Murder in the Park - Rowan Wolfe

Summary: A deputy legal counsel to the White House is found dead in Fort Marcy Park, and after an investigation marred with mistakes and inconsistencies, his death is finally ruled a suicide. Eight years later, a new president is determined to clean-up all his predecessor's "dirty laundry" by offering the mission to the newly promoted Lt. Col. Michael Correa, U.S. Army Special Forces. "Seeing as who could be implicated in Victor Fallon's death, I thought you'd jump at the chance," he tells Michael. Reluctantly accepting the covert mission, along with a small, handpicked team, the commander-in-chief reminds Michael that "the jungle's now concrete and the enemy wears suits." After reading the official report on Fallon's death, Michael's first stop is the former first lady, Harriet Pearson, who from the outset begins to plot with CIA deputy director, Charles Ashburn, on ways to rid themselves of Michael - permanently. The terrorist attacks on 9/11 interrupt the mission, but eleven months later, Michael resurfaces, more determined than ever to expose Harriet's illegal activities. The list of homicides quickly grows. With an undercover DEA agent now in the mix, a high seas kidnapping that involves the U.S. Coast Guard, and a narcotics detective from Miami P.D., the investigation gathers speed. When the 'Most Wanted' leader of a Colombian drug cartel is also implicated, Michael resorts to unleashing his Special Forces teammates, with the help of a Global Hawk UAV, in a high-risk takedown. All Michael and the team have to do, while connecting all the dots, is stay alive and prevent Michael's father, Francis, the returning director of the CIA, from learning too much. Will the former first lady get away with murder? The outcome is guaranteed to surprise you. This is the third book in the series, and the reader will again meet some familiar characters in Rowan Wolfe's well-researched and fast-paced thriller. (Summary and pic from goodreads.com)

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my fair and honest review.

My Review:  So here’s what I liked about this book—the political intrigue. I think that we as Americans enjoy torturing ourselves with the idea that our politicians are totally corrupt and always wheeling and dealing and if people get killed in the process of it all, then that’s pretty much what we expected anyway. Right? And of course I’m a firm believer that there is quite a bit of this dirt going around in our political system for real. But we’re going to avoid that tangent…this book has plenty of that political intrigue. There’s a fair amount of drama and dirty politicians and quick-witted people who are all working to take each other down. So it makes for an interesting, fast-paced story with lots of action and lots of drama. The main characters are believable because there’s no one who is completely virtuous or above it all, and they have this take-no-prisoners attitude when it comes to their dealings with each other. If you’re wronged by someone, then by jove you bettah believe they’re gonna pay big time. The secondary characters were not so well-developed and were a little too intentionally well-placed (as in always completely loyal, always completely able to do what needs to be done regardless of what they think personally, and always having the right skills and access to the right resources to accomplish anything). Sure there are loyal people out there, and people who are willing to do whatever it takes, but in this case, these characters felt a little bit contrived, especially because people on the side of the main character, the, er, “good guy,” basically were able to do everything they needed to and everything worked out, whereas the bad guys basically got their unabashed comeuppance.

Though this book was the third in the series and I hadn't read the previous two, I had no problem knowing what was going on. I think it stood alone on its own just fine. The author did a good job of filling in enough of the back story that I didn't feel lost or even know it was the third in the series until I read more about it.

The weaknesses in Murder in the Park for me were mainly style issues. The book is broken into small chronological sections with place names and dates as the header, which helps you keep track, but then, right when a huge part of the drama is happening, the book just stops and jumps a year ahead, and then alludes to these big events that happened in the interim. I can’t decide whether the author ddidn'twant to deal with those things or just thought they didn't matter. Anyway, it made the book feel really chopped up—almost like two books. The events and tone of the second part of the book are, in fact, quite different from those in the first part of the book, which made it feel disconnected as well. Another style issue was that the writing was almost stream of consciousnessin some places—telling what characters thought and felt in an almost summary form, which, although it served its purpose, felt a little clunky.

Overall, I would say the story saved this book. It’s interesting, it’s gritty, and it definitely had some intrigue.

My Rating:  3 Stars

For the sensitive reader: There is some language and sex in this book, but it is consistent with other books in this genre.

