The Starless Sea

by Erin Morgenstern

498 pgs

I believe most people who pick up Erin Morgenstern's latest book, The Starless Sea, do so because they read and loved her very popular first book, The Night Circus. which makes me confident I'm in the minority, since I've yet to read that one. But having heard about it, and having had it recommended to me by numerous people, I had pretty high expectations for this new one. 

The book is a combination of stories, which Morgenstern intertwines together with varying degrees of success. The story revolves around Zachary Ezra Rollins, the son of a fortune teller, ho loves books and is a graduate student studying video games. Zach comes across a unique book in the school's library, which appears to have been misshelved, due to its apparent lack of authorship. The book is called Sweet Sorrows, and as Zach begins reading it, he discovers it contains an account of an experience from his childhood.

The experience involved a painted door that he turned away from, but which the book reveals would have taken him to a mysterious otherworld called the Starless Sea. Zach becomes obsessed with the book and where it came from and sets out on a journey to try to find the Starless Sea once again. 

It sounds exactly like the type of story that I'd love, but unfortunately, I found myself struggling with the book throughout. Part of it could have come from the fact that I listened to it instead of read it, which made it harder to follow Morgenstern's ambitious and unique way of telling the story. She switched back and forth between Zachary's journey and the mythology of the book, which included Zachary as well. And I often felt confused about where I was in the story. I also felt like the book wandered around a lot, without an ultimate destination and resolution in mind. 

I will give Morgenstern credit here she's due though. The book was beautifully written, enough so that there were many times I was listening to it and enjoying the writing enough to not care that I was feeling lost with what as going on.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

 

Bird Box

by Josh Malerman

293 pgs  (Bird Box series #1)

Most of the time, having really high expectations for a book means I'm going to be disappointed, at some level, with it when I read it. But sometimes a book comes along that is able to meet and even exceed my high expectations. Josh Malerman's Bird Box was one of those books. 

I haven't seen the Netflix movie based on the book, but I had definitely heard about it. So I had a pretty good idea of what the premise of the story was before I even read the cover flap. And the premise is what had me so excited to read the book. 

Malorie is a young mother in a post-apocalyptic future in which creatures exist that drive everyone who sees them to go violently insane and kill themselves. Malerman never makes it known where these creatures came from, what they look like, or what it is about them that causes such a deadly reaction.

It takes everything Malorie has just to survive every day and keep the two children alive. And the only way she's able to do that, is to black out all of their windows and wear a blindfold anytime she has to venture outside the house.

Bird Box the type of story that should be experienced for oneself and not spoiled by a review, so I won't say much more about it. Suffice it to say, it's intense and scary, in a way that will make the soles of your feet sweat. 

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

To Green Angel Tower

 by Tad Williams

1083 pgs  (Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series #3)

To Green Angel Tower concludes Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy, which he "finished" almost thirty years ago, but which he recently elevated to a series, with the publication of two new installments within the past couple of years, with a third yet to come. This has been a series I have thoroughly enjoyed so far, and which I look forward to continuing after a little bit of a break. It's a series George R.R. Martin has said inspired him to write his A Song of Ice and Fire series, which alone should be enough of an incentive to read Williams' books.

To Green Angel Tower picks up right where Stone of Fareell left off. The small band of forces led by Prince Josua Lackhand, which includes the newly-knighted Simon and the troll Binibik, have made it to the Stone of Farewell, where they hope to successfully raise up an army to defeat the followers of the undead Sithi Storm King. Included in their plans is the finding and bringing together three magical swords: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, which they believe represent their only chance of ultimate victory.

This book and the series so far are excellent examples of everything that is great about the fantasy genre. They are Tolkienesque, but stand categorically on their own merit. There is great action, fantastic characters, political machinations, and just enough sorcery and magic included to appeal to the stereotypical readers of the genre, the ones rarely exposed to direct sunlight and vegetables that aren't sold in a bag coated with cheese dust.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

The Splendid and the Vile - A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz

by Erik Larson

585 pgs

Erik Larson's latest, The Splendid and the Vile - A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz offers an interesting and thorough look at the leadership of one of the most successful and influential leaders of our time. It also provides a timely reminder of just how valuable a great leader can be during challenging times of uncertainty and hardship.

Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of Great Britain in May of 1940, when his predecessor resigned due to poor health. Churchill was a fairly unpopular figure at the time, within both his own Conservative Party as well as with the Labour Party, and he took over as Prime Minister at a very tenuous time in Great Britain's history.

Operation Dynamo, the operation that successfully evacuated over 300,000 Allied servicemen from Dunkirk, was only days away and France would soon surrender to Germany, which gave Hitler's army the ability to mobilize only a few miles from the coast of England. The nightly bombing campaign of London and other cities known as the Blitz would begin about four months later, which lasted over a year. But throughout it all, England and its citizens remained defiant, never faltering or wavering in their certainty that they would eventually be victorious, a conviction that was in large part a result of Churchill's leadership and ability to bring the country together under a common cause.  

