The Shaytan Bride by Sumaiya Matin

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This is a horrible story, but I mean that in a good way. To know that Muslim women are treated badly is one thing, but to have it slapped in your face repeatedly as this story does, is a shattering experience.

Sumaiya Matin moved with her family from Dhaka, Bangladesh, to Thunder Bay, Ontario as a young child, and effectively grew-up Candian, but still Muslim of course. Her family ties ran deep though, and when she returns on what she thinks is merely a visit, she has no idea that her family plans to marry her off while she's back in Bangladesh.

In Canada, she'd met and fallen in love with a Sikh guy, but this was not her family's plan for her, and neither she nor Bhav, the guy she fell for, knew how their relationship might work. They knew only that they wanted it to. Trapped in Bangladesh, cut-off from friends, denied access to a phone, Sumaiya had to struggle against everyone to ensure that it was she, not they, who determined what her future would be. She proved to be stronger than they, but strong as she is,mstill she could not make everything come out all right. The story was educational, uncomfortable but necessary to read, and in many ways depressing.

In a similar vein, it was not all plain sailing for me, as a reader. I am not religious, so my mind is often boggled at what believers believe and what they bring upon themselves. I was unaware of how deep the fantastical beliefs of some cultures still run, even now in the 21^st century. The stories of the Shayṭān Bride and the deep-seated beliefs in jinn were disturbing. It turns out that two-thirds to three-quarters of Bangladeshis believe in these spirits and in possession by such spirits, and women tend to believe more than men.

The story of the woman possessed by one such spirit was disturbing. I don't believe she was. It was doubtlessly a medical condition, but the story was quite moving and unsettling. There are also female jinn named jiniri, which I can no doubt have fun with in some future story I write!

In conclusion, This is a heart-breaking story of female subjugation, cruelty, and strength, of love and loss, and of one woman determined to be the author of her own destiny, and for that, I commend it.

The Untethered by SW Southwick

Rating: WARTY!

This story was crap almost from the off, and in some ways it seemed more like authorial wish fulfillment than anything else. The story begins with Roble Santos whose only ambition, it seems, is to build a private jet that can fly supersonic speeds. The seemingly impossible and illegal task he has to face is that it's purportedly illegal to fly such a jet. In which case why not move to a country where it is legal and build it there? It was a completely false challenge and had zero resonance.

None of these characters made sense, but the only other one I got any sort of an introduction to was Stock Brant who was an out and out criminal who I had zero interest in, and when, at 10% in, this third character, essentially threw herself at him, all the while convincing herself that she didn't want him - in essence, raping herself with him, I gave up on the book in complete disgust. It sucked, it was badly written, it was all over the place and it was trashier than a badly-written romance. I condemn it and I sure as hell wasn't about to read 600-plus pages of this shit.

The Making of Riley Paige by Blake Pierce

Rating: WARTY!

This book is in three volumes, and I believe I got the first one as a freebie - the intention being to lure you into to buying the other two, but that ain't gonna happen, not given how poorly-written this first volume ("Watching") was. This marks the third Blake Pierce I've read and they've all been bad.

The story is of a serial killer on a college campus, and this girl who is not named Riley Paige, but Riley Sweeney, is having insights into the killer's mind. There is another series by the same author about this same character, but later in her life, so I'm guessing this is a prequel, and in the later series, Riley apparently married this guy she met in college, whose last name is Paige. But as I said, the problem with the book is that it's badly-written. At one point in the story, Riley is talking with her roommate who is named Trudy, about a girl named Rhea, who was murdered in the dorm, but a couple of times in that conversation, the author mistakenly calls Trudy 'Rhea' - like Riley is talking with the dead girl! There are several other such gaffes, such as where the author says "a voice for the grave" rather than 'a voice from the grave'. The quality of the editing is non-existent. I know as authors we all screw uo now and then, but this one seems like they're not even trying.

The real problem with it is that it feels so amateur in how it's written, and in order to tell the story, the author is having Riley do stuff that makes her look like a dumb-ass at times. For example, there's a killer on the loose, preying on female students. He evidently has the gift of the gab, and is suave enough for them to feel safe inviting him back to their room, but at a party, Riley invites this one guy she barely knows to her room without even thinking for a minute he might be the killer. He isn't as it turns out, but that was a stupid thing for her to do. The guy tries to rape her, but since she recently learned some self-defense moves, she magically overpowers him despite him also being trained in self-defense - he was in her class - and being bigger and stronger than her! It's badly-written.

It gets worse though! She finds this pocket knife in the guy's pants, and she doesn't think for a second about taking it out and handling it, and when she hands it to the police, they have no problem handling it either! There's no concern at all about wearing gloves, or about fingerprints or contamination, or evidence bags or chain of custody! It's amateur!

Riley takes this guy Ryan to bed with her on their first date when she barely knows him, and there's no mention of sexual history or condom use let alone any concern on her part that he might be the killer. Yes, we know she's going to marry him because this is a prequel, but she doesn't know that! More on this ridiculous relationship later.

After her own roommate is murdered, Riley is taken by this FBI guy who is now on the case down to the police station to watch an interrogation of a suspect, so she can share her insights with the FBI about whether she thinks he did it! After that, despite her being in shock earlier, and despite it being her roommate who was murdered, and despite her having no place to go since her room is a crime scene, no one offers to drive her anywhere or asks her if she'll be okay. They just let her walk out without taking a statement from her or anything! The author obviously did this so this guy Ryan could come pick her up, but it's stupid, and very poorly written.

From the start, and since we know it wasn't Ryan, it looked to me like the killer is one of two college professors. I suspected this from early on, but it makes absolutely no sense. At one point Riley has this insight that the killer was hanging out outside the bar where Rhea was partying the night she was killed, Riley felt that this guy started talking to her and Rhea invited him back to her dorm room! If it had been a fellow student, no one would have given it a second thought, but to claim that no one noticed an older man - a college professor who would have been recognized - hanging outside the bar where students gather, and walking and talking with Rhea or going back to her dorm? It made zero sense!

When Riley finally, belatedly, gets onto the idea that it was a college professor (so much for her brilliant insights), she goes to the library to check on something she read in a book that one of these two professors had written about the criminal mind, and she sees one of her professors at a computer terminal in the library. He greets her not as Riley Sweeney but as "Riley Paige!"! LOL! Badly written. After consulting this book, she decides she should call that same professor she just saw, and talk to him about her thoughts. Never once does she think to check the computer terminal where she'd just seen him! It's like she forgot she'd seen him only minutes before, and she immediately goes to a payphone to call him where she finds him in his office! Again, badly-written.