Daughters of the Dragon - William Andrews

Summary:  DURING WORLD WAR II, the Japanese forced 200,000 young Korean women to be sex slaves or “comfort women” for their soldiers. This is one woman’s riveting story of strength, courage and promises kept.

In 1943, the Japanese tear young Ja-hee and her sister from their peaceful family farm to be comfort women for the Imperial Army. Before they leave home, their mother gives them a magnificent antique comb with an ivory inlay of a two-headed dragon, saying it will protect them. The sisters suffer terribly at the hands of the Japanese, and by the end of the war, Ja-hee must flee while her sister lies dying. Ja-hee keeps her time as a comfort woman a secret while she struggles to rebuild her life. She meets a man in North Korea who shows her what true love is. But the communists take him away in the middle of the night, and she escapes to the South. There, she finally finds success as the country rebuilds after the Korean War. However when her terrible secret is revealed, she’s thrown into poverty. In the depths of despair, she’s tempted to sell the comb with the two-headed dragon that she believes has no magic for her. Then one day she discovers its true meaning and her surprising heredity. And now she must find the only person who can carry on the legacy of the two-headed dragon… someone she abandoned years ago.

Set within the tumultuous backdrop of 20th century Korea, Daughters of the Dragon by award-winning author William Andrews will make you cry and cheer for Ja-hee. And in the end, you’ll have a better understanding of the Land of the Morning Calm.

Daughters of the Dragon is inspired by The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, Memiors of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, the books of Amy Tan and Lisa See.   (Summary and image from goodreads.com.  I was provided a copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.)

My Review: Hannah has always been confident of who she is.  She didn't care that she looked different from her parents, they loved her and so what?  Life in America is just fine - until her mother dies.  In her grief, she decides to travel to the land of her birth, Korea, with her father to find out anything she can of who she was.  When the officials at the orphanage where she was placed inform her that her mother died in childbirth, she is approached by an older woman who presses a package into her hands, and in impeccable English, implores her to visit as soon as she can.  Shocked, awed by the intricate dragon comb contained in the package, and curious beyond measure, Hannah enters the woman's apartment to hear her story of the comb and her connection to Hannah, and into a world she never imagined existed.

There are some books that suck you in from the first page and that demand a resting period once they are finished with you.  Honestly, I was glad I read this in one massive chunk (the perks of a road trip) and was able to enjoy some beautiful Southwestern scenery as I digested and recovered from the book.  don't get me wrong, Andrews is an astounding storyteller and this work is incredible.  But the history of the Comfort Women (even the existence) was just a footnote in my AP World History class, I had no idea how devastating or how widespread the issue was.  

This books is historical fiction, but Andrews has truly done an artistic job fleshing out not only the immediate damage that Ja-hee faced as a Comfort Woman, but the difficulties that her life faced for decades as a result.  Her inadvertent inauguration into the Communist movement, her struggles as a gifted interpreter hardly able to find work, her struggle to make the story of the conscripted Comfort Women known and taken seriously, and her conflict with the government over that dragon comb captivated me.  She is strong, and she is capable, and the horrors she faces time and again only temper her.  There is even an historical context explanation about the struggles of the Korean women and the Japanese government over the issue.

I don't think I could recommend this book for everyone.  The subject matter is hard.  But it is also so swept under the rug that we are in danger of losing the reality of it for good.

My Rating:  Four and a half stars

For the Sensitive Reader:  Be warned.  These poor young women (teenagers) are raped brutally, savagely, and repeatedly.  There are also episodes of violence and some harsh language.

The Mystery of Moutai - G.X. Chen

Summary: A teenager returns home from school to find a gruesome scene: the apartment he shares with his mother, Shao Mei, in Boston’s Chinatown has been ransacked and she is dead. There is a bottle of Moutai—the most exotic and expensive Chinese liquor—left at the scene and traces of rat poison in one of the two shot glasses on the kitchen counter. This was evidently a homicide, but who could possibly be the killer?

Ann Lee and Fang Chen, close friends of the victim, team up with the Boston police to solve this mystifying crime: why would anyone want to murder a harmless middle-aged woman, one who worked as an unassuming mailroom clerk, with no money, no connections, and presumably, no enemies?