As it just so happens, I finished reading the book the day after the first "Presidential" debate between Trump and Biden took place here in the U.S., and I couldn't help but reflect on the glaring contrast and deficiencies that exist between the quality of both of those men when compared with Churchill. Admittedly, Churchill was no saint, and his proclivity for wearing pink silk underwear and nothing else at times while conducting the business of Britain is questionable at the very least. But it's pretty easy to overlook the odd and slightly unsettling aspects of a leader's personal nature, when he's successfully navigating a country through the uncertain times it's facing. Unfortunately, the best we can hope for in this country right now, is a mediocre replacement for the disaster we've had for the last three and a half years.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor

 by Hank Green

449 pgs  (The Carls series #2)

Hank Green's A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor picks up about six months after An Absolutely Remarkable Thing left off. April May, the young woman who skyrocketed to unprecedented fame overnight with her documentation of the first of the Carls (10-foot tall alien samurai robots that suddenly appeared scattered all over the world) died at the end of the latter, but her body was never discovered. At the time of her death, all the Carls disappeared as quickly and inexplicably as they had appeared, taking with them the common dreams they had implanted on people all over the world. Six months later, April's friends, along with most everyone else, are still grieving over the loss of both April and the Carls.

Peter Petrawicki, who was indirectly responsible for April's death, has built an offshore research company that uses technology tied to the Carls, and is now worth billions. But with his company's success come changes that threaten to forever change the world, and not for the better. His company, an amalgamation of Facebook, Second Life, and a Bitcoin-type data-mining company, has the potential to destroy the economies of the world and usher in a form of dystopia never contemplated before.

This book took me longer to get into than its predecessor, and for the first half of it I wasn't sure whether it would end up representing a sophomore slump for Hang Green. Thankfully, by the end, I remain a big fan of Green and his storytelling.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The Body: A Guide for Occupants

 by Bill Bryson

450 pgs

Bill Bryson cut his literary teeth by writing entertaining, and oftentimes, hilarious travel memoirs through The United States, Great Britain, and Australia. More recently, his books have dealt with history and science. With The Body - A Guide for Occupants, Bryson takes us on an interesting and entertaining journey throughout the human body.

He covers every aspect of the body, from the cellular level, on up to the tissues, organs, and systems it's comprised of. He provides anecdotal and fascinating explanations of how doctors and scientists' understanding of how the body works has grown over time, and how they often gained their knowledge accidentally, or through the pain and suffering of patients and experimental subjects.

He covers what it takes to keep the body functioning at its best, as well as why it eventually wears out, succumbs to diseases, attacks itself through cancers, or simply quits.

I found the book both fascinating and enjoyable. I'm a big fan of Bryson's books, and would most likely read anything he ever decides to write, regardless of subject matter or critical reviews. The book didn't make me laugh as frequently as many of his others have, but that was okay with me. I still felt like I was being entertained while being educated.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The Last Kingdom

by Bernard Cornwell

333 pgs  (The Saxon Chronicles series #1)

The Last Kingdom is the first book in Bernard Cromwell's The Saxon Chronicles series, and the inspiration for the Netflix series of the same name. It's set in the ninth century in what would eventually become England, but what was then the kingdoms of Wessex, Mercia, and East Anglia. Alfred, the son of Aethelwulf, King of Wessex, will soon become king and will be instrumental in laying the groundwork for a united England, but will spend most of his life defending Wessex against Viking attacks.

The book begins in the year 866 A.D. and centers on the life of a Saxon named Uhtred, son of Uhtred, Lord of Bebbanburg in Northumbria. At the age of nine, Uhtred is captured by the Danish Earl Ragnar the Fearless during a raid in which his father was killed. He's now the rightful heir of Bebbanburg, but instead, spends his formative years being raised as a Dane.

Eventually Uhtred finds favor with Ragnar, and as he grows up, is taught to become a skilled warrior. As a young man, he accompanies Ragnar during the conquests of Mercia and East Anglia, but during the battle for Wessex, Uhtred is once again taken captive, but this time, it's by the Saxons, bringing him back to where they believe he belongs.

The Last Kingdom is by itself a great story, but it also sets the stage for the rest of the series that follows. Uhtred, born a Saxon and raised a Dane, seems destined to play a pivotal role in the struggle to unite England and defend it from the conquering Danes.

Years ago, I watched the first season of the series when it originally aired on BBC America. I remember enjoying it but forgetting about it when it moved over to Netflix. Reading this first book in the series has piqued my interest in revisiting the series there, while continuing to read Cornwell's books.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

The Drowned Cities

 by Paolo Bacigalupi

434 pgs  (Ship Breaker series #2)

Set in the same war-torn version of the world he created in Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi's The Drowned Cities--while not a sequel--further builds on the dystopian reality now facing humanity, along with the genetically engineered monsters it has created.

The book begins in a dark prison cell, where Tool, a killing machine created from tiger, dog, hyena, and human genes, has been kept and tortured. The guards believe the creature has finally died, but when one of the unlocks the gate to enter, Tool escapes in a whirlwind of death and carnage that takes mere seconds to complete.

Mahlia is a teenage girl who was orphaned by the war several years ago. She now scrapes by an existence working as a medic, scavenging what little medicines remain and using them to treat freedom fighters in the ongoing war between the factions. Her life was once saved by a man she calls Mouse, and the two have looked out for one another ever since.

When together they come across Tool, unconscious again and near death from multiple wounds, Mahlia recognizes an opportunity to possibly escape The Drowned Cities and the war once and for all.

The Drowned Cities is a dystopian book written for slightly younger readers, but don't let that lead you to assume the dystopian elements of the story have been watered down to make them more palatable for teenagers. Bacigalupi's story is just as dark, violent, and hopeless as McCarthy's The Road, although I can't imagine McCarthy would have considered adding a tiger-dog-hyena-human hybrid as one of the main characters.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

I am Radar

by Reif Larsen
653 pgs

Several year ago, I read Reif Larsen's first book, The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, and thought it was a fantastic story, ingeniously told. So, my hopes were pretty high when I picked up I am Radar. It's a big book, and I thought "Great, plenty of pages to enjoy reading this time around." Unfortunately, the number of pages this time turned out to be a symptom of the overall problem I had with Larsen's sophomore novel.

