Month: July 2019

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#BookReview: Soulman by Rocky Johnson

The Rock’s Dad Tells His Story – With An Introduction From The Rock. If you’re a fan of professional wrestling, you need to read this book. If you’re a fan of memoirs generally, you need to read this book. If you’re just a fan of good, you need to read this book. No, this book won’t educate you on any particular issue of great national or international importance. But it will tell you the story of one man’s journey from being the grandson of a slave to being a Champion level professional wrestler across numerous territories and even in the early era of the now WWE’s rise to dominance in the industry. The men Johnson interacted with and counted as friends are almost a Who’s Who of legendary professional wrestlers and body builders, and he tells the stories of most of them. And yes, he even spends one chapter directly speaking of his son and his accomplishments before, during, and after WWE. Truly a remarkable tale, and absolutely very much recommended – even if you know nothing at all of professional wrestling and only know Rocky as Dwayne’s Dad.

This review of Soulman by Rocky Johnson was originally written on July 20, 2019.

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#BookReview: The Girls of Pearl Harbor by Soraya M. Lane

Starts Out Feeling Like The Movie, Becomes So Much More. Through the opening third of this book or so, when our central characters are at Pearl Harbor, it is very hard to break away from comparing the scenes here to the Ben Affleck / Kate Beckinsale movie from the turn of the Millenium. Which isn’t an overly bad thing – this reader loved that movie and it made a fair amount at the box office to boot.

And then we get to Dec 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy. (Though I do wish Lane had included that particular phrase when showing some of Roosevelt’s speech the next day.)

At the actual attack, Lane does a superb job of getting us into the heads of these particular characters as the events and aftermath are unfolding. It is here that she truly sepatates her tale from the movie, and it is at this point that the reader never really thinks about the movie again until sitting down to write the review.

To go much in depth at all with the plot beyond this is to veer close to spoiler territory, but suffice it to say that for those that survive Dec 7, the book continues with the efforts to further support the war, this time in the Africa Campaign. Superb writing here again, though there *is* a rape scene that some may want to be aware of going into this. But Lane does an excellent job of expanding our scope in this section to see not just the soldiers and nurses, but the townspeople they are working among.

Overall maybe my one complaint here is that the ending is perhaps a bit too tidy, particularly after doing such an amazing job of showing the various horrors of war from the small and personal to the grand and international. Still, very much a recommended book.

This review of The Girls of Pearl Harbor by Soraya M. Lane was originally written on July 19, 2019.

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#BookReview: The Geography of Risk by Gilbert M. Gaul

A Warning For The Entire US Eastern And Gulf Coasts. This book is fairly comprehensive in its history of coastal development, with particular emphasis on the back bays of New Jersey but also discussing development all the way South to Florida and up along the Florida Gulf Coast all the way to Galveston Bay and Houston, with detailed discussions of Mobile and New Orleans along the way. And even discounting its heavy emphasis on global warming / global cooling / climate change / whatever the alarmists are calling it these days, the book paints a very stark picture about just how much coastal redevelopment costs people all over the country, including the landlocked midwest, due to heavy Federal subsidies in the post-WWII era. Its ultimate points are solid, yet it is also extremely realistic that the best solution to the problem is extremely politically unlikely. Very much recommended reading, and certainly a discussion that should factor into election discussions going into the 2020 Presidential race.

This review of The Geography of Risk by Gilbert M. Gaul was originally published on July 19, 2019.

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#BookReview: Revenant by David Wood

Solid NYC Action / Mystery. This was truly an excellent action/ mystery book centered in NYC and surrounding areas. Full of rich and disturbing (and apparently real) history, this book does an excellent job of continuing the evolving mythos Wood has created with these characters while still being a mostly self-contained (and thus easy for newbies to enter) story itself. Very much recommended.

This review of Revenant by David Wood was originally published on July 16, 2019.

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Featured New Release Of the Week: When We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara O’Neal

This week we are looking at the new book from the author whose 2018 book became only the second Featured New Release of the Week on this blog one year ago this week. This week, we’re looking at When We Believed In Mermaids by Barbara O’Neal.

This book examines trauma and what exactly two sisters will do to cope with what has happened to them, and it opens with one of the better opening lines of any book I’ve ever read. One sister uses the shared traumas to push herself into medical school and a successful career as an ER doc. The other… doesn’t cope so well and eventually takes some pretty extreme measures to escape.

Along with a current timeline story of where the sisters currently are decades after the earliest flashbacks in the story happen (and even 15 years after the one sister’s desperate escape) we get constant flashbacks to different scenes of childhood traumas, and it is these scenes that the waterworks really begin. We see traumas of many forms and brokenness of even more, and O’Neal does a stellar job of putting us in the minds of the girls as they experience them. But she does an equally adroit job of putting us in their heads years later in the current timeline events, when things are going much differently for both sisters.

An excellent book that hit closer to home than some due to me living just hours away from my own brothers and admittedly missing them more than I let on. No, we didn’t have the traumatic childhood these two girls faced – *far* from it – but the sheer distance of physical separation is there, and that alone made this tale particularly relatable.