Realizing that important clues behind the motive may be buried deep in the victim’s past, they travel to Beijing, where Shao Mei spent more than fifty years of her life. While there, surrounded by the antiquities of China’s rich and complex history, they stumble unwittingly into a cobweb of mystery and danger. Fearing for their lives but determined to press on, they end up unearthing a scandal more deceptive and far-reaching than either could have imagined. (Summary and Pic from goodreads.com)

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

My Review: The thing that’s hard about most mystery/murder books is the level of violence. It seems that, although murder is obviously very violent, the rest of the book must follow suit. Lots of mystery books embrace this fully and strive for that PG-13/R rating with sexual content, language, and other violence to boot. I am happy to report that this book did nothing of the sort. It was refreshing, actually, to not have to wade through the detritus of some authors’ determination to not only make their book about murder but about the grittiest of life’s situations as well.

The murder mystery in this book was nothing shocking—at the end I wasn’t really all that surprised about who it was—but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a good story or that there weren’t some interesting twists and turns along the way. I especially liked that the main characters working on solving the crime weren’t super heroes, making intellectual leaps and connections that no normal person could make. They seemed to be normal individuals who were solving the crime, which was a nice change from the normally Herculean efforts that come from those detective novels whose ability to solve crimes is downright uncanny, connecting dots that weren’t necessarily there with knowledge they didn’t necessarily have or that was placed in front of them by the author like a little trail of bread crumbs wherein at the end a huge intellectual leap can be made and all would be solved. This book was more realistic, which was refreshing.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this book was the cultural aspects of it. It takes place in America and China, and I really enjoyed the view of Chinese Americans and also Chinese immigrants going back to visit family in their home country. I learned a lot about the culture and it was a really interesting perspective, I thought, which added depth and richness to the book.

In the end I would say this is a quite little mystery book with an interesting story and likeable, realistic characters. It’s a nice change from the super grittiness of normal murder mystery books, but still provides enough intrigue and gore to not be totally light sauce.

My Rating: 3.5 Stars

For the Sensitive Reader: There is some violence in this book, although it is light compared to other books in the genre. There is no sexual content and little offensive language. It would be rated PG.

Texts from Jane Eyre - Mallory Ortberg

Summary:  Hilariously imagined text conversations—the passive aggressive, the clever, and the strange—from classic and modern literary figures, from Scarlett O’Hara to Jessica Wakefield.

Mallory Ortberg, the co-creator of the cult-favorite website The Toast, presents this whimsical collection of hysterical text conversations from your favorite literary characters. Everyone knows that if Scarlett O’Hara had an unlimited text-and-data plan, she’d constantly try to tempt Ashley away from Melanie with suggestive messages. If Mr. Rochester could text Jane Eyre, his ardent missives would obviously be in all-caps. And Daisy Buchanan would not only text while driving, she’d text you to pick her up after she totaled her car. Based on the popular web-feature, Texts from Jane Eyre is a witty, irreverent mashup that brings the characters from your favorite books into the twenty-first century. (Summary and image from goodreads.com.  I was provided a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.)

My Review:  What would literature be like if some of our favorite characters had cell phones?  Imagine the nagging potential of Mrs. Bennett!  Interactions between Heathcliff and Cathy!  Jane Eyre and, well, everyone.  Hilarious, right?  Ortberg started imagining how Scarlett O'Hara would be able to manipulate, deceive, and annoy those around her, shared them online, and it grew into an instant hit = leading to this book.

Have you visited the website Honest The Honest Toddler?  Oh, man, I die.  She nails toddlerhood so perfectly I just giggle the whole time I'm on that site.  SO, it stood to reason I'd love the book, right?  Right? 

Nope.  Too much of a good thing - I quit ten pages into it.  (And I don't quit books lightly!)

I worry that this is similar.  Don't get me wrong, there are some interactions that had me rolling - like Mrs. Bennet's text to Lizzie: Remember when there was someone who wanted to marry you? ... There isn't now! Hahaha  Or the texts between St. John and Jane Eyre: J: I'm not going to India with you, St. John. S:  That's not what these TWO TICKETS TO INDIA say!  Seriously, there are some serious gems in here.  Hamlet as an Emo?  Nailed it.  

However, I worry that the comic timing is a little dulled in a collection like this.  Had I read Texts from Jane Eyre a little here and there, setting it down and picking it up for just a few minutes, I feel like I would have loved it more.  As it was, I read it all at once, and found myself a little perturbed at the overt generalizations of some of my favorite literary characters.  