The book begins on the night of Radar's birth. Moments before he emerged into the world, the hospital experienced an inexplicable loss of power, and for some reason, the emergency generators didn't kick in, so Radar was born in complete darkness. When the lights flickered back on, the doctor found himself holding a baby with skin darker than he had ever seen before. Even if Radar's parents had both been black, the darkness of his skin still have seemed unusual. The fact that they were both white, meant Radar's life would never be "normal."

At a very young age, Radar's mother took him to a group of Norwegian scientists, who promised their experimental methods--which used electricity--could cure him of his condition. Ultimately they were successful in lightening his skin tone significantly, but he would suffer from the negative side effects for decades to come.

The book then jups around to various times and places around the world, from Yugoslavia in the 1980s to Cambodia in the 1950s, and in each time and place, threads leading back to Radar and his life many years later are slowly revealed.

It wounds like a promising story, and at its core, it is. But unfortunately, it gets buried in Larsen's unnecessary literary sprawl. Larsen seemed to try too hard this time around, almost as if he sat down to write with the goal of writing something profound. It didn't work. Profundity just can't be forced. Case in point.

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Leopard

by Jo Nesbø
517 pgs  (Hary Hole series #8)

Having been traumatized by the events of the recent Snowman case, Harry Hole has fled the Norwegian Crime Squad and is now in Hong Kong, racking up gambling debts and using heroine as a means to kick his drinking problem. But his former department are in desperate need of his help tracking down Oslo's latest serial killer. So far, two women's bodies have been discovered, both killed in disturbingly ingenious ways, and the Norwegian Crime Squad has no forensic evidence nor clues to go on. 

Bot not long after Hole begins investigating, a third woman is killed, and Hole discovers the connection the three women share, they all recently spent the same night in an isolated mountain hostel. It quickly becomes a race against time to track down and stop the killer before more guests of the hostel are killed.

The Leopard is the meatiest book in the series so far, coming in at over 500 pages, but it doesn't read like a particularly long book. From the first chapter, I was hooked, and as always with the series, found myself pulling for Nesbø's intensely flawed protagonist. It's a gritty and sometimes stomach churning story, but it's an excellent one.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre

by Max Brooks
282 pgs

Fourteen years after publishing World War Z, in which he gives a brilliant account of the war between the human race and the zombies, Max Brooks releases another cautionary tale. This time, he uses interviews and the found journal of a survivor as his source materials to provide an account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre. That's right, this time around, it's Bigfoot. Need I say More?

Greenloop is a small affluent community near Mount Rainier consisting of wealthy and (not surprisingly) ill-prepared people, who have chosen the isolated, but comfortable lifestyle Greenloop provides. It's only 90 minutes away from Seattle, but its residents are far enough away from civilization that their weekly groceries arrive via drones. Kate Holland is the newest person to move to Greenloop, and it's her journal through which most of the story is told.

Within days of Kate's arrival, Mount Rainier erupts, and the eruption severs the few remaining ties Greenloop has with the rest of the world completely. But Kate and her new neighbors have little to no time to consider how they'll survive the weeks or potentially months before they're rescued before even bigger problems arrive. The eruption has also displaced the creatures, which for years have been rumored to be living in the forests of the Pacific Northwest and sent them right into Greenloop.

For anyone who has ever thought, "Enough with the vampires and zombies. Give us a new threat to humanity," Devolution is a welcome response. It's not without its flaws (halfway through the book you'll be asking yourself when Kate has the time to write in her journal when she's spending all of her time trying to avoid having her skull crushed in by a sasquatch), but it's still a very enjoyable book. Hopefully, it will get the same cinematic treatment World War Z did one day, and we'll finally have a Bigfoot movie that will help us forget Harry and the Hendersons.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

The Western Star

by Craig Johnson
295 pgs  (Longmire series #13)

The Western Star is the 13th book in Craig Johnson's Walt Longmire series and I'm excited by the fact that it's one of my favorites so far. It tells two distinct, but interconnected stories, both of which involve the most ruthless killer Walt ever went up against.

The first story took place back in 1972, when Walt was a brand-new deputy with the Absaroka County Sheriff's department. He was accompanying Sheriff Lucian Connelly and 23 other Wyoming sheriffs on the Western Star, a sheriff's train that ran from Cheyenne to Evanston, when one of the sheriffs is killed. Walt, who is the newest and least experienced lawman on the train, is the one who identifies the killer and it's this investigation that solidifies his decision to become a Wyoming lawman.

The second story takes place in current times and involves the same killer from the Western Star. Every four years, Walt travels to Cheyenne to complete his weapons recertification and he plans that trip to coincide with the scheduled four-year parole hearings for the Western Star killer. Walt has made it a point over the years to attend each of the parole hearings in order to ensure parole is never granted. This year, armed with a diagnosis of less than a year to live, the man who has spent nearly the last 50 years behind bars, is trying to get a compassionate release, so he can live out what little time he has left outside of a jail cell.

