, was a very mediocre thriller novel.
  
Internment
Internment
Samira Ahmed | 2019 | Dystopia, Fiction & Poetry
10
8.8 (5 Ratings)
Book Rating
This book should be required reading in schools. Especially now. It could be paired with Anne Frank. One history, one a possible future. Probable, even. Depending on how you look at it, an actual present. We DO have concentration camps on the border. (Which makes me shudder to write, what in the absolute FUCK.)

*breathes deeply*

Internment is a gut-punch of a book. I had to set it down two pages in and get control of myself, and again around page eleven. I took breaks throughout reading it to do HOUSEWORK, of all things, because I needed the mental and emotional reprieve. And I'm a white woman. I have the privilege of being pretty sure I will never be the target of these kinds of atrocities. Which means I have the responsibility to work against them. I'm also a physically weak, chronic-illness-having, unemployed white woman, (which does have the benefit of letting me keep on eye on my middle-eastern neighbors' houses to watch for ICE showing up - I fully intend to go make myself a damned nuisance if they do) so I can't go storm the camps or march for hours at protests. What I can do is boost books like this.

If you're white, GO READ THIS BOOK. Suck it up and read it. I don't have the same recommendation for my friends of color because they already live with this kind of fear and racism. They don't need it illustrated to them. WE DO.

This book needs content warnings for violence, threats of rape, anxiety-inducing situations, racism, violent death - Samira Ahmed does NOT pull punches. Direct resistance is costly. It takes courage and sacrifice, and she does not shy away from showing that. It would be sugar-coating if she did.

Internment focuses on the idea of America forcing citizens into camps - but we are already forcing non-citizens into camps. The Red Cross visits the camp, not unlike our politicians visiting the immigrant concentration camps on our border now. They have a garden they can work on in the camp - not unlike a pair of photos I saw on Twitter. (see blog for photos.)

Internment is stunning, heartbreaking, and inspiring, and if you're emotionally capable of it, YOU SHOULD READ IT. This is happening, right now, on our southern border. It is infuriating that our politicians have not put a stop to it yet. My own Congressman (I just moved into this area, I haven't had a chance to vote on him yet) just visited the camps, and his Twitter thread on them is SO CAREFUL to use absolutely neutral language when talking about them, and it pisses me off. This is NOT a neutral subject.

Internment did have a few downsides - the Director never gets a name (though the book is told from Layla's viewpoint, and it would not surprise me if he never bothered to GIVE his name to the internees) and he's almost cartoonishly evil. I would have liked to know more about the guard that helped Layla on occasion, but again, told as it was from her viewpoint, it can be excused by saying she simply didn't know more about him. But this IS a Young Adult novel told from a seventeen-year-old's viewpoint. We're only going to get what she knows and feels. So these downsides don't detract from the book for me.

To sum up - I recommend Internment at the highest level. You absolutely must read this book.

You can find all my reviews and more at http://goddessinthestacks.com
  
Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe #2)
Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe #2)
Neal Shusterman | 2018 | Science Fiction/Fantasy, Young Adult (YA)
10
9.1 (9 Ratings)
Book Rating
<a href="https://amzn.to/2Wi7amb">Wishlist</a>; | <a
<a href="https://diaryofdifference.com/">Blog</a>; | <a href="https://www.facebook.com/diaryofdifference/">Facebook</a>; | <a href="https://twitter.com/DiaryDifference">Twitter</a>; | <a href="https://www.instagram.com/diaryofdifference/">Instagram</a>; | <a href="https://www.pinterest.co.uk/diaryofdifference/pins/">Pinterest</a>;

#1 <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2656699288">Scythe</a>; - ★★★★★
#2 <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2998629500">Thunderhead</a>; - ★★★★★
#3 <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3080800725">The Toll</a> - ★★★★★

<img src="https://diaryofdifference.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Book-Review-Banner-15.png"/>;

I thought Scythe will be my favorite book of the year, but then I read Thunderhead. It is a shame that I won’t be able to read The Toll this year - but I am honestly so honored to have a chance to read this series in my lifetime. Neal, please let me kiss your immortality ring!

Thunderhead is a continuation of The Arc of Scythe series, where we follow two characters, Citra and Rowan, in their journey to become apprentices of Scythe Faraday. With many twists and turns, which I don’t want to spoil for you all, Thunderhead begins exactly where Scythe finished. And it only gets better from here!

While in Scythe, the main focus of the book was the introduction to the world of Scythes, their beliefs, their challenges, their destiny, in Thunderhead, we get to know the Thunderhead better. The mind behind all the success of humankind, the brains behind how we managed to beat immortality. The Thunderhead sees everything and it can control everything - except the Schythedom. 

<b><i>“The end doesn’t always justify the means, dear.” she said. “But sometimes it does. Wisdom is knowing the difference.”</i></b>

This book was so powerful in so many ways. The bravery of Scythe Citra, now known as Scythe Anastasia. The determination of Rowan. Thunderhead and the power and wisdom it holds, but is unable to share it. The sacrifice of Scythe Curie. The friendship that slowly turns to love and trust between Citra and Rowan and their fights to bring fairness and justice, both of them fighting for the same goal, but in their own different ways. 

