Review: The Best Things You Can Eat: For Everything from Aches to Zzzz, the Definitive Guide to the Nutrition-Packed Foods that Energize, Heal, and Help You Look Great

The Best Things You Can Eat: For Everything from Aches to Zzzz, the Definitive Guide to the Nutrition-Packed Foods that Energize, Heal, and Help You Look Great by David Grotto

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Informative and not preachy, this book gathers a lot of research and turns it into something that is easy to use. The section on nutritional needs gives the what, why, where and how much, the section on how food can improve and/or remove health issues uses scientific studies to back it up. The final section lists foods in alphabetical order with the nutritional needs they fulfill. The book doesn't pull punches when it comes to animal proteins, noting that they are the best sources, in moderation, of what the human body needs to thrive.



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Review: Insurgent

Insurgent by Veronica Roth

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Padded plot, inconsistent characters, repetitive and drawn out action scenes, and so many pages of silly angst - what's not to be disappointed with? Well, it still takes place in Chicago, so 2 stars instead of 1.



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Review: Out of Oz

Out of Oz by Gregory Maguire

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



As part of a series, this is a definite improvement over the very forgetful Book 3, and brings back the more interesting characters of book 2. Reading either reviews, I seem to be in the minority that liked the last third of this story better than the "previously in Oz" first two thirds that wad necessary to bring the reader back into the world but interfered with the story's progression. Maguire's treatment of Dorothy still makes me smile; and his not so subtle jabs at religion, politics, and gender identification come with a frequency that made this over long book not quite so over long.



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Review: Envy the Night

Envy the Night by Michael Koryta

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This was Koryta's first published stand alone, following three of his Lincoln Perry books, and I wonder if it was actually written before those successful books. The writing is dragged out and the action sequences are repetitive. Too many characters are given POV chapters that add pages but not depth to the story. Why three stars then? Even at his weakest story telling, Koryta is a master at sense of place. This time it is "Up North" aka the Northwoods of Wisconsin, and he gets it very, very right.



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Review: Niceville

Niceville by Carsten Stroud

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Decent sense of place, a couple well developed characters and three distinct plots that never ever come together. They cross each other only through brushes of characters, and that makes for three under developed stories that have weak and/or no endings. Rarely when I finish a book do I have such a feeling of being lead astray by an author (it's my choice to stay until the bitter end) but this was one of those times. Three good stories, wasted!



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Review: Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town

Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town by Nick Reding

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



4 stars for all the facts about meth,crystal meth, and the process that puts it into user's hands. The of this drug, from when it was commonly advertised and prescribed to its current status as a link between Mexican drug cartels and the American industrial food business is fascinating at the same time it is scary as hell. The author spends too much time trying to put a warm fuzzy face on small town USA, though, considering he makes the point early on that this is an problem for any size community. He started off researching from the small town point of view and never let's go, dragging in updates on people who have nothing new to add.



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Review: Vagabond

Vagabond by Bernard Cornwell

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Love the time period, really liked the hero, but the Perils of Pauline arch villains cast touch of silliness over the whole book. Not as interesting in any way as book 1 of the series, but I will plod on because I will put up with mediocrity to read the historical trivia laden story about an archer.



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Review: American Psycho

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Masterful writing but the obvious effort of form over substance took this book down a notch, in my opinion.

(Personal note: Reading this book during the same time period that the movie version of Les Miserables is being promoted to death probably added more to my appreciation than I should admit in public)



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Review: The Other

The Other by Thomas Tryon

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



1) Actually a reread but Goodreads has simple way of recording that
2) Not true Southern Gothic because it doesn't take place in the South, but it has all the key points of Southern Gothic and theses are myshelves and I will mark them like I want them.

This is a the rare horror story that gets better after the first reading, when you know all the twists, because they become more twisted with each reading. Also, once you know what is coming, you can focus on the very complicated characters that Tryon created, again something you'll find only in the best horror.



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Review: The Casual Vacancy

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Audio Version


The author writes as if she's broken free of a world where children only do bad things when they are victims of adults and adults for the most part love all children and those that don't are justly punished. In other words, there's a feeling of "this is what happens when you look under the pretty rocks" to this book, and I like that sort of thing. It's over long by a bit (and still no one dares to edit Rowling, even in a new genre!) but as dark character study fiction goes, this is good stuff.


Tom Hollander as the audio narrator earns five stars all on his own. Perfect match of story to voice!



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Review: The Mill River Recluse

The Mill River Recluse by Darcie Chan

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



I'm being very generous with 2 stars, but the book does have an interesting setting and with a good setting I can wade through a lot of bad plotting and shallow characters. And that's what this book has - a silly plot that never quite makes sense and characters who get too many paragraphs for what little they have to do with the boring "mystery". The world building is good, everything else is bad.



