Book: The Boston Massacre

 Book: The Boston Massacre

Author: Serna Zabin

Pages: 324

This is my 264th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

The story of the Boston Massacre - when on a late winter evening in 1770, British soldiers shot 5 local men to death -is familiar to generations.  But from the very beginning, many accounts have obsured a fascinating truth: this pivotal event in colonial America arose from conflicts that were as personal as they were political.  Professor Serena Zabin draws on original sources and lively stories to follow British troops as they are dispatched from ireland to Boston in 1968 to subdue the increasingly rebellious colonist.  And she reveals a forgotten world hidden in plain sight: the many regimental wives and chidlren who accompanied these armies.  We see these familes jostling with Bostonians for living space, finding common cause in the search for a lost child, trading barbs, and sharing baptisms.  Becoming in other words, neightobrs.  When soldiers shot unarmed citizens in the street, it was these intensely human, not broken bonds that fueled what quickly became a bitterly fought American Revolution.

Dry

Stars: 3 

Book: Godkiller

 Book: Godkiller

Author: Hannah Kaner

Pages: 304

This is my 263rd read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Gods are forbidden in the kingdom of Middren.  Formed by human desires and few by their worship, there are countless gods in the world - but after a great war, the new king outlawed them and now pays "godkillers" to destroy any who try to rise from the shadows.  As a child, Kissen saw her family nurdered by a fire god.  Now, this morally great hero makes a living killing them and enjoys it.  But all this changes when Kissen is tasked with helping a young noble girl with a god probelm.  The child's sould is bonded to a tiny god of white lies, and Kissen can't kill it without ending the girl's life too.  Joined by a disillusioned knight on a secret quest, this unlikely found family must travel to the ruined city of Blenraden, where the last of the wild gods reside, to each beg a favor.  Pursued by assassins and demons, and in the midst of burgeoning civil war, they will all face a reckoning.  Something is rotting at the heart of their world, and they are the only ones who can stop it.

Stars: 3

Book: Under Story

 Book: Under Story

Author: Chloe Benjamin

Pages: 512

This is my 262nd read this year

What Amazon Says:

At the edge of the world, biologist Laurel Salter is hiding from everything she's ever known.  For 10 hours a day, 6 days per week, she works as a dishwasher at McMurdo Station, an isolated research base in Antarctica.  She tells no one that before she arrived, she was a renowned young scientist with a promising career and a family.  But even in this remote outpost, Laurel can't escape her past.  When a strange light appears across the ice - and draws a group of physicists to McMurdo - her former husband, Eli, won't be far behind.  Laurel is captivated by the Arc: its surreal glow; the way it seems almost alive.  And though Eli is reluctant to test her wildest theory, Laurel is convinced that the Arc leads down a rabbit hole and into a world they can barely imagine.  Can she persuade him to risk everything to fix the burden that hangs between them - to turn back the clock and live their story a second time? 

Man I REALLY wanted to love this one.  I had 2 long car rides this week and this one I decided to listen to to pass the time.  It started out great.  I was fully invested in the characters and their story and tragedy, and even the indepth science of what Laurel studied.  But then the part of the book related to the Arc completely lost me.  There are so many illogical holes.  I had more and more questions and the book progressed, none that ever got answered and so much that really didn't make any sense.  I KNOW this is in the sci fi vain - all for it.  Here for it.  But this was....something else.  The build up was crazy toward the end wondering where this was going to end up, and then it was rushed.

Stars: 3

Book: I'm A Therapist and my Patient is the Next School Shooter

 Book: I'm A Therapist and my Patient is the Next School Shooter

Author: Dr. Harper

Pages: 170

This is my 261st book for the year

What Amazon Says:

I've seen it all - a boy who planned to be the next school shooter.  A patient with OCD whose loved ones really did suffer every time he missed a ritual.  A choir boy who claimed he was being molested - not by a priest - but by God Himself.  A patient with PTSD who gave me nightmares.  A husband and a wife who accued each other of abuse, and only one of them was telling the truth.  And how could I ever forget, Patient #220.  The problem is, my patients have a habit of dying.  Sometimes I wonder if I'm the common denominator.  Or maybe that's just the cost of taking on exceptionally broken clients.  Either way, I'll never stop trying to help.

I picked his book up when it was recommended to fill a book challenge category, and full disclosure - I thought it was non-fiction.  It is not.  It is a ficiton book written like a non-fiction, which could also be fun, but this book was just terrible.  Poorly written and just overly bad.

Stars: 1 

Book: Head Cases

 Book: Head Cases

Author: John McMahon

Pages: 368

This is my 260th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

FBI Agent Gardner Camden is an analytical genius with an affinity for puzzles.  He also has a blind spot on the human side of investigations, a blindness that sometimes even includes people in his own life, like his beloved 7 year old daughter Camila.  Gardner and his squad of brilliant yet quirky agents make up the Patterns and Recognition (PAR) unif, the FBI's hidden edge, brought in for cases that no one else can solve.  When DNA links a muderder victim to a serial killer long presumed dead, the team springs into action.  A second victim establishes a pattern, and the murderer begins leaving a trail of clues and riddles especially for Gardner.  And while the PAR team is usually relegated to working cold cases from behind a desk, the investigation puts them on the road and into the public eye, following in the footsepts of a killer.  Along with Gardner, PAR consists of a mathematician, a weapons expert, a computer analyst, and their leader, a career agent.  Each of them must use every skill they have to solve the riddle of the killer's identity.  But with the perpetrator somehow learning more and more about the team at PAR, can they protect themselves and their families - before it's too late?

This book was just okay.  I had a hard time getting through it because it didn't really hold my attention.  Not that well written.  

Stars: 2.5 

Book: Xmen Animated Series

 Book: Xmen Animated Series

Author: Ralph Macchio

Pages: 200

This is my 259th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Exploding from your TV screen.  The iconic X-Men: The Animated Series thrilled fans in the 1990s and defined the X-Men for an entire generation.  And their small-screen adventures, inspired by the X-Men's classic storylines, were adapted into comic-book form as well.  

Stars: 3

The Bone Door

 Book: The Bone Door

Author: Frances White

Pages: 528

This is my 258th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

When Hop awakens in an ancient labyrinth, he has no memory of his life, or how he got here.  He does not recognise the mysterious girl trapped with him.  And he certainly cannot indentify the shadoyw figure stalking him, whispering terrible things.  But there is one thing he is certain of: He must escape.  The only way out of the labyrinth is through The Bone Door.  But it lies behind a series of locked doors hidden across an array of strange realms.  To open the way, Hop must complete impossible tasks before his time runs out. As Hop travels deeper into the maze, he discovers that he and his companions may be more connected to the place and its horrors than hecould ever imagine. Unless Hop is able to unravel the true mystery of the labyrinth, and his own role within it, the Bone Door and any hope of escape will be lost forever.

This was an interesting book.  I read her other one - the Voyage of the Damned, and it was great, so I was looking forward to this.  I didn't like it as much as her other, but this one was still good.  It got a little convoluted for me near the end, but it wrapped up nicely.  Or....interestingly might be the more appropriate word for this ending.  

Stars: 4