Score: 94/100 (9.4 out of 10)
Mira and the Lost Baby Whale is an adorable, animal-centered children's adventure by Yuqian Wang! It features the titular Mira and her amazing friends as they join forces on a mission of compassion. Together, they try to reunite a baby whale, Bobo, with his mother after she has been taken by a notorious vessel known as the Crimson Reaper. This book is an enormous improvement over the previous one, Mira and the Magical Dragon, particularly in terms of writing and plot. The writing in here is brief, concise, and to the point, as is the plot. In Mira and the Magical Dragon there was a lot of randomness—jumping from one thing to another—that seemed to distract and detract from the central plot of finding the titular dragon. That's not an issue in this book. Aside from a small red herring in the form of a pirate ship, this book is really straightforward and, thus, much more easy to follow and understand than the previous one. That's particularly important when it comes to a children's book. Children have very small attention spans and need something they can latch onto and follow easily. This book accomplishes that. Mira and Bobo are very easy to follow. Their struggles are relatable since everyone has lost a loved one in a crowd before and worried about them. It's a scary feeling! Take, for example, a parent whose child wanders off in a grocery store. Sometimes, the best thing to do is keep your cool and seek help. That's what Mira does. Instead of trying to take on this big, huge problem all by herself, Mira collaborates with and works with others. She goes to Molly the Mermaid to interview for information on the ship that took Bobo's mother. Molly might be a candidate for “Hottest Character” by the way. She rides on the back of Delilah, her magical dragon friend who was a central character in the last book. That's especially awesome since it adds a layer of continuity to this series. Delilah is also able to provide covering fire (literally) when needed. Along the way, Mira meets a pirate captain named Pugzy. Now, normally, we wouldn't advise that kids associate themselves with strangers, especially with people like pirates, but Pugzy is portrayed as a sympathetic, mostly well-meaning character as opposed to a Black Beard or Captain Hook. He's just another ship captain. “Pirate” seems more like a buzzword than anything. This is also fantasy, so make of it what you will. Pugzy is able to relate to and empathize with Mira and Bobo because his favorite manta ray friend, Ray, was also taken by the same red ship. So, he joins Mira and Bobo in pursuit of the book's villain, personified by the ominous red ship, the Crimson Reaper (implied to be a fishing and/or whaling vessel). In probably the book's most violent scene, it is shown that the Crimson Reaper harpooned Bobo's mother. The wound is shown from a distance with some blood. It could be argued that kids see blood all the time when they fall and scrape their knees/elbows. It's not major. The Crimson Reaper is part of what makes this book great. It's a great villain and a great rallying point for essentially all the other characters in the book. They all have a bone to pick with this ship. They all have a personal vendetta with it, either losing a friend, a family member, or being scared off by it. Now, it is a little humorous to think that this ship is probably manned by people who are just doing their jobs and not thinking about the environmental impact or personal nature of their actions. Compound that with the fact that Delilah basically sets the ship on fire with her breath and that the heroes basically release all the fish that the ship caught, and you get a kinda sobering feeling that maybe our heroes just ruined the livelihoods of a dozen or more career seamen and left their families destitute. However, maybe we're reading too much into all that. It's a children's book after all. Really, you don't get to know the people on the Crimson Reaper, just the consequences of their actions. So, it's kinda a faceless villain—something we're supposed to interpret as objectively bad or evil. So, as a consequence, this book becomes a very relatable and understandable struggle between good and evil, compassion and malice, helping and hurting. We could easily see this book becoming a cartoon. It actually reminds us a little bit of some of the Finding Nemo movies. The art, we'd say, isn't quite elite, but it's greatly improved from the last book. Everything looks colorful and finished. The proportions are also mostly good. There are times when, like, the baby whale looks flat. Many of the characters still look like basic geometric shapes, primarily circles and ovals. With that said, it's still appealing and looks better than in the last book. For example, Mira's hair actually has texture and layers to it now. Molly, as we said, looks attractive. Heck, even the pirate looks ok. His facial hair even stands out in some scenes. It is impressive to think that the author drew and colored every single one of these pages on her own! We commend her for that! Check this out on Amazon!
