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Showing posts with the label 2 stars

THE HOUSE on MANGO STREET (audiobook) by Sandra Cisneros

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Originally Published in 1983. Read by the author, Sandra Cisneros. Duration: 2 hours, 18 minutes. Unabridged The House on Mango Street is the story of a Hispanic girl named Esperanza who grows up in a little house in a poor neighborhood in Chicago. Her story is told in a series of unrelated vignettes (44 in all) that tell some sort of story about her family life or the neighborhood itself. In some, the main character clearly has no idea of the more adult themes that occur around her, while in others she is very astute and understands the larger implications.  At first, Esperanza's family intends that the house is going to be a temporary stop on their climb towards economic success in America. But, they never quite are able to move out of this troubled neighborhood and the reader is able to see how the neighborhood affects the lives of everyone around Esperanza as she grows up. To be fair, the neighborhood is not all bad, but it is a tough place for children to grow up and keep the

THE FREE FALL of WEBSTER CUMMINGS (audiobook) by Tom Bodett

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  Originally published in 1995 by Brilliance Audio. Read by the author, Tom Bodett. Duration: 15 hours, 43 minutes. Unabridged. The author and narrator. I think Tom Bodett's End of the Road series of short stories is just one of the best audiobook experiences out there. Technically, this book is part of that series even though almost none of it takes places in that oddball community of End of the Road, Alaska (it earned its name by being, well, the place where the road ends.) Bodett is well-known as a frequent panelist on the NPR show Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!   but he is most well-known for his voiceovers for Motel 6 in which he promised in his folksy way, " We'll leave the light on for you ." I say all of this just to say that this book was a major disappointment.  Everything about this book seems like it should work. It has a grounding in his Alaska stories. It consists of a series of short stories - his area of expertise. But, there is just way too much goi

WHEN WE'RE HOME in AFRICA (audiobook) by Themba Umbalisi

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Published in 2021 by Next Chapter Audio LTD. Read by Crawford B. Bunkley III. Duration: 4 hours, 34 minutes. Unabridged. I have no idea where I found this book. I think it was a freebie on Audible through Amazon's Prime Reading program. I know that I got it because I am a big reader of Civil War histories and fiction and this sounded like it was right up my alley. Synopsis: The description of this book is accurate, to a point. It is about a freed slave who joins the Union Army and then goes from job to job and place to place with a goal of settling in Africa. My Review: This book is basically a Forrest Gump type of story - one man goes on an epic journey and ends up going through a lot of the historical movements of the era. Warning: Lots of *********SPOILERS********all the way to the end of this review. This audiobook comes in at almost exactly 50% of the run time for FORREST GUMP   and covers maybe even more territory. Our hero (his name changes multiple times) begins as a slave

OZARK DOGS (audiobook) by Eli Cranor

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  Published by Recorded Books in April of 2023. Read by the author, Eli Cranor. Duration: 7 hours, 29 minutes. Unabridged. I first heard  this book at an indie book store in a very hip part of the city. If you are an avid reader it is not hard to find more books than you should (or can) buy at one time - so I made a list. This book was on the list and I really wish that it was half as good as I hoped it would be. Synopsis: Jeremiah Fitzjurls owns a junkyard at the edge of a dying Arkansas town. His son is in prison and he is raising his granddaughter. He is a grumpy old curmudgeon and she is an all around great kid. She works at an animal shelter. She is a cheerleader. She is smart.  She is also sneaking away from the high school dance with the starting quarterback after homecoming... Things don't end so well and she decides to walk back to the school rather than spend another minute with her boyfriend. That's when she is abducted by strangers... My review: This brooding book w

SHADOWS REEL (Joe Picket #22) (audiobook) by C.J. Box

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  Published in 2022 by Recorded Books. Read by David Chandler. Duration: 9 hours, 4 minutes. Unabridged. Synopsis: Game Warden Joe Pickett investigates a report of a dead elk. Fearing that it is the victim of a botched attempt at poaching, he investigates. Instead, he finds a burned corpse and falls headlong into another murder investigation. Meanwhile, Joe's wife Marybeth, the director of the local library discovers an odd package left at the library with connections to a prominent Nazi from World War II. And...Nate Romanowski is in Denver hunting down an old enemy during the midst of an Antifa/BLM riot. My review: This is a book series about a game warden. Oftentimes, he is joined by a former special forces guy who is so into nature that he used to stand naked in a stream of water for hours at a time to get the feel of a river and its entire ecosystem - from the slime at the bottom to the fish to the birds that swoop down to the beavers that dam it up. Antifa protest in Denver Th

THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR: A HISTORY from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History

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  E-book published in 2019 by Hourly History . Hourly History is a series of histories and biographies that a reader can read in about an hour. Sometimes, that works out quite well. Sometimes, the topic is just too big to cover in an hour. I think the Hundred Years War is one of those topics.  Before I read this book I knew a few facts about the war: It was over dynastic struggles over the throne of France, the Battle of Agincourt, Joan of Arc. Nothing in this book is incorrect, but I didn't really learn a lot more than I knew before. There is a parade of kings, royal family members and advisors - but there's rarely any detail that makes it interesting. For example, the book mentions an insane French king, but it does not mention that he believed that he was made out of glass and believed that he had to be careful that he would get bumped over and would smash to pieces.  If you know literally nothing of the war, this is an adequate place to start. I rate this audiobook 2 stars

DEEP SLEEP (Devin Gray Book 1) (audiobook) by Steven Konkoly

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  Published in February of 2022 by Brilliance Audio. Read by Seth Podowitz. Duration: 10 hours, 18 minutes. Unabridged. Synopsis: Devin Gray is a retired military operator working for a high-end private security contractor. He is on assignment that goes a little sideways in the D.C. metro area and he is sent away to let things cool off. While packing up to go, he is contacted about his mother. She is estranged from the rest of the family because she is always off researching a conspiracy theory, which is kind of ironic because she works in a government intelligence agency that looks for conspiracies. She is dead after some short of shoot out in Tennessee and everyone is keeping it quiet. Gray discovers a note from his mother to him with instructions. It turns out to lead to her evidence that proves the conspiracy and he finds it to be plausible enough to reach out to others. Once they start digging, they find more than it is worse than they ever imagined... My review:  I was excited ab

ALL the WAY to the TIGERS: A MEMOIR by Mary Morris

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  Published by Recorded Books in 2020. Read by Susan Bennett. Duration: 6 hours, 32 minutes. Unabridged. Sometimes I fall asleep listening to the news on my local NPR station. One morning I woke up to PBS's Rick Steves (the guy who does all of the European travel shows) interviewing Mary Morris about this book. Turns out he has a travel-themed NPR radio show and they discussed her travels around the world. They discussed where she went in India and why she went (to see a tiger in the wild) and I immediately looked it up on my audiobook up and requested it. But, I was unpleasantly surprised to find out that this book was not the book I heard described in the interview. I heard a great discussion about a travelogue book to India. I am always interested in hearing about India because it is an ancient society, it is a democracy and it is an up-and-coming economic power. Also, I am a sucker for travelogue books. I have read a book by a man who hiked across America following an oil pipel

V for VENDETTA (graphic novel) by Alan Moore and David Lloyd

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  Originally published in 1982. Originally published in completed form in 1988 by DC Vertigo. This iconic graphic novel has been on my to-be-read list for a long while. I tried watching the movie, but it had been a long week and I soon fell asleep. I assumed that the movie missed some of the pizazz of the graphic novel. I decided to go ahead and read the book when I noticed it was on t he list of some 850 books that a Republican Texas state legislator wanted to ban from all Texas schools.  V for VENDETTA is the story of a masked vigilante who decides to stand up against the fascist government of an alternative history version of the United Kingdom. The masked character has become the single most recognizable feature of the book and the face of the "anonymous" movement that swept over social media a few years ago. Many people assume that it was put on the censorship list because it features a character that fights back against a repressive government. They assume that Texas

THE RECOVERY AGENT: A NOVEL (audiobook) by Janet Evanovich

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  Published in 2022 by Simon and Schuster Audio Read by Lorelei King Duration: 7 hours, 26 minutes. Unabridged. Janet Evanovich's latest features a recovery agent named Gabriela Rose. Recovery agents can be another term for bounty hunters who look for fugitives, but Gabriela Rose is not a bounty hunter. She searches for missing property. Sometimes it's insurance fraud, sometimes it's stolen property and sometimes it's just looking for something rare for a wealthy client. She is based in New York City, is quite successful and flies all over the world recovering items.  Gabriela Rose is dismayed to hear that her hometown in North Carolina has suffered a direct hit from a hurricane and (somehow) won't get any help from FEMA or any other government recovery program. The town is dying but Gabriela's grandmother knows where a fortune might be found. She was told about the fortune by the ghost of her dead grandmother of some sort. In that fortune there is a ring call

