A Conspiracy in Belgravia by Sherry Thomas

Rating: WARTY!

"Posing as a male detective named Sherlock, Charlotte Holmes sets out to solve London's most baffling mysteries - including the disappearance of her own half-brother." For fuck's sake! Really? No! Too much sherry.

Murder at the Lighthouse by Frances Evesham

Rating: WARTY!

"When a woman is found dead under a lighthouse, amateur sleuth Libby Forest teams up with her standoffish cat, a massive dog, and an attractive local to catch the culprit." But the solution is obvious: if she was found dead under a lighthouse, the lighthouse fell on her! Do we honestly need a cat and a dog in this story? Really? Couldn't it be, for a change, a catfish and a dogfish? Any novel with the word 'sleuth' anywhere on the cover is an automatic no. Or in this case anywhere in the cove...!

Awaken by Skye Malone

Rating: WARTY!

"Despite being forbidden to go near the ocean, Chloe runs away to the beach. Unable to resist the water, she sets in motion a series of strange occurrences and dangerous events - and discovers her true identity" Like it isn’t obvious? And why is the author Skye Malone? Why not Ocean Malone? C Malone? Levem Malone?

Shot to Hell by William W Johnstone and JA Johnstone

Rating: WARTY!

"When Perley Gates and his cowhand, Possum, journey to the small town of Bison Gap to avenge a murder, they find themselves facing down a ruthless gang of outlaws." It took two people to write this? I'm on the side of the outlaws. Perley Gates? seriously? Possum? Bison Gap? Why not just call it Buffalo Butt-Crack?

Displacement by Braylee Parkinson

Rating: WARTY!

"Private investigator Sylvia Wilcox will risk anything to find the truth behind her husband’s death." Even starring in an unoriginal novel? She must be desperate!

How to Find Love in a Bookshop by Veronica Henry

Rating: WARTY!

"After her father’s passing, Emilia considers selling the family bookstore. But the colorful members of her tight-knit community may change her mind… Tight knit or tightly knitting? It could be either in a story like this. USA Today describes this as "A love letter to books and the shops that sell them" but the book is selling through Amazon, the very online store that is killing local bookstores! How hypocritical can you get, Veronica? Stories about writers and about bookstores are a big no-no unless they have something truly original to offer, and almost none of them do.

Sweet Southern Magic by Amy Boyles

"Down-on-her-luck Pepper Dunn’s life takes a magical turn when she inherits a shop in Magnolia Cove - and learns that she’s a witch! But when murder mysteries abound, Pepper must put her newfound gifts to the test in this charming collection of cozy mysteries." How are there even mysteries when she's a witch? A quick spell and the crime is solved! And how can she not know she has magical powers? This is why I never read books anymore with the word 'southern' anywhere on the cover...! It's an automatic reject. And Magnolia Cove? Could you lard the story up any more?

Fate Bound by Madeline Freeman

Rating: WARTY!

The title is a no-no, right out of the gate. Any title of the form "____ Bound" is an automatic rejection right there. It's particularly amusing that the title "____ Bound" in this case is written by a Freeman! LOL! "When Ava survives a deadly attack, she wakes up as both a werewolf and a vampire" - how original! "but the supernatural community hates hybrids." Why? "Can Ava’s alpha, Jack, find a way to keep her safe?" Who gives a flying fuck what tired trope stock character Jack the Alpha can or can't do? It's the most tired and over-used go-to name ever. And why is Ava yet another useless female charcter who needs rescuing by a guy? Madeline, do you truly hate your own gender that much?

Dreams and Shadows by C Robert Cargill

Rating: WARTY!

"As a child, Ewan was banished to our world from a hidden, magical one. Now, the boundary between realms is blurring…" yeahhhhh...it's that word 'realms' I just can't see anything worthwhile lying beyond.

Immortal Vegas: The Official Boxset by Jenn Stark

Rating: WARTY!

"Artifact hunter Sara makes a living tracking down magical objects. But a shadowy enemy is drawing closer with every dangerous job she completes." Of course it is. What I want to know is, where's the fucking box? When I get a box set, I want a box. This feels more like a set-up.

The Wind’s Twelve Quarters by Ursula K Le Guin

Rating: WARTY!

"From the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning author of The Left Hand of Darkness comes an enthralling collection of stories that will captivate readers of science fiction and fantasy!" I promise you it won't. That's why it's being offered at a discount price. Yawn. And twelve qurters? Where did that bullshit come from? Could it by any chance be the number of stories in the collection? Barf.

Rapturous by Marie Force

Rating: WARTY!

The title alone ought to be enough to warn a reader off this novel. "Addison has always had feelings for her boss’s best friend, Hayden. But when they finally share a sizzling night together, will she submit to his every desire?" I promise you she will, because has has zero self respect. Yawn.

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

Rating: WARTY!

"A young journalist grapples with work, love, and identity in London. - The vibrant Queenie is a modern-day Bridget Jones’s Diary" Modern day? Since when is the mid-nineties considered antiquity? Another cookie-cutter excuse for an original story. But I have to grant the author a fabulous name. It's just a real pity that the plotting lets it down.

Panic Point by Bill Briscoe

Rating: WARTY!

"When his wife is abducted during their honeymoon in the Great Smoky Mountains, veteran Navy SEAL Earl Helmsly is determined to find her." Another Navy SEAL story! How original! 'Cos there sure aren't enough of those already and when there are enough of those, don't worry, because we'll still have the Air Force Special Tactics, the Army Green Berets, the Army Night Stalkers, the Army Rangers, the Navy SEALs Missions, the Navy SWCCs, the Marine MARSOC, the Marine RECON, and the Marine RECON Missions. Don't worry: we'll enver run out of unoriginal stories.

Hot Property Sherryl Woods

Rating: WARTY!

"Molly DeWitt is looking for a fresh start... Too bad trouble seems to be looking for her! When a wealthy man is found with a knife in his back - Molly's knife - she'll have to race against detective Michael O'Hara to prove her innocence." No, that's not how it works! The prosecutor must prove guilt. Why Molly is racing around like she has something to hide, or worse, to cover up, is the real mystery here, and nobody cares anyway, because it's one more in a tedious line of cookie-cutter, utterly invariant, non-mysteries.

Partners in Crime by Elise Sax

Rating: WARTY!

"Peter is ready to give up his career as a spy and live a quiet life - until Piper walks out of the woods with no clothes or memory of what happened to her. When the two join forces to decipher Piper's dangerous past, can they manage to stay focused as their chemistry heats up?" Peter and Piper? Really? Retitle this "Piper at the Gates of Dumb" and I might recycle it rather than toss it straight into landfill waste. Barf.

The Force by Don Winslow

Rating: WARTY!