As the story jumps back and forth between the two time frames, Johnson does a fantastic job of building towards the book's conclusion. And while this one ends on a bit of a cliff hanger, it's still a very satisfying conclusion. Fans of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express should enjoy the book that much more, as it's clearly an homage to it, and a worthy one at that.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Just Watch Me

by Jeff Lindsay
358 pgs

Riley Wolfe is a thief. But he's not the typical steal-your-identity, snatch-a-purse, shoplift, or even rob-a-bank variety. Those things are all far below Riley and the jobs he pulls off. For Riley, who doesn't need the things he steals, or even the money he could get from selling them, it's the challenge of stealing something that no one in their right mind would go after that drives him and makes him feel alive. If he's going to steal a piece of art, it's going to be the Mona Lisa. If he's going to break into a vault, it's going to be Ft. Knox.

Just Watch Me begins with Riley's successful theft of a 12.5-ton sculpture in downtown Chicago on the day of its unveiling. But soon afterwards, he falls into a state of near depression, feeling like what he does has become too easy for him. He needs to find the next great, and possibly impossible challenge

It's a diamond called Daryayeh-E-Noor that eventually brings him back to life. Riley learns that it, along with the rest of the Iranian crown jewels, will be traveling to New York, on loan from Tehran in the coming weeks and Riley knows what kind of security will be protecting it. Stealing that diamond is exactly the type of challenge that gives meaning to Riley's life.

Just Watch Me is obviously a heist story, and as such, it's the meticulous planning and tireless preparation needed for pulling off the job that sucks me in, and it's here where Jeff Lindsay's story shines the brightest. Ever since he wrapped up his Dexter series a few years ago, I've been excited and anxious to see what he would come up with next. Thankfully, Just Watch Me is a pretty good second act. I didn't find Riley to have the same appeal as Dexter did (not sure what that says about me), but the story was entertaining and fun, enough so that if I'm right in assuming this is the first book in a new series, I'll be picking up the next book as soon as it's out.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Atmosphæra Incognita

by Neal Stephenson
97 pgs

I haven't read much by Neal Stephenson, but what I have, I've really enjoyed, enough so that I have several more of his books sitting on the bookshelf right now, yet to be read. The reason they're still to-be-read, is because I feel like I need to prepare myself sufficiently before I start each of his books. For one, they're usually door stoppers, at around 1,000 pages each. But they're also dense and cerebral books, full of big ideas that I worry could potentially cause a brain aneurysm in a a person like me, if I'm not prepared beforehand.

So, I was interested to see what Stephenson could accomplish with a story less than 100 pages long. Atmosphæra Incognita is about the building of a 20-kilometer-high tower in the Nevada desert. The purpose of the tower is given, but it's not an important part of the story, nor are the limited characters it contains. What Stephenson instead focuses on in the few pages he uses is the architectural innovation needed to realistically build a structure that reaches into space.

Atmosphæra Incognita is an interesting read, but not the one I'd recommend for an introduction to his work. For that, do some mental stretches and calisthenics and then pick up one of his fictional tomes.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

East of Eden

by John Steinbeck
602 pgs

I attempted, like I usually do with the other books I've reviewed, to begin by writing a brief summary of East of Eden, considered John Steinbeck's most ambitious book. But I didn't get very far before I realized I was not going to be able to do it justice and still keep it relatively brief. There's just so much to this story that I feel is worth mentioning, and in trying to figure out what characters or elements to leave out, it became an exercise in frustration.

Fortunately, remembering this is a classic book, and one that has been around for nearly 70 years, I realized I really didn't need to write a summary after all. I assume most people have either read it already or plan to one day, so a summary isn't necessary for the former and could potentially ruin the experience for the latter. And I think those who don't fall into either of those two categories don't deserve to know what they're missing.

At its core, East of Eden is Steinbeck's investigation into good and evil, along with mankind's ability, or inability, to choose freely between the two. He took a lot of his inspiration from the fourth chapter of Genesis, the story of Cain and Abel, and patterned two of his main characters after the brothers. But each of the characters in the book is impacted by his theme to some degree or another throughout the story.

Until now, Of Mice and Men, which is one of my all-time favorite books, was the only other Steinbeck novel I'd read, and my plan had been to read The Grapes of Wrath next, eventually. But a friend mentioned he was about to reread East of Eden soon and said I should read it at the same time (like being in a little manly book club). So, I picked it up...and had a hard time putting it down. Now, I not only plan to read The Grapes of Wrath (sooner now, rather than later), but I feel like I should read several more of his books as well now.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

The Cabin at the End of the World

by Paul Tremblay
270 pgs

Wen, who is about to turn eight years old, and her two adoptive fathers, Andre and Eric, are staying at a rented cabin near a lake in New Hampshire. It's a remote cabin, without cell reception and a mile or so from its nearest neighbor. The perfect place for an extended vacation, where they can be alone as a family.

As the book begins, Wen is out capturing grasshoppers and delicately placing them inside a mason jar with a ventilated lid, when a large and friendly man jogs up the dirt road to the cabin and introduces himself as Leonard. Wen knows she's not supposed to talk to strangers, but Leonard is so friendly--even helping her catch a few more grasshoppers for her collection--and since Andrew and Eric are just on the other side of the cabin, Wen quickly relaxes and enjoys talking to her new friend for a few minutes.

But soon, when three more people--two women and another man all carrying strange, home-made weapons and dressed oddly similar to Leonard--appear at the bottom of the road and begin walking up to the cabin, Leonard's behavior changes and he tells Wen he and his friends need to talk to her and her dads about something very important.

