Book: All These Bodies

 Book: All These Bodies

Author: Kendare Blake

Pages: 304

This is my 96th read for the year

It is the summer of 1958.  Killings have been happening in the midwest where people are being killed and being drained of all their blood.  Michael - a small town boy - never imagines this horror coming to his home town, but one night a local family is killed.  When the police arrive on the scene the only people alive are the baby of the family and a 15 year old girl covered in blood.

What unfolds after the girl, Marie, is put in jail leads the police to learn where some of the bodies are buried and the truth behind many of the killings.  Marie - who will only confess to Michael what happened doesn't want to give up the name of the killer.  Even if it means saving herself.

This was an okay book.  I listened to it while wrapping presents and it passed the time.  It is a fair enough story, and the author's note at the end reveals that it is loosely based on some true crime from the 50s.  What I didn't love was the ending.  I didn't feel like it wrapped up.  Too many loose ends.  You feel that the whole thing is too unresolved.  I was hoping for an epilogue.

Entertaining enough, but not sure I would recommend this one

Stars: 3

Book: Everlost

 Book: Everlost

Author: Neil Shusterman

Pages: 336

This is my 95th read of the year

This is a story about Nick and Allie.  They were recently in a car accident and ended up in a place called Everlost.  Somewhere between earth and heaven - their souls are stuck.  Only children seem to end up in Everlost.  Not sure what to do, they meet another little boy and start on a journey to try and find out what happened to the rest of their family in the accident.  They meet Mary who has gathered as many lost souls as she could and given them a place to call home.  But Allie isn't buying it and soon tries to lure Nick away to continue on their quest.  When they leave, they are captured by a creature called The Haunter and soon are on a journey they never imagined.  

This was a good book.  Even though it is YA, I really enjoyed it.  I love most of Shusterman's books and this didn't disappoint. It is  the first book in a trilogy and I plan to read them all.  There is good character developement, and the idea of a place like this is clever.  How the children start to discover what it takes to leave which leads into the second book.

Knowing this was YA from the beginning, I enjoyed it.  It is for middle grade readers, but I think a lot of adults who are Shusterman fans will like this one too.

Stars: 4

Book: This Will All Be Over Soon

 Book: This Will All Be Over Soon

Author: Cecily Strong

Pages: 272

This is my 94th read for the year

This is the story of the author and her year during the pandemic which happened right after her cousin died of brain cancer.  She wrote this book as a journal of her time during the pandemic and the story of her cousin's battle and how she dealt with her grief.

This book was just okay.  I love Cecily Strong - think she is one of the funniest members of the SNL cast.  So I decided to give this book a try - knowing full well it would be anything but funny.  But it wasn't good.  It isn't particuarly well written, it is all over the place, and full of pages of text messages.  I wasn't really moved and I should have been - someone died tragically young.  It was just so jumbled that I just wanted it to end.

Just skip it

Stars: 2

Book: The Maidens

Book: The Maidens

Author: Alex Michaelides

Pages: 352

This is my 93rd read for the year

This is the story of recently widowed Mariana.  She gets a call from her niece stating that one of her friends is missing and presumed dead.  Mariana drives to the college to comfort her niece and gets tangled in the search for the murderer.  She pinpoints a beloved professor who has formed a group called "The Maidens" as the most likely suspect.  Thus starts a whirlwind mystery to find out who is murdering girls on campus and why.

I wanted to like this book. I had started to read it, and couldn't get into it, so decided to listen to it instead.  I liked The Silent Patient, so was hopeful. But this story just wasn't good.  I rolled my eyes quite a bit through this one, quickly figured out who the murderer was, and was annoyed with just about every character in the book.  It didn't have a solid plot.  I found myself saying "why" quite often.  The story is disjointed and just a slog.  Listening to it while I did yard work was the only reason I actually finished this one.

Stars: 2

Book: Code Breaker

 Book: Code Breaker

Author: Walter Isaacson

Pages: 560

This is my 92nd read for the year

This is the story of Jennifer Doudna and her invention of CRISPR.  She and her team were leaders in this gene editing technology that has changed the future of the human race.  It tells the story from when she was a young girl and how she decided to become a scientist and the work she has been doing since.  It also shows the work that is being done to develope RNA based Covid vaccines since the pandemic.

This is a good book.  It is long and it is science heavy, but if you are interested in gene editing and the future of curing so many diseases, then pick this one up.  It explores Doudna's career but the career of many other top scientist in the field.  The infighting, the race to be "first" ever present in this profession shows how much competition there really is. 

The world and the world of science has changed.  It is growing by leaps and bounds and more and more people are living longer and better lives because of this.  This novel takes a deep dive into how some of the diseases are being cured by innovative scientist like Doudna and her team.

Stars: 4 1/2

Behind Her Eyes

 Book: Behind Her Eyes

Author: Sarah Pinborough

Pages: 320

This is my 91st read for the year

This is the story of Louise.  A kind, divorced woman with a young son goes out for a night at the bar and meets a nice man. What she didn't know is this man is married.  And her new boss.  And when she discovers this the next day, she is mortified.  She and her boss decide that this will not come inbetween them and want to forget it ever happened.  However - enter his wife.  A chance meeting spirals she and Louise into an unlikely friendship.  Soon Lousie is mixed into their secrets that are crippling their marriage.  Louise doesn't know who to believe - Adele- the woman who seems to have to bend to her husband's every whim to keep him happy, or David - the husband who seems to be unraveling due to a large secret in their marriage.  In the end, Louise must make a choice that might cost her everything.

This was a strange book.  I did listen to it, and I have to admit it kept me entertained.....until the end.  The end was so out there that I quickly lost interest.  It had already started going in a weird direction about 3/4 of the way into the book, but that ending?  Ugh.  It went from being a thriller to magical disguised as psychology.  Just ridiculous.

Skip it.

Stars: 2

Nightbooks

 Book: Nightbooks

Author: JA White

Pages: 320

This is my 90th read for the year

This is the story of Alex.  One day he is leaving his apartment to throw away his nightbooks - scary stories that he has been writing - and he is lured in to an apartment.  He is trapped there by a witch named Natacha who demands a scary story read to her every night.  This is the only thing that will keep Alex alive.  Inside he discovers that he is not the first child to be trapped there, and he starts to work on how he will escape.  

This is a cute book.  I had seen the Netflix movie and thought I would check the book out.  The movie and the book stick very close to each other.  The little stoies that Alex writes inside this story in general are very entertaining.  It is a middle grade book, but I didn't find any of the stories overly scary even for late elementary students.  It is well written, and the characters are well developed.  Glad I found this one.

Stars: 4