"Top NYPD detective Denny Malone has served his city for years" Oh look! A New York cop with an Irish name! How original. This ought to have been titled, "The farce". The force isn't with The Winslow Boy.

Just One Night by Kyra Davis

Rating: WARTY!

"Responsible Kasie succumbs to a night of passion with Robert in Las Vegas - only to later discover he's the powerful CEO she'll be working with" This plot has never been done before - if you don't count the million times it actually has. Yawn.

A Taste for Love by Jennifer Yen

Rating: WARTY!

Or is this A Yen for Love by Jennifer Taste?! We can never be sure! "When Liza agrees to help out with an annual competition at her mother's bakery, she soon realizes all of the contestants are young men her mom wants her to date. And she finds herself reluctantly drawn to infuriatingly handsome James" No wonder Kirkus thought this was great. An unoriginal story is "changed up" by substituting Asian characters and suddenly it's scrumptious? The dumbass 'infuriatingly handsome' line in the description has been overdone to the point where it's burned to a crisp. Throw it in the trash along with your cookie-cutter. Next please.

The Unteachables by Gordon Korman

Rating: WARTY!

"When disillusioned educator Mr Zachary Kermit is assigned to teach a group of misfit students, mayhem ensues - and a life-changing bond is formed." How utterly unoriginal and completely predictable! Let's make it into a sitcom with a laugh track. No wonder Kirkus loved it.

Dead Days of Summer by Carolyn Hart

Rating: WARTY!

When her husband is falsely accused of murder, mystery bookstore owner Annie must find the real killer on their South Carolina island - before her beloved winds up behind bars." Why? Are the South Carolina cops utterly incompetent? Does a bookstore owner have more resources than a police department when it comes to solving crimes? Seriously? Or are the laws different there, in that you have to prove your innocence, instead of the authorities having to prove your guilt?

The Misadventures of Catie Bloom by Brooke Stanton

Rating: WARTY!

"Catie needs a husband - before her little white lies blow up her glamorous career. But when Sam comes to her rescue, she might find more than she bargained for... A witty romantic comedy" How is it witty when it's been done a gazillion times before? This needs to be put into the witless protection program. It's dumb, tedious and unoriginal. And Catie needs to quit being a lying little shit. She's delusional. There's no such thing as a white lie; there are just lies, period.

Do It for the Prestige by Kaya LaSalle

Rating: WARTY!

Does this novel come with a guarantee that not a single word in it is truly original? I'm guessing not, but I'm also guessing it has little in the way of originality given that this same plot has been done to death a thousand times already. Barf. "Straitlaced Claire Evans is completely focused on her job as a PR strategist for the wealthy. She surprises herself when she has a one-night stand — and is even more surprised when the woman turns out to be her next client!" She's going to be more surprised still, when she discovers that she's contracted HPV from having unprotected sex with a stranger.

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

Rating: WARTY!

"A #1 New York Times bestseller with over 118,000 five-star Goodreads ratings!" and yet it still has to be offered at rock bottom prices in a book flyer? "Simon Snow may be the Chosen One, but he sure doesn’t feel like it. At the Watford School of Magicks, Simon must grapple with adventures, hijinks, and his infuriating roommate, Baz" Any blurbn that talks of a relationship with an 'infuriating' other is an automatic pass for me. Barf. It's time to hire a new and original book description writer Rowell, because this one is over the Rainbow. he's drunk the Flavor Aid, and then some.

The Merciful Crow by Margaret Owen

Rating: WARTY!

"Perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo...." Count me out then!

Peasants and Kings by Emma Slate

Rating: WARTY!

"While working at the luxurious Rex Hotel," Rex means king - get it? There's nothing like being hit sharply over the head with the patently obvious. I feel this novel is slated to fail. "Sterling Miller meets captivating billionaire Hadrian Rhys and can’t resist his commanding touch — nor his enticing offer to claim her" To claim her? Like she's lost property? Way to dis your own Gender, Slate. Another garbage 'women need to be owned' bullshit excuse for a novel. And there's nothing original here. Sterling is the silver medal and Hadrian is going to build a wall around her? Barf squared.

Vox by Christina Dalcher

Rating: WARTY!

“Intelligent, suspenseful, provocative, and intensely disturbing” (Lee Child) - remind me never to read anything Lee Child has ever written if he thinsk this is so good. It's time to put away Childish things. "In a near-future America, the government declares that women can only speak 100 words per day — but linguist Jean McClellan will stop at nothing to make sure her voice is heard." What kind of fucked-up shit is this? In what fucking universe would American women allow this to happen? Seriously? Way to dis your gender Dalcher.

In Case You Missed It by Lindsey Kelk

Rating: WARTY!

"After losing her dream job in the United States, Ros returns to her quiet British hometown - and discovers everyone has moved on. Could an accidental text to her ex be her ticket to a new beginning?" No, because unfortunately, her ex is a psychopath and he murders her, has a sex-change, and assumes her entire life. Very sad. Seriously? Hasn't this lousy, anti-feminist pathetic garbage story of an uninteresting loser-girl running back to her hometown and being rescued from her worthlessness by a guy already been told like ten billion times before already? Get a new shtick Kelk, for heaven's sake. Come up with something original for once in your life. Support your gender instead of trashign it with these sad excuses for tired, enbdlessly-reworked plots.

Winter Cowboy by RJ Scott

Rating: WARTY!

What exactly is winter cowbioy? Do they round up snowflakes? Corral icicles? Go on snowdrift drives? This tells us that "Micah and Daniel loved each other - until a devastating tragedy tore them apart. But when they both return to Whisper Ridge, they gain a chance to heal old wounds..." Two guys on a mountain? Can you say Brokeback Ridge redux? How original.

Find Me by Francesca Riley

Rating: WARTY!

A typical YA paranormal romance. If the ridiculous title doesn't turn you off, the book description should: "When 17-year-old Skye returns to the seaside village where she grew up, she becomes captivated by Hunter, a gorgeous and mysterious swimmer." Hunter and Skye? Really? I think Hunter is maybe a merman since the cover shows the girl in the water. But if he's the hunter, why call her Skye? Why not call her Kipper - or Snapper? LOL! No thanks to this garbage.

Freed by EL James

Rating: WARTY!

Talking of garbage, here's what's hopefully the actual final instalment in the Fifty Shades of Tired series: "The final installment of the renowned Fifty Shades series from Christian's perspective!" which unfortunately doesn't say a thing about there not being any more of this trash. It's the series that made BDSM stand for boring, dumb, morose shit. What's the next trilogy? From the fly on the wall's perspective? From Anastasia's pussy's perspective? The blurb continues: "With a wedding on the horizon, will Christian's need for control tear him and Ana apart - or will their passion set him free?" Don't we already know the answer to this abusive and misleading relationship? Grey steel is what this is - cold and unappealing and dangerous when people try to emulate this without knowing what they're doing. It's yet another series that's fit to be tied.

