In Clothes Called Fat by Myoko Anno

Rating: WORTHY!

Author Myoko Anno is married to director Hideaki Anno of Neon Genesis Evangelion fame. This story was first published as a serial in Shukan Josei (主観 女性 women's matters), Japan's first magazine aimed at mature women. The story was published as a manga in 1997. I don't normally go for books that depict weak women, but this one was compelling because it was so very real in its story.

Society, it does not matter whether it is western or eastern, is quite obviously intent upon treating women like cars. If the vehicle is not new and sexy, it's really not worth anything, so women are raised by society to understand that they really are worthless if they are not young, beautiful, slim, readily available, willing, and compliant. A woman can't be too willing otherwise she's a slut. She can't behave like a man otherwise she's a lesbian slut. On the other hand, men can never be sluts no matter how willing they are. Those are the rules society has imposed upon women from birth, and one consequence of that is women like Noko.

Noko Hanazawa is like every other middle class Japanese woman: she wants a respectable job, she wants to perform well in the job, she wants a happy love life (and note this is a very graphic novel!). Noko seems to have all of this, but her success hides a diseased mind which constantly struggles with her body image. She binge-eats to cover emotional stress, and constantly berates herself for being fat, despite having an apparently loving boyfriend who has dated her for many years.

As depicted in the illustrations, Noko isn't really fat. Maybe she has a few extra pounds but she doesn't look bad except in the tightly-focused and highly-critical lens of societal pressure. The biggest problem with this novel I feel, is that Noko's 1mage isn't helped by the rather inconsistent artwork, and by some portions of the story feeling more fantasy than reality, so paradoxically, it's quite hard to get a good idea of what Noko looks like despite this being a graphic novel! Or more accurately, despite it being a manga, since it reads backwards, which I found rather less than usually irritating in this case for reasons I cannot define! It occurred to me more than once that perhaps Noko is not a reliable narrator and perhaps she isn't being honest about everything that happens to her.

As each chapter rolls by, we realize that we are reading an onion, with each new layer peeling back to reveal underneath it a glistening, slightly sticky, white vein that seems to pulse with scarcely understood animation, and which may well bring tears to your eyes. Noko's best friend at work secretly conspires to undermine her both professionally and socially, even while promoting their friendship. She's secretly seeing Noko's boyfriend, but not because she wants him. Instead she seems to want to punish him for choosing Noko over her, and consequently takes the role of Dom to his submissive.

Noko lives only for Saito, the boyfriend, and at first the relationship seems loyal, loving and healthy, but as we continue to read about it and more layers are peeled back for us, it reveals itself to be as diseased as everything else in Noko's life. Saito wants only sex, it seems, and it also seems that he seeks to punish himself for wanting Noko.

The novel feels claustrophobic and repetitive, and I think this does an admirable job of depicting Noko's state of mind as she binges and purges, and pays for expensive diet plans which in real life almost never work, and neither does it here. The only diet plan that works is eat healthily and exercise, and hold a realistic and accepting view of your body. Not everyone can be a runway model and I am personally glad of it because runways models are ridiculous. They are broken toys; dolls for men to dress up. The problem is that giving good advice doesn't work in cases like Noko's because it's not a matter of lack of willpower or laziness. It's not stupidity or simply not caring; it's a medical problem and can only be properly aided with competent and qualified medical care.

And that's the problem in a nutshell. No one seems to want to help Noko, not even Noko herself, and so the story comes to an unsatisfactory, if realistic close. There's no Disney ending here; it's more like an Infinity Wars ending. In this it is perhaps most realistic of all because people with eating disorders are like those with a drug problem: they're never really cured and it's a long, hard climb back from those depths. It's a constant and ongoing fight, and the battleground is the cold light of each new day and every long. lonely night. I recommend this book for a great story, if a slightly depressing one!

The Castoffs Vol3 Rise of the Machines by MK Reed, Brian Smith, Wyeth Yates, Kendra Wells

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

The machines march relentlessly onwards in vol 3, but I must confess up front that I have not read volumes one or two. I asked to review this one because I thought it sounded interesting, and though it was rather hard to get into because I'd missed two-thirds of this story so far, I have to say overall I liked it even though some of it made little sense to me.

'Rise of the Machines' sounds suspiciously like an entry in the Terminator movie series, doesn't it? Wait! It is and entry in the terminator series! Couldn't we have 'Onslaught of the Machines' or 'March of the Machines' here, since they're already quite risen it would seem?! A little more originality never goes amiss.

The story itself was a bit slow-moving and it was rather side-tracked from the main issue which was, believe it or not, the march of the machines. I found it hard to believe that if this were a real life adventure, the main characters would be so distracted by relatively petty village problems that they would forget that an army of robots led by an evil woman were bearing closer with each passing minute.

Instead of going out to harass and attack the machines, or prepare traps for them, they spent their time fixing village issues which would be rendered completely irrelevant if the village was razed by the oncoming machines! They evidently didn't take the threat seriously until it was almost upon them.

I'm sure we've all been there, but sometimes people become so desperate to tell a certain story in a certain way that that they forget the reality of the characters in the story they're telling. They forget that they are people with strengths and weaknesses, and with hopes, dreams, and desperation, and with problems and pains, and so end-up with a story in which characters exhibit unrealistic behaviors. I always let the characters tell the story once they've been fully-created, because it makes for a much more realistic story-telling for me, and it often takes me (and the characters) in interesting and quite unexpected directions.

