A Glimpse into my mind

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A strong four stars. Maybe 4.5.

This book grabbed me with line one... "Lydia was dead." (It's not quite the best first sentence I've read by it's close).

This family drama, set in the 1970's, deals with the Lee family. Mom is white, Dad is Chinese and they and their three kids live in a small college town in Ohio where they practically the only minorities around. The center of the family's focus is middle child, Lydia. Through subconscious acts, Lydia becomes the the "she'll do what I never could" outlet for both of her parents. Mom wants her to become a doctor. Dad wants her to fit in. And because of wanting to see her parents happy, Lydia does what they want (or appears to do what they want) regardless of her own desires and needs.

But when, shortly after her 16th birthday, Lydia is found dead, the family faces turmoil of how to move on when the locus is gone.

I really enjoyed how the author looked at each of the family members in turn, both in the "present" and past. This made each character relatable (even though I think I both understood AND despised Marylin - the mother, only because I know women just like her in so many ways).

The pace was great, the narrator was spot on and I am glad I did this book. It is one I will recommend to others.



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Treachery in Death by J.D. Robb

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


A pretty solid mid road book. Which I have come to expect from the In-Death series. I do like how lately we, and Eve know who the bad guy is and the book focuses on getting the rock solid proof.

This time Dt. Peabody overhears a conversation in a rarely used locker room at Cop Central between two cops that makes it clear that they are dirty AND complicit in at least the death of one person, if not more. It's up to her and Eve and the rest of the team to pull the case together and make sure that the dirty cops go down.

I had high hopes for this book as far as being excited in the first bit that the story seemed to be taking the viewpoint of Peabody for a change with Eve as a secondary character. I should know that Eve's the main character so the work that Peabody does gets pushed to barely mentioned and "off page". But otherwise, I actually liked how the author wrote the crooked cop (who was female for a change and not male), her croanies and the set ups used to bring it all down.

It was solid enough that I will keep with the series as it comes to me, but not something that has me rushing out right now to read the next book.



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Hit by Delilah S. Dawson

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Unbeknownst to the nation, the United States had their debt wiped out... by having it all bought up by the Valor Savings Bank. Yep, the bank bought controlling interest in the government and because it had used it's influence on members of Congress, it became the Government.

And it has chosen to use a tiny little loop hole in all the Terms of Service agreements that loan and credit card customers had to sign (and didn't read because who really reads those things anyway), it's making all outstanding sums due. And if you cannot pay you get two choices, become a debt collector for them for the term of 5 days or die.

17 year old Patsy's mother was one for whom the debt collector came. In exchange for their lives and all of their outstanding debt being wiped out, Patsy agrees to become a debt collector herself. It's simple collect on 12 people (pay, work or die by her hands) and they are free. At least that's what they said would happen.

I can't say this was a bad book. It's a YA book and there are major plot points that require a strong suspension of belief to let slide. And unfortunately some of those I just could not let slide. Mostly revolving around the sudden love interest that really did not make sense to me at all.

I'm not upset that I listened to the book, but I will not be seeking out book 2.



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Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Not only was this a bestseller the year I graduated High School, it was #1 on the NYT bestseller list for fiction the week I graduated.Over 20 years ago, one of my roommates had a good amount of the EU books and I spent many an evening curled up with one of them and this book is why. Timothy Zahn's writings still holds up and I smiled throughout as a visited what felt like an old friend and was reminded how much I thought the character of Grand Admiral Thrawn was a wonderfully delicious antagonist. Now, 2 decades later, I still think it.

This time, rather than reading it, I listened to it and the telling was just as good, if not better. The voice actor reading it does amazing work bringing extablished characters to life and if I did not know better, I would have sworn they got Billy Dee William, Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford in to do the voices.

I enjoyed returning to this book and may just have to go find more of the EU to visit again.



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William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country: A Life by James Lee McDonough

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Outside of the stuff you learn in school... even taking a class in college on the American Civil War, I can't say that I knew much about General Sherman. This book was a wonderfully well written account of the man's life. It felt well researched and the body of the book did not feel like it was just a regurgitation of bland facts.

I can say that throughout the book, my one thought kept coming back to his family. He married a woman who knew he was not religious, yet kept trying to force him to convert to Catholicism. She and her family were constantly harping on him to quit the army, which he was more than clear that he loved and felt was his calling, because they wanted his wife to have the lifestyle she grew up with. And when he did finally cave and go into the private sector, he was miserable to the point of making himself sick and still could not make the money that she wanted to spend. It seemed that it was ONLY when the war broke out and he returned to the military AND achieved a rank that might be socially respectable did they suddenly have a change of face and back him in the occupation that he loved, though still seeming to spend what they did not have. Frankly with the constant badgering, criticizing and nagging, it's no wonder that Sherman preferred the military that took him away and rarely had him home.

Even in death, his family didn't seem to care about his wishes and did what they wanted - including the Catholic funeral and the funeral train, when he just wanted to a quite burial with no services or pomp and circumstance.

