DWD's Reviews

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

Published by Simon and Schuster Audio in November of 2013 Read by the author, Brian Stelter Duration: 11 hours, 16 minutes. Unabridged Brian Stelter is a former CNN commentator. While in college, he started a blog about news commentary shows and the personalities that make them what they are. In a way, he has been working on this book for more than 15 years.  Stelter pored over the paperwork from the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against Fox News to help write this 2020-2023 history of the cable news giant.  He spends the most amount of time looking at the biggest show with the biggest host on Fox News at the time - Tucker Carlson. He goes over a litany of Tucker's Greatest Hits - the Great Replacement Theory , The January 6 Insurrection was just a tourist event , Ukrainian biolabs , transgender conspiracies , and, of course, the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen . He looks at the power dynamics at the top of Fox News, including Rupert Murdoch, the board at Fox News, the

Published in 2023 by Little, Brown, and Company. Read by the author, Curtis Chin Duration: 8 hours, 12 minutes. Unabridged. Curtis Chin grew up in the 1980s in and around Detroit, Michigan. His immediate family and his extended family shared ownership in a Chinese restaurant in Detroit's Chinatown. Chin spent a considerable chunk of his early life working, eating, and doing homework in the restaurant. Chin tells about how his family ended up in Detroit, how his parents met and got married, the sometimes uncomfortable extended family dynamic, and the decline of Chung's Cantonese Cuisine's once vibrant neighborhood. There is also plenty of discussion about school from kindergarten through a four year degree at the University of Michigan. These parts of the story often discussed the racial dynamics of going to school in Detroit's majority minority school system. Later, when the family joined the white flight to the suburbs, there was a new dynamic of going to a school wher

Published in 2013 by Marvel Worldwide, Inc. This collection is the inspiration for the Disney+ series "Hawkeye." I really enjoyed this series and thought I'd read the source material.  Just like in the series, most of Hawkeye's adventures are small time affairs.  That's okay by me. Every adventure can't be (and shouldn't be) a "save the world" event. Fans of Hawkeye in the MCU will be surprised that Hawkeye in the comics is not a family man. He's also a lot more disjointed and unorganized than he is in the movies. That being said, this was an enjoyable read and this Hawkeye may not have an overwhelming love for his family, but he has a big heart in different ways. I very much enjoyed the simplified art design and color scheme of most of this graphic novel. It gave it a sense of moodiness.  I rate this graphic novel 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here:   HAWKEYE VOLUME 1: MY LIFE as a WEAPON (graphic novel) by Matt Fraction,

  This is a "best of" list based on the 87 books I read and reviewed in 2023. I do not focus on new books, so there are books on this "best of" ranging from being published in 1939 to being published in December of 2023. The titles are active links to my reviews. *** = Best of the best in that category. HISTORY/MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY This was a tough category this year. Every one of these is excellent, but it's almost unfair to compare any book to the Pulitzer Prize winning Maus . Maus practically invented the modern genre of the graphic novel and its iconic images with the Nazis as cats and the Jews as mice are unforgettable.  *** The Complete Maus (graphic novel)  by Art Spiegelman Anne Frank's Diary: The Graphic Adaptation by Anne Frank, Ari Folman, and David Polonsky. Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues by Jonathan Kennedy. Che: A Revolutionary Life  (graphic novel) by Jon Lee Anderson and Jose Hernandez. Magna Carta: The Birth of Liberty

  Published in April of 2003 by  Christianaudio.com Alan Noble is a college professor and a Christian writer who writes for Christian and non-Christian publications.  He also struggles with a mental illness that he does not identify in this short book. This book is all about dealing with the depression and struggles that come with mental illness, thus the title. Noble's powerful description of overwhelming depression demonstrates that he understands the issue and how it effects people well. This is important because it shows that he is coming from a place of understanding and that is vitally important. His advice is not easy advice, but it is realistic advice. One of my relatives was advised by well-meaning church members that the best way to deal with depression and suicidal ideation was prayer for God to help with these thoughts. I cannot stress enough that this was sincerely intended to be helpful advice, it was taken as, "If you only had enough faith, God would lift this

Published in 2001 by Delacorte Press Synopsis:  Rachel lives in Australia and is a brand new graduate of high school. She is ready to head off to college but she needs a job and a place to live that is close to the university. She finds both when the enigmatic Mr. Preston offers her a place to live just a few blocks from campus in exchange for watching over a woman named Grace.  Rachel knows that Grace was brain damaged in some sort of accident, but not much more than that. Grace can walk and feed herself - but that's about all she can do. She cannot talk, she cannot bathe herself, she cannot communicate in any way. Rachel spends the night with Grace, feeds Grace and watches over her much like a nanny watches a small child. She gets time off for classes, when the nurses come for physical therapy, and when Mr. Preston comes over to spend time with Grace. My Review: The author I expected nothing from this book. Several year ago, I picked it up from a pile of books that were being shi