That said, this story was interesting and the relationships quite engrossing. The art work was decent, but initially, it was hard for me to tell the gender of the characters from the illustrations. That's not necessarily a bad thing and normally I would approve of it, but having missed the first two parts of this story, I felt a bit lost, and a little more cluing-in would have been appreciated since the names were not a good guide! I spent most of this story thinking Rosaiba was a female! It wasn't until close to the end that I realized he was not!

So in conclusion, while I do not personally feel compelled to pursue this story any further after this volume, I did enjoy what was offered to a certain extent, and so I recommend it with the caveat that you start with volume one! These are not stand-alone volumes!

My Pretty Vampire by Katie Skelly

Rating: WARTY!

This was a waste of my time. There is no story here, just female nudity and random bloodletting. The inexplicably named Clover isn't in such. She's a vampire who demands blood. Her brother kept her confined for several years in order to protect her and humanity both, but Clover is hardly the sharpest canine in the dentition.

She breaks out and seeks fresh human blood. No excuse is given for why she simply doesn't drink her brother dry. She clearly has no morals, yet for reasons unknown, she leaves the man who has imprisoned her for years, untouched, and picks-off assorted, random innocent people she encounters. She's too stupid to know she must get out of the sunlight until she starts broiling herself. She's not remotely likable, and the ending makes no sense at all mostly because it's not really an ending in any meaningful sense. Story? What story? Art? What art? At least it was short.

Comic book writer Jaime Hernandez recommends this. I have no idea who he is so you'll have to remind me never to read anything by him if he thinks this is so great. He either hasn't read it and therefore is completely clueless, or he's just completely clueless. I don't get why idiot publishers think a recommendation by a writer most people have never heard of somehow carries any weight. I honestly do not give a damn what other writers think, even if they're writers I like. I want to make up my own mind, and I did. I certainly cannot recommend this waste of time.

The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare

Rating: WARTY!

This was probably written around 1611, and first published in 1623 in a folio which grouped it with the comedies! It's not a comedy, unless a comedy of error. Some have labeled it a romance, but it's not a romance. To me it's a tragedy in more ways than one because it's not well-written and it's an awful story in the sense of being completely unrealistic. In that regard, it's a typical Shakespeare play where he asks us to remove our brains before entering the theater, but then he does call it The Winter's tale - like it's the mother of all tall stories, told in this audiobook by a very average full cast.

It's also another one of Shakespeare's thefts. He was a monstrous plagiarist. This story is essentially the same as Pandosto by Robert Greene, published some two decades earlier, a story in which the King of Bohemia, Pandosto, accuses his wife of adultery with his childhood friend, the King of Sicilia. Greene in turn may have taken his version from The Canterbury Tales which may have in turn been lifted from earlier stories such as The Decameron And so it goes!

In Shakespeare's rip-off, we're supposed to believe that Polixenes, the King of Bohemia, has so little to do in his own country that he can waste nine months (a curious amount of time) swanning around in Sicilia with King Leontes, whom he hath known since childhood. When Polixenes refuseth, citing pressing business back home, Leontes unreasonably tries to require him to stay, and when he fails in that, he sends his wife to try to talk him into staying. Why he would send his wife who knows this guy less well than does her husband is a mystery, but she persuades him so quickly that Leontes immediately decides she's had sex with him in order to convince him not to go!

Note that Bohemia is part of the present-day Czech Republic, so there is no way in hell a name like Polixenes would be in play there, nor a name like Leontes in Sicilia for that matter, but that's Shakespeare for you. Nor is there any way these two were childhood friends when their countries of origin were so far apart given the vicissitudes of travel back then, but again, Shakespeare expects us to buy this old mystery meat pie. He also expects us to believe the king took his wife to court (not the same as courting his wife) in a complete farce of a trial rather than simply behead her as was the fashion at the time. The reason for the trial is that it's far more an exercise in linguistic strutting and puffery than ever it was a realistic trial.

The wife, of course, dieth after the trial, but isn't really dead, just like the unheroic Hero wasn't really dead in Much Ado About Noting. Shakespeare wasn't original by any means. He even plagiarized himself! In the end, the child he thought had been burned alive on his own orders was in fact raised away from his sight for sixteen years, and the wife he thought was dead was living with a neighbor and lo an behold, all is forgiven at the end.

Horseshit! This king is so clueless that he has no idea what's going on in his own court, let alone his own country! He's so selfish that he won't let his supposed friend go home, and he's so stupid and paranoid that he thinks his best friend and his wife had sex. The guy's an asshole and simply isn't worth reading about. I do not recommend this! If you must indulge in Shakespeare, he has better material to read or listen to than this.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, Hope Larson

Rating: WARTY!

This is my third attempt at getting into Madeleine L'Engle's work and I finally realized the problem: it's a Newbery award winner which more than adequately explains why I can't stand it. Why I even imagined continuing after I tried the actual novel in May of 2015 and did not like it, is a mystery, but I saw the movie recently and did not like that, and now even a graphic novel gets the thumbs down.

Hope Larson's adaptation I suppose is not bad, but her artwork leaves a heck of a lot to be desired. The real problem though, is the original story which tries so hard to be cute and ends up being a nonsensical pile of centaur crap. Or is it flying horseshit? I'm not sure there's any real difference. There's no point in going on about this because I already covered it in the original review, so I'll say this did not work for me but at least I made it all the way through! I cannot recommend it though. Just the opposite. It's a great pity that this didn't end with Tesseract One.

Hexed by Michael Alan Nelson, Emma Ríos, Cris Peter

Rating: WORTHY!

This was an awesome graphic novel written beautifully by Nelson, drawn gorgeously by Ríos, and colored richly by Peter.