Wen and her two dads try to barricade themselves inside the cabin, but Leonard and his friends are soon able to break in. Once inside, in an eerily calm and reasonable manner, they explain to the family of three that the world is going to end very soon, and the only way to stop it, is for Andrew, Eric, and Wen to voluntarily make a gut-wrenching sacrifice.

The Cabin at the End of the World is the type of book that will stick to your brain long after you finish the last page. It's a psychological horror story that keeps you off balance and uncertain of what you think you, and to say much more than that only risks ruining the experience for the next person. So that will have to do. It will not be long before I pick up another of Tremblay's books. I'm guessing it'll be around this coming Halloween.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Shakespeare for Squirrels

by Christopher Moore
271 pgs  (Shakespeare series #3)

A Midsummer Night's Dream is my favorite Shakespeare play. So, I was excited when I learned that it was to be (or not to be) the next one to receive the "Christopher Moore" treatment. Moore began his homage to the Bard with Fool, in which he introduced Pocket, King Lear's diminutive and bawdy court jester, and unleashed him into the literary world. He followed it up with The Serpent of Venice, in which he sent Pocket to thirteenth-century Venice and had him deal with, among other things, a sea monster prowling the city's canals.

In Shakespeare for Squirrels, Pocket, along with his sidekick Drool and pet monkey Jeff, find themselves in Athens. Pocket hopes to become the Duke's fool, but instead manages to insult the Duke and has to flee for his life into the nearby forest, which is ruled by the fairy king Oberon, who happens to be in need of a new fool himself, since his last one, Robin Goodfellow (aka Puck) was found murdered. Oberon promises Pocket he can become his fool, and receive his protection from the Duke, if he can find out who killed Goodfellow.

The story that follows is a great example of why Christopher Moore is one of my favorite authors. First and foremost, his books are hilarious. They're crude, irreverent, and not the type I'm inclined to recommend to those with sensitive literary palates. But that's kind of why I like them so much. There's something to be said for a book that will regularly shock me into laughing out loud on occasion, and his always do. But Moore doesn't just tell a story in a fantastic way, he also tells fantastic stories, and Shakespeare for Squirrels is up there with his best.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Dark Age

by Pierce Brown
751 pgs  (Red Rising series #5)

Darrow, the former slave who led the revolution against the caste system that had enslaved him along with every other red, is back. And not just in the sense of this new installment in the Pierce Brown's series being released, but back to his merciless and vengeful ways.

It's been ten years since he led the revolution and founded the Republic. But now Darrow has been abandoned by it, even labeled a traitor and deemed an outlaw. Along with what remains of his army, Darrow, the once great Reaper, now finds himself waging a rogue war on the fields of Mercury. But he's no longer interested in the politics that restrained him in Iron Gold, and he's determined to continue what he started decades ago.

His wife Virgina still leads the fragile demokracy, their son Pax has been abducted by their enemies, and Darrow is willing to kill billions, if that's what it takes to get back what he's lost.

This is the fifth book in the series, the longest so far, and Pierce Brown appears to have found yet another gear to move forward in. The action and the pacing are relentless, which is a good thing, because that's where Brown shines the brightest. I'm enjoying the series more now than ever before, but don't know how much more I can take, You'd think this far in, some things would have been resolved by now, but that's not the case. The space opera that Brown is writing keeps getting more and more intriguing and complex.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Squirm

by Carl Hiaasen
276 pgs

Squirm is one of Carl Hiaasen's books written for younger readers (but still entertaining for adults) and it features Billy Dickens, a kid who lives in Florida with his mother and sister. His father left them when Billy was 3 years old, and since the only contact they've had from him since is the check he sends every month like clockwork, and since his mother always cuts up the envelope with the return address into tiny pieces, Billy doesn't even know where he lives, let alone what kind of a man he was, or what he does for a living.

But that hasn't stopped him from trying to learn more about his father. And when one month his mother fails to cut up the envelope into small enough pieces, Billy is able to figure out his father's current address, and using almost all of the money he's saved up from working at the supermarket, buys a plane ticket to Montana to go see him.

While in Montana, Billy meets his father's new wife and stepdaughter, who are members of the Crow Nation, but he never sees his father. It seems like even his new family doesn't know much about the man. They tell him he has some secret government job involving drones and that they don't know where he is most of the time.

But as Billy will eventually learn, even though his father wasn't involved in raising him, Billy still shares a lot in common with him. And eventually, those similarities will bring them together.

Squirm is a fun read. Hiaasen's humor is still there, even if it's bridled for younger audiences, but it's still enough to have made me smile often throughout.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

John Dies at the End

by David Wong
456 pgs

Every once in a while, I read a book that doesn't lend itself to an easy or concise description. To adequately describe it would probably take half as long as it would take to read the book itself. John Dies at the End by David Wong (pseudonym) is one of those books.

Somewhere in a small undisclosed town, somewhere in the heart of the country, a new drug has hit the streets. It's known as Soy Sauce, and it promises users an experience unlike any they've had before. John and Dave are friends who live in this undisclosed town and both are perpetual underachievers. John plays in a similarly underachieving band, and one night, at a party after a gig, John is introduced to Soy Sauce by a strange man pretending to be Jamaican. John calls Dave in the middle of the night while experiencing a "bad trip" from the drug. Dave picks up John at his apartment and the two end up at the local Denny's. While there, Dave gets another call from his friend John, whose sitting in the booth across from him eating and not calling him. John asks Dave whether he (John) has died yet, and from that point on, things only get more and more absurd.