No Flowers Required by Cari Quinn

Rating: WARTY!

"With her flower shop close to going under, Alexa could do with a distraction - and sexy handyman Dillon might be just what she needs." Why not just call him Dildo and be done with it? Business savvy is what this dipshit actually needs.

Tear Me Apart by JT Ellison

Rating: WARTY!

Here's a lesson: never buy a novel with a dumb-ass title like this. "After a tragic skiing accident, Mindy needs a stem cell transplant." Seriously? How the fuck do you end up needing a stem cell transplant due to a skiing accident? Did her eggs freeze?

Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage

Rating: WARTY!

"Suzette struggles to be a good mother - and she's about to learn the terrifying truth about her seven-year-old daughter." That she should have been born seven years ago, but Crap Suzette has purposefully kept her in the womb all this time to protect her, and now the poor kid is trying to eat her way out and claim her freedom? Sounds like a great plot for a novel!

Knockout by Mia Gold

Rating: WARTY!

Holly Hands is a pro at repossessing cars - but the unexpected discovery of a corpse inside a trunk" - does she normally expect to find a corpse in the trunk? "...isn't something she's prepared for." I imagine not. "She and her loyal dog, Lucky, will have to rely on their wits to stay alive." Why? Didn't she report the find to the cops?

Charm by JA Armitage

Rating: WARTY!

The only other novel I've read by this author was The Sorcery Trial which she co-wrote with Claire Luana. I did not like that because it was poor, and also too much of a rip-off of The Hunger Games. It seems like here we are again, this time ripping-off fairytales and I have to wonder why the author doesn't try to come up with something original. Normally I will not give these novels the time of day because they're all the same, but read on!

I made a mistake with this one, because I ended up misreading the book description and thinking it was something of a rival to my own Femarine because the princess is expected to pick a spouse and ends up choosing the last person anyone would expect. I'd misread pretty good though, and I thought she'd picked a woman, but she didn't! It was just that the guy she did pick was a kitchen helper who was improbably named Cynder. If I'd realized that small fact earlier I'd never have wanted to read the darned thing, but I was curious to see how it tackled a subject I've already tackled (so I thought), and I decided to give it a read. Bad mistake! It really was just like all the other novels of this genre, and in no significant way original or different at all.

The book description has it that (and I quote!) "Charm is the first in the Reverse Fairytale series by USA Today bestselling author J.A.Armitage. Take everything you think you know about fairytales and turn it on its head," but that's misleading because it didn't turn anything on its head at all except the gender reversal: that the princess falls for the help rather than the prince falling for the help. Other than that it's exactly what you'd expect in this sort of a story, and it's so, dare I say it, disenchanting to read and discover how uninventive and unimaginative it is.

Instead of telling the story from the PoV of Cynder, it's told from the princess's PoV, and while this seems superficially like a reversal, it really isn't, because all that does is turn it into a story about a princess in search of a groom like almost every other dumb-ass YA princess story that's ever been written. We get nothing about Cynder - not even why Charmaine would fall in love with him. It just magically happens, which ought to make Charmaine suspicious since Cynder has magic powers! But he's written out of the story pretty quickly (this is a trilogy which means the author doesn't know how to tell a story between only two covers and is in dire need of a good editor.

The story begins with Princess Charmaine, the second eldest daughter of King Aaron of Silverwood, who has grown up as a carefree tomboy, but her older sister, Grace, dies from an apparent heart defect. I suspect it's actually murder: I mean how can a royal have an undetected heart defect in this day and age? Do they never get medical assessments? So anyway Charmaine gets bumped to the position of heir apparent and has to step in for her sister in the upcoming ball where 100 eligible bachelors will arrive, one of whom she must pair up with.

I made it about a fifth of the way through before I couldn't stand to read any more of this. It's set in completely modern times, but the princess seems not to have a cell phone, nor any friends, and they seem not to have the Internet in this world because when the queen is telling her there will be a ton of bachelors at the ball, she adds that she's solicited photos of them all so Charmaine can see who's who. Apparently there's no online surfing to check these guys out. It was downright weird, and poorly thought-out. World-building sucked.

With it being a thoroughly modern story, the age of consent is eighteen, Charmaine's age, but to suggest that neither of these two younger daughters - the youngest, Elise, is 17, has ever met a male peer, let alone a potential mate, is quite simply ridiculous and fundamentally stupid. Is the author writing a novel or a fairytale? It seems like she can't tell the difference. In the former, one has to make it at least seem realistic. No attempt whatsoever was made in that direction here. It's written like it was aimed at a much younger age group, but unbelievably, it's not!

As soon as Grace dies, it seems that Charmaine becomes the biggest royal dumbass ever. She has never been considered the heir until now, granted, but you cannot spend eighteen years in a royal family and not have even the most basic knowledge of protocol and etiquette. It's bullshit to suggest otherwise, yet we're expected to believe that Charmaine needs extensive tutoring and dance lessons! This beggars belief and makes her look like the dumbest royal ever, who has never been involved even remotely in any sort of royal or public life.

The novel is, as is usual for this YA garbage, unapologetically sexist and anti-feminist. Why female authors persistently write trash like this escapes me completely. I guess as long as LCD readers dominate the audience, then writers have no incentive to raise the bar do they? I disagree!

Here's one of the earliest sentences in the book: "With her stunning white blonde hair, two or three shades lighter than my own, and her darling face, she would make an excellent queen." Yes, it's in first person of course, and this is Charmaine's dumbass assessment of her kid sister. So that's all it takes to be queen? White blonde hair and darling looks? Charmaine is a fucking moron, period.

How does Charmaine rate in the 'looks' department - because this shallow piece of trash is all about appearances and skin-depth. In this world, nothing else is important: not heart, not integrity, not honesty, not experience, not dedication, not commitment, not decency, and not strength of character. Nope. None of the above, only shallow looks and pretty dresses. Charmaine is "A dirty blonde that nothing but the strongest hairspray and lots of pins could tame." Yet she gets a one-day makeover and she's suddenly gorgeous.

But here's the thing: there are magicians in this world - called magi. There are many of them who work at the palace, yet not a one of those was ever called in to tame Charmaine's hair? What is the fricking point exactly, of having magic in your story if it's never, ever, ever, ever used for anything, and your world proceeds entirely and solely by the rules we're familiar with in our own world, where no magic exists? Again, piss-poor writing, and despite the "magi" there is no magic to this novel.