The weird thing is that when she's seeking him out, she asks herself, "But who else did she have to talk to about this?" - well duhh! The FBI agent who's all but recruited you! Again, badly written. What I suspect happened here is that the professor she saw in the library was actually the other professor, and not the one she phones and later meets, who happens to be the murderer. Again it was a writing screw up.

The saddest thing about the purported genius Riley-with-the-magical-insights is that she continually and persistently gets it wrong who the murder is! We, the readers, have known virtually from the start because the story is so badly-written, but Riley doesn't learn until she's trapped in a locked room with him. Even then she's still on the wrong track and the professor has to declare hismelf as the killer! That's how bad she is - and she has to be rescued by the FBI agent who conveniently has been tailing her all day hoping she will lead him to the killer! What?! Because that's with the FBI does - follow a flaky girl around, hoping desperately for a break in the case instead of going steadily through the evidence and eliminating or adding suspects until they finally nail the right one. Yup!

Finally: how do we know Riley has been having unprotected sex with Ryan? Well, he gets her pregnant. Yet more evidence of how profoundly stupid this woman is. But what evidence is there that there's anything else to do in this to do in this town, but party? Riley almost never goes to any classes during this story. She never studies. She has no job. She has no hobbies or pursuits. She's a senior, and she does nothing but party and agonize over who the killer is.

Oh and finding out she's pregnant long before it would show - because she has nausea. Not because she has some feminine insight, but nausea. Yeah. This novel is nauseatingly bad. So when Ryan shows up out of the blue at her graduation - where she's still wearing a neck brace because this novel is mind bogglingly telescoped - and he essentially proposes marriage, she's all on board even though she barely knows him, and the last time she was with him, things went badly and they broke up. This novel is shit. Honestly. Garbage. I condemn it. I have no interest in reading any more about Riley Sweeney-Paige or anything else from this author. Three strikes and you're out Blake Pierce!

On the Road to Tara by Aljean Harmetz

Rating: WARTY!

This is a large format print book replete with photographs from all stages of the production and all aspects of it. But it's not just a picture book. It has a lot of text describing aspects of the production from the acquisition of the rights to the novel, to the filming itself. If you're a big aficionado of the book or the movie, or are deeply interested in film-making, then this is a worthy read, but overall I have to say it wasn't worth my time. I found it interesting in parts, but it was too big, too full of fluff, and far too repetitive to be of great value.

If there's one thing that runs through this book, it's the constant and monotonous drumbeat of producer David Selnick's obsessive-compulsive micromanagement and meddling. It's really more of a book about him than it is about the movie, come to think of it and frankly, it's tedious to read this much of that topic. Yes, his behavior was an important part of how the movie got made, and yes, once in a while it's interesting to hear about how interfering and uncontrollable he was, but to hear it in every other paragraph is truly irritating and belabors the point long past its sell-by date.

I felt the book seriously overdid that at the expense of other things it could have related, but apart from where it talks about Selznick's behavior, the book seems superficial, skimming over other important and interesting stuff until it gets to the next Selznick-o-thon. I can't commend it as a worthy read for this reason.

The Conscience of an Agnostic by Robert K Cooper

Rating: WARTY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This is a very short book, and frankly after reading it, I wasn't sure exactly what it was trying to do, but for me it failed if judged by what the book description declares is its aim.

The premise is supposedly that "it is simply impossible to determine, with any degree of confidence, as to whether there is a transcendent, creative being which is responsible for the existence of the universe. The conclusion that inevitably flows from this realization is that agnosticism is the most intellectually honest position to espouse" but the author seems like he's on a crusade to debunk the theistic arguments (which frankly isn't a difficult thing to do) without paying any attention to the atheistic ones, and so he fails to establish the very premise that he claims is the only rational position.

To the best of my knowledge, the atheist position doesn't declare there are no gods, but instead declares that there's no convincing evidence for any gods. As Richard Dawkins and others have put it, most people have no belief in most gods. Atheists just believe in fewer gods than do believers. But if the author's aim is to establish that agnosticism is the only intellectually honest position, then he doesn't make that case here. A quick glance at the chapter headers is enough to make that argument:

• What is Agnosticism?
• What is Religious Faith?
• Common Objections to the Bible
• The Random Cruelty of Life: Murderous Dictators
• The Random Cruelty of Life: 20th Century Disasters
• The Random Cruelty of Life: The Deadliest Natural Disasters
• The Random Cruelty of Life: Mass Shootings

You rather get the idea from this that the book is largely US-centric and targets almost exclusively the Christian faith - otherwise why have a chapter devoted to the Bible, but none devoted to the Koran, or the Vedas, or the Tri-piṭaka and so on? So while you can argue (if you like!) that it addresses the Christian faith, it fails to make any case at all for agnosticism with regard to other faiths. The assumption, also, is that the creator god we’re supposed to be agnostic about, is a loving one, and seeks - from the abundance of chapters on the topic - to dispel this notion by having almost half the book devoted to the random cruelty of life, but what if this creator god merely sets things in motion and doesn't have any interest in beneficence or otherwise? The book fails to engage that.

The book also completely fails to address the scientific perspective, with regard, for example, to how the universe came to be and the fact that there may be multiple universes. It fails to address the four billion years of life on the planet which existed nearly all of that time without any living thing (at least on Earth!) wondering if there were any gods. What was that all about, if there's supposed to be a benign creator? It also fails to address any of the philosophical arguments for or against gods.

The last couple of chapters are "Assorted Quotes and Humorous tidbits" and "Quotes from Yours Truly: More Humorous tidbits" neither of which make any argument for anything and seemed more like filler. Quoting someone saying something about a god isn't evidence for or against any position, and listing celebrities who are agnostics makes no more of an argument for agnosticism than does listing holocaust deniers make an argument that there was no holocaust.

I didn't get the point of this approach at all, and especially not the employment of so much space which fails to take on the premise of the book in any meaningful or useful way, and neither do I see the point of those last two frivolous chapters when the point of the book still has not been made. For me the book had no real focus or thrust; it seemed half-hearted and rambling, and I cannot commend it as a worthy read.

Rock 'n' Roll Heretic: The Life and Times of Rory Tharpe by Sikivu Hutchinson

Rating: WARTY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This author is a feminist writer who has several non-fiction books out there. I have not read any of those. This one appears to be her first foray into fiction, and I have to say right up front that I was not at all impressed by it. For me it was a mess. It was hard to follow, choppily-written, jumping back and forth in time with little warning, flooded with characters that were not well-defined and therefore largely interchangeable, it was tedious at times, and did nothing whatsoever to draw me in, to enable me to empathize with the main character, or to engage or entertain me. I DNF'd it at 25% (and some skimming of the other 75%) because I was bored to tears with it and thoroughly disappointed at such a wasted opportunity.