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Score: 94/100 (9.4 out of 10)
From one epic law enforcement book to the next, from Saint Bloodbath to Badge 149- Shots Fired! Despite the similarities between these two books, they are some notable differences in their approach. Saint Bloodbath concerned a handful of major, interconnected murder cases and what they meant to a California community in the 2000s; meanwhile, Badge 149 concerns learning from a variety of cases and experiences of Fort Lauderdale police officers in the 1970s. Both books are incredibly valuable, passionate, and authentic glimpses into the lives of law enforcement officers. Together, they form an interesting comparison and contrast. Let us set the scene for Badge 149. The year is 1974, the deadliest year in law enforcement history. It sits in the middle of the deadliest decade in law enforcement history in the United States. 2,182 officers died in the line of duty in the 1970s, 268 in 1974 alone. There are whole wars that were less deadly than US law enforcement in the 70s. Badge 149 records a large variety of traumatic, exciting, dramatic real-life experiences, everything from high-speed chases to shootouts. It is probably the more thrilling and exciting of the two non-fiction law enforcement books we've read this month. It puts you directly into the shoes of long-time Fort Lauderdale police officer Gary Jones as he experiences a revival in his career that almost abruptly ended, a devastating personal and professional tragedy. Gary Jones is joined by a young officer, Michael Gillo, who contrasts well with the more-experienced Jones. There are so many interesting law enforcement stories in here for us to read and learn from. Yes, that's right, this book serves almost like a law enforcement textbook/handbook/trivia book in that challenges you—the reader—with what if scenarios and questions. You are invited to engage with the events of the text as if you were a police officer in that scenario. Of all the prompts, one stands out to us the most: the question of whether to shoot or hold your fire—whether to use lethal force or not. If you look at the socio-political landscape now and the outcry over police brutality, this lethal force question is a question that continues to press on the hearts and minds of the American people. Remember, police officers are often in direct contact with dangerous criminals and in the line of fire. Crazy, wild, scary things happen, and a lot of bad or regretful decisions can be made. The scenario that plays again and again in the minds of the FLPD officers in the book is the shooting death/murder of Officer Walter Ilyankoff. It is an event that is referenced constantly, forming the crux of the book. The officers come to believe that the bullet that killed Officer Walter could've been meant for any of them. Put eloquently: “The bullet that killed Walter Ilyankoff had all our names on it—but today it just happened to find Walter.” So, the reader is immediately made aware that many of the police officers live in danger, fear, and under threat that any engagement with a perp or suspect might be their last. They might not come home to their families. So, should they shoot first and ask questions later? Or should they wait until it might be too late? Officer Gary Jones, often armed with a shotgun from the shotgun seat of his squad car, is often pressed with this question throughout the book. He is almost nearly shot to death (and run over) multiple times. This book also helps to get you into the mind of criminals and how they operate. For example, Jones informs us about how experienced criminals will park their cars with the license plates blading or angled away from the target to keep from being identified. Experienced cops like Jones can actually use that as an indicator that a crime is about to be committed. This shooting death continues to be on Gary's mind, even when he decides to go to see Jaws in theaters. He thinks about how the homicidal shark is like a criminal in a shootout—a danger that haunts and looms. Even when his car is robbed in the theater parking lot, Gary can only think about how it might've been the ghost of a violent criminal he had shot. Not everything in this book is a shootout or a high-speed chase. Some of it is just the intrigue of working with people, namely an inexperienced partner and a supervisor who seems out to get you. One of our favorite stories in this book simply involves a feud between Officer Gary and his supervisor, Sergeant George Dixon, that comes about after Dixon tries to withhold overtime pay from Gary before berating him in front of coworkers. When Gary finally receives his overtime check, approved by a lieutenant who ranks above Dixon, Gary tears it, sending Dixon the message that if the officers aren't worthy of their pay, he may not be worthy of his important decision-making position. Gary wrestles with a pig, going against his advice to “never wrestle with a pig.” We've all been there and done that. We've all had that one supervisor or coworker who is out to get us and push us out. What actually brings about this overtime dispute is also very interesting. It's the dreaded process of police reports that we've all heard police complain about. An interesting solution comes up in this book: voice recordings! In short, this process was intended to allow officers to speak aloud their police reports and have them transcribed by a professional, printed and given to them after a few days. However, Gary, being old school, did both: writing the report and recording a verbal report. Could this be a time-saving lesson for officers and police departments in the modern day? If they were doing it in the 70s, it should be faster and easier to do it now. Overall, this is a really interesting law enforcement book to read. Not only does it provide some fascinating, harrowing stories, it also serves an important and powerful educational function for officers, aspiring officers, and those who want to understand them. Check it out on Amazon! Score: 92/100 (9.2 out of 10)
