Book: The Art Thief

 Book: The Art Thief

Author: Michael Finkel

Pages: 240

This is my 53rd read for the year

What Amazon says:

Stephane Breitwieser is the most prolific art thief of all time.  He pulled off more tha 200 heists, often in crowded museums in broad daylight.  His girlfriend served as his accomplice.  His colletion was worth an estimated $2 billion.  He never sold a piece, displaying his stolen art in his attic bedroom.  He felt like a king.  Until everything came to a shocking end.

This was a very interesting book.  I did not know the story of this art thief, and that he actually stole a few pieces from various museums in Basel, Switzerland where we used to live.  It was fascinating how he stole the pieces and got away with stealing so much over the course of 10 years.  It is well written and well researched.  The author spoke to the art thief to gain the insight of the story and then built on that.  It is a page turner for sure to find out if he was going to get caught and how.  Glad I read this one.

Stars: 5

Book: A Study in Drowning

 Book: A Study in Drowning

Author: Ava Reid

Pages: 384

This is my 52nd read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Effy Sayre has always believed in fairy tales.  She's had no choice.  Since childhood, she's been haunted by visions of the Fairy King.  She's found solace only in the pages of Angharad - author Emrys Myrddin's beloved epic about a mortal girl who falls in love with the Fairy King and then destroys him.  Effy's tattered, dog-eared copy is all that's keeping her afloat at Llyr's prestigious architecture college.  So when Myrddin's family announces a contest to redesign the late author's estate, Effy feels certain this is her destiny.  But Hiraeth Manor is an impossible task: a musty, decrepit house on the brink of crumbling into a hungry sea.  And when Effy arrives, someone else has already made a temporary home there.  Preston Heloury, a stodgy young literature scholar, is studying Myrddin's papers and is determined to prove her favorite author is a fraud.  As the two rivals piece together clues about the reclusiv author's legacy, dark forces, both mortal and magical, conspire against them - and the truth may bring them both to ruin.

This book wasn't good.  I know it is YA, but I was hoping from reading the premise that I was going to like it.  And it is a beautiful book on the outside - gorgeous cover and binding.  But that is where the beauty ends.  The writing is terrible.  The story was so choppy, I should have quit reading it.  It has moments where I thought it might redeem itself - the story IDEA is a good one.  But it never did because the writing did not improve.  The main character is very weak and I did not ever feel connected to the characters or the story.

Stars: 2

Book: Not Without Hope

 Book: Not Without Hope

Author: Nick Schuyler

Pages: 272

This is my 51st read for the year

Amazon says:

This is the true story of the headline-making tragedy that took the lives of three football players: NFL stars Marquis Cooper and Corey Smith, and Will Bleakly from the University of South Florida.  Told by the sole survivor of the ill-fated fishing trip, Nick.  It is an inspiring and unforgettable story of courage and strength, friendship and loss and, most importantly, hope.

This is hard to judge because this is a terrible tragedy and a terrible thing that happened to all 4 of these young men.  But the writing is terrible.  The story is poorly written and there is a lot of time spent on nonsense in the beginning of this very short book that could have been left out, or just done better.  A lot of repetitive text.  I read it for a reading challenge for a category of a book that is becoming a movie/tv show (Which this is this year), but I would not recommend it.

Stars: 2

Book: The Dark Mirror

 Book: The Dark Mirro

Author: Samantha Shannon

Pages: 576

This is my 50th read for the year

What Amazon says:

Everything is about to change.  Paige Mahoney is outside the Republic of Scion for the first time in more than a decade-but she has no idea how she got to the free world.  Half a year has been wiped from her memory.  Her journey back to the revolution soon takes her to Venice, where the Domino Programme has uncovered evidence of a secret Scion plan. Before Paige can return to London, she must help the network unravel the sinister Operation Ventriloquist, which threatens to bring Europe to its knees in weeks.  And it soon becomes clear that the one person who could recover her memories-Arcturus Mesarthim- might also hold the key to thwarting Scion, allowing the revolution to strike an unprecedented blow.

This is my most anticipated book for this year.  I am a Samantha Shannon fan - first reading the Priory of the Orange Tree series, and then going back and starting The Bone Season series - which now has 5 books.  There has been a long lull between book 4 and 5, but I was not aware of it until I read the author's note because I just started reading her books about 2 years ago.  Hopefully that is the end of the lull because this book's end showed that it is not a finished series and there are more to come.   Anyway!  The book was good.  The story flows well, and there is good character devleopment.  Paige and Arcturus further their relationshop and - side note - what I like about Shannon is that she doesn't make their relationship the center of her stories.  This would not fit well in a Romantasy category and I am glad and probably why I like her fantasy novels.  The story is pushed a long nicely making strides to what we readers believe is the ultimate goal.  What knocked this book for me one star was that I still feel that Paige is written a little too weak.  She is supposed to be the Underqueen of the whole criminal underworld, and yet she constantly need a nap.  It just seemed to be a little overdone.  Not enough for me to not want to keep reading the storyline.

