Tag: #metoo

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Featured New Release of the Week: This Won’t End Well by Camille Pagan

This week we’re looking at a great tale of a woman picking up the pieces of her life after it is unjustly shattered. This week we’re looking at This Won’t End Well by Camille Pagan.

This was a fairly light hearted book that dealt with some pretty significant issues, including another perspective on the #MeToo movement. Pagan demonstrates her skill well in her ability to use a comedy of errors of sorts to tell a much more meaningful story, and we get to the title of the book something like 2/3 in. From the bumbling Mo to the seemingly ditzy Harper to the eccentric friends and family, this is ultimately a tale of finding yourself when you thought you’d already done that.

While this book doesn’t have quite the emotional punch of Pagan’s 2019 work I’m Fine And Neither Are You, it does well in more of a cathartic, palate cleansing role – and sometimes, those are exactly the kind of books we need as readers and, I would imagine, writers need to write for their own sanity and heart.

Very much recommended.

As always, the Goodreads/ Amazon review:
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Featured New Release Of The Week: All The Silent Voices by Elena Mikalsen

This week we’re looking at a story in many ways ripped from the headlines of the last couple of years. This week we’re looking at All The Silent Voices by Elena Mikalsen.

I gotta admit, when I first saw this book shortly after reading The House By The Cypress Trees, I was torn. On the one hand, Cypress had been awesome – light and fun and almost feeling like you were there in Italy experiencing everything with the characters. On the other, this was very obviously a female writing about the MeToo movement – something I’ve seen very little balance on when I’ve seen it in my feeds. So I was leery of this book, but ultimately I decided to take it on and try it.

And yes, it had its moments of wanting to throw it through the nearest window.

But by the end of the book there actually is much more balance and nuance than it initially appears there might be – Mikalsen truly does a great job placing that in the book, even if much of it comes in the last quarter of the book in its final scenes. She uses a concurrent plot of Big Pharma corruption to balance the scales a bit, even while having characters she clearly thinks of as the protagonist and antagonist, and this plot could well have been described in the 2019 book Drugs Money and Secret Handshakes by Robin Feldman it was that seemingly plausible.

Frankly this was an excellent story, and its dichotomy with the author’s previous work shows just how good of a storyteller Mikalsen really is. Very much recommended.

As always, the Amazon/ Goodreads review:
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#BookReview: What Set Me Free by Brian Banks

Powerful. Particularly in the age of #MeToo, Banks’ story stands out as remarkable – and his grace and restraint even moreso. While the cynic in me wants to look at most of these types of memoirs as little more than PR, the endless optimist desperately hopes that the Banks portrayed in this book is the real deal. His final recommendations seem warranted, particularly in light of how his own case has turned out. Possibly the one narrative change I would have made would have been to end it at what Joe Public would generally see as the climax of his story – the moment he stormed the field as an NFL player and knelt in prayer at the 50 yard line. But Banks himself sees that as just one moment among many, and does a remarkable job of showing his public priorities of the several years now since that moment. Truly a remarkable book, and absolutely one anyone interested in the US criminal justice system in particular should read.

Because the publisher wants it, I’ll note here that I am writing this review on June 22, 2019 – 10 days before publication of this book. Meaning that it is in fact an Advance Review Copy. As is my own standard for *all* of my reviews, ARC or not, my review is my honest reflection of my experience with the book.

This review of What Set Me Free by Brian Banks was originally published on June 22, 2019.

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#BookReview: Fucking Law by Victoria Brooks

Fucking Ethics and Fucking Judgments. First, I will tell you that if the word “fucking” disturbs you, this book isn’t for you (but you may have suspected that from the title). If the various “raunchy” and “vulgar” words for human genitalia disturb you, this book isn’t for you.

But if you’re still reading this review, then I assume you’re at least ok with these words. In which case, allow me to tell you how sublime and thought provoking this book is. Part memoir and part academic philosophical treatise, this book truly takes a hard and intriguing look at the philosophical ethics of human sexuality.

This isn’t a light read. It isn’t a beach read (unless maybe you’re at a nudist/ swinger beach?). It is likely a read that will make you horny without actually being erotica. It is a read that will make you think. And maybe, just maybe, it is a read that will open you to the author’s own brand of sexual ethics, even though it is one she does not explicitly recommend – quite the opposite – herself.

This review of Fucking Law by Victoria Brooks was originally published on May 22, 2019.