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Review: Talulla Rising

Talulla Rising by Glen Duncan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



The idea of a monster as a mother is interesting, and for the first third of this book, Duncan turned that idea every which way. Unfortunately that left two thirds of the book with an exhausted theme. The carry over from the first werewolf book, Vampires looking to the "wulf" for a remedy to light sensitivity gets more convoluted and slightly more interesting. I'm not sure there was entirely enough new story for this book, but if you enjoyed The Last Werewolf, you'll like this well enough. By no means should you read this book first.



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Review: Beautiful Ruins

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Starts out as a multi-romance summer read, light and breezy, more about place than characters. But the people develop into actual people and suddenly, it's a lot more complicated than you expected (just like life!). There's a bit of real-person-fiction with Richard Burton, some WWII historical fiction, Hollywood business insider stuff, and several getaways to a part of Italy that I'm now longing to visit. And oh yes, the Donner Party! All balanced so well by the end that it makes for a very good read.



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Review: The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl

The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Fascinating information about a bit of American history that I didn't know enough about. The book begs for a better editor, someone who would have had the author arrange the book in a less repetitive way, maybe even cutting out a few of the narratives of the people who lived through the dark (literally) times. Even with the clunky writing, I'm giving this four stars because it did what nonfiction is supposed to do - inform.



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Review: Outlaw

Outlaw by Angus Donald

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Robin Hood is the supporting character in this story, but it's obvious he is not a supporting character in Alan Dale's life (and heart, although the book never acknowledges that in the way I would have liked). It's Donald's portrayal of a flesh and blood and less than perfect Robin and his band of outlaws that makes this a very good take on the classic tale. Alan's sudden transformation from child cutpurse to one of Robin's closest associates is a little hard to believe, given Robin's very understandable distrust of almost everyone outside his brother, Little John and Tuck, requiring a giant leap of faith on that necessary part of the story arc. The settings and historical trappings are well researched and provide a background that strengthens but never overshadows a dark, violent and very readable plot.



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Review: The Expats: A Novel

The Expats: A Novel by Chris Pavone

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



One fourth of the way in, I guessed what was going to happen. Flipped to the last quarter, and yep, "mystery" solved. The jumping from location and time exists only to hide a very obvious, silly plot. Flat, stereotypical characters can't hide behind the author's plentiful knowledge of location because the descriptive passages read like info dumps. I can't believe this book is getting so much buzz.



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Review: The Columbus Affair

The Columbus Affair by Steve Berry

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



There's multiple plot lines woven together to make a rich and fascinating story, and then there's multiple plot lines knotted and twisted in a snarl that frustrates the reader as they try to follow along. This book is definitely the latter. A book that brings the mystery of Columbus's legacy in Jamaica into contemporary politics and religion is a great concept, and Berry knows all of his settings quite well. Unfortunately, getting interested in even one of the characters or their part of this story is almost impossible if you like to immerse yourself in a story, because just when it gets interesting, we jump to one of the other locations. Honestly, if felt like I was watching a made for television movie, complete with scene cuts for many, many commercials. A clue to how much Berry tries to pack into this story is all the genres he covers. And two would have made a great story, and he still would have been able to use all the characters, with more time for each one.



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Review: Second Star

Second Star by Dana Stabenow

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Stabenow builds a very interesting world where this planet has reached its sell by date and off earth stations are being built for colonization. The resources come from the Moon and asteroid belts, the projects are expected to pay back their start up costs with interest, and no one is expecting Utopia, just a place they can safely call home. Where the book falls very short is that there's way too much telling in the first half - literal telling of characters explaining things to each other that they certainly would have already known, but the reader needs to know to get on with the story. The worst offense of this is a brand new security chief who apparently took the job knowing nothing about living off Terra. Then there's a very obvious bias against military leadership that we're supposed to accept without any proof that the military's ends won't justify its means. And finally, every body lies. Without lies, the story couldn't have happened, couldn't have had its big action scene, and worst of all, couldn't have a happy ending. A brave new world built on lies is not a brave world at all.



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Review: The Coldest Night

The Coldest Night by Robert Olmstead

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I have mixed feelings about this book, probably because I couldn't get past that the author seemed to be deliberately writing in the very clipped and brusque style of Cormac McCarthy. I'm willing to admit that could be entirely my impression and not at all what the author set out to do, but when a reader is thinking more about the style of the writing rather than the actual story telling, that's not a good thing. On the plus side, the characters are unique and the setting is intriguing (there really aren't a lot of stories set in the Korean War, are there?). The story sticks to it's dark beginning, never promising a happy ending and never delivering one either.



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Review: The Wolf Gift

The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice

My rating: 0 of 5 stars



50% of the way through and I have no curiosity about what happens next because so little has happened so far. The "man wolf" is an interesting idea, but when an author uses the characters very dull internal monologue as plot, all my interest is crushed. Also, having the character do the same research that the author probably did as a part of your story? That's padding AND lazy writing.



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