LULA DEAN'S LITTLE LIBRARY of BANNED BOOKS: A NOVEL (audiobook) by Kirsten Miller

Published in 2024 by HarperAudio.

Performed by January LaVoy.

Duration: 10 hours, 13 minutes.

Unabridged.

Synopsis

Troy, Georgia is, on the surface, an idyllic small town. But, the book banners have gotten active and removed a whole list of books from the school libraries and the public library. 

The school board president, Beverly Underwood, was surprised at the arrival of this committee of book banners and how they manipulated social media to scare the town led by the local lady curmudgeon, Lula Dean. As a compromise, the school board president agrees to store all of the disputed books in her basement until things can get sorted out.

Meanwhile, Lula Dean has set up one of those "little free library" boxes in her front yard with alternative books that she considers wholesome. It features titles like The Art of the Deal, Chicken Soup for the Soul books, and "Lost Cause" histories of the Civil War that she purchased at a Goodwill store in a nearby store in the bargain section. 

The trouble begins when Underwood's daughter steals the banned books from the basement and switches the dust jackets on the banned books with the dust jackets on the books from Lula Dean's little free library. She puts the banned books back in the little free library but Lula Dean is none the wiser because she has never read any of the banned books nor has she read any of the books she is offering the town. 

When the town starts taking books from the little free library they are surprised and delighted at the books they really get to read. They are also surprised at the changes these books bring to the town.

My Review

This is a fun book to read. It has its serious moments and sometimes profound moments, but it mostly reads like a fun novel. I was reminded of Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels. 

The reader, January LaVoy, was excellent. She created many, many unique voices and they sounded authentic. She is very talented.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5.  It can be found on Amazon.com here: Lula Deans Little Library of Banned Books.

THE TOY CAR: A SHORT STORY (kindle) by Rose Tremain

Published in 2025 by Amazon Original Stories.

The Toy Car is a coming-of-age story of Petros, an attractive 17 year old boy who lives on a sunny Greek tourist island. His life is mapped out for him - his father owns a popular taxi service and eventually he will inherit the business. 

It's a good life by most standards. 

But, his English mother is worried that Petros hasn't seen enough of the world so she convinces his father to send him off to live with her sister and her husband in London for a year abroad.

Petros brings along a toy version of his father's taxi, which is where we get the name of the story.

Up to this point, the story is pretty good.

When Petros arrives in London, his aunt and uncle seem very surprised about everything about him. They have not prepared for his arrival. Everything about the very existence of Petros confounds them.

I have no idea why they are acting this way, but it makes for a very poor experience for Petros. He spirals out of control with homesickness and bad experiences with girls and, eventually, he runs home.

What are the lessons learned in this coming-of-age story? 

Don't try new things?

London's weather is bad compared to the weather of a Greek island?

Better to be a taxi driver than to meet a girl in England?

Who knows what the point was supposed to be - all I know is that this book failed to deliver one except for the four I mentioned above.

I rate this story 2 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Toy Car: A Short Story by Rose Tremain.

WE LIVE HERE: DETROIT EVICTION DEFENSE and the BATTLE for HOUSING JUSTICE (graphic novel) by Jeffrey Wilson and Bambi Kramer

Published in 2024 by Seven Stories Press.

The 2008 Financial Crisis and the Great Recession that followed led to a myriad number of local problems all over the United States. In some places, major projects slowed or stopped. In others, manufacturing came almost to a halt. In others, there were so many subprime mortgages issued in that area that the housing market practically collapsed.

Detroit is famously home to tons of auto-related factories and they all slowed dramatically. It was so bad during the Great Recession that the American auto industry had to be bailed out by the federal government. Those job losses left the Detroit economy in a shambles.

On top of that, Detroit was one of the places with simply too many subprime mortgages. It wouldn't have been a problem if Detroit's economy didn't have any hiccups. The problem is that the Great Recession was much, much more than a hiccup - it was like a financial bomb went off in the city.

This graphic novel details the financial troubles that Detroit faced and how many of the subprime loan programs worked, including government supports that simply dried up when the property tax started to dry up. All of these led to an eviction of foreclosure crisis that snowballed across the city.