The story is supposedly an homage to Rosetta Tharpe, but it feels more like an insult. The real-life Tharpe was truly a revolutionary who rose to popularity in the 1930s and 1940s, was an innovative musician and a huge influence on Blues, and helped bring Gospel into the mainstream, but this book doesn't seem to have any focus at all, and is music-light. By that I mean that, while an ebook (as opposed to an audio-book, for example) doesn't exactly lend itself to musical interludes, you can talk about music with passion and give it some character and life. Music was supposed to be a character in this novel in a very real sense, judged from the book description, but it was a complete no-show in that first 25%.

There was a lot of talk around music, but no talk, experience, or any sort of feel at all for music. So the book that was supposed to be about a musician turned her into a rather stereotypical shell - an echo of a musician rather then a working musician who purportedly was talented. Yes, we're told she was on the down-slide, and was a much imitated musician, but we were given no sort of sense of why she was imitated or what she had been before she hit the slope - not in the portion I read anyway.

To me, the novel felt like a fraud, like this was a band trying to break into the big time rather than a respected musician who'd had a series of bad breaks. Worse than that, it was all over the place and it lost me repeatedly as I tried to follow it and engage with it. I have to say it was also racist in some ways, in a warped mirror sort of way, which is the same distorted reflection that lets black comedians, for example tell racist white jokes on stage, but condemns white comedians who do the same about people of color.

You can't have it both ways. If racism is bad - and it is - you can't allow it for people of one color while denying it for others. It needs to be anathema for all, and this book didn't seem to get that. On the one hand it rightly sought to condemn racism, but it did it in such a back-handed and hamfisted manner that it became more like a parody than a paradigm. It became an exemplar of the very thing it was supposed to be deriding. For these reasons, I can't commend it based on what I read of it.

Liars and Losers Like Us by Ami Allen-Vath

Rating: WARTY!

"As prom night looms on the horizon, 17-year-old Bree must navigate tragedy, secrets, and a difficult love triangle." Why? Why the love triangle? Shit or get off the pot, Bree. Another unoriginal plot starring a ditz who doesn't even have convictions, let alone the courage of them.

A Lady's Guide to Etiquette and Murder by Dianne Freeman

Rating: WARTY!

"In this sparkling mystery, wealthy American widow Frances Wynn arrives in Victorian London - but soon becomes a suspect in her late husband's murder." Because if there isn't an American in it, it's a waste of time reading it, right? Non-starter.

Murder Once Removed by SC Perkins

Rating: WARTY!

"When Texas genealogist Lucy Lancaster discovers a journal proving that billionaire Gus Halloran's great-great-grandfather was murdered in the 1840s - possibly by the ancestor of US Senator Daniel Applewhite - the ensuing accusation thrusts her into a dangerous web of small-town secrets!" Why would it? Who the fuck cares what happened almost 200 years ago? This is a definite non-starter for me.

The Lake House by Christie Barlow

Rating: WARTY!

"After moving to a new town, bistro waitress Ella catches a ride across the lake every day with Roman, the village water taxi driver. As she settles in and gets to know her charming neighbors, will Heartcross offer a second chance at life - and love?" The answer is yes. Why is it even a question anymore? And 'Roman'? Really? I find the story more appealing if the tax-driver's name was Visigoth or Vandal and the town's name was Starcross.

The Bookshop of Yesterdays by Amy Meyerson

Rating: WARTY!

Another book about a bookshop. Yawn. I'd turn this down just from the title, but the plot is a definite killer of interest: "When schoolteacher Miranda inherits her late uncle's run-down bookshop, she learns he's hidden a series of clues within the store - and begins unraveling a tragic family mystery." Why does her chickenshit uncle hide the clues instead of coming out with it? So the perp can get away with whatever it was they did?

Bennett's Bastards Bundle by Jennie Kew

Rating: WARTY!

"For these couples, no-strings-attached passion leads to unexpected..." diseases? Just a wild-ass guess.

Desecration by JF Penn

Rating: WARTY!

"DS Jamie Brooke enlists the help of clairvoyant Blake Daniel to follow a macabre trail of murder, grave robbery, and genetic modification..." and finds out she's a lying-ass fraud? Just a suggestion. Have you noticed the psychics in these stories (books and movies) never offer a damned thing that really helps - only the vaguest of clues so the author can spin the story on and on. It would be more of a challenge if the psychic nailed the perp down to name and address and the author still managed to find a good story. Why don't I do that? Maybe I will.

But no psychic ever solved a murder. Ever. Period. Cops do that. Not psychics. Not bakers. Not librarians. Not café owners. Not cupcake shop owners. Not ladies' knitting circles. Not bookshop owners. Cops. Hard-working cops. That's it.

Once an Eagle by Anton Myrer

Rating: WARTY!

This novel "follows an American soldier across decades and continents - from the Pacific jungles during World War II to Cold War-era Vietnam." Yawn. Another American war story. How original. Get a plot. I may be wrong, but I honestly don't think there's any nation on Earth as obsessed with its military history as is the USA. Why is that?

The Girl Who Came Back by Kerry Wilkinson

Rating: WARTY!

The author is described by The Sun newspaper as a "crime-writing colossus." He's so big I've never heard of him. The story is that "Six-year-old Olivia Adams vanished from her own back garden. Thirteen years later, she returns. But is this the real missing child… or an impostor?" Check her DNA. There. I solved it. You're welcome. Yawn.

Dragon's Code by Gigi McCaffrey

Rating: WARTY!

"A fresh reboot...of the Dragonriders of Pern series from Anne McCaffrey's daughter!" Seriously? In what world is a reboot fresh? Ride coat-tails much Gigi? Couldn't come up with an original idea? Barf.

Double Fudge Brownie Murder by Joanne Fluke

Rating: WARTY!

"As a baker, Hannah knows her craft inside out… But when she becomes a murder suspect, can she find the recipe for proving her innocence?" Innocence doesn't have to be proved. Guilt does. But this story is just a fluke so don't sweat it.

That’s Not a Thing by Jacqueline Friedland

Rating: WARTY!

In yet another plot that's been done to death: "Set to marry another man, Meredith finds herself at a crossroads when fate throws her back together with Wesley — the ex-fiancé she never forgot." Why is there a problem? If she's hooked on her ex why hasn't she pursued it? If she's not, why is it a problem? Shit or get off the pot, Meredith. Any other behavior just makes you a bitch. This is another big no.

Winner Take All by Laurie Devore

Rating: WARTY!

"At Cedar Woods Prep Academy, ambitious Nell and privileged Jackson are drawn into a fierce rivalry that gives way to a whirlwind romance" Why wouldn't it? Inevitably rivalries end in marriage. It's just that this exact story has been told a billion times already, yet here we have yet another author chomping at the bit to ram it down our throats again. No. No! NO!