The story is replete with inconsistency. Were told that mourning for Grace lasts two weeks and the royal household is wearing black, yet the very next day Charmaine is expected to wear a white dress for a bullshit interview on TV! But that's fine, because neither Charmaine nor her kid sister show any sort of grief over Grace's death! Maybe they murdered her? Who knows in this piece of crap?

Elise gets into raptures over Charmaine's make-over when she learns Charmaine has had her legs waxed because god forbid a single 'unnatural' hair should be found anywhere on the female body. How gross! How ugly! Burn the witch! Elise says, "Yeah, but you have nice smooth legs. I swear I'm turning into a gorilla." Way to diss every woman who has body hair, Armitage. Jesus fucking Christ is that how you view your fellow women who choose to be natural? They're gorillas? Because body hair is disgusting? It's unnatural? It's ugly and so are the woman who don't want to shave it? For fuck's sake get a clue, Armitage before you ever write another insulting word.

Here's the weird thing: these two girls are continually presented as sheltered, never having any contact with boys, yet they have these views of body hair? And nowhere in their royal life have they ever had any sort of royal treatment before? Again, piss-poor story-telling. Someone asks Charmaine, "Do you want to go into that ball not having a clue how to act," but she's been a royal for 18 years! Only a dedicated moron could live eighteen years in a royal family and have no clue how to act. Way to diss your main character, Armitage!

During her lessons on how to be a royal, Charmaine misses dinner, so the advice to her is: "You'll have to go down to the kitchen and ask the cook for something." Wait what? The princess and heir apparent has to go ask for food? There is a thousand people working in the place and she has no one she can call, no bell pull to ring, to get service? She has to go to the kitchen and beg for food? Again, piss-poor writing because this is the only way this author can think of to bring Charmaine into contact with the love of her life - a magi who uses his magic to wash dishes in the kitchen Apparently they have TVs, but no electric dishwasher in the palace.

Of course the creepy Cynder is overly familiar with the princess and ends up dancing with her - he can teach her but the best dance teacher in the country cannot? He has his hands all over her and kisses her on the cheek. Seriously? Again this is a dumbass rushed "love" story where these two characters are literally forced together by the author. They have to be forced because they're written so poorly and pushed together so ham-fistedly that the author has no choice but to force things. They sure as hell aren't going to happen naturally with this kind of story-telling, because they have zero chemistry and have a relationship that makes her look dumb and him look a creep. Again: it's lousy writing.

I've embarked on a few truly dumbass stories in my time, and this one is right down there with the worse of them. It's badly-written, stupidly-plotted and an insult to women everywhere. I'm done with this author permanently.

The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

Rating: WARTY!

This was another depressing attempt at approaching one of the classics. I feel bad that Erin Bateman had to read this 800 page disaster - or however many pages it was in her edition. No, on second thought, I don't, because she really didn't read it well. Her voice and tone were so wrong for this, and at times it was irritating to listen to her. But even that would have been manageable if the novel were not so endlessly tedious, and rambling, and uninteresting in the extreme. And so completely illogical.

I guess 'show, don't tell' wasn't a thing back in Henry's time, because he tells everything in extraordinarily mind-numbing detail. His main character, Isabel Archer, is, we're told, a smart, adventurous, engaging young woman, but what we're shown is a dull, clueless, and uninteresting woman. To me, it's a mystery - other than that she's 'hot' I guess - why any sane man would want a relationship with her, but it seems that everyone wants to marry her, while she on the other hand doesn't, we're told, want to marry anyone, because she wants to stretch her wings. Apparently marriage prevents this even for someone welre told is strong-willed and adventurous. But apparently lacking in imagination.

The problem is that she has no money for travel, and as soon as she does have money - through an inheritance - she marries the worst guy she can find. Despite turning down devoted and eligible men who would have been good for her and who proposed when she had nothing, because she wished to retain her freedom, we're told she jumps into a marriage on imprudently short notice with the worst guy there is. This story is a piece of garbage.

Before We Disappear by Shaun David Hutchinson

Rating: WARTY!

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

Be warned that this is going to be a more rambling review than usual because there are several aspects of this story that I need to address. Anyone who's read any of my 'non-reviews' will know that I have little respect for book descriptions which are trite, uninventive, and always playing to the lowest common denominator. More on this anon. In short though, they're written for idiots, frequently by someone who evidently has never even read the novel they're 'describing'. The blurbs are often dishonest and as I point out regularly, they have certain key words and phrases that ought to warn you away from the book that's being described.

So I have only myself to blame for the fact that I ignored my own advice with this book and I consequently paid the price of wasting my time on a novel that I should have turned my back on the instant that I read the description. The thing is that I was intrigued by what seemed like it might be a good LGBTQIA story - and set at the turn of last century, no less. It sounded too good to be true and it was.

I need to preface this by detouring slightly into talking about audiobooks and how you can have your phone read you an ebook as though it's an audiobook. I can't speak for Android phones, but for iPhones there's a technology called 'voice over' which is an assisted-use system that reads your screen to you, indicating buttons and other stuff on the screen. In order to make this work, you need to open your ebook to the place you want to begin reading, and ask Siri to turn on Voice Over. For those who don't already know, I'd like to share with you that Siri is ADHD, so it may take more than one request to get her to start it, and more than two requests to get her to stop, but once voice over is in play, simply tap on the first sentence you want to be read, then slide two fingers lightly down the screen from there to the bottom of the screen, and Voice Over will read your ebook to you!

Note that this is far from perfect. The voice is unnatural which is why I call it Robot Reader, and it's subject to disruption if the text contains images or has gaps in it (as Kindle frequently does, which is yet one more reason to avoid all things Amazon like the plague. But overall, it works pretty good, and I get through a lot of books this way. It's also amusing listening Robot Reader's quirky pronunciations, so there is some entertainment value from that, too.

I honestly do not understand why the big ebook publishers do not employ this. Google has similar technology. They could adapt it easily to read your ebooks to you - or to your kids. Apple has it. Kobo books could quite readily get their hands on it, as could Barnes and Noble. B&N has had their ass kicked to the curb by the despicable Amazon, so why they aren't fighting tooth and nail to get every edge they can, I do not know. I guess their management is simply incompetent.

All this to explain why I was impressed by Net Galley's audiobook technology employed on this novel. While far from perfect, this was the best yet, and it really has great potential. It was a synthesized voice, but it sounded real - not at all like my adorable Robot Reader. There were flaws. The voice sounded quite flat; it was lacking inflection and 'life' for want of a better term, but it read quite competently and sounded reasonably normal.

My issues with it were that the voice was completely wrong for the novel, which was supposedly being told in first person by not one, but two people who were in their teens. The Net Galley synthesized voice didn't remotely sound like a teenage boy. Obviously if they can synthesize the voice, they can synthesize a sixteen-year-old voice. Why they didn't I don't know. This made the novel rather tedious to listen to at times, but that's not all on the synthesizing. I'd love to get my crazed, inventive hands on this technology, rest assured!