Luci Jennifer Inacio das Neves, or Lucifer for short(?!), is no ordinary thief. She steals magical artifacts which often have dangerous magical protections. Unfortunately, the job she turned before immediately leaving town is coming back to bite her in the form of Dietrich, who insists that since she skipped out on him, she owes him and will steal something for him as well as introduce him to The Harlot. Or else.

Dietrich aims to become number one in the magical underworld, which makes him number two right now, and he behaves like it towards Luci. After he threatens her employer Val Brisendine, a vulnerable art dealer, she feels like she has no choice but to go along with his plan even as she plots to get out permanently from under his thumb.

The stakes grow higher and Luci dives deeper, and it's starting to look like maybe she can't fight her way through this. Or can she? I ain't tellin'! But I do promise you this is an awesome novel and well worth the time to read it if you're into magical fantasy work at all.

I knew as I was reading this that I would welcome a sequel and it looks like I'm in luck, because the author appears to have written such a thing in at least two parts: Hexed: The Harlot & The Thief! Unfortunately that has a different illustrator: Dan Mora. I'm not a big fan of male illustrators' habit of hypersexualizing characters, but I may still take a look at this in the hope that Dan Mora is not focused on physical. Don't go searching for this series on Boom! Studios's site though: their sad search engine can't find it even though I know for a fact that it's on there! Look elsewhere for information about it or do a site search from outside of the actual website.

She Persisted by Chelsea Clinton, Alexandra Boiger

Rating: WARTY!

This is a short and essentially meaningless book aimed at young children. It purportedly champions women who were sold short, but persisted and became famous for something other than overcoming obstacles. Written by Chelsea Clinton (yes, that Chelsea Clinton!) and illustrated by Alexandra Boiger since Clinton can only draw a crowd and big bucks, it features a scant paragraph about each of the following: Virginia Apgar, Nellie Bly, Ruby Bridges, Margaret Chase Smith, Claudette Colvin, Florence Griffith Joyner, Helen Keller, Clara Lemlich, Sally Ride, Sonia Sotomayor, Maria Tallchief, Harriet Tubman, and Oprah Winfrey.

Chelsea Clinton and Penguin Random House were sued by Christopher Kimberley for copyright infringement. His assertion is that they 'cashed in on his hard work'. Last I heard Clinton's team of lawyers filed to dismiss the suit. I'm no lawyer and even if I were, my opinion would be irrelevant, but it seems to me that a suit like this particular one has little standing especially when launched against a millionaire celebrity.

As for the book, it became yet another celebrity best-seller, pushing out lesser-known writers once again. Big Publishing™ lavishes big bucks on big celebrities whilst turning down good books by unknowns. This is why I will never publish with Big Publishing. Every time one of us sells out to them, we walk all over others like us.

I hate for books to do well not because of their content, but because of their author, and in this case this is exactly what's happened because there really is very little content. The author is earning a six-figure sum on the backs of those who have gone before her, and if she had made an effort to put some content into the book, that would be one thing, but for someone who has grown up in a very privileged existence to then climb on the backs of those who were far less privileged and milk their hard work for tens of thousands of dollars is a bit much.

Actually, it's a lot much, and I cannot recommend this one or its sequel, wherein the author recognizes that while the USA isn't the only country in the world, it is the most important (by granting it the first publishing), and also on par with all other nations put together (they merit only one book of equivalent size). This book is far more about illustration than it is about illumination, so despite its superifcial good intentions, I really can't recommend it, and I have to wonder where all that money is going from the sales of the book. It's not like the author is exactly short of cash, but maybe it'll help pay-off that five million dollar mortgage, huh?

Bonfire by Krysten Ritter

Rating: WARTY!

If this novel had been written by an unknown and submitted as is, it would never have got published. The only reason it did get published is because it was written by a celebrity. The author is an actor who currently plays Jessica Jones in the Marvel TV series of the same name, and in that show I adore her, but a writer she's not. Not yet. She may become one if she can quit writing YA trope and cliché and find a topic that's not been done to death. And have an editor who's not afraid to say no to a celebrity.

This follows the done-to-death trope of the prodigal son (or in this case, daughter with the unimaginatively bland name of Abby Williams) returning home to confront "demons". Barf. Yawn. Barf some more. Yawn a bit. Ho-hum. So anyway, the main character returns to her even more unimaginatively named small town of Barrens, Indiana where she grew up (or maybe not) and where a conglomerate named Optimal Plastics appears to be responsible for polluting the water and causing people to get sick. We're told the town is now booming, but we're never told why a huge corporation would put its roots down in a lifeless hick town nowhere near major artery roads or airports in the first place. At least not in the part I listened to.

Abby is an environmental lawyer living in Chicago and apparently lives a life of drunkenness and debauchery there. You would think someone with that portfolio would be able to confront the girl who bullied her in high-school and now acts like they were old friends, but this character is such a limp rag that she doesn't say squat. Let me just make it clear that I would never want Abby Williams to represent me in court!

It was when Abby discovers that the house she's renting has a neigh-bore who is a single dad with a precocious young daughter that my nausea rose far too high to continue. It didn't help that Abby had lost all interest in pursuing the chemical company even by this point, and had become instead obsessed with tracking down this girl, Kaycee Mitchell, she knew in high-school who had since gone off the grid. Abby was not a likable character, and I honestly didn't give a damn about her or anything else in this story. I could not care less what happened to the missing girl, because I've been given no reason to care more.