Thunderhead was everything I was hoping it to be and more. It was all I ever wanted from it. The writing, the mini entries of thoughts from the Thunderhead or the diary excerpts that keep you engaged chapter after chapter are such a refreshing way to read a book.

I think this series will end up being my favorite one of all time, and I cannot wait to get to The Toll and get the ending I am hoping I will get. Thunderhead finishes with an enormous cliff-hanger, that makes you beg for the next book. 

I recommend this book so, so much and in real life I cannot stop talking about it. Please pick up a copy and give it a try. If you don’t instantly fall in love with it, you can glean me.

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Looking for Alaska
Looking for Alaska
John Green | 2013 | Children
8
8.1 (49 Ratings)
Book Rating
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<img src="https://diaryofdifference.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Book-Review-Banner-15.png"/>;

Miles is moving to Alabama to attend a boarding school. And while he is a quiet boy that happens to remember famous people's last words, he is also looking to stay out of trouble. He meets, incidentally, the most troublesome people that are about to change his life forever.

<b><i>''So, I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bun, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.''</i></b>

One of these people is Alaska Young, and believe me when I say, she is trouble. She is also clever and beautiful, but most of all screwed up, and she steals Miles's heart straight away.

''Looking for Alaska'' reminded me so much of ''The Perks of Being a Wallflower''. There was definitely the same vibe of boy goes to new school, boy is quiet, boy meets loud friends and boy falls in love.

And even though I got really annoyed at the beginning due to the fact that Miles barely talks to his friends and does whatever he is told to do, his character does develop throughout the book and he manages to find his voice and his purpose which I believe made this book way more meaningful.

<b><i>''That is the fear. I have lost something important, and I cannot find it, and I need it. It is fear like if someone lost his glasses and went to the glasses store and they told him that the world had run out of glasses and he would just have to do without.''</i></b>

On the subject of his feelings towards Alaska, the love he feels, it is very hard to actually notice the big impact she has on Miles. Yes, we might agree that she didn't really care about him as we would've wanted her to do. She didn't have big feelings for him, but she did have an enormous influence on him. While she was there thinking about her boyfriend, Miles was constantly thinking about her, memorising every opinion she has, learning all her favourite book titles, listening to all of her stories and always wondering whether she maybe, just maybe feels at least a fraction of what he feels for her. And while Alaska might not be aware, Miles will still carry all his emotions in his heart. Even if they have never been returned back.

<b><i>''What the hell is instant? Nothing is instant. Instant rice takes five minutes, instant pudding an hour. I doubt that an instant of blinding pain feels particularly instantaneous.''</i></b>

The book perfectly captures a young person's way of thinking and a young person's perception of feelings, actions, and responsibility into the unfair thing we call life. I recommend it to all of you!

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Moore Field School and the Mystery
Moore Field School and the Mystery
2
2.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
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#1 <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2886460268">Moore Field School and the Mystery</a> - ★

<img src="https://diaryofdifference.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Book-Review-Banner-31.png"/>;

Moore Field School and the Mystery by Liam Moiser is the first book of the Moore Field School series. We follow the main character Samantha, whose parents are teachers at her school, Moore Field School.

When Moore Field School is about to close down, the headmistress, Miss Moore, moves the school to Lakeview to start again. And Samantha and her parents move too. 

Before the first term, the students go to a camp, where they hear about a haunted house. Samantha and her best friend, Jessica, somehow end up in the middle of this mystery. 

My first thoughts of this book were that I find this little school cute, and the mystery of the haunted house quite interesting. 

However, other than that, I am afraid not many things really appealed to me. 

First of all, Samantha doesn’t look like or act like a little girl. She has conversations with her parents in a very unusual way. Who talks to their parents in such a way, in a middle grade book for children?

<b><i>“Okay, since you are both insisting, I’ll go and get my musical sheets whilst you settle yourselves down in the living room.” Samantha smiled; she really did want her father and mother to listen to her music. </i></b>

Aside from the characters and their language, there are a lot of scenes and acts in the book that I cannot find the logic of: 

Miss Moore, the headmistress, is closing the school down because of the lack of pupils going into the private school. She is then moving the school into another town, which is a few hundred miles away. And she wants the old students to keep going to this school. Why would I want my child to keep going to a school that will now be hundreds of miles away? And yet, parents agree to this…

Both parents and teachers don’t seem to care too much about their pupils. Samatha and Jessica wander off, almost drown, get lost twice, and when they return, they are simply greeted as if nothing major happened. Also, the teacher that was supposed to be guarding them and fell asleep and lost them twice gets out of the whole mess without being in any trouble. 

I really wish I enjoyed this book, but it made me cringe and wince all the way through on how pompous and unrealistic it was. Luckily, it is quite short, so I got through it quite fast. Whew. 

I don't think I will be reading the rest of the series unfortunately.

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