John Dies at the End is a book with a cult following. It was originally published as an independent web series by David Wong (again, pseudonym) who was working as a a copy editor at a law firm. It became so popular that he eventually decided to turn the online chapters he had been releasing into novel and through word of mouth, the book became so popular it was turned into a movie starring Paul Giamatti.

While the book isn't fantastic, I enjoyed it enough that I'm interested in reading its sequels: This Book is Full of Spiders, and What the Hell Did I Just Read. I'm interested to see if the things I liked about this one improve in those books, and if the things I wasn't crazy about improve.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

The Holdout

by Graham Moore
322 pgs

Ten years ago, a jury found Bobby Nock, a 25-year-old man, not guilty of killing Jessica Silver, the 15-year-old daughter of one of the richest real estate moguls in Los Angeles. Bobby was one of Jessica's teachers and the prosecution argued that the illicit texts found on Bobby's phone from her, along with the traces of her blood, which were found both on the passenger seat of his car, as well as in the trunk of his car, proved beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Bobby had killed her, even though her body was never found.

The trial lasted four months and was a media sensation. and Maya Seale served on the jury. Maya was the only member of the jury who believed Bobby was innocent at the time the deliberation process began. She believed there was sufficient doubt surrounding all of the evidence which the prosecution used to argue Bobby's guilt and she eventually persuaded each of the other jurors to vote "not guilty," even though some of them did so begrudgingly. The trial, and the verdict they ultimately delivered, had shaped the last ten years of each of their lives.

Now, ten years later, a true-crime docuseries is being produced, and each of the members of the jury has been invited back to the Omni hotel, the one they had been sequestered in for the four month trial, to be interviewed and filmed for it. One of the jurors, Rick Leonard, who was the strongest believer in Bobby's guilt throughout the trial, has spent the last ten years trying to prove that Maya had been wrong and that they had made a grave mistake in finding him Bobby not guilty. He has told the producers of the show he can now prove Bobby's guilt and will reveal his proof on camera. 

But Rick is found murdered that night, his body discovered in Maya's room, and Maya is the lone suspect. The only way she has any chance to prove her innocence, is to try to determine once and for all whether she and the rest of the jurors delivered the right verdict ten years ago.

The Holdout is Graham Moore's third book, and they're all fantastic. Moore is probably better known for having won the Academy Award for writing the screenplay for The Imitation Game a few years ago, but I think his novels showcase his best writing so far. I couldn't say enough good things about his last book The Last Days of Night, and fortunately for me, The Holdout is just as good.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

The Chestnut Man

by Søren Sveistrup
516 pgs

The Chestnut Man is the debut novel by an author whose work I was already a big fan of. Søren Sveistrup is a Danish screenwriter who wrote the series that was adapted into The Killing here in the United States. The title of the book comes from the nickname given by the Copenhagen police department to the killer who leaves behind a small doll made of matchsticks and chestnuts every time he commits one of his grisly murders.

One year ago, the 12-year-old daughter of Rosa Hartung, a high-ranking government minister, went missing. The investigation into her disappearance led to the eventual conviction of a man now locked up in a high-security mental facility, but her body was never found. Now, one year later, a series of killings involving young women seems inexplicably tied to the Hartung case. At each of the sites where a body has been found, a small chestnut doll has been left, and each of the dolls bears the fingerprint of Rosa Hartung’s daughter. The two investigators on the case, Naia Thulin and Mark Hess, are faced with catching a killer who always seems to be two or three steps ahead of them.

I couldn’t put this book down. The fact that the chapters are short made it all the harder to do so. I‘d get to the end of one and think I really should stop reading and accomplish something, but then I’d flip through a couple more pages and realize I could read another chapter in a just a couple minutes more, and I’d decide to do just that—over and over again.

I’m excited by the fact that Sveistrup has tried his hand at writing a novel. The Killing was a fantastic series for the short time it ran, and all of the qualities that I enjoyed about it are found in The Chestnut Man as well. Hopefully it’s the first of many more books to come.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Earthfall

by Orson Scott Card
350 pgs  (Homecoming series #4)

Earthfall is the fourth installment in OSC's Homecoming series, and it follows the small group of travelers assembled by the Oversoul from the planet of Harmony back to Earth, the planet humans had to abandon 40 million years ago. From the very beginning of the book, the conflict between Nafai and his brother Elemak has intensified, and soon after they board the ship that will take them back to earth, it becomes violent. If not for the powers given to Nafai by the Oversoul, he would have died.

Once they land on earth, they discover two sentient species, which have evolved since humans left the planet into two separate but warring races. And it quickly becomes vitally important the colonists are able to make peace with these two races, as well as with each other.

As I've mentioned in the reviews of the earlier books in the series, Card borrowed heavily from the first book of The Book of Mormon for inspiration in this story (the space travel and alien races are all his), and it's that connection to the source material that, up until now, has kept me interest in the story so far. But with this installment, I found myself finally getting sucked into Card's own story. He picked up the pace with this one, and when it was done, I was more excited to pick up the next, which is the last book in the series, than I have been so far.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

A Short Stay in Hell

by Steven L. Peck
104 pgs

Soren Johansson, a faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, dies at a relatively young age from cancer. Upon dying, he's sent to hell, but not the hell he learned about in church, or from reading the bible, or even the Book of Mormon. Instead, he's sent to a seemingly infinite library with the promise that if he can find the book that contains the story of his life, he will be free to leave.