From reading other reviews out there I understand that the author knows nothing about Indiana, thinking it a football state when it's a basketball state (even I, who has almost zero interest in fatuous and ultimately pointless sporting events, knew that!), and she misnames the state university and invents a toll road where none exists. It's so easy these days to research a place on the Internet, in Wikipedia, and even go look at it on Google maps, that there's no excuse for getting things like this wrong. It's sloppy and lazy.

The asinine blurb (for which I don't blame the author) promised "tantalizing twists, slow-burning suspense," but the only word in that whole phrase which applies here is 'slow'. I pulled this off the library shelf solely because it was written by Krysten Ritter. I thought it would be well worth reading, or rather listening to but it wasn't, even though reader Karissa Vacker did a decent job.

The best thing that can be said about this novel is that it's short, but apparently, according to some reviews I read, it could have been shorter still if the endless repetition had been cut out, and I believe them far more than ever I'd believe a blurb writer! I cannot recommend this based on the part I could stand to listen to. A bonfire is a great place for a novel like this.

One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson

Rating: WARTY!

This was my third voyage into the world of Kate Atkinson. As I mentioned twice before(!), I came to her via the TV series Case Histories, and I hoped her novels would be as good as the TV show, but they were not. I could not get Case Histories on audiobook and didn't want to go with the library print book. I have too many print books on my shelf and actively try to avoid procuring any more until I've read-down some of this pile! I live in fear that they will fall off the shelf onto my head when I'm sleeping and I wish to bypass such a rude awakening.

This was the second-in-line in the series, but the problem with it was that it was too rambling. The interesting thing is that in the first novel, Jackson Brodie, the ex-soldier now turned PI inherits a lot of money, but in the TV series he did not have this money. I'm not sure how they will reconcile it if they continue the TV show. I liked how there were several plot threads seemingly unconnected, and which in the end all became woven together, but that was TV. The audiobook was far too sluggish.

I could not get started on the novel. One of the characters was such a limp rag of a man that he was repulsive, yet the author seemed determined to follow him into the most mundane of activities including a writing class he attends (which I think was a flashback but I'm not sure. It's easy to miss bits in an audiobook when driving. At least it is if your focus is on the road where it should be!). The writing class wasn't even interesting, and it seemed like the author was maybe using it to insult people perhaps she had known in a similar writing class which she attended. I don't know. It just felt a bit like that.

The story begins with this limp rag man breaking up a road rage incident, and then it just rambles on and on. Jackson Brodie is nowhere in it and did not show up right up to the point where I couldn't stand to listen any more. It was read pretty decently by Steven Crossley, but that couldn't make up for the material (or lack thereof). I felt bad for him having to read this. Just in case it isn't clear: I cannot recommend this one!

Hell Gate by Linda Fairstein

Rating: WARTY!

If I'd known that this author was once the prosecutor who railroaded the Central Park Five black kids into jail for a crime they never committed, I would have spit on the novel rather than picked it up. But I didn’t know that until after I’d read enough of it to know it was a lousy novel written by an author who is so far out of touch with things as to be very effectively retired even as she continues to write. It was only after I gave up on it and looked her up in Wikipedia that I discovered this and other interesting facts about her.

Fairstein resigned in early summer of 2019 as a member of the board of trustees of her alma mater, Vassar College, in Poughkeepsie, New York, after a netflix movie on the event stirred up enough resentment that finally something came to a head. If I’d known this novel was merely wish-fullfilment - this author basically putting herself into her own fiction as a prosecutor of sex crimes - I would never have picked it up either.

I'm not a fan of first person stories because they're irritating at best and completely unrealistic. Few authors - and even fewer stories - can carry that amount of weight, but far too many authors aren't smart enough to realize it. The woman who read for this audiobook story, Barbara Rosenblat, had entirely the wrong voice for both the story and the character, so that didn’t help either. That wasn't the worst part though.

The hypocrisy in this novel was astounding. For an ex prosecutor of sex crimes to write a novel about human trafficking and then lard it up with sexist material is mind boggling. If I’d know this novel - published in 2010 - would read like it was written in the fifties with all the unaddressed genderism it contains, I’d never have picked it up. But until I listened to it, I didn't know that there would be repeated remarks made to the main character of an inappropriate nature, and never once does she address them. Guys can say pretty much whatever they want to her and she doesn’t even react. In short, she's part of the problem and the author ought to be thoroughly ashamed of writing material like this.

I don't have a problem with reading a novel by an older writer (this author is now in her seventies). The problem isn’t that. The problem is when the older writer fails to move with the times and instead, writes a modern story with an antique mindset, which is evidently what happened here. And that's not even the whole problem.

The author seems so obsessed with describing old buildings that she forgets what story she's telling. This story could have been about architectural design. I quickly tired of hearing yet more building history, and yet more descriptions of arches, columns, and windows. This was as much a DNR as it was a DNF. You have my word that I will never read another novel by this author. I'm tempted to say that I'm glad I never paid for this one, but in a sense, I did pay for it by merely listening to it.

Algeria is Beautiful Like America by Olivia Burton, Mahi Grand

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This story had an interesting effect on me because I liked it even though it's not the normal sort of story I like. Most stories that involve people recounting a travelogue - finding their roots or worse, finding themselves, bore me to death, but this one sounded interesting and miraculously it actually was. I think the author can thank Michael Palin for preparing the way with his story of his adventures in the Sahara, which I enjoyed immensely. This story was well-told to begin with, and very competently illustrated by Mahi Grand with sweet, gray-scale drawings.