Truly an outstanding work, though of a much different and much more intense direction than last year’s work – and thus showing signs of just how good of a storyteller O’Neal herself is.

As always, the Goodreds/ Amazon review:
Continue reading “Featured New Release Of the Week: When We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara O’Neal”

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#BookReview: The Island by John Sneeden

Fast Action! This was my first time actually reading Sneeden’s work even though I’ve owned most of them almost since he started publishing his tales a few years ago. And man, I have been missing out! This was a very fast action/ adventure book that probably took the same amount of time as usual to actually read a novel of its length (roughly 300 pages, iirc) – but felt like half that or less. There are a couple of points where Sneeden goes somewhat in depth on previous events presumably shown in previous novels, so for those who are sensitive to spoilers this may not be the best book to start with. But for anyone else, while going back to Book 1 (The Signal) may be ideal, starting here isn’t bad either. Great book, very much recommended.

This review of The Island by John Sneeden was originally published on July 15, 2019.

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Featured New Release of the Week: Last Summer by Kerry Lonsdale

This week we look at a book that is explosive until almost literally the very last word. This week, we look at Last Summer by Kerry Lonsdale.

With this book, as she did in her Everything series, Lonsdale yet again explores a memory-related condition while telling a compelling tale of love and, in this case, manipulation. If you haven’t yet read the Everything series, this is an excellent introduction to Lonsdale’s style and ability.

This is yet another recent book that explores a particular concept that is finally becoming more recognized in the mainstream, even though yet again this book doesn’t use the preferred term for the situation, and there seems to be a growing consensus among fiction writers who broach it – carrying on a relationship while disagreeing on this situation pretty well dooms the relationship moreso than any other factor. To reveal the particular situation would be to toe the line of spoilers if not cross it, and that isn’t something I want to do in these posts. So go read the book to discover the situation I am referring to here. 😉

As always, the Amazon/ Goodreads review:
Continue reading “Featured New Release of the Week: Last Summer by Kerry Lonsdale”

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#BookReview: Razia by Abda Khan

I’m Still Unsettled About This Book. As I write this review, I finished reading this book just a few minutes ago before eating supper with my wife while watching How I Met Your Mother, as is our norm. And while the book is definetly worthy of the 5 stars I decided to give it, my mind hasn’t really set on a way to review it, hence this more stream-of-consciousness review. On the one hand, the ending was at least somewhat predictable in type if not in particulars, particularly after an event about 2/3 into the book, and the time jumps without any level of overt date reference were a bit jarring, but detectable within the context of the events described. But at the end of the day, this was a very detailed look at modern Pakistani life in particular, which is something I had never seen before – and that alone to me warranted the 5 stars, for the education it gave me while telling a solid story. I guess I’m torn more because of how the overall tale turned out, which I really can’t get into too much without going into spoiler territory. For so long the book was going in one direction and was a solid effort in that direction, and then the book abruptly shifts into a completely different direction and yet there too is reasonably solid, and the two different direction do indeed come together in the end. But read the book for yourself and decide for yourself. It is a truly worthy read.

This review of Razia by Abda Khan was originally published on July 8, 2019.

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#BookReview: Ghost House by Pandora Pine

Another Excellent Entry! In this latest installment of the Copeland Forbes/ Jude Byrne centric Ghost Detective spinoff series from Pandora Pine’s long running (and continuing) Cold Case Psychic series, Cope and Jude have returned from their trip to Key West (from book 3) and are suddenly thrust into a mystery involving one of Salem’s iconic witch locations – The Witch House. Continuing the slow burn style of this particular series, Cope and Jude’s relationship continues to progress, though still not at the rate many romance readers might prefer but which works well in the context of these characters and stories. Once again, characters from the general world the spinoff series exists in continue to make appearances and while these appearances could be considered spoilers for their books, said appearances serve the story here and don’t cause undue confusion – a particularly strong skill of Pine’s. As usual, very much recommended and I’m very much looking forward to the next entry in this series.

This review of Ghost Story by Pandora Pine was originally written on July 4, 2019.

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#BookReview: There’s No Such Thing As A Bad Kid by Thaddeus Bullard

Gator great Thaddeus Bullard writes a compelling memoir.

Of his time in WWE, he says little but brings up his two most “defining” moments.

Despite his conception, his tale is of a poor inner city kid becoming comfortable

And giving to as many as possible the leg up that was given to him.

While Thaddeus didn’t have an easy childhood, he shows the power of

Good, caring, hard working men stepping in and showing him a better path.

Since these mentors meant to much to him, he has made it is mission to pay it forward.

And thus ends my creative attempt at a review. Truly an amazing tale of some of the worst hardship possible being overcome with the power of a caring adult mentor. WWE fans looking for a “WWE lockerroom” book won’t find that here. Gator fans looking for a book about his time at Florida will find a bit more of that here, but even then, it isn’t the actual focus of the book. But Bullard’s message is one that needs to get out, and he has done a remarkable job using the fame he has to get it out. Truly a commendable man and a very much recommended book.

This review of There Is No Such Thing As A Bad Kid by Thaddeus Bullard (aka Titus O’Neil) was originally published on July 3, 2019.