If you're one of those readers who can read multiple books at once, this may be just the thing.  When Ortberg is on, she is ON!  But learn from my mistake - spread out the enjoyment of this collection.

My Rating:  Three stars

For the Sensitive Reader:  Apparently, the mouth of a sailor comes with the acquisition of a cell phone.  Too many f-bombs for me to be comfortable.  Also, she touches on Byron and all that he entails.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever - Barbara Robinson

Summary: The Herdmans are the worst kids in the history of the world. They lie, steal, smoke cigars, swear, and hit little kids. So no one is prepared when this outlaw family invades church one Sunday and decides to take over the annual Christmas pageant.

None of the Herdmans has ever heard the Christmas story before. Their interpretation of the tale -- the Wise Men are a bunch of dirty spies and Herod needs a good beating -- has a lot of people up in arms. But it will make this year's pageant the most unusual anyone has seen and, just possibly, the best one ever.

(image from BarnesandNoble.com, summary from Goodreads.com)

My Summary: I randomly selected this from my child's book order to read with her now that she likes chapter books. The description was probably one sentence long, but I figured I knew what the story was about - something unconventional happens at the annual Christmas pageant that make audience members view Christmas through new eyes. I wasn't wrong, but I was pleasantly surprised by the discussions this book sparked with my five-year-old. 

Every year the Christmas pageant is the same. The same children always play the same roles--no one makes a more pious Mary than Alice Wendelken and who better to play Joseph than the pastor's son? This particular year, the regular director of the Christmas pageant must pass the buck because of a broken leg. The narrator's mother is handed the responsibility. (Side note--though this book is narrated in first person, nothing about this narrator is ever revealed. Name, gender, age...all a big question mark. While I suppose this information wasn't necessary--the story was successfully told without it--it still bugs me.)

The Herdmans are the worst kids in town and everybody knows it. The substitute pageant director doesn't quite know what to do when they audition for the Christmas pageant and no one else does. It's obvious that the "regulars" have been bullied into silence, but with everyone else refusing to participate, the director has to cast the Herdmans. The first rehearsal is a disaster. Instead of learning their lines, the Herdmans set everything back by asking what an inn is and why Joseph didn't beat up the innkeeper to get the Son of God a real room? 

The "villains" of the story become more complex as the reader understands that they have never heard details about the real Christmas story before. Their awful behavior becomes more excusable as the reader realizes they've never been taught differently. As their ignorant minds process the Christmas story for the first time, the reader gets to experience the Christmas story for the first time, too, in a way that's hard to imagine. Imogene Herdman's portrayal of Mary may be less pious and a little more rowdy than Alice Wendelken's, but perhaps it was more accurate. Maybe after all she'd been through, Mary would be a little more protective of her infant son, maybe she'd have a smudge of dirt on her face, and maybe she'd truly question the usability of fancy tree sap as a gift. 

The story wasn't too surprising as an adult reader but for my five-year-old, it opened her eyes. This is probably the first story she has been exposed to where the "bad guys" of the book didn't end up as the bad guys. It played on her empathy and understanding for others. The King Herod story line was something my daughter latched onto as well. It's not an aspect of the Christmas story often told. This book sparked a lot of "offline" discussions--mainly about King Herod, bullying, and judging people's behavior based on their knowledge of right and wrong, not our knowledge. 

It was a delightful experience. The exposition was witty. I am sure most of it was beyond the understanding of my five-year-old. Still, it held her attention and made her think and ask questions more than any book we have yet read. 

For the sensitive reader: This book has about three swear words in it that I changed when reading aloud to my child. There is significant emphasis on King Herod's plans to kill the Christ child. 

My rating: Four stars. I've probably have given the story itself 3, but the enlightening discussions with my daughter that came from this book raised it a notch.  

The Trouble With Chickens - Doreen Cronin

Summary:  J.J. Tully is a former search-and rescue dog who is trying to enjoy his retirement after years of performing daring missions saving lives. So he’s not terribly impressed when two chicks named Dirt and Sugar (who look like popcorn on legs) and their chicken mom show up demanding his help to track down their missing siblings. Driven by the promise of a cheeseburger, J.J. begins to track down clues. Is Vince the Funnel hiding something? Are there dark forces at work—or is J.J. not smelling the evidence that’s right in front of him?