The one thing I really honestly neither got nor liked about the story was the last two words of the title. Why "Like America"? It seemed like shameless pandering to an American audience. Why not "Like France"? Why not just leave it at "Algeria is Beautiful" or better yet, "Algeria The Beautiful" which both makes a powerful statement and harks to the poem Pike's Peak by Katharine Lee Bates.

The author's family hailed from Algeria, but as French citizens, they had to flee during the civil war in the 1960s, when her grandparents literally flew across the Mediterranean and settled in France. Unlike most people, the author's grandparents did not view the South of France as a paradise. Instead they viewed it as a poor man's Algeria which amused me! After hearing so much, one way or another, about Algeria, the author decided she had to visit and check out her grandparent's roots. She gave up on her hope of collecting some friends to travel with her. She should have asked me! I would have loved to have gone had I been single.

So, alone, with only the name of a contact in Algeria, she traveled. It's no spoiler to say she made it there and back safely since she could not have written this had she not (this is why first person voice horror and thriller fiction doesn't work! But I digress!). Anyway, she has some great fun, some disturbing moments, some confusing ones, and some very happy ones, and a lot of other emotions in between. The story was well-told, was entertaining, and kept me reading. I recommend this as a worthy read.

Ocean of Secrets Vol2 by Sophie-chan

Rating: WARTY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher. Note that I have not read volume one of this series. This is volume two and starts at chapter five. And no, I really don't think my view would of this volume would have improved had I read volume one first. I'm quite sure I would never have read this had that happened!

This sounded like an interesting story from the blurb, but then don't they all? (Not really!). The problem was that the blurb didn't remotely match the story. I have to wonder if it matched volume one, because it bore no relationship whatsoever to volume two, so I felt like I was drawn into this under false pretenses.

The blurb claims that "Lia, a 17-year old orphan living by the Atlantic is swept away by the ocean currents during a ruthless storm. She is then saved by Moria and Albert, a duo of illegal runaways on their magical ship!" No! Instead, try a guy flying home from a trip who espies a landmass floating in the sky very reminiscent of Asgard from the original Marvel Thor movie. That's what happened in this novel.
No orphan. No storm. No sweeping away. No magical ship.

When he lands, the guy who is evidently a geology student, reports this experience to his professor who, instead of calling in a psychiatrist, inexplicably allows the guy to take a solo flight in a light aircraft to go find this floating island. He does, and non-adventure ensues.

I'm sorry but this story was awful and the black and white line-drawing artwork indifferent. I was sorely disappointed. It was so juvenile and the plot so thin and childish that it honestly felt like I was reading something a child had written. I wish the author all the best, but I cannot recommend it at all.

I am not a fan of the manga format. I get why it is the way it is, I do, but when this is translated to the west, just as the language is translated, so too could the pages be reversed, especially in an ebook. It's just laziness and hide-bound, blinkered obstinacy that prevents it. For some stories which are worth my time to read, I can put up with this even as I do not like it, but it was just another irritant in this case. It's 2018. No, publishers, it really is! Less than two years from now we shall all require 2020 vision. You read it here first. We do not have to follow method X because that's the way it's always been done, y' know?

VBQ—The Ultimate Vegan Barbecue Cookbook by Nadine Horn; Jörg Mayer

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

It's been a long time since I've been a vegan, but as a vegetarian I still keep my eye on what's happening and this is why I requested this for review purposes, because it's a topic you don't often see: a barbecue cookbook for vegans! Lots of recipe books, but nary a barbecue book amongst them!

This one was full of tasty and useful suggestions, hints and tips, including information about selecting a maintaining a Barbecue grill - even if you live in an apartment (assuming you have access to some outdoor balcony or something where you could grill). It begins with a lengthy section on barbecuing in general, followed by an introduction to barbecuing vegan style with lots of useful pointers about grilling just right, including retaining moisture and not over-grilling.

The next few sections cover burgers, sandwiches and patties, then "steaks" (including Seitan style!), "sausages", and skewers, stuffed, braised, and grilled veggies, grilled "cheese" sandwich, chapatis, veggie chili, sweet potato buns, pizza (including Vietnamese style!), wraps, and so on. The last time I grilled a wrap my wife refused to wear it and made me buy her a new one! I could probably have used the advice in this book right then! But seriously, the book goes on to cover salads (including Sichuan style!) and sauces, basics, bread, and more, so it's pretty darned comprehensive.

The only complaint I would have is one which I have about all ebooks which contain photos. It's nothing to do with these authors or this book in particular. Actually you could blame me, because I read my books in 'night' mode which saves on battery power because it lights up only the text, leaving the screen background black. The problem with this is that all images show negative, so you have to put it back into daytime mode to see the image as the author(s) intended. I'm not sure anything can be done about that - although you'd think it oughtn't to be beyond today's technology. So this is a ebook reader/ebook app issue, not a problem with this book per se.

That aside, I recommend this book for a refreshing variety of ideas, food preparation tips and tasty meals! Grilling ain't just for carnivores any more!

The Crooked Staircase by Dean Koontz

Rating: WARTY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This author has more pen names than I have fingers on two hands: David Axton, Brian Coffey, Deanna Dwyer, KR Dwyer, John Hill, Dean Koontz, Leigh Nichols, Anthony North, Richard Paige, Owen West, and Aaron Wolfe. I honestly couldn't remember reading anything by him prior to this, but checking in my blog revealed two previous stories, neither of which I liked! One was an audiobook ( The Face of Fear) about a slasher serial killer going after women. This was recommended by a friend, but is quite simply not my cup of tea. My eyes glaze over when I see a serial killer novel in my daily book bargain flyer, because this genre has been so done to death. That particular novel was especially objectionable because it was in audiobook form and read by Patrick Lawler, who I honestly cannot stand as a book reader. The novel of this author's that I read was a graphic novel version of some Frankenstein-based story, and I did not like that one either.