The best part of the book are the stories of neighbors banding together to prevent foreclosures. They literally blocked streets and called banks day and night urging them to negotiate with their mortgage customers. This should have been a no-brainer - the banks already had a glut of homes in the same neighborhoods. When too many homes are for sale, the prices are driven down so low that the banks may never get their money back. 

I do like the idea behind this book - using the graphic novel format to preserve local history. It was a lot more interesting than reading an article about the topic. It was quite effective in telling the story of neighbors that defended their homes because, as the title says, "We live here!"

I did have one complaint - the simple pencil illustrations are fine, but some of the characters look the same and it was hard to tell whose story we were reading about.

I rate this graphic novel 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: WE LIVE HERE: DETROIT EVICTION DEFENSE and the BATTLE for HOUSING JUSTICE by Jeffrey Wilson and Bambi Kramer.

SUPERMAN / WONDER WOMAN VOLUME 2: WAR and PEACE (graphic novel) by Charles Soule

Written by Charles Soule
Art by Tony S. Daniel

Published in 2015 by DC Comics

Synopsis

Superman has fought and defeated Doomsday, but during the fight he was infected with a Doomsday virus of some sort that is slowly merging into his genetic code and changing him into Doomsday.

Superman can hold it off simply by will and the sheer strength of being Superman, but Earth-based planetary defenses have released Kryptonite into the air around the world to drive the Superman/Doomsday hybrid away. Good enough, except that Brainiac has unleashed an attack on Earth and the Justice League really needs Superman's help...

My Review

This graphic novel was confusing and unnecessarily complicated. It seemed like it was an attempt to bring every possible character into the story and it was missing a key component - the fight with Doomsday.

The reason for that is simple - the story of that fight is not included in the Superman / Wonder Woman series. It is actually in a stand-alone volume called Superman: Doomed. The Doomed book is actually part of 3 or 4 different DC Comics story lines that all come together to meet in that story. However, there is no reference to the existence of that volume anywhere in the Superman / Wonder Woman cover art or in a prologue. They simply did not tell the reader that they should have read another story first.

That means this reader went in blind and felt like I was playing catch up the entire time. 

This quote from my review of Volume 1 of this series certainly applies to this volume in spades:

Almost everything about this story feels rushed. It's as if Soule had a 12 or 13 comic's worth of story that he had to tell in just 7 comics. Even worse, the story keeps gliding back and forth in time in a series of flashbacks that are labeled with a little blue box at the top of the first page of the current flashback. "Two hours ago." "Eight hours ago." "Now." They bounce around so much that it just confuses an already rushed story. Also, it ruins the drama because when they are in the "Now" timeline you can see how it all ends up.

I rate this graphic novel 1 star out of 5. Too many flashbacks, too rushed, and, most importantly, they should have told the reader that they were missing a key element of the story if they didn't read a stand alone volume. 

The Superman / Wonder Woman series continues on, but it continues without me.

This graphic novel can be found on Amazon.com here: Superman / Wonder Woman Volume 2: War and Peace.

SUPERMAN / WONDER WOMAN, Volume 1: Power Couple (graphic novel) by Charles Soule

Published in 2014 by DC Comics.

Written by Charles Soule.

Art by Tony S. Daniel

Synopsis

In the New 52 reboot of the DC universes we have a world where Superman and Wonder Woman are secretly dating. They are working through their relationship, dealing with cultural differences, a massive age difference, and the fact that a lot of her Greek god family basically hates him because he is a commoner, despite his extraordinary powers.

As part of larger plot to escape from the Phantom Zone, General Zod released Doomsday. Doomsday, you may remember, is the creature that killed Superman in the "Death of Superman" series back in 1992. This is one of  the first appearances of Doomsday in the New 52 reboot and he is as fearsome as ever. 

Meanwhile, Clark Kent's partner in an online publishing venture (Cat Grant) publishes an exclusive video that she received from an anonymous source. It shows Superman and Wonder Woman making out and suddenly they are the "it" couple around the world.

My Review

This summer I discovered Charles Soule and took full advantage of the library to read as much of his stuff as I could. Most of it is pretty good, but I cannot say the same of this collection. 

Almost everything about this story feels rushed. It's as if Soule had a 12 or 13 comic's worth of story that he had to tell in just 7 comics. Even worse, the story keeps gliding back and forth in time in a series of flashbacks that are labeled with a little blue box at the top of the first page of the current flashback. "Two hours ago." "Eight hours ago." "Now." They bounce around so much that it just confuses an already rushed story. Also, it ruins the drama because when they are in the "Now" timeline you can see how it all ends up. 