BLIND JUSTICE (Blake Justice Series Book 1)(kindle) by Mark Anthony Taylor

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Published by Mount Shasta Publishing (2nd edition) in 2021. Blake Justice is a detective in the Avon Police Department. Avon is a suburb on the west side of Indianapolis.  Blake is a massive physical specimen of muscle and no-nonsense serious intentions. He always wears his bullet-proof vest (even in church) and never goes anywhere without two pistols (once again, even in church).  Detective Justice is hunting down a group of thieves that are robbing local businesses. He is also on the lookout for a big-time drug dealer who is said to be moving operations into Avon. Meanwhile, Detective Justice has a new partner... ********* I bought this book because I saw an ad on Facebook. I live very close to Avon and am in Avon quite often and I am very familiar with the town and when I saw that the book was set in Avon I spent 99 cents and bought it. You can't go wrong at that price, can you? Turns out that you can go wrong with this book no matter the price. Some of the problems: 1) I was mo

SHADOWS HAVE OFFENDED (Star Trek: TNG) (audiobook) by Cassandra Rose Clarke

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  Published in 2021 by Simon and Schuster Audio. Read by Robert Petkoff. Duration: 8 hours, 45 minutes. Unabridged. Synopsis: This story is set in season 7 of Star Trek: The Next Generation . The command team of the Enterprise  is split. Data, Riker and the doctor are helping scout out a planet for a group of refugees. They are planning to resettle there, but there has been a glitch in the last round of data.  The Enterprise is in orbit around Betazed. The ship delivered several ambassadors to the planet to participate in a planet-wide ceremony. Counselor Troi and Captain Picard are participating as well.  But, things go awry on Betazed when three iconic relics are stolen and taken off world in the middle of the ceremony. Meanwhile, the away team scouting the new planet is having its own issues... My Review: I liked the idea of a story where the command team is split into two parts when there are multiple crises and having them work in areas that they were not necessarily comfortable.

MARY BAKER EDDY: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (Biographies of Christians series)(kindle) by Hourly History

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  Published in 2019 by Hourly History Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910) is the founder of the controversial Christian sect knows as  Christian Science or The Church of Christ, Scientist in the late 1800s. I picked this short biography because I know something of the teachings of Christian Science, I knew next to nothing about its founder. Mary Baker Eddy in the 1850s Mary Baker Eddy grew up in small town New Hampshire and was often sickly as a child and young adult. It is unclear whether her illnesses were due to physical or nervous problems. As was typical for the time, life was hard and there were many tragic deaths in the early part of her life, including an older brother who served as a mentor, her husband while she was pregnant, a fiance and her mother. Her family took over raising her son and did not let her see him for years. Her son's caretakers moved away and let him believe that Mary Baker Eddy was dead. They did not speak to one another again until he was 34 years old. None of

LA MUERTA: LAST RITES #1 (graphic novel) by Brian Pulido

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  Published by Coffin Comics in 2016. Story by Brian Puildo. Written by Mike Maclean. Illustrated by Joel Gomez. The Zavalas are a crime cartel with a connection to the occult. That in and of itself is not ridiculous since some of the Mexican cartels have taken advantage of religious symbols and ideas in their propaganda. Maria Diaz came back from the fighting in Afghanistan to find that the Zavalas killed her entire family. She decided to dress up in a disguise, adopt a new persona and get even, very much like The Punisher. Unlike The Punisher, who wears a skull on this shirt, she paints a skull on her face, Day of the Dead-style. What follows is an almost constant gun battle interspersed with bombs, acid attacks and more. If you like non-stop action, this book has that in spades. If you like character growth of any sort, you will be disappointed. Turns out, I value character growth. The Zavalas are not explained, for example. They just keep coming up with more and ever-weirder bad gu

