Review: Ricochet: Two Women War Reporters and a Friendship Under Fire

Ricochet: Two Women War Reporters and a Friendship Under Fire by Mary Jo McConahay

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Fantastic. Not just an examination of the lives of a reporter and photographer reporting on the war in El Salvador, but also an examination of friendship and the changes that can rock the foundations of friendship. Well-written and fascinating.



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Review: Medic Against Bomb: A Doctor's Poetry of War

Medic Against Bomb: A Doctor's Poetry of War by Frederick Foote

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Some of these poems really moved me, some really confused me. I suppose that's unsurprising, as I'm not much of a poetry reader. Overall, it was interesting but I think I prefer poetic prose to poetry itself.



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Review: Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir

Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I don't think I could have picked a better book with everything that's going on if I tried. It's not just that with the gestational diabetes and the needles and the stress that I needed a good laugh, but that it turns out there's a chapter in this book all about Jenny Lawson having to give herself needles in the belly while she was pregnant. I'd never met anyone who'd had to do this, or even heard about it and it was reassuring to learn that I'm not the only one to be freaked out at the possibility of hitting the baby with the needle.

Plus, as I told Wyatt, it's funnier than small pox.



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Review: The Speckled Monster

The Speckled Monster by Jennifer Lee Carrell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



This book was so damn good. Granted, I LOVE stuff like this. They should make all the anti-vaxers read it, really, so they understand what exactly is at stake when one chooses not to vaccinate. It's such an easy read too, with endnotes that explain where the author filled in the details and extrapolated from what is known.



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Review: War of the Gods

War of the Gods by Justine Borrego

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



So, that wasn't very good at all. Nothing really ever happens in this book. I'm an adult and I'm not sure I really get how the kid beat Zeus and Jupiter at the end. Too much telling, not enough showing. Too much travelling across the sea, not enough actual action. And it's not like there was character development instead of plot either.



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Review: Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy

Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy by Karen Foxlee

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



So freaking good. So good, in fact, I put it on the baby registry, because I kept picturing myself someday reading it to Kaitlin. It's a lovely modern fairy tale about a very scientific-minded girl who ends up having to believe in magic in order to save the world, and at the same time, her family. Charming.



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Review: Lilly Babysits Her Brother

Lilly Babysits Her Brother by Brenda Bellingham

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Meh. If I had a child who had a severe allergy, or a sibling with one, I might buy this for them. But in general, I found it too lesson-based and not interesting enough narrative-wise.



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Review: Phoebe's Way

Phoebe's Way by Pamela Ditchoff

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



For the first part of the book, I was super annoyed by the dog narration. Particularly the repetitive way each chapter started. About halfway through though, I became interested enough in the individual histories to not mind at all.



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Review: Transgender Lives: Complex Stories, Complex Voices

Transgender Lives: Complex Stories, Complex Voices by Kirstin Cronn-Mills

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This was a good introduction to transgender issues. It alternated chapters of people's lived experiences with chapters on issues. I found the latter to be a bit on the basic side but I enjoyed reading the people's stories.



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Review: The F- It List

The F- It List by Julie Halpern

My rating: 0 of 5 stars



I like it when teenagers in novels remind me of students I've taught. These teens masturbate, smoke, swear, and have sex. The plot line was occasionally a bit much - that's a lot of death and illness surrounding one teenager - but overall, I found it interesting and moving.



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Review: Honey Bee's Adventures at Wilderness Pond

Honey Bee's Adventures at Wilderness Pond by Cathryn Carman Davis

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I really liked the language and the rhyming, but felt like the storyline needed a bit more.



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Review: The Little Moose Who Couldn't Go to Sleep

The Little Moose Who Couldn't Go to Sleep by Willy Claflin

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I really liked the story line and the illustration. Wasn't very keen on the attempt to dialect the language.



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Review: Captain Courage and the World's Most Shocking Secret Book 2

Captain Courage and the World's Most Shocking Secret Book 2 by Stacey a Marshall

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Children's stories tend to have two main elements - to entertain and to teach. I thought this one was too much in the direction of teaching the lesson, without enough entertaining. Granted, I didn't read this one with a child, so perhaps they'd be more amused by it than I was. Still, I really enjoy children's literature and this one didn't do much for me. Just as the Goodreads rating suggests, this one was just ok.



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Review: The Deja Vu Experiment

The Deja Vu Experiment by J.G. Renato

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Wait, what? WTF did I just read? First off, Diana is the most impressive sounding waitress from Iowa who ever existed. Who knew waitresses from Iowa had all the answers to how to live your life? Secondly, is this New Age mumbo-jumbo wrapped in science or...? Yeah, that wasn't what I was expecting, in the least. And I'm probably the worst possible reader for it, seeing as spirituality is really not my thing.



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Review: Let's Tell This Story Properly

Let's Tell This Story Properly by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Winner of the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, this short story tells the tale of Nnam, whose husband was hiding a second family in Uganda.



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Review: The Foot Soldier, a novella

The Foot Soldier, a novella by Mark Rubinstein

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I got this for free from Netgalley. It was a well written novella about Vietnam. I enjoyed how the ending and the title come together.



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Review: Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I didn't expect the kid to be such an asshole. I wish I'd read this with some students, because I'm curious about how they'd respond to him - would they see that he's quite a bully, while himself worrying about being bullied?



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Review: The Story of the Red Cross

The Story of the Red Cross by Krishna Satyanand

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Sometimes I download random books - I'm not even sure where this came from or why. Now that I'm choosing my next book at random (Wyatt picks a page, I read the shortest book on my Kindle list on that page), it's getting, well, interesting.

This is clearly a children's book, but I won't lie, I learned things from it. I'm going to poke around and see if I can find Dunant's A Memory of Solferino, because I think that would be quite an interesting read.



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Review: Dirty Cop

Dirty Cop by Kyle Adams

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This was an amazon freebie. I get an email that alerts me to deals and based on whatever the blurb was, I downloaded this. Turns out it's MM erotica -not what I was expecting, but it was a decently written short story.



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Review: Where There's Smoke

Where There's Smoke by Jodi Picoult

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



That was quick and fun, though I wouldn't normally be all that interested in psychics.



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