I rate this story 3 stars out of 5. There are moments of quality stuff here, including a scene between the Greek god Apollo and Superman that did not turn out the way that Apollo had hoped.

But, not enough.

This graphic novel can be found on Amazon.com here: Superman / Wonder Woman, Volume 1: Power Couple.

NIGHTSHADE (a Catalina novel book one)(audiobook) by Michael Connelly

Published by Little, Brown, and Company in 2025

Read by Will Damron.

Duration: 9 hours, 3 minutes.

Unabridged.

Synopsis

Michael Connelly takes a break from his Lincoln Lawyer series, his Harry Bosch series, and his Detective Ballard series to explore something new - Catalina Island.

Los Angeles County has jurisdiction over Catalina, a 75 square mile island a little more than 20 miles from mainland Los Angeles. Almost everyone takes the express ferry to Catalina, a boat ride that takes a little more than an hour. 

The separation means that Catalina is a very different place than Los Angeles. Cars are rare - almost everyone drives golf carts or walks. Less than 5,000 permanent residents live on the 75 square mile island and the pace of life is quite a bit slower.

It is widely believed that the Los Angeles Sheriff Department sends its screw up cops to Catalina for a little more seasoning or to find a safer place to make enough mistakes for the department to boot them out.

Nightshade features Detective Stilwell. He has been moved out to head up the substation on the island because he was not good at managing the intricacies of department politics. He made the wrong people mad. They couldn't really fire him, so they moved him to a place where he would be out of the way and might quit out of boredom and frustration with always being an hour long boat ride from Los Angeles.

Turns out Stillwell likes the pace of island life. He's good at managing the tourists that drink too much, he gets along well with the local government officials, and he has found a girlfriend. 

But, when a body shows up in the harbor near a private club designed for LA's old money families, Catalina shows that it can be just as dangerous as the rest of LA County...

My review

Connelly does a great job of quickly giving the reader the lay of the land on Catalina. I am from Indiana, so Catalina is just a place I had heard of - I knew it was on the ocean, but that was it.

Stillwell is a likeable guy who is just a bit too hard-headed for his own good, much like the other characters Connelly writes about. 

There are three mysteries in this book and Connelly weaves the investigations into one coherent story.

The only problem that I had is *****Spoiler alert***** at one point Stillwell gets suspended and he continues to investigate, including a sting operation that I would think would be invalidated because of the suspension. I am admit that almost all of my legal expertise comes from being an avid watcher of Law and Order, but suspended cops are supposed to suspend their duties as cops - that's why they call it a suspension. I would imagine any public defender could overturn that case in just a few minutes. Imagine what Connelly's Lincoln Lawyer would do.   *****End spoiler*****

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Nightshade by Michael Connelly.

OUR SUBWAY BABY (audiobook) by Peter Mercurio

Published in 2020 by Listening Library.

Read by the author, Peter Mercurio.

Duration: 7 minutes.

Unabridged.

I first heard about this story and the book Our Subway Baby in a social media post so I searched out the book. I didn't realize it was a book for children when I started searching, but it's a sweet little book.

The book starts with Danny Stewart spotting a newborn infant boy that was abandoned in the corner of a New York subway station. Stewart contacts the police, but also his boyfriend, Peter Mercurio, wondering if this was somehow fate. After all, they could never have children, but here is a child in need.

The couple keeps tabs of the baby and eventually adopt him. Their families and friends help them gather all of the things parents would need and baby Kevin finally joins his family.

The story is told from the point of view of Peter, as if he were talking to a young Kevin and telling him how Kevin found his way to his home. The language is simplified and the tricky details of an adoption are glossed over. The events in the story actually took place in the year 2000, so Kevin is a grown man nowadays.

This is a super heartwarming story. I give it an enthusiastic 5 stars out of 5.

Unfortunately, there are people that are against this book. It tied for the 12th most banned picture book in 2023-2024. Some people are not happy that an abandoned baby was saved and found a family. They are upset that the parents are gay men. Ugh. 

This book can be found on Amazon.com: Our Subway Baby.