Book: Dispatches From Grief

 Book: Dispatches From Grief

Author: Danielle Crittenden

Pages: 207

This is my 146th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

On a February morning, Danielle Crittenden's world cleaved in two: the life before her daughter Miranda was found dead in her Brooklyn apartment, and the life after.  In this luminous memoir, Crittenden maps the territory of profound loss with the clarity of a foreign correspondent filing reports from a country no parent ever wishes to visit.  With unflinching honesty and unexpected grace, she chronicles not just the shattering impact of a child's death, but the strange afterlife of grief itself - the way it infiltrates grocery stores and social media, transforms old friendships and forges new ones, and ultimately reshapes the mourner as fundamentally as it has reshaped the world. Here is grief in all its terrible specificity: the police call that changes everything, the surreal task of choosing a burial dress, the well-meaning friends who offer advice about "stages" that don't exist.  But here too is love in its most distilled form - a mother's meditation on a daughter who commanded dinner tables at 12 and who transformed from a precocious girl into a sparkling young woman living her dreams in NY.  Crittenden brings a journalist's eye to the landscpae of loss, coining the perfect term for those who try to explain grief to the grieving, finding dark comedy in a hotel clerk's relentless cheerfulness.  It will speak to anyone who has loved deeply, lost profoundly, and wondered how to continue when continuation seems impossible.

This was a heartbreaking book.   It is a short book, and I read it all in one sitting.  Make sure you have your tissues as you read along with a mother's greatest fear and what happens after.

Stars: 4.5 

Book: The Man Who Died Twice

 Book: The Man Who Died Twice

Author: Richard Osman

Pages: 368

This is my 145th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim - the Thursday Murder Club - are still riding high off their recent real-life murder ase and are looking forward to a bit of peace and quiet at Cooper's Chase, their post retirement village.  But they are out of luck.  An unexpected visitor - an old pal of Elizabeth's (or perhaps more than just a pal?) - arrives, desperate for her help.  He has been accused of stealing diamonds worth millions from the wrong men and he's seriously on the lam.  Then, as night follows day, the first body is found.  But not the last.  Elizabet, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim are up against a rutless murderer who wouldn't bat an eyelid at knocking off four septuagenarians.  Can out 4 friends catch the killer before the killer catches them?  And if they find the diamonds, too?  Well, wouldn't that be a bonus?  You should never put anything beyond the Thursday Murder Club.

This was a pretty good book.  I had read the first one and just thought it was fine, and figured I was done with the series.  However - a reading challenge threw me into the second book, and I am glad I read it.  I did watch the show on TV, and I think that helped.  I now had people to put their the characters in the book and it made this one more enjoyable.  It is clever and fun, and I understand the TV series will continue, so hopefully we will see this one played out soon.

Stars: 4

Book: Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 5: The Butcher's Masquerade

 Book: The Butcher's Masquerade

Author: Matt Dinniman

Pages: 720

This is my 144th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

A lush jungle teeming with danger.  Savage dinosaurs seeking blood.  A fallen princess intent on vengeance.  A mysterious, end of floor celebration for the top crawlers, dubbed "The Butcher's Masquerade".  But that's not all.  Just when Coast Guard vet Carl and his ex-girlfriend's cat, Princess Donut, think they've seen it all as they compete to survive in the galaxy's most popular game show, the latest dungeon level introduces a terrible new threat.  The 6th floor.  The Hunting Grounds.  As the remaining crawlers battle for their lives, outside tourist are finally allowed to enter the game, and they are ready to hunt.  Among them is Vrah, a famed and veteran hunter, intent on collecting the biggest trophy of her career.  But her prey is far from harmless, and this season they are fighting back.  Welcome, crawlers.  Welcome to the 6th floor of the dungeon.

Another great installment in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series.  These books do not get less entertaining.  They are fun, and clever, and the world building is amazing.  In the beginning I really had to take my time to try and figure out the game, but not that I understand it, the books are so enjoyable.  Characters are well developed.  Carl and Donut are so easy to like and root for.  Samantha - introduced in the last book - is even more hilarious in this installment.  If you have not tried this books, I encouage you too.  I know they are tomes, but worth it.