Five dead bodies are discovered on the side of the freeway in Long Beach, California, a hotbed for gang violence and criminal activity in the state. Two homicide detectives, the aptly-named Mark McGuire, an ailing veteran of the force, and his ravenous, somewhat-mysterious partner, Hugo Cortez, are assigned to investigate this chilling murder case. The odd-couple is later joined by Sergeant Rodriguez, who comes upon another grizzly murder (that of Tony Bledsoe), that is believed to be related to the case. They leave no stone unturned, even pursuing a psychic, word on the street, associates of the suspect, and more, finding breadcrumbs of evidence and body parts along the way. All of this is done on the their quest for truth, justice, and to do right by those whose lives were taken. Among the dead is a member of the violent Mexican gang, Dominguez 13, LV (short for Lorenzo Villicana), who is largely believed to have been targeted because he owed money to a dealer. Also, the bodies of two women are found with his, those of Vanessa and Katherine. Drug problems appear to be a part of many of the stories of these victims, being discovered with drugs either in their system or on their person. Some of the victims are viewed as destitute or even homeless. One of the big questions emerges: should authorities try just as hard to bring justice to the poor, the homeless, and the drug-addicted as they would for the average, upstanding person? Is a life a life or do different lives hold different values? What's interesting is that detectives McGuire and Cortez commit themselves to solving this case regardless of who (or how) these victims were in life. So what if they had a rocky past. So what if the rest of society might view these types of people as expandable or “scum.” McGuire and Cortez know they have a job to do—a duty to uphold. They take pride in their badges. You can tell that McGuire in particular has a strong sense of honor that he clings to, largely because of his years on the force. You can tell that he takes this case personally because it might be his last case before retirement (for all he knows). This might be his second chance, his last chance after almost losing his place in the department entirely. Likewise, you can sorta tell that Cortez views this case as a sort of escape. Cortez, a man who seems to have a dismal and depressing home life, finds solace and peace in what he does in the field and in that squad car. It's almost like an escape for him, and we can definitely empathize with that feeling. Also unique and interesting about this book is that you get the perspective of many of the victims before their lives are sadly taken. You get to know and appreciate them as human beings, not just as statistics. You can tell that was very important for the author to portray. Another thing that's quite special about this book is the dark, dismal atmosphere and world-building. The streets and ghettos of Long Beach come alive in this book, something that's especially evident in the harsh, rough language (a kind of dialect) members of the community use. It can be quite painful and uncomfortable for some readers to read the N word used so frequently in dialogue, sometimes from sentence to sentence. An argument could be made that this just adds to the genuineness and authenticity of the text. It is believable that this is what these people actually talk and sound like. There's weight to that. Someone in a rough and harsh environment is more likely to speak roughly and harshly. Drug problems and poverty are also apparent. You know how down on their luck some of these people are when they're wearing JaMarcus Russell jerseys. You know the community is dirty, grungy, and unkept when figures like Lobster Girl are born with deformities, possibly caused by a parent's drug use (or maybe pollution). You know the community is dirty, grungy, and unkept when one of the officers describes “cauliflower herpes” as if he's seen his share of it. Again, it can be very uncomfortable to read these passages, but it does make it seem more gritty and real. And it IS real. Yes, we were shocked too. So much of this book seemed so spectacular and fantastical that we assumed it was fiction! Well, it's not. The major events in this book including the murders actually happened, and the author actually knew both detectives. We even see a younger Reynolds come in and out of the book. One interesting tidbit is when it's explained why officers don't sit in the homes they visit. It turns out that it's because of the fear of bringing bugs home, “especially the little ones with the eggs hanging out of their asses” (to paraphrase). That makes perfect sense. We had some jokes prepared about some of the characters, but we decided to drop them out of respect, particularly for the victims (who were real people). However, one thing that continues to be hilarious throughout the book is that the two detectives are constantly, continuously eating. Food is constantly an issue in this book. Protein