Annalynn the Canadian Spy by Shawn PB Robinson

Rating: WARTY!

"After she’s visited by a curious band of thieves, 10-year-old Annalynn is recruited as a spy for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service." Way to insult the Candian intelligence services! This is a non-starter.

Beachside Beginnings by Sheila Roberts

Rating: WARTY!

"After fleeing her abusive past, can Moira find a fresh start in Moonlight Harbor — without getting her heart broken?" My guess is yes, as another female author creates another weak and chickenshit female character. Why do women abuse women in this consistent and repugnant manner?

Layover by Becca Jameson

Rating: WARTY!

"After a red-hot night of passion, flight attendant Libby skips out on former soldier Jason — even though his dominance gives her the ultimate pleasure. But when he moves to her hometown, the temptation is too great to resist!" Why? She skipped out on it without a seocnd thought before. Which begs the question why? What's changed? Her underwear? His condom? Did she have a venereal disease and was too chickenshit to tell him? If not, don't worry - she'll soon get one with her behavior. No. Just no.

Knight Life by Peter David

Rating: WARTY!

Publisher's Weekly calls this reimagining of King Arthur’s story a “hilarious romp." I guess that tells me all I kneed to know about Publisher's Weekly, going forward. The story sounds stupid to me, and completely senseless. The idea is that "After disappearing from Avalon, King Arthur returns - and is running for mayor of New York City! Reuniting with his friends and trusty advisor Merlin, Arthur prepares to stand his ground as familiar dark forces threaten his campaign"

Why? Why New York and in what world would New Yorkers elect an Englishman as mayor? It's just stupid from the very concept onward, and since Merlin and Arthur were not actually contemporary (except in later fiction, the idea of them working together is nonsensical. Set in the USA, and written by an American writer, look for this to bear zero relationship whatsoever to any legend of Arthur.

The Particular Charm of Miss Jane Austen by Ada Bright, Cass Grafton

Rating: WARTY!

In another unoriginal, coat-tail riding episode, "Rose has dedicated her life to celebrating the legacy of her favorite author, Jane Austen. But when Rose’s mysterious new neighbor is revealed to be the time traveling novelist herself, the two women must work together to help Jane get back home… before it’s too late." Seriously? Barf.

Can we not let her rest in peace? Do we have to have yet another rip-off after all the endless derivations and rip-offs we've already had? And if we do have to have a rip-off, can it be something along a path not traveled - something that contributes rather than rips-off? I gues snot. But no for me.

Beyond Dead by Jordaina Sydney Robinson

Rating: WARTY!

The blurb spouts mindlessly, "New to the afterlife, Bridget ends up in hot water when a dead ghost is found in her locker." A dead ghost? Seriously? What, the afterlife has an afterlife? Where do ghosts go when they die? How do they even die if they're dead already? There might even have been a story there, but this sure as hell ain't it! This strikes me as one of those dumbass ideas that is worthy of a Saturday morning cartoon - where the story has a patina of difference to it, but really it's the same old thing and the patina is the only "difference." Yeah, we're all ghosts, but otherwise everything is exactly the same as if we were alive - so what's the fucking point, honestly?

The blurb claims that this is an "inventive supernatural mystery that's first in a series!" of course it is, because why do the work of writing a host of original nvoels when youc an retread the friost one into a series of sameness? I'll pass. No thanks. No more dumb-ass series.

This Way Home by Wes Moore with Shawn Goodman

Rating: WARTY!

What is that - when you're 'with' another author? Is that a cute way of saying it's ghost-written? If that's not it, then what exactly does it mean? I think it means author 'A' didn't do shit.

The blurb begins: "If you were moved by The Hate U Give...." I was - I was moved to avoid a novel with a title like that, like the plague. I never read it; I never saw the movie, so I doubt I will be "sure to be swept up by this," especially if Kirkus reviews reports that it's a "taut, haunting tragedy”.

KR coulldn't distinguish a taut, haunting tragedy from a taunting haughty travesty if it came out of its ass sideways, and even if they could, they'd still rate both of them highly because they never don't. If all your reviews are positive and gushing, then your voice is worthless.

I make it a point to avoid novels that are compared to other novels, especially if the comparison is in the form of "X" meets "Y" where X and Y are two novels that your novel is being likened to - as a mashup, otherwise known as a rip-off. I would be equally repelled if an author were listed as the new "Z" where Z is an established author. It's insulting to authors. This is a deifnitelt no.

Command Me by Geneva Lee

Rating: WARTY!

The blurb tells us that "Clara shares a kiss with Prince Alexander of Cambridge - a dominant bad boy and exiled royal heir - and their sexual chemistry is off the charts…" Which charts, exactly, is their sexual chemistry off? Thinking people want to know. Who created those charts? How did they measure them? And why were they so narrow in scope that so very many people in the world of fiction are not even on those charts? Hmm?

And who the hell is Price Alexander of Cambridge for fuck's sake? This is another bullshit royal (non-)romance that is, I can promise you now - and without evne reading it - is an exact cookie-cutter of every other royal romance and bad boy novel that's ever been written. There is quite literally nothign new here. It's a definite no.

Murder By Page One by Olivia Matthews

Rating: WARTY!

The book description was enough to rate this a zero: "After relocating from Brooklyn to Georgia, librarian Marvey expected her life to slow down. But when a dead body turns up at the local bookstore, and her friend becomes a suspect, Marvey teams up with newspaper owner Spence to uncover the truth." Ri-ight. Because no one is better qualifed to solve a murder than a librarian looking for a quiet life and a newspaper reporter. Teams of librarians and reporters are are solving crimes with a record success-rate all over the world because the police are utterly useless. R-ight! Barf. Definitely no on this one.

The Fragile Ordinary by Samantha Young

Rating: WARTY!

The fact that Kirkus Reviews claims this is a "powerful roller-coaster ride" tells me I should avoid it like the plague, since Kirkus is utterly clueless. The book description does nothing save confirm it. The main character's name is the barf-worthy Comet Caldwell, which is a definite 'no' from me, and it's an unimaginative chalk and cheese story that's already been done to death ad neauseam. She's a "painfully shy bookworm" who "meets Tobias King, a new student with a bad reputation." In short it's YA garbage that's been retreaded and recycled far too many times to count and the author should be ashamed of herself for even thinking of writing it. A definite warty on this one.

Living With Viola by Rosena Fung

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I loved this graphic novel. Having dealt very recently with an anxiety situation which did not end well, it really spoke to me with all its messy art and confused panels, but it told a real story of problems and issues that can overwhelm a person so easily and without warning.