Bestselling author Doreen Cronin uses her deadpan humor to pitch-perfect effect in her first novel for young readers. Heavily illustrated with black-and-white artwork from Kevin Cornell, this new series is destined to become a classic.  (Summary and image from Amazon.com)

My Review:  I read this with my oldest (8 year old) daughter this summer as we worked through Oregon Battle of the Books list for our summer reading. This was the perfect book for my new reader.  The words are just a big bigger on the page, with just enough white space, images sprinkled throughout and still had the formatting of a chapter book to make her feel confident and competent reading it.  I love this book for emerging independent readers!  The voice is so strong.  The story line is unique enough to keep you guessing what's going to happen next--anticipating the next move is not predictable--and that's super fun for young readers.  I also love that this is a character that has other stories--series are great for building strong, young readers.

If you have a reluctant reader, regardless of gender, and one you know would love a who-dun-nit plot, please pick this up!  It was a great book to read together as well.

For the sensitive reader:  Super clean and super fun!

Rating: 4.5 stars

Sum it up: A super cute mystery for elementary grade children.

The Mountain Place of Knowledge - Marshall Chamberlain

 Summary: The burial chamber of a revered Mayan sorceress is uncovered atop a sacrificial pyramid at the Caracol ruins in western Belize. Translation of ancient metallic scrolls and a 1100-year-old codex found in the chamber reveal the existence of a secret entrance to the inside of a mountain. The scrolls refer to the interior as Trinium, the Place of Knowledge, and explain its creation by an advanced civilization A flash of mysterious blue light brings death to a U.N. official, and investigators are sent to Belize to discover the source and locate the secret mountain entrance. What they discover inside is bizarre and unimaginable; mental prodding guides them to the Place of Seeing for the most shocking experience of their lives Leaks of the discoveries cause one nation to determine the mountain poses a threat to world order, and it will take great risks to neutralize the danger. The Mountain is a mesmerizing adventure, scientifically mysterious and metaphysically familiar. Breaking new ground at the speed of light, stalwart characters meet the unknown head on as Chamberlain weaves the first book of the Ancestor Series. (Summary and pic from goodreads.com)

I received a free copy of this in exchange for my honest review.

My Review: Readers of techno-thrillers are fully aware that sometimes you have to suspend technological judgment (or the lack thereof) for the enjoyment of reading. There is, of course, the assumption that the technology will be explained well enough that it’s somewhat believable. That maybe in a decade or so or maybe in some governmental laboratory the kind of technology exists and therefore it’s okay to suspend judgment. That was my first question about this book. The actual “mountain place of knowledge” is kind of a confusing place. Now, admittedly, I’m not really one for sci-fi, so different colored buttons in mountains and ethereal people that float around in a netherspace giving advice may be a little bit outside of my realm of belief, but I think that aside from that, I was actually a little confused.

The way the book started out, I thought it was going to give me a little more explanation to ease my, uh, unease, but that was not to be. To be fair, this is the first book in a series, so maybe that will come later? I don’t know. Sometimes books are confusing on purpose so that you can follow along with the characters who are also confused, but I’m not totally convinced that was the deal for this book. I think I was just a little bit confused. I can see that the author had a clear course mapped out for what was happening and what was supposed to be, and so I think what happened is that he had ideas that were well developed and fleshed out but he was so used to thinking about them and they had become so much a part of him that maybe they were not explained as well to those of us who were not the inventors of the idea.

This book took me a long time to read, despite the fact that it actually moves quite quickly. The chapters are short and lots of stuff is happening, so it’s not like it’s boring or anything. It’s just a long book. Also, there are lots of characters and because the book was long, sometimes it was hard to keep track of someone that I met a long time ago in the reading.

Overall, I thought the book had some pretty interesting ideas. I liked the idea that although the Mountain Place of Knowledge is kind of a far-fetched discovery, there were some very interesting things about it and the author involved a lot of scientists who were researching it so that alone allows for some explanation as the scientists discover different things.  There are a lot of things happening, too, so there is always the hope that in the next book, things really take off and get going after the basic descriptions and characters have been introduced.

My rating: 2.5 stars

For the sensitive reader: There is some language in this book, but I think it is milder than in others from this genre.