Category: Book Review

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#BookReview: A 5K and a Kiss by Maddie Evans

Running and Tragedy. Ok, so with a title like this you’ve gotta be expecting a romance and some running, right? Because if you’re not, you’re in the wrong place – that is exactly what you’re getting here. Evans does an excellent job of showing her characters experiencing real pain in the midst of tragedy, and she does an excellent job of showing the journey of a beginner runner going into her first 5K. Excellent book, very much recommended – and this reader can’t wait for the next one. 🙂

This review of A 5K and a Kiss by Maddie Evans was originally published on July 24, 2019.

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Featured New Release of the Week: The Last Astronaut by David Wellington

This week, we’re looking at another solar system space survival story in the vein of Andy Weir’s The Martian or Lisa A. Nichols’ Vessel. This week, we’re looking at The Last Astronaut by David Wellington.

Story wise, this book takes the idea of “What if Oumuamua wasn’t just a mysterious space rock?” and spins a story from that premise. It is a story neither NASA nor SpaceX will be overly happy with, though the fictional version of SpaceX – in the book, a company named so similarly that I’m almost positive lawyers were involved to make it just different enough – bears the brunt of the book’s criticisms of both agencies. But overall, it is a story that works as both a pyschological horror movie and a creature feature, and Wellington’s ability to combine both of those generally disparate stylings is to be commended.

Structurally, the book bends toward its similarities with The Martian early on during the setup stages of the tale as it uses space jargon pretty heavily. Later it bends to more of its similarities with Vessel and the jargon drops off considerably. The book’s chapters aren’t numbered but instead are named for various events, and just looking at the table of contents gives the reader a rough idea of the arc of the story – though I can assure you, it doesn’t actually give away any of the meat of the story and indeed just the slightest hint of the bones. It uses a mockumentary style blending of both documentary and storytelling similar to the 2005 movie Supervolcano very well and… well, to say more about that would be to drift into spoiler territory.

Overall a solid book, very much recommended, and I’m looking forward to more from Mr. Wellington.

As always, the Goodreads/ Amazon review:
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#BookReview: Too Nerdy To Handle by Maggie Dallen

Fun and Fast Read. In the second book of the “Nerdy” series (that Dallen officially calls the “High School Billionaires” series), we see the couple from the first book a bit, but the focus is on a pair of secondary characters from the first book: media mogul heiress Jamie and rock god Tieg… except Dallen quickly swerves from the expected to give us a new tale that in a way combines this series with her sport series from 2018 (at least insofar as one of the characters is a major sport guy). Maybe one slight criticism here is that despite the title, the “nerd” qualities of either of the main couple in question are barely if ever mentioned. But beyond that, yet another excellent, fun, mostly light (until the requisite fight near the end), fast read from Dallen. Very much recommended.

This review of Too Nerdy To Handle by Maggie Dallen was originally written on July 22, 2019.

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#BookReview: Meander Belt by M. Randal O’Wain

Moving Collection of Essays That Could Have Used Better Editing. I picked this book up because I thought it would be brutal in its similarity to my own life – I too am a son of the South that left home years ago to live a bit of a nomadic life (though far less transient than the author’s). And it did hit home quite a bit, though maybe not as much as I was both hoping and fearing it might. Truly a stark, very real look at life and growing up in the South in the lower middle class. But in the acknowledgements, it becomes clear that this is a collection of essays rather than a truly unified narrative, and that makes the at times disjointed nature of this book become at least slightly more understandable. At the end of the day though, the book could have used a bit more editing to make this a bit more clear in some way or another and thus provide a bit more clarity and structure to the overall narrative. Still, an intriguing look and one that will certainly be enlightening to those who have never lived at this level in the region. Recommended.

This review of Meander Belt by M. Randal O’Wain was originally written on July 21, 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:
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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.