As usual, the biggest problem was the novel itself. It was not at all well-written, and it was slow-moving and uninspiring. Plus, listening to it as an audiobook while driving is not the best way to take in this book. When I'm driving, my attention is of course on the driving, where it should be. This is especially true if it's a problematic drive, so the book loses my attention even if it's an interesting one. This book wasn't.

I pay more attention to a story in the early morning when the roads are largely empty, than when I'm driving home during rush hour, so I missed portions of this, which isn't typically a problem, but in this case it lead to serious confusion because I didn't realize to begin with, that this was dual-first-person voice (DFPV). It is. And the switch between characters went undetected.

The thing is that when you do a DFPV, you have to identify at the start of the chapter who is speaking. The problem was exacerbated in this novel because the author pretentiously put the location and the date at the start of the chapter like it was some big important announcement. My eyes (or in this case, my ears) skate right over that crap because typically it's just annoying, irrfelevant, and so self-importantly pretentious in an already overly self-important first person story that it leaves me cold.

Normally, 1PoV is quite irritating enough, and it's exponentially worse when it's squared. DFPV is merely the author's cute way of admitting that they made a serious mistake in choosing first person voice to begin with. Typically, it's a grave mistake because it limits your story and your options; it makes the main character insufferably self-centered, and the voice is unnatural. No one but an imbecile narrates their own life as it's happening. No one but an eidetic can recall conversations and actions verbatim, and eidetics have their own raft of issues to deal with.

1PoV constantly tosses me right out of suspension of disbelief because it's so inauthentic and annoying: hey lookit me! This is what I'm doing now! Pay attention to meeee! Barf! It's worse when the author admits they screwed-up by having to add a second 1PoV or resort to third person for portions of the novel. It's laughable and I avoid these stories whenever I can. In this case I had no warning that it was first person or I would never have even started reading it. Such books should carry a warning like cigarette packs do. I actually did that on a parody novel I wrote!

So, let's look at the novel itself. The first warning ought to have been the title, which is a bit pretentious but not godawful. The next indication that this was to be fled from was the use of the words 'star-crossed' in the description. That's like a bio-hazard warning to me, and in this case, it's bullshit, but like an idiot, I ignored it. The second warning was that one of the main characters is called 'Jack' - the most tediously over-used go-to name in literary history for an action character. It shows a complete and utter lack of imagination on the part of the author, but like a dimwit, I ignored that because this wasn't an action adventure novel. More fool me!

The story is of two rival illusionists, one whom goes by the name of 'The Enchantress' for whom Jack Nevin works. He's a skilled thief, and he steals the secrets of other magicians and illusionists, which The Enchantress then incorporates into her own act. It's how she's stayed on top for so long. Her rival is Laszlo, who also has an assistant for whom Jack falls. That's the LGBTQIA part of the novel, but it played such a non-existent part in the story to the point where I could stand to hear no more of this (25% in) that the book may as well have been a cis novel.

Naturally you can't publish a novel in the USA unless it takes place in the US or at least has one important American in it. It's against the constitution, you know? Who cares about the rest of the world? As Donald Trump says, it's entirely unimportant. The US is the only nation worth considering or writing about. So despite starting out in Paris, the City of love, the novel quickly comes running home to mamma. Barf.

I honestly wish US authors had far more courage than they do. And were more inventive and original; especially YA authors. I would have loved for it to stay in Paris, but it ain't gonna happen. Not from an American author. At least not often. You can argue: well, they're only writing what people will buy, but is that really the truth? And is that really what should motivate us? Do authors have to bow down to the LCD that I mentioned earlier, tugging forelocks and kowtowing, or ought they instead to be leading their readership to greener, fresher pastures? If the readers are really such sheep, why not?!

So when things go south, The Enchantress and her crew head to Seattle. Why there, I have no idea, except that was an exposition going on, I guess so they thought they could score big there. Or is it just that this is where the author lives?! Anyway, that's when they run into Laszlo and his crew, and when Jack first gets to meet his love, who sadly isn't named Jill - or any masculine variant thereof! Jilhelm?

The thing about Lazslo is that his assistant, Wilhelm, really can do magic and Jack is at a loss to explain how it's done, thinking it's just another illusion. Wilhelm is a sort of BDSM slave to Lazslo, and not in any decent or fun way. He's outright abused. Frankly this part of the story turned me right off, and that, along with the tedium of the plodding pace, I lost all interest. I simply could not stand to listen to any more, so I DNF'd it. Life is far too short to spend it on stories that don't do it for ya. I can't commend this based on the portion I listened to, and for the reasons I've detailed above.

The Pink Bean by Harper Bliss

Rating: WARTY!

The title sounds like a euphemism for the clitoris and probably is. 'Harper Bliss' is not the author's real name which begs the question why choose such a lousy pen name? I've read a couple of other books of this nature, but none by this author, and I never will again after this one. The problem appears to be that with this genre, once you've read one, you've read them all. They really are that much like clones. I was sadly disappointed in how uninventive, unimaginative, narrow-minded, and unsubtle the story was. Maybe this is all the readers of this sort of a story need, but if that's true, it's a depressing bellwether for literature or at least for this genre of it.

The novel is set in Australia, a fact I frequently forgot because there's nothing really Australian about it apart from quirks of language here and there. I donlt know if the author is Australian, but she lives with her female partner in Belgium.

The story is about this divorcée, Micky, who is a mother of two, and who has been single for a year and finds she's attracted to women now. Obviously it's one of those raunchy, titillating, so-called romance stories which I normally avoid, but I thought one set in Australia and maybe by an Australian writer might be different. It ought certainly to be a change from endless cookie-cutter American-based novels thought I, but in the end, it wasn't! You can take the romance out of the country, but you can't take the dumb-assery out of the romance.

I've read a couple of other stories like this one: where every frigging character in the novel is lesbian. It's like there are no straight people out there at all, and not even any gay guys for that matter, or anything anywhere else on the spectrum. That's just abusive, and it's as unrealistic as a straight story that has no LGBTQIA characters, or a story featuring white main characters that harbors no PoCs to speak of. It kicks you out of suspension of disbelief - often.

Bad as that is, it's not even the worst thing about this story. The novel is written like this main character is an innocent, naïve, virginal ingénue, but she's in her forties, has a college education, two kids, and she's been best friends with this lesbian woman for two decades. How can she be so ignorant of lesbian life after that? It makes no sense. How come she's never had any sort of dalliance with this friend? It's unrealistic.