Stars: 5

Book: The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of the Whole Stupid World

 Book: The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of the Whole Stupid World

Author: Matt Kracht

Pages: 192

This is my 143rd read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Following in the tracks of the 1st uproarious and beloved bird book, this book ventures beyond to identify the stupidest birds around the world.  Featuring birds from all around the world, the authro identifies the dumb birds that mange to live all over the freaking place with snarky yet accurate names and humorous, anger-filled drawings.  Offering a balance of fact and wit, this uproarious profanity-laden handbook will appeal to hardcord birders and casual bird lovers (and haters) alike.  

This book was hilarious.  I read it for a reading challenge where I needed a book about birding, and this did not disappoint.  It has some general facts about the birds he describes, but he mostly sticks to what is annoying about them.  I laughed out loud for almost the whole book.  It is a very fast read and has a lot of really well drawn pictures.  My only complaint is it wasn't longer.  Fun find.

Stars: 4.5

Book: Edge of Darkness

 Book: Edge of Darkness

Author: Kyla Stone

Pages: 352

This is my 142nd read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Hannah Sheridan has survived years of captivity and civilzation's collapse.  No, heavily pregnant and wounded, with her faithful dog Ghost dying from a bullet wound, she must reach home - a brutal jouney through a frozen wasteland - to the family she was stolen from.  Former Delta operator Liam Coleman's mission is simple: deliver Hannah safely to Fall Creek, then settle his own debts with the past.  But with Ghost critically injured and Pike stalking them through the snow, every mile is a battle.  Every contraction a ticking clock.  In Fall Creek, Noah Sheridan fights to hodl his broken town together after horrific violence shatters their fragile peace.  He'd built a safe place for his son Milo, surviving the cold and chaos.  But as grief turns to fury and neighbors turn against each other, he faces an impossible choice: protect what remains or rish everything to save it all.  In the ashes of the old world, some build communities.  Others build empires.  And some just want to watch it all burn. 

This was another good installment in the Edge of Collapse series.  This books have good bite too them.  They are easy reads, so you can fly through them, but they also have enough intensity to them that you want to keep reading to find out what is going to happen.  There are several POVs in these books, and this one was overly so.  That might be my only negative thought - there might have been too many switches this time around.   Overall though, a sollid read.  

Stars: 4

Book: Incidents around the house

 Book: Incidents Around The House

Author: Josh Malerman

Pages: 384

This is my 141st read for the year

What Amazon Says:

To 8 year old Bela, her family is her world.  There's mommy, daddo, and Grandma Ruth.  But there is also Other Mommy, a malevolent entity who asks her every day: "Can I go inside your heart"?  When horrifying incidents around the house signal that Other Mommy is growing tired of asking Bela the question over and over, Bela understands that unless she says yes, her family will soon pay.  Other Mommy is getting restless, stronger, bolder.  Only the bonds of the family can keep Bela safe, but other incidents show cracks in her parents' marriage.  The safety Bela relies on is about to unravel.  But Other Mommy needs an answer.

This book was terrible.  I did read Malerman's Bird Box series, and enjoyed those, but this one was so bad.  Story isn't really that scary, and the characters are not great.  Told from a child's perspective.  The ending is really what did it for me - dropped this from a 2 star down to a 1.  What in the world was the author thinking with the big dialogue this mother tells this little kid?  Nonsense.  

Stars: 1

Book: What The Dog Saw

 Book: What the Dog Saw

Author: Malcolm Gladwell

Pages: 448

This is my 140th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

What is the difference between choking and panicking?  Why are there dozens of varieties of mustard-but only one variety of ketchup?  What do football players teach up about how to hire teachers?  What does hair dye tell us about the history of the 20th century?  Here is the bittersweet tale of the inventor of the birth control pill, and the dazzlinginventions of the pasta sauce pioneer Howard Moscowitz.  Gladwell sits with Ron Popeii, the king of the American kitcen, as he sells rotisserie ovens, and divines the secets of Cesar Millan, the "dog whisperer" who can calm savage animals with the touch of his hand.  He explores intelligence tests and ethic profiling and "hindsight bias" and why it was that everyone in Silicon Valley once tripped over themselves to hire the same college graduate.  

This was a very interesting book.  I do like Malcolm Gladwell - this is my second book by him I have read just this year.  He is a good writer and the topics throughout this book give you a lot to think about.  Good insight, good research, and great writing.

Stars: 4.5