Had I remembered either of those, then I would not have requested this one, which is not to be confused with The Crooked Staircase by Victor Gunn, so the lack of any lasting impression made by these other books had led me to think this was the first of his I'd read. I'm not sure why this one was more appealing to me initially. It's not like it was perfect, but there was intrigue and action, and nothing completely dumb to begin with, so that made a difference, but there were parts which were stretched a little too far in my opinion. I stayed with this as far as I could, but in the end it simply could not hold my interest, so I gave up on it about one third the way through. I couldn't face reading any more of it, the way it was going - or failing to go!

There's this Indian (not native American) brother and sister who live in a really nice house out in the boonies. One night when the sister is standing outside watching the rain, she sees an SUV drive up and three guys climb out, scale the gate to the property and head into the house. Knowing this can't be a good thing, she sneaks back into the house where her brother is, and she gets some hornet killer spray and disables the guys with it by spraying it into their faces. So far so good, but instead of calling the cops at that point, the two of them go on the run! There is no sensible explanation given for this behavior, so this was my first problem.

One of the guys in the trio invading the home was from the sheriff's department - the girl recognized him. If he was a police officer, then why sneak up? Why not simply go knock on the door (or ask for admittance through the gate in this case) like he was on official business, and then when the door was opened, force their way in? Anyway, the girl disables all three of them with the hornet spray, which was pretty cool, but instead of taking their guns and tying them up (or even handcuffing them, if the sheriff had cuffs on him), and calling the police, the brother and sister go on the lam! These characters are both authors and they have zero imagination, so this felt really inauthentic to me, not to say lame. This is a serious problem with Big Publishing™ and an author who garners a certain level fo success: the editors don't know when (or maybe how) to say no!

If these two feared the police might be compromised because of the sheriff's presence, they could have called the FBI or something. These two were not criminals and not dumb people. They had no idea why the sheriff had shown-up with some heavies and some chemical, and needles like maybe it was for an interrogation. All the siblings had had to do was call the cops. OTOH, if the author actually wanted them to run (and int his case it seems he didn't), then he needed to supply a more convincing reason than was on offer here. I was willing to let that slide, but the whole thing slid too far downhill for me in the end.

There's a second story running in parallel with this one, in which this woman, who is evidently scared of something given her exhaustive security precautions, arrives home to find a woman already in the house waiting for her. This visiting woman, who goes by Jane, isn't a threat and is apparently going after the first woman's ex-husband (a man who had treated her brutally to get what he wanted). The visiting woman is an ex-FBI agent who is living off the grid and has her own personal vendetta against this man.

It sounded like a great start to the story, but the problem was that the author rambles way too much for my taste and for an action story. There were too many asides, too many details, and too many wasted pages. At one point there are two guys trying to track the Indian pair down, and this goes on and on and endlessly on, and it became tedious to read, especially since it was obvious where it was going. I couldn't help but wonder why there was all this padding when the end result was the same. The same thing happened in the parallel story with the main character getting into a boring conversation with this young woman who she encountered in a house where she was trying to get to the house-owner.

In the end I was beaten by sheer boredom waiting for the real story to begin, This felt like one long prologue, and I don't do prologues. I wasn't about to spend any more time on a 340 page novel when it was this uninspiring in the first hundred pages, and especially with such an improbable plot. Based on what I read, I cannot recommend this.

This Is a Taco! by Andrew Cangelose, Josh Shipley

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This short, illustrated story was hilarious. Told as a children's story about a perky and rebellious (and it must be said, slightly corpulent) little squirrel, it starts out innocently enough, introducing us to the squirrel and its habitat and foods, but as the descriptions are trotted out, the squirrel becomes more and more disappointed in its own story. "Wait I eat bark?" (or words to that effect) it complains at one point. Its preferred food is, of course, tacos, and who can argue with that? I can say without fear of common diction that some of the best squirrels I know are partial to tacos. They don't like the soft ones, only the hard ones. This completely explains corpulent squirrels.

Now you know those redheads are feisty (at least that's what every YA writer, and not a few grown-up writers, would have us believe), so it's not surprising that the story deteriorates further (for the squirrel, not for the reader!) when we learn that the hawk likes to prey on squirrels. I won't go into any more details otherwise I'll start laughing and won't be able to finish this review. Oh! Too late! I feel the titters and giggles coming on! if you can't find a laugh on the Internet, then Giggle it! Let me finish quickly by saying: this is hilarious and the work thinks marvelously outside the book. I fully recommend this for a highly amusing read.

The Lost Path by Amélie Fléchais

Rating: WARTY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I have to say, up front, that I was disappointed in this story, which is depressing because back in August of 2017, I reviewed this author's The Little Red Wolf and loved it. This was a different kettle of comic though, because I'm not even sure what happened in it, despite reading it all the way through.

It felt unfinished for one thing, and on top of that it was disjointed and confusing. I had a hard time following it, which was fine, because it seemed to be going nowhere anyway. The story is supposed to be of these three kids who remain nameless, and who get lost in the forest and encounter strange and magical creatures, but while I found nothing magical in the story, I'm sorry to say I found a lot of strange, and not in a good way. I ended-up being glad these kids were lost and hoping they were never found, thereby decreasing the surplus boredom - as Ebenezer Scrooge might have wished!