Stars: 4

Book: Born on a Blue Day

 Book: Born On A Blue Day

Author: Daniel Tammet

Pages: 258

This is my 49th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

Daniel Tammet is virtually unique among people who have severe autistic disorders in that he is capable of living a fully independent life and able to explain what is happening inside his head.  He sees numbers as shapes, colors, and textures, and he can perform extraordinary calculations in his head.  He can learn to speak new languages fluently, from scratch, in a week.  In 2004, he memorized and recited more than 22,000 digits of pi, setting a record.  HE has savant syndrome, an extremely rare condition that gives him the most unimaginable mental powers, much like those portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in the film Rain Man.  This book explores what it's like to be special and gives us an insight into what makes us all human - our minds.

This book was okay. It has been on my shelf forever - I inherited it from a friend's book haul years ago.  I liked a lot of parts of it - when Daniel really delve into his life story.  But a large part of this book is just factual information which distracted from the overall picture you try to form of what it is like for people like Daniel.  It was like he was trying to tell two different stories and it just didn't flow well.  

Stars: 3

Book: The Night Watch

 Book: Night Watch

Author: Jayne Anne Phillips

Pages: 304

This is my 48th book for the year

What Amazon says:

In 1874, in the wake of the War,erasure, trauma, and namelessness haunt civilians and veterans, renegades and wanderers, freedmen and runaways.  Twelve-year-old ConaLee, the adult in her family for as long as she can remember, finds herself on a buckboard journey with her mother, Eliza, who hasn't spoken in more than a year.  They arrive at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in West Virginia, delivered to the hospital's entrance by a war veteran who has forced himself into their world.  There, far from family, a beloved neighbor, and the mountain home they knew, they try to reclaim their lives.  The omnipresent vagaries of war and race rise to the surface as we learn their story: their flight to the highest mountain ridges of western Virginia; the disappearance of ConaLee's father, who left for the War and never returned.  Meanwhile, in the asylum, they begin to find a new path.  ConaLee pretends to be her mother's maid; Eliza responds slowly to treatment.  They get swept up in the life of the facility - the mysterious man they call the Night Watch; the orphan child called Weed; the fearsome woman who runs the kitchen; the remarkable doctor at the head of the institution.  

This was an okay book.  I had picked it up after I saw it in A West Virginia University bookstore while visting family.  I was intrigued by this Pulitzer Prize winner, but was disappointed with the story in the end.  The writing is good - but the story didn't pull me in.  It was almost too unbelievable.  A lot of questions remain unanswered.  The ending was satisfactory, but in this type of story, a "happily ever after" didn't seem to fit. The story of Papa is deeply disturbing and if I had know it ahead of time, I would not have picked this book up.

Stars: 3

Book: Preventable

 Book: Preventable

Author: Andy Slavitt

Pages: 336

This is my 47th read for the year

What Amazon Says:

From former Biden Senior Advisro Andy Slavitt, Prevenable is the definitive inside account of the United States' failed response to the Coronavirus pandemic.  Slavitt chronicles what he saw and how much could have been prevented - an unflinching investigation of the cultural, political, and economic drivers that led to unnecessary loss of life.  With unparalleled access to the key players throughout the government on both sides of the aisle, the principal public figures, as well as the people working on the frontline involved in fighting the virus, Slavitt brings you into the room as fateful decisions are made and focuses on the people at the center of the political system, health care system, patients, and caregivers.  The story that emerges is one of a country in whice - despite the heroics of many - bad leadership, political and cultural fractures, and an unwillingness to sustain sacrifice light a fuse that is difficult to extinguish.  This book addresses the uncomfortable realities that brought America to this place.  And, he puts forth te solutions that will prevent us from being here again, ensuring a better, strong country for everyone.

This was a great book - as great as you can rate a book that is about a very tough subject.  It was hard to relive what it was like for Americans during the height of the Coronavirus, and the consequences of so many things that we wish had gone differently.  I was lucky that I road a large chunk of the beginning of the virus out in Switzerland where we were living at the time.  The response there was vastly different and my kids actually got to go back to school about 8 weeks after the virus hit.  Everything reopened.  Citizens took care of each other. Followed rules that were not only good for them, but for everyone around them.  This book gave me even more information because Slavitt was an insider.  He was part of the day to day decisions - bridging the gap between the outside world and a White House that was less than cooperative.  I only knocked it a star because no one is perfect.  Everyone had a part in the blame, and I think Slevitt should made that more clear.

Stars: 4