BLOOD MONEY: A LUCKY DEY THRILLER (audiobook) by Doug Richardson

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  Published in 2019 by Velvet Elvis Entertainment. Read by Tim DeKay. Duration: 9 hours, 35 minutes. Unabridged Synopsis: On a lonely country road in Kern County, north of Los Angeles, a police officer is murdered while he is trying to help 2 crash victims. The police officer is the little brother of a hard-charging officer named Lucky Dey and Lucky is determined to get the murderer at all costs. They determine that the driver of a black semi hauling a matching black refrigerated trailer is probably the murderer. The evidence points towards it heading to Los Angeles. Lucky rolls into down at 100+ MPH, meets up with contact/babysitter from LAPD and they soon figure out that this is even more of a mess than they thought it was. My review: The general idea of this book was good, but just a little too busy. I think the story was told through at least eight different characters and that just diffused the action and drive of the story too much. On top of that, almost none of the characters a

SPIDER-MAN: MAYHEM in MANHATTAN (audiobook) by Len Wein and Marv Wolfman

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  Originally published as a paperback book by Pocket Books in 1978. Published by Marvel as an audiobook in 2019. Read by Tristan Wright. Duration: 4 hours, 9 minutes. Unabridged. Spider-Man is busy being "your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man" when he encounters a dead body thrown out of a New York City luxury high-rise apartment onto the street below. While he is investigating, two beat cops stumble upon them and a rookie cop on his first night shift tour takes a shot at Spider-Man. Worse than that, they make Spider-Man the prime suspect for the murder and Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson starts yet another media campaign against Spider-Man.  Can things get worse?  Spidey finds out that they certainly can as he begins an investigation to clear his name... ****** This book was kind of a tedious listen. Clearly, this book re-published as an audiobook in response to the Spider-Man craze that has come along since Spider-Man was added to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and no

UPRIGHT WOMEN WANTED (audiobook) by Sarah Gailey

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  Published in 2020 by Tantor Audio. Read by Romy Nordlinger Duration: 3 hours, 52 minutes. Unabridged. A 2021 Hugo Award Finalist A 2021 Locus Award Finalist A 2020 ALA Booklist Top 10 SF/F Pick A  Booklist  Editor's Choice Pick Book Riot's  Best Books of 2020 So Far Named a Best of 2020 Pick for  NPR  |  NYPL  |  Booklist  |  Bustle | Den of Geek I have a weakness for dystopian literature. I don't do too much of it because so much of it is repetitive - usually it is World War III caused by a nuclear or bio-warfare attack by the Iranians, the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans, or the Americans. But, I do enjoy seeing where the author thinks we will break down and how we might recover and rebuild. This audiobook fit the bill - a future world in which the western United States has devolved back into a Wild West environment ruled by iron-fisted sheriffs that enforce a strict moral code. Their rules include a death penalty for sexual crimes, such as homosexuality and le

THE BRIDGE of SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder

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  Originally published in 1927. Winner of the 1928 Pulitzer Prize. This book has been on my To-Be-Read list since I was in high school. One of my English teachers back in high school used to talk about this book quite a lot and I finally got around to reading it. Synopsis: The setting is Peru, back when Spain held it as a colony. Outside of Lima in the Andes Mountains there is a magnificent rope bridge for pedestrians. Baggage and animals take a long trail they take down to the river below and they cross a traditional bridge that takes a lot longer. One day the rope bridge breaks and several people fall to their deaths.  A monk is approaching the rope bridge and sees it break and everyone fall to their deaths. He decides to investigate the lives of each person who fell. He wants to see if there is something in common - perhaps they were all adulterers or thieves or the like? What follows are elaborate character sketches for each of the victims all ending with them walking across the br

MESSY GRACE: HOW a PASTOR with GAY PARENTS LEARNED to LOVE OTHERS WITHOUT SACRIFICING CONVICTION (audiobook) by Caleb Kaltenbach

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  Published in 2015 by ChristianAudio.com Read by the author, Caleb Kaltenbach. Duration: 6 hours, 3 minutes. Unabridged. I checked out this audiobook from my local library using the Overdrive app. I highly recommend this app, but it does have a small failing - it does not include any sort of reviews of the digital ebooks or audiobooks. It only includes the publisher's description and the publisher's description of this audiobook only tells part of the story.  The author and narrator, Caleb Kaltenbach As the title says, Kaltenbach did indeed grow up with gay parents. They married young and divorced after a few years. His mother lived life as a married couple with another woman (this was pre-gay marriage) and his father lived as a closeted gay man. His mother hated Christians because of Westboro Baptist Church -type protesters, but to be fair to his mother, there are plenty of people that express the same thoughts that they publicly proclaim in private situations. Kaltenbach do