Peck uses this simple idea to craft a disturbing story, a story which, at the very least, will leave you unsettled about the concept of hell and an infinite afterlife.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Saints: No Unhallowed Hand

675 pgs

The history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1846 - 1893.

Bridge of Clay

by Markus Zusak
534 pgs

In Bridge of Clay, Markus Zusak tells the story of the Dunbar family. Penelope, the mother, who died of cancer three years before the book begins; Michael, the father, who abandoned their five sons shortly afterwards, and the five brothers, left to fend for themselves.

The oldest son, Matthew, narrates the story and begins it on the day their father -- whom they refer to as the murderer -- returns to ask whether any of the boys would be willing to help him build a bridge. Four of his sons don't want anything to do with him, but Clay, the second to youngest, decides to drop out of high school to help his father.

From there the story jumps back and forth in time, going back to tell the story of Penelope, who grew up in the Eastern Bloc of Europe when it was controlled by the Soviet Union, and who became an accomplished pianist under the tutelage of her stern father. She met Michael when the piano she bought was incorrectly delivered to his house further down her street. They fell in love, were married, and had five sons.

The story is nowhere near as simplistic as it sounds, which has its pros and cons. On the positive side, the story is packed full of symbolism and emotion. Zusak does a great job of telling the story of a family torn apart by death and grief, and the emotions and raw nerves they leave behind are on full display. But I think Zusak got in his own way too often in trying to tell the story the way he did. Part of my issues with the book may have been a result of me listening to the book, instead of reading it.The story jumps back and forth in time abruptly and I found it difficult to follow the shifts while listening. I'm assuming it was clearer on the written page. My other complaint was that I think Zusak tried to cram an 800-page story into a 500-page book. It would have been better had it gone through another round or two of editing.

One last thought on the book is this: in the United States, it was marketed as a young adult book. It's not, nor was it marketed as one in any other country.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

An Obvious Fact

by Craig Johnson
317 pgs  (Longmire series #12)

Chief William Nutter is the police chief of Hulett, Wyoming, a small town with about 400 residents that once a year is overrun by 50,000 bikers, who come to town for a motorcycle rally. hen alt Longmire arrives in town to support his friend Henry Standing Bear, who has come to try to win a race he won several years ago, Nutter immediately calls on him to help with an investigation.

Bodaway Torres, a young member of a biker gang, lies in critical condition in the hospital, and it appears as though someone ran him off the road. His mother, Lola Wojciechowski, is an old "biker chick," who has a history with Henry. In fact, she's the woman he named his car after. Both men are reluctant to get involved, until Lola hints at the possibility that Bodaway could be Henry's son.

Walt's investigation leads him to Bob Nance, a wealthy businessman in town, whose daughter has both romantic and criminal ties to Bodaway, and to Brady Post, an undercover ATF agent currently riding with the motorcycle club. Things quickly escalate into chaos, but fortunately, for both Walt and the reader, Walt's undersheriff Victoria Moretti arrives in town to further agitate the situation.

An Obvious Fact is another solid book in Craig Johnson's increasingly entertaining mystery series. I don't know of another author who is as consistent in the quality of the books he puts out, especially not at the frequency he does. I'm often asked for reading recommendations by people who know how much I enjoy reading, and I've recommended Johnson's Longmire books numerous times. Of those who have taken my advice and tried one, I have yet to hear back that they were disappointed. Something I can't say about my other recommendations.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The Institute

by Stephen King
557 pgs

Luke Ellis is an extremely gifted 12-year-old, who lives in Minneapolis with his parents. Luke plans to attend MIT soon, but that will never happen. Because Luke also happens to possess minor telekinetic abilities. Abilities which have placed him on the radar of a secret organization, an organization that is monitoring kids like Luke all over the world.

One night, Luke's parents are killed in their sleep and Luke is taken to The Institute, a non-descript campus somewhere in the woods of Maine. Very few people know that The Institute exists, and none, except for the children who have been taken there and the small group of men and women who work there, know what has been going on there for decades.

At The Institute, Luke and the other children are given injections and subjected to extreme conditions, which all have the affect of heightening and enhancing their telekinetic or telepathic abilities. And once they've reached a certain level, the children are exploited, drained, and discarded.

The Institute is classic Stephen King. It bears similarities with some of his earlier works, like Firestarter and It, with children having to face extraordinary circumstances, but does so in a wholly original way. And the fear and horror King taps into is the very real fear and horror that can take place when otherwise normal adults do horrible things because they believe what they're doing is ultimately for the best.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The Snowman

by Jo Nesbø
384 pgs  (Harry Hole series #7)

Several years ago, I saw a copy of Jo Nesbø's The Snowman at the bookstore and picked it up. I had never heard of Nesbø before, but after reading the summary of the book on the flap, I was interested and bought it. But I didn't read it. I'm the type that only reads a series from the beginning, and I typically buy the books I read, so I started collecting the previous six books and had to read those first. It's a little sad how long it took me to work my way to finally reading this one, but it didn't disappoint.

The book begins with the first snowfall in Oslo in 1980. A married woman is having an affair with a man and gets startled by what she believes is someone watching them through the window. It turns out to be merely a snowman outside. Twenty-four years later, a young boy wakes up in the night to discover his mother has gone missing. The only clue the police have to go on is the pink scarf the boy gave his mother for Christmas, which is now wrapped around the neck of a snowman, which inexplicably appeared in front of the house earlier that day.