Based on the author's personal experience, we meet Livy, who is dealing with a new school, parental expectations, making friends, and growing into a young woman of color all at the same time. She does not expect Viola to show up - Livy's highly critical and judgmental alter-ego who only she can see, and who is a constant presence, delighting in her every failure. Making friends seems to provide some escape, but even that starts going sideways and Viola never lets up.

Fortunately in Livy's case, there is help; she's smart enough and strong enough to avail herself of it, and the outcome is good. I wish it could be that way for everyone. This book scorched some raw nerve-endings for me, but it told an honest and revealing story in graphic in enlightening terms, with inventive and provocative graphics and a sincere heart, and I commend it as a worthy read.

Soccernomics by Simon Kuper, Stefan Szymanski

Rating: WARTY!

If you look at an older version of this book, which is what I read, you will see this on the cover: "Why England Loses, why Spain, Germany and Brazil win, and why the US, Japan, Australia, and even Iraq are destined to become the kings of the world's most popular sport." A more recent edition had this: "Why England Loses, why Germany and Brazil win, and why the US, Japan, Australia, Turkey, and even Iraq are destined to become the kings of the world's most popular sport."

Notice the changes? That's because this book is full of shit. It cherry picks its data (and there's precious little of that) to support the predetermined theses of the authors. Once in a while there's a rare nugget, but most of the good advice in this book is nothing more than commonsense, and most of the 'data' is nothing more than a few choice anecdotes which prove nothing. I don't think anyone with common sense would try to argue that statistics cannot be of value to the soccer world, but the authors really don't make that case here.

The big problem is that the book is regularly self-contradictory, negating in a later chapter what it only just got through asserting as a 'solid fact' in an earlier one. In short, it's a mess. It's way too long and rambling. It could be literally half as long and make the same points, but it would still be wrong. The volume I read was last updated in 2014, and here we are, and the US, Japan, Australia, Turkey, and even Iraq are not kings of the sport or anywhere near. I was just reading a coupel of days ago that United States will miss its third straight Olympic men’s soccer tournament. And Brazil hasn't done so much winning lately, either! Not that the book really makes an effort to explain why they're supposed to - and not that it really talks much about south American football.

One thing they really didn't cover in terms of international football, is something they mentioned briefly in team sports which is that picking the best players doesn't necessarily mean you have the best team. The players have to work well together, so it's not enough to buy the best forwards, midfielders and defenders, you have to buy the best who can integrate into a team to really get the results you want. I don't think they pursued that anywhere near as strenuously as they ought to have. Instead they seemed to be focusing on everything else, some of which was nonsense.

The book's main thrust is almost entirely on Europe which is quite plainly wrong. Europe has a strong football tradition, but it's far from the only region of the world which has such a tradition these days, and the book says literally nothing about women's football, like it doesn't exist, which begs the question: why the sexism? And why are women's international games producing significantly different results than the men's games? That's certainly a question worth exploring but it's not even touched on here. I can't commend this because it's very poorly done and does nothing to offer original or penetrating answers to the questions it poses.

Vulnerable AF by Tarriona Ball

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Written and read by Tarriona "Tank" Ball, this book of hard hitting poetry tells a very personal story of relationships and the attendant hurt, and I enjoyed it a lot. It's very short - only about 40 minutes in audiobook form. The author is talented, with a strong poetic voice and a good reading voice, and her choices of words and phrasing are lively and challenging.

The actual audiobook apparently comes with PDFs of the illustrations from the print book, but my review copy had no such augmentation, so I can't speak to those. The subject matter is relationships, so the 'vulnerable' in the title has a very limited meaning. No prizes for guessing what the 'AF' means! The poet behind this has a slam poetry kinf of a background - not my faovrite, but this isnlt quite that. Some of the couplets might seem a bit off here and there, but you cannot deny the depth of feeling that underlies this. amd the relationship resonance that powers it.

Having said that, I had two issues with the audiobook version that I should mention. The first is that the author, who read this herself (for which I commend her), would often launch into a poem strong and loud, only to tail off into a whisper at the end, so this was an issue in that you'd have to have the volume up to hear the end, but then the start of the next poem was too loud and brassy, or you'd have the start at a comfortable volume only to miss the ending because it was so sotto voce. I listen to audiobooks when driving, and this book is not suited to that at all because of the volume changes, but even when parked I was still uncomfortable with the significant changes in volume.

The other issue I had was with the piano accompaniment, which to me was an annoyance. The author's voice is a fine one and it felt like gilding the lily to add a rather monotonous piano accompaniment to it. I'd rather it was just me and the author. I'm a big advocate of an author reading their own work although I understand that there are often valid reasons why an author will not or cannot do this. It seemed a shame to me, therefore, that I went into this with a joyous 'play Ball!' in my mind only to have my expectations sometimes overshadowed or diminished by the rather tuneless piano playing.

But that could not hide the inherent power, inventiveness, and strength of these words, which is why I consider this a worthy read despite the distractions. I commend it fully. Tank Ball is a poet to watch - and to listen to!

The Explorer's Code by Alison K Hymas

Rating: WARTY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This was read decently enough by Laci Morgan, but that couldn't help a story which dragged and which felt all over the place to me. Nor could it help one of the characters, who I found obnoxious. Obviously this story isn't written for me, since I'm far from a middle-grader, but I've listened to and read many such stories before, and enjoyed a lot of them, so it wasn't the age range; it was the story itself.

Let me put in a minor qualification in here. This was an audiobook, and I listen to my audiobooks while out in the car commuting and doing other stuff. A book which deals in alphabetic cyphers and math problems really doesn't lend itself to that sort of listening, because you cannot see the printed word and study it, so the advisability of having this as an audiobook in the first place became questionable to me once I'd listened to a significant portion of it.

The story is of three youngsters, "math whiz" Charlie, his sister Anna, and another girl who they meet, named Emily. All three are with their families, spending time at an old house which has been turned into a hotel. I do believe it was explained how they came to be there, but I either missed the details or I've forgotten it, so I can't tell you. It's not really important.

In the course of their exploring the place, all three find clues to a mystery, but by the time I quit the story, they had solved nothing despite getting into everything, and the story really was dragging for me by then. The description indicates that they work together, and I'm sure they do, but the fact that by almost two-thirds the way through, they were barely on speaking terms was a problem and evinced very little in the way of cooperation or faith in them as a team.

On top of that one of them finds some old letters which were read out in full in the story and were tedious to listen to. They felt like a ball and chain on the story. Maybe they were supposed to be clues, but they sounded more clueless to me. Consequently, around sixty percent in, I decided I'd had enough of this and DNF'd it without any regrets. Younger readers might have more patience with it than I, but I wouldn't bet on that.