And while I'm at it(!): how has this woman been making a living for the last year? It's never discussed, but since this job she takes at a coffee shop is such a challenge, she's obviously living on her husband's hand-outs and she appears completely guiltless about that. She states that she's never worked a day in her whole life, but at a different point she mentions a job she had in college related to a degree she earned, but never used. Why is that? She's clearly sponged off her husband this whole time, and now she continues to do so even after they're divorced? Has she no self-respect? No drive? Nothing motivating her at all? Why would anyone care about someone so dull and bland?

At this point I had no respect for her at all. It makes her look like this dumb-ass gold-digger, which is not a good look for your main character. Yes, raising kids is a serious and full time job, but her kids are older teenagers who are no longer hanging on her apron strings. Does she had no urge for self-improvement? For stretching herself? How does she remotely imagine that she's going to be interesting to a potential partner?

But of course she doesn't have to worry about that because this story isn't about relationships or personality. It's about sex, pure and simple, and a goddess named Robin falls into her lap and is passionately attracted to her, without her making any effort whatsoever. This happens all the time of course.

Robin is a woman Micky's never seen before, despite both she and this woman frequenting this same coffee shop for some time. And her BFF Amber has no interest in this woman or in anything else other than pushing Micky into full-time lesbianism! That's her sole purpose in this 'friendship'! Naturally Robin treats Micky like dirt, and so is the one she has her affair with. Yawn.

The other woman is younger and obviously sexually active. It sounds like authorial wish-fulfillment to me, but the problem is that neither one of these two women has any questions for the other about sexual history before they leap into bed on the first date. That's how clueless this story is! Chlamydia is the most frequently-reported infectious disease in Australia with close to 100,000 men and women diagnosed yearly. Gonorrhea, hepatitis, and even syphilis are hardly rare, yet never once do either of these women concern themselves even momentarily with the fact that a sexually active and clearly promiscuous Robin could conceivably have something to pass on to Micky that isn't sexual experience?

I don't get how people can write this stuff. The author is a lesbian herself, so I have to wonder if she doesn't take any pride in who she is and in others who share her persuasions? Doesn't she want to present lesbianism in an realistic, interesting, and positive light?

I guess a sex romp is a sex romp regardless of what sexual affiliations it dallies with, but to me, the sad thing is that it's supposed to be titillating, yet it's really quite boring and it's so predictable. On the other hand, there's nothing else in Micky's life at all, so maybe that's understandable. Her children are supposedly important to her, but they barely figure in her life, and they seem not to have been raised very well, which is disturbing given that she was a full-time mom!

The athletic younger partner, Robin, is an American because god forbid you should try to sell a novel in the US and it not feature any Americans. How dare you! That's not the problem with Robin though. Robin is a white Aryan Amazon, yet she's supposed to be the diversity officer for the corporation for which she works, bringing the white savior mentality to encouraging diversity in countries where the modal skin tone is seriously darker than her own.

That felt so hypocritical to me. No, there's no reason, ideally, why a diversity officer couldn't be white. It would be racist to suggest otherwise, but in such a white story could we not have this partner be a woman of color for goodness sakes? Or make her some other sort of officer than diversity? Or is that taboo in Blissworld: that white Micky should be attracted to a darker-hued woman?

The only interesting things in this story had nothing to do with the story, but with language as used or not used in English speaking countries. As I mentioned earlier, at one point I'd forgotten I was reading a novel set in Australia because I read so many set in the US unfortunately! It's a lot harder than you'd think to find non-US novels in the US because we're so fucking provincial and insular here. Plus there's very little in this particular novel to really anchor it in Australia, which was disappointing to me. Anyway, one of the characters said "crikey" which is common in Australia and also said in Britain, but not really in the US. I became confused for a second until I remembered that this was not a US novel! LOL! That's how bad things are!

I also became curious about where 'crikey' came from, and apparently it's a euphemism employed in place of exclaiming 'Christ!" I came across 'sod' too, which is used in Britain as a dismissive mild insult, like "you silly sod!" It's apparently an abbreviation for 'sodomite', which I did not know. It's weird that such a pejorative term is used as a mild admonishment in Britain where the word 'bugger' is used similarly, as in, "you silly bugger!" It's almost an endearment. Weird, but true!

But I digress! The sex scenes! They were embarrassing. Can you believe that Micky was pulsing? Her "pussy lips pulsed wildly." Really? She was "reduced to one giant pulsing mess of extreme need." Seriously? I guess that's to be expected since her skin was "throbbing," but now I'm confused. Was she throbbing and pulsing at the same time? Did they alternate? Did one succeed the other?! Every ordinary thing in this encounter is presented as something wicked and sinful, and naughty and kinky, and over the top. But. It's. Just. Sex! And this book is obsessed with lesbian activity to the exclusion of all else: including reality. Neither Micky nor her friend Amber ever considered that her orientation might be bi or pan or any of the other options. No! It's lesbian all the way or nothing! I guess she just pulses that way. Or throbs.

During this same encounter, after her panties are pulled down I read, "As if by instinct, and as though this was all she'd ever done in life, Micky's knees fell wide..." What? Her husband never went down on her? I call bullshit on that. This is when you know an author is poor at their profession because she has such lesbian tunnel vision that she's ignoring the twenty years of physical intimacy between Micky and her husband - it's like Micky never had sex before and that's just dumb writing. Never once does Micky inadvertently make any sort of a comparison between making it with a her husband and making it with Robin, either. It's unrealistic. Either that or Micky is the dumbest cluck in the henhouse, and someone who has absolutely zero introspection.

It's all euphemism - very nearly. Micky could "smell her intimate aroma on Robin's lips" and so on. There's nothing new here; just tired, repetitive, retreaded, rehashed, cheap, fluffy talk that's been written to death already. That was the real problem here. The novel is shallow, boring, unoriginal, and been done to a crisp many times before. That's why I condemn it.

Coconut Layer Cake Murder by Joanne Fluke

Rating: WARTY!

"Bakery owner Hannah Swensen must drop everything and return home to prove that her sister's boyfriend, Lonnie, isn't a killer." Why? What, are you stupid? It should be glaringly obvious to everyone that the very best person to solve a murder isn't the police, but the accused boyfriend's sister, who happens to be a baker? Well done! And of course it's not the case that a person is inncoent until proven guilty - it's exactly the other way aorund. Just the accusation means you're guilty and someone has to come running and prove you're innocent! Barf.

Teach Me the Ropes by Vanessa Vale

Rating: WARTY!

"Dirty-talking cowboy Sawyer Manning regrets taking part in a bachelor auction...until he's bought by preschool teacher Kelsey Benoit. Now he can finally explore their explosive chemistry - and claim the feisty newcomer for his own!" Because it's all about owning the woman. Barf.