The weirdest thing about the graphic novel was that it started out in full color - and quite well done as it happened, but then inexplicably switched to black and white line drawings. I thought at first that maybe this was to indicate that it was nighttime, but it wasn't! Later the color came back - again for no apparent reason, and then went away once more.

Was there a reason for this? Who can say? It was a gray area, but I could see no purpose in it! There was at least one image which had a splash of color, like the artist had begun to color it, but hadn't finished. The only conclusion I could draw by then was that this was unfinished because it was an advance review copy. Alternately if the author/artist was trying to say something with the absence/return of color, it was lost on me, as was the bulk of this non-story.

I was truly disappointed in it, and I cannot recommend this at all.

Life After Life By Kate Atkinson

Rating: WARTY!

This was another attempt at Kate Atkinson via audiobook. It failed.

I came to her as an author via Case Histories on TV, which I really enjoyed, but my foray into her novel about the same characters was boring. I had the same experience here, but I confess it did take me longer to get bored! Normally when an author has failed me I don't go back to that same author. I had the same policy on dating when I was single! LOL! I don't see the point in revisiting a disappointment so I've never done it with dating and very rarely with authors. I only went back to this author because I got three of her novels from the library at the same time and wanted to at least give them all a try as long as I had them.

This one had sounded really interesting. In some ways it was reminiscent of my own Tears in Time, although that was sci-fi and didn't involve the character dying. This novel was a bit more like the movie Groundhog Day except that instead of the main character falling asleep and reliving the same day over, the main character here dies and then somehow continues on as though nothing has happened. There's no information as to how this works: whether it actually is a redux or whether this is a trip through parallel universes. Perhaps by the end of the novel this is made clear, but I only made it to just under halfway through.

I gave up on it because it was becoming tedious and repetitive. It wasn't so much that it went over the same story again and again, although it did to begin with. In this story we did slowly move forward and the character did progressively grow older as the story went on, from infant-hood to childhood to teen years and older, and even into a marriage which didn't work out. I lost interest because the tedium of her life remained the same, the relationships remained the same, and the kind of events that befell her remained the same. Nothing really different happened, so while she was growing, the story was not!

On top of that, Ursula, the main character, simply wasn't that interesting. She was so passive and she didn't do anything! Instead, things happened to her, and this never changed. She was far too passive: even a rape and a subsequent botched abortion did not impinge upon her significantly. You'd think that repeatedly dying and then finding out they had survived the death and had a second (and a third, fourth, etc) opportunity, would actually change a person and have a profound effect on them, and that this effect would become increasingly powerful as it was repeated, but this wasn't the case here at all. Ursula was Teflon™ coated! Nothing affected her. Nothing left a mark! It was entirely unrealistic, and this story simply wasn't for me. I do not recommend it. I'd much rather have read about Ursula's aunt Isabella, who sounded far more interesting than ever Ursula could be.

Where is Baby's Belly Button? by Karen Katz

Rating: WORTHY!

Talking of stimulating a child's mind, which I was in my last few reviews as it happens, here's another fun book that's aimed at very young children, which can do just that. It also teaches about parts of the body such as eyes, feet, hands, and of course, navel gazing! Each page asks a simple question and on the color illustration lies a flap that can be lifted and which will, I promise you, answer the question! The cute pictures of the children are wonderfully diverse, so no child will feel left out. I thought this was fun and appropriate for young children and I recommend it.

Little Owl's Night by Divya Srinivasan

Rating: WORTHY!

This is a simple story, simply, but cutely illustrated in color, of the very charming little owl who starts the night flying around the countryside and greeting fellow animals as little owls are wont to do. It was a sweet and a speedy read for sending a child off to noddy-land, perhaps with dreams of themselves flying around the forest. There's no better way to put a child down for the night than by reading (or just telling) them a story which may in turn give them fun, imaginative, and sweet dreams, and this one is a worthy read. There's no better way to stimulate a child's imagination than to read to them, and no better thing you can do for a child's mind than to make it think outside the box.

Malala's Magic Pencil by Malala Yousafzai, Kerascoët

Rating: WORTHY!

I favorably reviewed Malala Yousafzai's I Am Malala back in August of 2015, and also Raphaële Frier's book about her, aimed at young children, back in October of 2016. This is a book for younger children still, and was penned by Yousafzai and illustrated by Kerascoët, which is the joint nom de plume of artists Marie Pommepuy and Sébastien Cosset.

Beautifully written and gorgeously illustrated, it tells an autobiographical story of Malala's childhood fancy and dream, and of what she wished for in a world which was and still is extremely hostile to half the population. I think it makes a worthy read for anyone. I'm truly sorry that it may not reach those children who are most in need of hearing these words.

Circuit Clay

Rating: WORTHY!

This was fascinating and I was sorely tempted to buy it myself just to see it work, which is why I mention it here, but note that I have not tried this. I just saw it on the shelf and it looked like fun for about $20. It allows kids to make safe (I assume and dearly hope it's safe!) low voltage electrical circuits using modeling clay. The clay conducts electricity which itself was way cool to me, and you can build light-up toys and models. The cover says it makes 15 projects, but I'm assuming those are simply imaginative repurposing of a few basic ones. The point about this though is to stimulate a child's imagination. Society will never run out of a need for inventive and competent engineers, and this is a good way to get a child thinking that this can be a real option for them if they want. My only concern about this is whether or not it overstimulates your child to the point where they are tempted to mess with more dangerous electric things around the house! We definitely don't want that! But with that it mind it looks like a lot of fun, and electrical modeling clay sounds way cool to me!