I was put off the story quite early by Anna, who was frankly a nightmare. She had no boundaries, no sense of personal space or privacy, and was an unrepentant pain-in-the-ass troublemaker of a child who would wander around routinely into places she didn't belong - and knew she wasn't supposed to be there - yet she never felt bad about it or had any problem with being a busy-body, an unregenerate rule breaker, and a meddling little demon. I disliked her pretty much from the start.

How you can pretend there's an explorer's "code" and then feature a hobgoblin like Anna was the only real mystery here for me. Charlie and Emily, by contrast were such bland characters that they never really registered with me as anyone to pay that much attention to. Emily was mildly obnoxious, but was a milksop compared with Anna. Charlie was a one-note character as were most of the people in this story for that matter. Charlie was bland to the point of fading into the woodwork he studied so intently.

So, overall, not a good experience, and I certainly cannot commend this as a worthy read.

It's OK to Need a Friend by Annelies Draws

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I don't know squat about this author except that she (or maybe he!) draws and illustrates a treat, and presents us with a cute chubby Little Brown Bear who happily goes through life being a friend, helping out, and passing on and learning lessons. As the description has it, friendship is both a gift and a skill and this book helps youngsters to discover how to offer the one while picking up the other. I commend this as a worthy read.

It's OK to Make Mistakes by Annelies Draws

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

As the description has it, mistakes give us the power to learn and grow, and as long as we're doing that we're on a winning path. All it takes is a cautious sense of adventure and a willingness to try even if you may fail. I commend this as a worthy read.

ABC for Me: ABC Let's Celebrate You & Me by Sugar Snap Studio

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This was a cute and positive book, nicely illustrated, which goes A to Z on, as the description says, "either a physical or character attribute, and each page promotes self-love and kindness to others." This is delightfully true, and the attitude of kindness and acceptance which permeates every page is a joy and a treat. I commend this as a worthy read.

Andy Warhol by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara, Timothy Hunt

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I've read many of Vegara's books. This author must be a little demon workhorse to turn out so many of these ebooks. I believe there are like five dozen of them now, and I sure haven't read that many, but I have read quite a few. There has been only one, if I recall correctly, that I have not liked. This one was no exception to the likeability rule.

Andy Warhola, as he was originally, was the child of Slovakian immigrants who was shy and had an artistic leaning from an early age. He finished college and moved quickly to New York where he was able to find work as an illustrator, before he branched out into celebrating the mundane and became a world-famous artist, inspired by the soup cans from which he made his lunch each day.

This book tells a short, sweet, and nicely illustrated (by Hunt) story of his life and work and I commend it.

Piperlicious Goes To Hawaii by Teresa Hunt, Aneeza Ashraf

Rating: WARTY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I'm not sure about the main character's name or the idea of herself and her younger sister going off unsupervised, but clearly this is a pure fantasy story not remotely tied to reality, which then begs the question as to how it can highlight Hawaii's attractions when it's so disconnected. There also seemed to be a lot of convenient things falling improbably place: Piperlicious winning a vacation to the very place she wanted to go, and her effortless finding of the treasure.

The story was upbeat and fun, and the illustrations by Ashraf were cute, brightly colored, and satisfying, and Piperlicious's dedication her quest was quite admirable, but given how spoiled she seems to be and how easy everything is for her, I really don't see how I can commend this a worthy read.

I'd like a little more realism, even in a fantasy story. I have to wonder how Piperlicious would cope if she ever had a day when things didn't automatically and predictably go precisely the way she wants them to. I can't commend this for that reason. It just felt wrong and too 'lucky' when others are having a hard time, especially right now. This was too 'Disney Princess' for my taste.

The Mole and the Hole by Brayden Kowalczuk

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This was a weird story about a mole who would love to get above ground, but who is hampered from doing so by abundant rocks. Pretty much everything in this story has a face and a motivation, including the rocks, who seem to be conspiring to keep the mole down there with his pet bug. I found it amusing that the mole has a pet.

I also found the story a bit confusing and wondered from time to time if there's a meta story going on here, but in the end it seems to be just a tale of the mole finding a place to live that doesn't have so many rocks. There are no rocks underground in this world, just on the surface, and despite the book description, there seems to be no attempt here to tell any morality tale, so it seems we're supposed to figure that out for ourselves, I guess, or just enjoy the story. It was, as I said, a bit of a mess, but it was nicely illustrated by the author and amusingly told, so I commend this as a worthy read for children.

Olive and Ginger by Xenia Mesot, Vladislav Khristenko, Mariia Khristenko

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Illustrated by the Khristenkos, and written by Xenia Mesot, this book was sweet and fun, and amusing. It has more words than your usual book of this nature and for me that's a good thing. The illustrations are well-done, fun and engaging, and the story is an unusual, but entertaining one. My family used to have a cat named Ginger who was a wild and crazy girl. Ginger here is a boy and the toad is the girl. The two meet and find each other interesting enough to become friends.

The book is divided into three short chapters each on a different topic. The first is of course their meeting, and becoming friends. The curious thing about that is that they don't tell each other their names, and are known throughout simply as Toad and Cat. They discuss their interests, which in Toad's case seem largely to be her fantasies about dragonflies, and in Cat's case seem to be mice. Go figure!

They talk about their love of singing, and have a duet even though each thinks the other's voice could use some training. They discuss hygiene and Cat opines about being shampooed, which leads to an amusing discussion about what purpose it serves and how Cat tried to sabotage the process at one point.

The book was deliciously offbeat and very warming to read, and I commend it completely.

Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal

Rating: WORTHY!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, though it was rather on the long side and a bit rambling, but it's a topic I enjoy greatly, and an author I love. On top of this, it was read beautifully by Sean Runnette. I'm a big advocate of an author reading their own material, but I understand that there are good reasons why many authors do not. Though this reader isn't Dutch, listening to him reading it so well, it was one of those occasions where, with a slight stretch of the imagination, you can fool yourself into thinking that this is how the author would have read it.

The book rambles a bit and might be somewhat stodgy and overly academic for some, but it was precisely what I was expecting and I had no unpleasant surprises, only a lot of satisfying ones. There were scores of examples of animals' intelligence, with many interesting anecdotes and lots of descriptions of scientific studies which went into enough detail to explain why it was a scientific study and what result it showed, but without belaboring it. The studies have covered all kinds of animals from mollusks to monkeys, birds to apes, fish to elephants, and a variety of others.

The book explains how these studies differ and what they show, and how one study can or cannot be made to work with another species for an assortment of reasons. While it was thorough, I was never bored, and felt no need to skip a page or two. We learn how studies have changed along with our view of society and why older views as to the limitations of animal cognition are invalid, so it's as much a measure of change in human cognition as it is in measuring animal cognition, which is quite intriguing.