Sherman came across as a man who did not get respect from his family and therefore strove to get outside validation. Which he did. Despite the reputation he earned in the South because of his march to the sea, he was a man who was aware of the toll war took on the non-combatants and did what he could to cripple the military without being overly cruel to those who were not in it. In fact, my own family was one whose home was spared by Sherman, though he did burn the fields. My family story states he came to the plantation, finding that only my great-great grandmother there with a toddler, an infant and one house servant, ordered the house to be spared, burned the crops, but left a milk cow so that the children would not suffer. And based on the accounts in this book, though I still question the cow part, am pretty sure that the family story holds true.

All in all, while a long book, (over 800 pages in physical form and over 28 hours as an audio), I found it compelling, engaging and am glad I listened to it.



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Brief Cases by Jim Butcher

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


overall I greatly enjoyed this collection of short stories in the world of Harry Dresden.

As with Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files, you really do need to be fully caught up with the main books in the series in order to not be spoiled by these stories.

What I liked the most about this collection was that we get glimpses into the lives of some of the secondary characters... Anastasia Luccio, Gentleman John Marconne, Molly, Maggie and Mouse. I really enjoyed the fleshing out of these characters.

What keeps me from giving this book 5 stars is the inclusion of 3 stories that had been published already in the short novella/anthology "working for bigfoot". If these shorts had only been in other collected works anthology (like the one that Molly's story was in), I wouldn't have had a problem. But as they had already been released (even in limited edition) as a Dresden book, I felt a little cheated.

All and all though, good stories and helps tide us diehard fans over until Peace Talks comes out.



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A Quilt Is Meant To Keep You Warm: Humor, Love and Misadventure in the Age of AIDS by M.J. Hobbs

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I have known Mike for over 2 decades (though whether or not he could pick me out of a line up I'm not sure). But I followed his blog for a while and loved all the little stories he used to post about his younger years. I was very excited when he announced he was publishing a book.

This is a very poignant book of vignettes of a young gay man coming of age in the the early days of AIDS. Many stories just made me giggle and down right laugh (though I could never compete with Mike's infectious laughter). And there were some that made me cry. Just what I want from a memoir.

I greatly recommend this book.



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Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


actually I'd probably do 4.5 if Goodreads allowed half stars.

Like with other books by Scalzi that I have read, I found myself laughing throughout the entire story.

Tom is a young, middle of the pack talent agent in Hollywood. His client list is not that impressive, with his biggest being an actress known for her rolls in basically B movies who has a great appearance but not much going on upstairs.

One day his boss calls him in and tells him to dump all the clients he can because he has a special assignment case that Tom has to focus all his time on. That client... a race of aliens. See the Yherajk, while a peaceful race, have monitored the entertainment broadcasts of Earth and realized that humans have conditioned themselves to believe that humanoid aliens are good and anything that is not humanoid is evil. And unfortunately the Yherajk are gelatinous cubes that mostly communicate through smell (think The Blob with B.O.). So they need help to to be introduced to humanity without being destroyed... and they need a PR guy for that. And that's when Tom's life becomes "interesting".

This is a book that I highly recommend to just about anybody... but if you like sci-fi, cheesey 50's alien movies or John Scalzi's writing, you NEED to read this book.



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Mort by Terry Pratchett

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This is probably not the kind of book that was thought of when the topic was chosen for the challenge, but oh well.

Mortimer, Mort for short, is told by his father he needs to become an apprentice and train in a career. So they go to the apprenticing fair and wait for someone to pick him. Just before midnight and they pack up and go home, they are approached and Mort gets an offer. He takes it, after all, there isn't exactly a rush of other offers and Mort becomes apprentice to DEATH itself. He studies... sorta. It's not exactly like DEATH has great social skills or base intuition to teach.

Eventually Mort is sent on his first set of assignments, which do not go as he had thought, especially when he finds himself unable to reap a beautiful Princess, and instead makes it so that her death doesn't happen. Of course he doesn't tell his new Master and just goes back to doing his job. Meanwhile DEATH has decided that with an apprentice to do the job, this gives him the chance to go out and learn why humans are the way they are, leaving Mort to do all the work with the "help" of DEATH's faithful butler Albert and his adopted daughter, Isabelle.

As with all other Discworld stories, things go pear-shaped but work out in the end.

Like all the other Discworld books I've read, I enjoyed this one. While one of the earlier books in the series, I had not read it to this point and generally have just kinda hopped around the series as books cross my path. Luckily most books are written that after you have read the first couple, you have a feel for the world and can drop in almost anywhere without much difficulty.



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Undeath and Taxes by Drew Hayes

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Last year I read The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant and really enjoyed meeting poor Fred and looked forward to more of his "unadventurous tales" and this installment did not disappoint.

I found the 4 short stories in this book enjoyable and loved to see Fred growing into his own. He's taken the exam so he can provide accounting services specializing in the Para-human community and is now trying to build his business. Just a mild mannered accountant who happens to be a vampire. But like with the first book, things just never go as planned and Fred keeps finding himself in situations that put in him in the role of unlikely hero.

As with book one, I recommend this book and will be looking to get the next in the series.



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