Tag: 23AndMe

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#BookReview: A Spanish Sunrise by Boo Walker

Perfectly Poignant. This is ultimately a story of family and healing, and yet again Walker uses both the situations and the settings to combine to work great magic in his storytelling. The base setup turns out to be something that is almost ripped from the headlines, and while some fiction authors can and have gone a more preachy route with the topic, Walker instead eschews the politics completely and looks at the very human side of what actually happens in such a situation. Truly an excellent work, and one that this reader at least could easily imagine Luke Bryan playing the leading role… should Bryan ever decide to make such a career move. Very much recommended.

This review of A Spanish Sunrise by Boo Walker was originally written on August 17, 2022.

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Featured New Release Of The Week: Beyond The Moonlit Sea by Julianne MacLean

This week we’re looking at a book that is a master class in how to take a tale that could veer into the prosaic and at least somewhat uninteresting and elevate it into a captivating and charming tale simply by making smart decisions in exactly how to tell exactly the same story. This week we’re looking at Beyond The Moonlit Sea by Julianne Maclean.

Interesting Case of Storytelling Excellence. This is one of those books where had the author chosen to tell this very same story in a more typical fashion, with just a single narrator that we follow over several decades of her life, it wouldn’t have been near as engaging or near as engrossing as the tale becomes by telling it the way she instead chose to tell it. As a singular narrative, the story is a solid tale of a woman struggling to find herself in her twenties and thirties, both as she finishes college and a bit later in the aftermath of a tragedy, who then has to deal with the repercussions of these events throughout her life. With the particular perspectives that MacLean adds – which do add extra length to the text that wouldn’t be present without them – we get a much more fleshed out tale that actually adds extra depth both to certain characters and to the overall story, and thus the extra length is absolutely warranted in this case. Ultimately a satisfying tale in a vein somewhat reminiscent of the great Robin Williams movie Bicentennial Man, without its length in years. 🙂 Very much recommended.

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#BookReview: The Lost Family by Libby Copeland

Astounding. This is absolutely critical reading for those who have either already bought an at-home DNA testing kit or who are considering buying one. Copeland does an excellent job showing the beginnings of this relatively new industry, its promises, its pitfalls, and the numerous concerns and issues surrounding so much of it. Read this book before you buy such a kit, and carefully consider the issues Copeland discusses and whether you are truly ready to handle them if they arise. Very much recommended.

Note special to BookAnon: I actually read this immediately after reading this week’s Featured New Release of the Week, True to Me by Kay Bratt, wherein the entire story is premised on the use of just such a kit and the wait for its results. Each book feeding off the other in my head- even though completely independent of each other – was truly an interesting time. 😀

This review of The Lost Family by Libby Copeland was originally written on December 12, 2019.