During his investigation, Harry Hole discovers the links between the current missing-woman case and eleven previous cases, all of women who went missing in Norway over the span of several years, and all on the first snow of the season.

The Snowman is the best book in the series so far. I'm a fan of other mystery writers, who rely more on surprise twists and the use of red herrings to misdirect their readers away from the clues they place in the story. But Nesbø doesn't do that. Instead, he methodically and subtly presents the clues for Hole to discover, leading up to a very satisfying reveal by the end. And as good as his mysteries are, Nesbø's characters are always equally fantastic, Hole being primary among them. I'm looking forward to many more stories featuring the character.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The Never Game

by Jeffery Deaver
399 pgs  (Colter Shaw series #1)

The Never Game kicks off a new series for Jeffery Deaver, one without any connection to his Lincoln Rhyme series. Colter Shaw is a "reward seeker," someone who investigates missing-persons cases whenever a reward is offered. He's a brilliant man, who really doesn't even need the reward money to survive, and he uses his keen intellect and deductive skills to search for the missing child or person. More often than not he's successful and able to rescue the missing person before law enforcement is able to locate the person themselves.

When a $10,000 reward is offered by the father of a college student named Sophie Mulliner, who goes missing in Silicon Valley, Colter travels there to see if he's able to find her. He's quickly able to locate and save Sophie, but soon two other people go missing as well, and Colter discovers that all three kidnappings are tied to a video game called The Whispering Man, in which players find themselves dumped in inhospitable settings with five random objects they must use to try to survive and escape. Colter recognizes the fact that the three kidnappings resemble the first three levels of the game, and using the next levels as clues, tries to get ahead of the kidnapper and catch him before someone else disappears

Deaver has created a great new character to base this new series on. With his genius-level intelligence and his unique upbringing by a survivalist father, Colter Shaw is a character I'm looking forward to learning more about, and finding out what Deaver has planned for him next.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Full Throttle

by Joe Hill
480 pgs

Full Throttle, the most recent offering from Joe Hill, is a collection of twisted, unsettling, and sometimes shocking stories from a writer who is obviously following in his father's footprints, but is doing so with his own style and voice.

A couple of the stories: Throttle and In the Tall Grass, were coauthored with his father, Stephen King. But as big a fan as I am of King, and as good as those two stories are, they weren't my favorite ones in the collection. Throttle was inspired by the story Duel by Richard Matheson, which was adapted into a movie by an up-and-coming Steven Spielberg many years ago. Into the Tall Grass is about two siblings who wander into a field of grass too high to see over and quickly learn they've entered a strange and savage world none have ever escaped from. You are Released (my favorite), is about the passengers on a commercial airplane who find out mid-flight that nuclear war has broken out while they've been in the air.

There are ten other noteworthy stories in the book that I'm not going to say anything about, but that are each well worth the hour or so it takes to read them. They're not the kind of stories that can be forgotten soon after reading.

I became a fan of Stephen King's shorter stories very early on in my discovery of his writing, and I still get a little extra excited when he publishes another collection of them. So, I'm happy to see a similar pattern with Hill, and I hope he follows the example he's been given and continues to write them and compile them every time he has enough.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

A Journal of the Plague Year

by Daniel Defoe
271 pgs

A Journal of the Plague Year is Daniel Defoe's novel depicting the Great Plague of London, which book place in 1665. The book reads just like a journal, and I understand that for some time, the book was categorized as non-fiction, even though he published it in 1722, nearly 60 years after the events he wrote about.

I didn't know much about the book before reading it, but having enjoyed Robinson Crusoe as much as I did, I thought this one was as good an opportunity as any to read something else by Defoe. At the time it was written, Defoe intended it to serve as a warning, of the things both to do and not to do, in the event of a plague. The plague was in Marseilles at the time, and there were fears it would cross into England at the time. Defoe hoped his account of the 1665 plague would help limit its spread, if it did.

Today the significance of the book is the detailed account of life in London in the 17th century, as well as the insight into the inexplicable start and ending of the plague that killed almost a quarter of London's population within 18 months. Today we understand the conditions that resulted in the plague, as well as how it spread and how it can be treated. But back then, it was all attributed to the will of God.

The book is an interesting read, but not what I would call riveting. It didn't have the same appeal Robinson Crusoe had, no sense of adventure or the constant problem-solving dilemmas Crusoe faced, but the book had its own appeal. I enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone who has an affinity for history and/or highly-contagious, deadly diseases.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Starsight

by Brandon Sanderson
461 pgs  (Skyward series #2)

Picking up where Skyward left off, Starsight takes Spensa Nightshade, the young, newly-trained, intergalactic fighter pilot, away from Detritus, the human prison colony she's called home her whole life, and onto the massive Krell spaceship. She's there as a spy, her true identity as a human hidden by a holographic disguise. She's there to try to discover and steal the source of hyperdrive space travel and hopefully, save the human species from extinction at the hand of the Krell.

But Spensa is in way over her head. She's not trained to be a spy. She wasn't sent to the Krell ship by her commanding officer, but an unexpected and unique opportunity presents itself to her. Without considering the risks or possible ramifications of her decision, she leaves and travels to the Krell's ship.

Starsight is a worthy follow-up to Skyward. It's full of action scenes (which Sanderson excels at) and Spensa's knack for shooting from the hip and letting motions drive her actions, provides for a very enjoyable story to read. I'm excited to see how things get wrapped up in the next book.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