Build Your Own Gotcha Gadgets

Rating: WORTHY!

Now I have to say up front that I have not tried this book, but I saw it on the shelf and read a little about it and feel it deserves an honorable mention. Advertised on the box as 'Now with DOUBLE the sounds', I am frankly not sure if that's a lure for the kid or an abjure for the parent! It looked very cool and for around $20 (prices vary store to store) it's not a bad deal assuming the gadgets (motion sensor, light sensor, door alarm, etc) are buildable as advertised and they really work. I used to love this kind of stuff as a kid. Yes! I was the nerd with the chemistry set, and I never lost my love of science!

The Boy from Tomorrow by Camille DeAngelis

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I loved this novel! Josephine and Cassandra are sisters living in Edwardstown, New York State, in 1915. Their mother is a medium who may or may not be genuine, but she is also a cruel and vengeful schemer who thinks nothing of forcing her younger daughter, Cassie, to eat a whole pudding that she naughtily sampled, even if it makes her sick. She thinks nothing of confining the rebellious Cassie to a cupboard for an entire day for speaking back to her, not even lettign ehr out for a bathroom visit. The two daughters are kept cut-off from society and are essentially prisoners.

A century away from this drama, Alec, who happens to be pretty much the same age as Josie, together with his divorced mother, moves into that same address, and through an antique Ouija board which Alec discovers in the house, he somehow miraculously makes contact with Josie, and they become friends. Unfortunately, Josie's mother learns of her Ouija board assignations and seeks to tap Alec's future information for her own ends, holding Josie hostage to force him to meet her demands.

The story is told in third person (thank you, Camille DeAngelis, you are a goddess amongst YA and middle-grade authors!), and it alternates from Alec's perspective to Josie's, and back again with each chapter and without losing moment or engagement. Despite its length, it makes for a fast and easy read, brings the reader in from the start, and holds them captive rather like poor Cassie and Josie are captive, but by a lot more pleasant means! I really enjoyed this book it was original entertaining, and a breath of fresh air. I highly recommend it.

The Heart and the Fist by Eric Greitens

Rating: WORTHY!

This was yet another audiobook I picked up on spec from my sterling local library, and while I confess to some disappointment in it, I have to recommend this as a worthy read overall.

The blurb makes much of the author's Navy Seal training and service, but that portion of this story occupied less than a third of the book! This disappointed me, because it was the part in which I was most interested. The rest of the book covers his time in college, which includes some interesting experiences in Rwanda and China, but he also rambled on and on...and on about boxing, which bored the pants off me (fortunately, not literally, which would have been embarrassing), but I skipped this part wholesale.

For me this was the biggest problem with what was otherwise a decent read: the author seemed not to know how to prioritize, which felt to me like an extraordinary flaw in a writer whose professional career must have consisted - as an officer in the Seals - in reliably and ably setting priorities! I guess he wrote about what made most impression on him without wondering if it would have that same impact on the reader.

While his entire story, taken as a whole, was worth listening to, I can't help but think that others might have wished for more about his military experiences too; however, what there was of them was educational and of real interest, and this is the part to which I listened most intently. Once again he reiterates what I've heard from other knowledgeable and competent sources: torture isn't the way to get information out of terrorism suspects. Who knew?!

The book is read by the author and he does a good job. I'm very much in favor of authors reading their own work in audiobooks although it seems to happen infrequently. I don't think anyone can feel their work better than the person who wrote it, and therefore cannot give it the life it deserves like the author can. There were times when this author's diction was less than crystal clear, and he had a habit of starting a sentence five by five (as a military person might say) and then tending somewhat to a wooden two by two as he finished which resulted in an incoherent mumble form time to time, but this was no big deal.

There was one section where he went on at length about a ceremony involved in crossing the equator for the first time, but while I am sure this was memorable and meaningful to him, it was completely lost on me as far as entertaining reading goes, and once again it went on interminably. I lost patience with that and skipped it as I did with his boxing stories. Other than that I found this book to be eminently listenable, moving, and satisfying, and I recommend it.

The Feros by Wesley King

Rating: WARTY!

Here's yet another from my overblown collection of print books that I've picked up from all over the place. This one was bad, folks. Really bad! It's yet another middle-grade (or maybe young adult but it read like middle-grade) story of kids with super powers. I believe it's book two of a series but this wasn't apparent from the book cover. I guess they're trying to hide that secret!

I could not make it past the start of chapter two which began: "Lana sprinted down the long hallway, her legs pumping beneath her." Her legs were beneath her? Whoah! What a mid-blowing concept. I guess that's her super power - having her legs are beneath her. Hey author, why not simply, "Lana sprinted down the long hallway"?

That was bad enough, but there was another gem to come just one more sentence later: "When she approached the opening, she burst through." Not when she reached the opening, not when she arrived at the opening, not even simply, "She burst through the opening," but when she approached the opening she burst through! That's her superpower! She can burst through something before she actually gets there! She only has to approach it!

I've written like that - when I'm parodying stories like this (Baker Street comes to mind), but I don't expect to actually read that in a purportedly seriously-written book. I stopped right there because I know when I have this much of an issue with a novel and I'm barely started on chapter two, that me and the novel are not going to work out.

It's better to make a clean break so both sides know it's over, so I said "Let's part as strangers," and I walked away. I'm going to apologize up front for inflicting this book as a donation to this little village library near where I live, but maybe someone who hopes for less in the writing than I do, will like it. Maybe someone, somewhere, somehow, will approach it and burst through it. I know I can't.