I whole-heartedly commend this as a worthy read.

Small Town Superhero by Cheree Alsop

Rating: WARTY!

Thus was a non-starter for me. Well, not quite, since I did start it, but I also soon stopped it because I quickly became bored with the unoriginal story-telling, the abundant clichés, and the lack of intelligence in the telling.

Kelson is a high school senior who, for reasons unspecified in the portion I read, has to go live with relatives. He's a city boy who is on a farm, and the complete lack of originality was laughable. This was far more of a red-herring-out of water story than ever it was a fish-out-of-water in the claim that this city boy can't handle country life, and he quite literally spills the milk. Seriously?

This doesn't make me laugh. Instead it makes me cringe, because it tells me that purported hero Kelson is a complete moron who has no clue about anything. Any kid with even modest intelligence can handle a switch from city to country or vice-versa, especially in this day and age when no one's lifestyle is much of a mystery anymore. Yeah, there will be a learning curve and mistakes, but for the author to try and push the unimaginative and lackluster narrative that Kelson is utterly clueless and totally unprepared is farcical and amateur and makes him look like a complete moron.

That was bad enough, but to deal with that after an appalling and brutal bullying incident in school, in full view of everyone, and where no one reacted or helped, not even the teacher who witnessed it, is beyond ridiculous. No kid reacted? No teacher? No parent? When a gang of bullies picks on the new boy? Horse shit. I guess this author really hates teachers to portray them such a cynical and callous way.

Any writer who writes like this should be ashamed of their cluelessness and stupidity. This is not to say that there is no bullying in schools. Of course there is, but for it to be so brazen, violent, and unopposed is nonsensical, and it turned me off the story even before the fish-out-of-water garbage, which turned out to be the final straw that broke this book's back. I lost all interest in pursuing this story - or anything else by this author.

This is also in first person which is another problem. Some authors know how to do this, but I got the impression that this author was doing it simply because everyone else is - or so she thinks. It felt so inauthentic and ridiculous that Kelson steadily narrates his own experience of being beaten up, and for him to let it happen when he could apparently and readily defend himself, just because his cousin shakes her head? WTF?! No. No. No! Who calmly narrates being punched? No one! Get a clue authors!

The first person brought another problem, too. If the novel is in third person and the narrative objectifies a female, that's a problem. If this objectification is put into the mouth of a character, it’s not so much a problem because there are people who think like that, but when your main character, the one you're trying to turn into a hero, has these thoughts: "She wasn’t pretty, per se, with her hair pulled back in a ponytail and her clothes a mismatch of obvious hand-me-downs, but there was something intriguing about her." That makes me wonder about Kelson's character. At least this author didn't write it as 'per say' which I have read before in a published novel!

A better way to have written this - had it to be written at all - would have been for someone else to have made the comment that she wasn't pretty and for Kelson to have overheard it and then to have those thoughts that she had something intriguing about her. To write it the way it was written makes him sound judgmental. Or maybe just mental. Judgmental isn’t likeable. It makes him a jerk. Just a free bit of advice on character creation

But this book was a fail and I condemn it, not commend it.

The Hell of Osirak by Jaye Rothman

Rating: WARTY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I made it only a quarter of the way through this because it felt weak on dialog and plot. It began with British MI6 (the Brit equivalent of the CIA) agent Nikki Sinclair traveling to South Africa to secure some microfilm regarding South Africa's supplying of yellowcake, which is uranium concentrate powder, to Israel to facilitate Israel's construction of nuclear weapons.

For reasons I could not fathom, instead of handing those over to the British emabssy in South Africa (from whence they could have been sent to Britain in a diplomatic bag), Nikki then takes an indirect flight out which ends up landing in Zaire! The plane is held for several days for some sort of inspection or repair, and Nikki is trapped there.

This seemed highly improbable to me. At best it was lousy planning on the part of MI6 and at worst serious incompetence! The thing is though that an old flame of Nikki's named Dvora, who works for Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, is also on the flight, and she shows up in Nikki's room, univited, waiting for her to get out of the shower, which she does, and walks into her bedroom to find Dvora sitting on her bed. Nikki is of course wearing only a towel around her head and one around her waist.

Again this seemed so artifical that it made no sense, and it threw me out of suspension of disbelief. I can see a towel around the hair, but why around the waist? Why not around the chest? Why a towel at all since she believes she's alone in the room? It felt like the only reason she did this was to perk up the story, not because it's what real people do.

For me, this lack of realism was a problem that seemed to repeat itself, constantly reminding me this was just a story. Every other thing I read seemed like it was there because this was a fiction, not because we were supposed to immersed in real events. Suspension of disbelief wasn't an option after a while, because I could not lose myself in the story, for no other reason than how artifical it seemed.

On top of that the story itself wasn't really engaging. I couldn't bring myself to care about Nikki or Dvora, or their mission. I couldn't develop any interest in the time period the story was supposedly set, because there really was nothing to establish it in the early eighties. There was no mention of music or fashion, of vehicles, or news items. All we had was this yellowcake israel was buying.

I didn't feel any sort of tension or thrill from reading this and the premise felt weak. Why would the Israelis care about the safety of a British agent who they believed was about to expose some of their nuclear subterfuge? Why didn't Nikki (or someone) even once check the microfilm to make sure that what was on it was actually what the Brits had bargained for? Why wasn't the film handed-off once or twice to disguise who had it? The story felt so haphazard and at the same time too simplistic.

That said it wasn't until I read (as part of that bedroom scene):

Dvora shook her head. "Please, don't reject me." Her gaze pleaded. "I don't know if I could bear it."

that I gave up on this. It struck me as the last thing a Mossad agent would say to anyone, not even an old flame. It just felt too fake. Nikki is apparently still obsessed over a previous boss, and Dvora is still obsessed with Nikki. It felt too much like a soap opera and nowhere near enough like a spy thriller, and to me this wasn't the story I signed up for.

I think this author has a good story or two in her, but it wasn't this one. I like strong, motivated women who know their own mind, make things happen, and get things done, which it seemed to me is what trained agents should do; especially a Mossad agent. This felt too wishy-washy for my taste. I can't commend it based on the portion I read.

Sex Wars by Marge Piercy

Rating: WARTY!

I could not get into this novel at all. It bored me from the start. Usually I have no interest in historical novels that feature characters well-known to history, in this case: Susan Anthony, Anthony Comstock, Elizabeth Stanton, and Victoria Woodhull. The reason for that is that authors typically write really badly when dealing with real people from history: demeaning or belittling them, re-forming them in their own image, puffing them up ridiculously, or rendering them as caricatures; in general, not having any idea how to represent them realistically.