Tesla Wizard by Mark J Seifer

Rating: WARTY!

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

From what little serious and accurate information I could gather online, Mark Seifer is an apparently self-promoting, ex-teacher of parapsychology. This immediately put me on my guard, because parapsychology is an out-and-out bullshit fringe field which has been exposed and debunked repeatedly. It has zero solid scientific evidence to support it, but this author brought in everyone, including the evidently deluded Andrija Puharich, and the laughable and discredited Uri Geller, and treated them all as though they were reality-based, instead of debunked and exposed as they are. That was when I quit reading this rambling, dissipated, haphazardly tangential, and misleading attempt at a biography.

The audiobook was read decently by actor Simon Vance who, but even he can't make up for the gullible and naïve material used here. This book is a joke; it's garbage. Do not waste your money.

Back to Earth by Nicole Stott

Rating: WARTY!

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

I'm always rather skeptical of conversion stories - someone did something and it opened their eyes to an issue or gave them a new perspective. There's something fundamentally wrong with a society that thinks someone's miraculous conversion somehow imbues them with an authoritative voice or a spiritual gift or something, whereas someone who has seen and been guided by this same revelatory light all their life, rarely gets any credit or any sort of spotlight on their equally valid and majorly contributing 'non-conversion'.

It's entirely wrong; even ass-backwards, but it's how we work on this planet unfortunately. I know authors typically don't write their own book descriptions, so this isn't on her, but the blurb here says "When Nicole Stott first saw Earth from space, she realized how interconnected we are." I'm sorry, but if you have to be shot 250 miles into space at 25,000 mph to realize this, then you've been sleepwalking through life, and you really don't deserve much credit for your epiphany.

I was interested in this book because it seemed to offer a scientific perspective on how we can help Earth, but by a third in I was already disillusioned with it because I'd learned nothing to that end. I'm not saying what I did read wasn't interesting at all; there were parts that were engaging and informative, but none of it had to do with helping fix the problems on Earth.

The story was very autobiographical, with the author calling everyone 'my friend' or 'my dear friend' if she knew them at all, and it carried a sense of desperation to it. It's irrelevant to the reader how close the author is to person A or person B and this constant repetition of that 'friend' mantra had an aura of pathos to it. Not that this is a critical disaster. It just struck me as rather odd in the same way it does when an author writes the more pretentious 'utilizing' instead of simply typing 'using'.

There were parts where the author seemed to start in on a topic and then just abandon it, or go off at a tangent. One example that comes immediately to mind was about painting in space. None of this of course helps save Earth, but I happened to find this particular piece quite fascinating, yet instead of talking about the actual painting she was doing, it seems like she lost interest once the paint was on the brush, and essentially abandoned that story!

In contrast, other tangential stories about life in space or astronaut training seemed like they went on forever or were repeated several times instead of letting the issue go like she did with the art. It made for a messy story overall. These things had nothing whatsoever to do with with applying what had been learned in space to solving Earth's problems, and if all of these extraneous parts had been excised, it would have made for a very thin book indeed. It's like she couldn't make up her mind whether to write an autobiography or an Earth-self-help book, and so we got a disjointed and somewhat repetitive mishmash of both.

The real disaster though, lay in other directions. In the first third of this book, the closest it came to discussing how technology can help Earth, was when discussing the water shortage and how many people are denied a basic human right: access to clean, fresh water. They have filtration units in the space program which take all water - even sweat and urine - and purify it so that it's cleaner than most water you can get on Earth, including that microplastic-infused bottled water that far too many people drink under the delusion that it's healthier than tap water. In some countries I'm sure it is, but that's rarely applicable in the USA. Nowhere in this discussion did the author say how this was applied to helping people on Earth. More on this anon.

The worst part of this section of the story though was that the author mentioned Guy Laliberté. This guy is a Canadian billionaire and gambler who founded Cirque du Soleil, but the latter enterprise, which is multinational (and in which Laliberté has now sold his interests, I understand), was all that got mentioned in the story - that and the fact that Laliberté paid thirty two million dollars to take a space tourist trip. The author talks like this was a deliberate trip to raise awareness of problems on Earth. It was a fail with me, because I never heard of this guy going into space so my awareness was not raised by his $32 million investment. I don't know how many people did hear about it because the author never discusses that.

But here's the thing: this guy paid $32 million!! How many of those problems he claimed he was highlighting could have been solved by putting that $32 million directly into solving them? The author never explored that, and this bothered me. The guy is a billionaire. He could have paid a hundred million to help solve the problems he was raising awareness about and he would never have missed that, yet he's presented in this book as some sort of hero for his work! I don't get that mentality at all.

To me it seems equally likely that he just wanted to take a trip into space and could afford it, which is fine, it's his own money, but then he turns around and tries to 'justify' the extravagance by saying it's an awareness-raising trip. Maybe it was, but who knows? I don't. I just know $32 million went into space and none of that particular amount contributed to bringing "one drop" of clean water to any child. Reading this, I confess I sometimes thought that maybe it's the author's awareness which needs raising?

I was enthralled with the space program when I was a kid, but lately I've wondered more about the PoV of those who ask: why is this money being sent into space when we need help on Earth. I was disappointed in the author's retort to that. It seemed outright facetious to me. She effectively side-stepped the question by redirecting it. She said the money doesn't go into space, it's all spent right here on Earth. That was hilarious, Nicole. Yeah, it's spent on Earth, and a small portion of it goes into setting up experiments in space that can help people on Earth. Thinking people get that. But NASA's space shuttle program cost almost $200 billion in total. Each flight cost $450 million.

So the question, Nicole, is not where the money was spent, but how much value for money we got for that $200 billion. Was it truly worth it? Yeah it was thrilling, but who did it really help? Yeah, there have been concrete returns from the spending, in terms of computer advances and medicine and so on, but where's the evidence that those advances could not have come about by directly investing the $200 billion in technology and medicine?

Did we have to go to space to get these advances? I've never seen a justification for that, and it wasn't discussed in this book. Australia built six seawater desalination plants for ten billion. How many of those would $200 billion buy? Seventy percent of Earth's surface is covered with saltwater and forty percent of the world's population lives within 60 miles of it. Desalination uses a huge amount of energy, but water is most scarce where it's hot, and it's hot because the sun is shining. Can you say solar power?! No alternatives were ever discussed.

I like the space program. Always have, but it needs to be justified, not blown-off with facetious comebacks. In the sixties, robotics, AIs, and computers were pathetic compared with what we have today, but now we do have robots very effectively working on Mars. So what exactly is the justification for sending people into space? I've seen some halfhearted justifications, but never anything that truly made me nod my head in agreement.