Unfortunately I overlooked my misgivings about that in this case, and sure enough, it wasn't long before I realized what a mistake that was. This story is of a woman named Freydeh Levin who is working to earn enough money to bring her family over to the USA. Somehow she didn't know her younger sister was in the city and when she tries to find her, she realizes she's actually missing. Freydeh starts looking for her, which takes her along a sad trail of cheap living, brothels, and prisons. That's hardly inspiring.

This could have been a really interesting story, but it dragged, and I never did like any of the characters. I tried several times to get going on it, but whenever I put it down, I felt no compulsion to pick it up again, so after it sat for a while and I realized I really had zero interest in pursuing it, I ditched it for something more interesting. Life is too short to waste on books that simply don't do it for you. I can't commend this one, based on what I read of it, which admittedly wasn't much.

Clap if You Can Hear Me by Kelly Mitchell

Rating: WARTY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I was truly disappointed in this book. I had hoped for a lot more, but at only 4% in I came across a list of problems that purportedly needed addressing, and discovered that the list was not only out of date, but inaccurate as presented by the author. She writes, "The 1990s carried some scary trends and statistics" and yet offers nothing to support this statement. Instead she gives a list which I reproduce below, annotated by me. The only link she offers to support these assertions goes not to a list of references or statistics, but to a paper by Thomas Lickona, part of which she lifts to create her list below.

The problem with Lickona's paper is that he makes no better or really any different argument to what this author makes and the references he lists are all dated 1993 or earlier! They really have nothing to do with "the nineties"! Even had they related, I don't see any connection being made between what he says was happening then, and what this author is advocating now in a book published fully thirty years after the start of the nineties. Let's look at the items she lists. My comments are from searches online verified by at least two sources and are not hard to find for anyone interested in actually supporting or refuting claims like these.

• A rise in youth violence While there was a rise in violence, fueled, it seems from youth crime, it peaked in 1994 and then tapered off.
• Increase in dishonesty in academics and society It's hard to find good information on this, but cheating was high before the nineties which experienced only a small rise as far as I could discover.
• Disrespect for authority How do you measure that? I couldn't find anything relevant online.
• Bullying Increased racial tensions & bigotry on campusA 2014 report covering the previous two decades and summarizing data from five national surveys, has bullying declining, not rising. Racial tensions have been rising very recently and we all know who started the bigotry, racist politics, homophobia, misogyny and general disrespect for anyone and anything that doesn't fall in line with his narrow-minded PoV. He should never be allowed to hold any public position ever again.
• Work ethic decline Again hard to determine. While anecdote suggests worth ethic has been declining, the fact remains that after a slump, the US economy grew in the 1990s, so lots of people were actually working hard! It's not easy to square that with a claim that work ethic is declining.
• Promiscuity and teen pregnancy (US had the highest rates of pregnancy & abortion) This is flatly wrong. Teen pregnancy rate peaked in 1990 and has been on a decline ever since. With regard to promiscuity, how is that defined exactly? More than one partner? More than five? What? Decades-long trends back to World War One show women evidencing an increased number of sexual partners (but hardly what any reasonable person would describe as promiscuous) in line with their increasing freedom, while men's partner count has been on a decline since World War Two. The percentage of US adults having a positive attitude toward premarital sex was about 40% at the start of the 1990s, and about 50% at the start of the 2000's. That's hardly a meteoric rise.
• Lack of civic responsibility & overabundant self-centeredness Again look who was president over the last four years prior to 2021, but this has nothing to do with schooling or with the 1990s.
• Self-destructive behavior Defined how, exactly? There's a separate line item for suicide and one for homicide, so what does "self-destructive behavior" actually mean? Cutting? Incarceration? What? This reference: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/sp/DimRet.pdf has it that "In the seven-year period 1991-98 the overall rate of crime declined by 22%, violent crime by 25%, and property crime by 21%" During this time incarceration increased significantly. If that's what's meant, why not specify it?
• Decreased knowledge & practice of ethics Again undefined and unsupported.
• Male homicide rates soared for 15 to 24-year-olds (40X higher than Japans) No! Homicide rates declined sharply from 1991 thru 2010: https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf , but what's with the exaggerated comparison with Japan? The USA rate is higher than lots of other places. Why mention Japan?
• Increased drug use (US highest again) Drug use has been dropping since the mid-1990's
• Astounding youth suicide rates (tripled) This reference flatly refutes a tripling of suicides of any group in the US: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1586156/

Given that nearly all of these claims parroted from Lickona by the author are outright wrong or exaggerated or misrepresented when applied to the nineties, and at any rate are completely irrelevant in the 21st century without more recent research to back them up, I see no point in mentioning them in this book!

For the author to then leap to the claim that her book offers ways to set this right is frankly mind-boggling given how out of date these "statistics" are. Do any of these problems still exist today, almost two generations of school students later?! Are they declining or increasing? Are there other, more recent issues that we ought to focus on instead of, or as well as, these? In all seriousness, I cannot commend a book built upon such a haphazard and dated foundation regardless of what value the rest of it may or may not offer, and I have no intention of reading further when the book starts out mired in such a morass of questionable 'facts'.

The Dire Days of Wollowweep Manor by Shaenon K Garrity, Christopher Baldwin

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

The description has it that this is Nimona meets Paper Girls, but having read both of those stories, I didn't see it. This is its own story, and I dislike it when a new work is compared with a mashup of older ones. To me, it feels insulting to the author.

Often I will not even think of reading a story that's described in such a way, but fortunately I didn't let that put me off this one for once! I really enjoyed this. It was smart, original, entertaining, amusing, and fun. The mashup that this graphic novel does achieve is the impressive feat of conjoining a Gothic romance with sci-fi story about a pocket universe that acts aa a protection against the evil 'Bile' which comes from another universe and seeks to subsume everything.

The story is of Haley, a high-schooler and hopeless Gothic romance addict who gets into trouble with her teacher for turning in yet another book report about a Gothic romance. She's advised that she has to try something new or risk failing. Walking home in the pouring rain that evening (it rains a lot in this graphic!) she espies a young man struggling in the creek as she crosses the bridge, and she plunges in to help him, somehow ending up inside a Gothic romance. She learns this is a pocket universe leeching its world from the world of Gothic romance stories, so naturally there are three brooding, old-world brothers: Cuthbert, Lawrence, and Montague, a strange housemaid, and a ghost! Of course! But not everything is what you think it is, so don't jump to any conclusions.

Haley struggles through this with courage, aplomb and good humor, making some sneaky references to Gothic romances as she goes, and eventually wins out. The novel features rather ineffectual brothers and strong female characters including Haley who is a young black woman and who's deadly with an umbrella. Overall this was a fun story - a little bit on the lengthy side, maybe, if I had a criticism, but a good engaging story that I commend as a worthy read.