Now if everyone had a roof over their head, clothes on their back, food in their belly, clean water, sanitation, and an education in their brain, then by all means blow $200 billion on sending people into space. Until then, there needs to be serious justification for what we spend set against what we can realistically expect to get back from it in temrs of direct benefits to those who most need them. The author never offers any such cost analysis.

The justification needs to be spectacular. it needs to be something that's essential, that can only be done by humans, and that can only be done in space, otherwise it's simply not justifiable when people are starving and suffering, and homeless, and living in migrant camps and being recruited into under-age armies, and drinking disgusting water, and suffering diseases. Anyone with a functioning mind can see that with ever having to go into space.

It needs to be spectacular because, as the author explains, it costs dramatically more money to send a living thing into space than ever it does a robot. It costs more because humans have to be coddled as the author makes quite clear. They're not evolved to live in space, with little gravity tugging on them, and with the brutal cold, the radiation, and a complete vacuum. That's where a heck of a lot of the money goes: into coddling people who are out of their depth - or height in this case! The question that really needs to be asked is: can automation and even robots do the same work that's being done? This question isn't explored in this book either.

Don't tell me it can't be done. It used to be that to fight an air war you needed trained pilots in expensive aircraft - aircraft also designed to coddle humans. Now we have drones doing a lot of that work. I'm not saying it's great, or even justifiable, but it is being done. So you can't tell me that we couldn't achieve the same thing in space - not when we're already doing it, for example, on Mars right now.

But the thrust of this book is about how we can learn lessons from space that we can employ on Earth and the first of these seems to be that we can purify water, but the fact is that the Bill Gates foundation funds the development of waste processing facilities that can be deployed in countries with little infrastructure, and which will handle waste from 100,000 people, producing up to 86,000 liters of potable water a day and a net 250 kw of electricity. None of this came from space exploration. It came from human ingenuity and a challenge to solve a problem. Bill Gates has never been into space and neither - to my knowledge - have any of the people who developed this system. The investment was spent right here on Earth and is already solving problems.

So that brings us back to what this book has to offer in terms of learning lessons from space? The amusing book description has it that the author knows we can overcome differences to address global issues, because she saw this every day on the International Space Station, but this is such a simplistic view of things that it's laughable. The people who are selected to go into space have to pass a barrage of tests and psychological considerations. They're not regular people!

They're purposefully selected for tolerance and sociability and education level and so on! To pretend you can extrapolate from this highly-managed microcosm of Earth's population to the world at large is to show a disturbing level of ignorance about how people are in real life, especially people who are stressed, and deprived, and poorly educated, and poor, and tired, and sick, and hungry. You can't take the harmony of that micro environment and expect it to translate to a world where 74 million people willingly and freely voted for an asshole like Donald Trump. It doesn't work.

At one point I read, “I’m pleased that today we recognize the value of international partnership and cooperation and don’t focus so much on competition." Has the author met China? It's home home to almost a third of the human race which is having nothing to do with the ISS, and is going its own sweet way in space and on Earth. At another point I read, that Earth’s oceans will boil in a billion years, but it's not that simple.

Yes, in a Billion years our climate will change due to changes in solar output, but the oceans and not going to instantly boil away at that point! it will be a slow change, but slowly accelerating as the sun increases its brilliance and eventually, its size. But a billion years from now it won't matter because humans will either be extinct through our own willful scientific ignorance (Republicans I;m looking at you), or have moved off Earth onto other planets. So again, this seemed inapplicable.

So, in short, I cannot commend a book that so dissipated its resources, and so consistently failed to meet its own aims.

Thinking Better by Marcus Du Sautoy

Rating: WARTY!

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

Okay! On to some reviews of books, as opposed to idiotic book descriptions. Described as "The Art of the Shortcut in Math and Life" I have to say up front that I was disappointed in this book. Maybe it’s just me, but there really didn’t seem to be anything here that I could use in my life, and worse than that, I didn't see much benefit in modern everyday life to be derived from the shortcuts that were discussed here. Some of the math and how it was arrived at historically was interesting, but it also felt rather repetitive after a while, and it was largely historical.

I am not a big fan of book descriptions which can be misleading at best, so I was amused by the one for this, which claims that the book is "above all practical." The description also said, "Du Sautoy explores ... whether you must really practice for ten thousand hours to become a concert violinist, and why shortcuts give us an advantage over even the most powerful AI." With regard to the violin: the people who did that study were annoyed when people started claiming they had discovered that it takes 10,000 hours to become a virtuoso. They said it misrepresented what they reported. The bottom-line is that are no shortcuts to becoming a maestro or a maestra.

The fact is that you do need to practice long and hard, and there's no way around that. Not that I plan on taking up the violin (or the cello, which is what was discussed here), but I resented that the book description suggested otherwise about shortcuts. The only shortcuts offered here were of the lesser variety - in that you can play a note in more than one way on a stringed instrument, so adjusting fingering can enable you to play a difficult piece more easily - but in order to realize that you still have to learn to play the piece competently - which is what takes the time! So this was misleading at best.

The part about "why shortcuts give us an advantage over even the most powerful AI" is equally misleading. AIs are not as bad as this indicates. Yes, they can make mistakes, but they can also find shortcuts humans failed to see, and they're getting better all the time. Humans really aren’t!

Based on the fact that this book really failed to deliver on the implied promise - that we can make use of math to inform us of beneficial shortcuts in our lives, I felt it failed. The book delivered on stories of how shortcuts have been found using math in the past, and even led to great discoveries, but none of this really had a whole heck of a lot to do with your average person's everyday life, and the book failed to offer anything I could see that would benefit me in my life. So while the math was interesting in places and some of the historical paths to discovery were educational, I felt the book fell short of its implied promise and I cannot commend it.

Welcome to Piney Falls by Joann Keder

Rating: WARTY!

Well isn't this just cozy: "To inspire her creative writing, Lanie takes a trip to the seaside community of Piney Falls," Seriously? Piney Falls? "...where she discovers seriously quirky townspeople," That;s me out right there. Wquirjky is always bad news. "...a gorgeous bakery owner," Barf. "...and a mystery with roots reaching back to the previous century." Just like this plot. So we have the book angle (in her creative writing), we have the bakery angle, which conveniently incorporates her love interest, and we have a mystery to solve. Yawn. They way to creatively write is to sit down and write, not to swan-off around the country. I'm willing to bet that no actual writing is done by the protagonist in this entire novel. It's always the same story: the writer who doesn't actually write. The bookstore owner who doesn't actually read anything. And on. And on. Yawn.

To Catch a Thief by Kay Marie

Rating: WARTY!

"Action and intrigue combine with swoon-worthy romance when three best friends and aspiring bakers - Jolene, Addison, and McKenzie - meet their matches." Another half-baked cookie-cutter story. No thanks.