bars. Steaks. Lobster. Breadsticks. Fruit bread. Burgers. French fries. Chili. Donuts. Food is discussed so often that it practically becomes a running joke. It even almost starts an argument between two of the officers about one eating steak without inviting him. They're even eating when interviewing the psychic! So, what are some things we took away from reading this book? Well, it definitely provides a genuine and authentic perspective—stepping right into the shoes of detectives during the investigation of a heinous series of crimes. It has some minor pacing issues, especially with the small talk and always stopping to eat. This is similar to the issue in another law enforcement book we're reading, Badge 149. It's somewhat reminiscent of the small talk that the hitmen in Pulp Fiction have, but it does slow and bog things down a lot. Could some of the fat have been trimmed in this book? Could things have been more concise? The one thing that might really get to some readers is that it can be quite uncomfortable and perhaps even painful to read some of the dialogue and visceral descriptions. This may have been avoided if the author hadn't tried to write out every piece of dialogue verbatim and instead simply described the gist of what the person had said. This book is loaded with scathing language, especially derogatory terms for different races, as we've mentioned before. And, as we've mentioned before, it adds to the feeling that the people in the community are “touched” or damaged. It's completely unfiltered. It adds to the immersion. You even get the familiar “this call may be monitored” warning in the middle of phone conversations with inmates. There's a point to it, yes, but it doesn't change the fact that it can really hurt to read or hear it over and over again. There are 76 “mutha******s” and 12 “mother******s” for a grand total of 88 MFers used in this book! That is actually kinda hilarious to think about. What's less hilarious is that there are also 81 “n*****” used in this book. 81! For comparison, there are only 67 uses of the word “shot(s)” and 66 uses of the word “officer(s).” There are only 56 uses of the word “police!” So there are OVER three-times (300%+) as many uses of the terms for MFers and N-ers as there are police--the subject of the whole book. It also messes a bit with the pacing since these sections often serve like speedbumps over the main plot and action. The visceral descriptions of missing, deformed, or herpes-infected body parts can also be off putting, especially when paired with the constant presence of and descriptions of food. It does give you some extra admiration for the men and women in these police departments who have to be exposed to these things and still come home to eat, sleep, and spend time with their families—knowing what they know, seeing what they've seen, and experiencing what they've experienced. This book is projected to be released in May! General Jack and the Battle of the Five Kingdoms is a truly outstanding work of allegorical fiction by David Bush. Kids and adults alike will appreciate this tale of political intrigue featuring some impressive animal characters. This might also be the best-written novel to come our way in years. With that said, we're giving it our highest-ever score (9.6 out of 10).
Anything remotely negative or critical we say from now on is just tough love and us being brutally honest, the same tough love and brutal honesty we give every author and every book. It doesn't detract from the fact that this is definitely one of the best fiction books to come our way, alongside the likes of The Angels of Resistance, Finding Grace, Surviving the Second Tier, Justifiable Deceit, Season of the Swords, and Secrets in the Mirror. This is an elite group of novels. This novel features a large, diverse cast of anthropomorphic animal characters woven into a epic, complex, yet understandable struggle that pits the haves against the have nots, the rich against the poor, the powerful against the powerless, kingdom against kingdom, and person against person, somehow all crammed into the sixth day of creation (because why not?) Leading the cast is Miaow who begins the story as a shy, humble, fearful servant of the tyrannical lion king, Roar. Meow and roar. We see what you did there! Anyway... Miaow is a tragic protagonist in every sense of the word, beginning with him losing his wife and four cubs to a coyote attack before the main story begins. His cowardice, fearfulness, and overall vulnerability are very apparent early on. We are informed that he fled and hid while his wife and cubs were killed. He is also captured and tortured by hyenas near the beginning of the book before being harshly reprimanded and banished from the king's sight for showing weakness and dishonoring the race. All the while, on the macro-level, we're introduced to the hierarchical, highly-segregated world of the animals, largely meant to reflect European colonialism and imperialism that was rampant starting in the late 1700s and largely ending once a couple of world wars convinced humanity that maybe petty land grabs weren't worth millions of human lives and ruining your economy over. The titular character, General Jack, throws a wrench into Miaow's life (and the animal world as a whole) when he makes him presence known, serving almost in a pseudo-Karl Marx/Che Guevara/Thomas Paine-esque role alongside the likes of radical philosophers like George the Fox and Olaf the Wolf (who seem to develop their own Tanaka Memorial/Tanaka Doctrines, by the way). Together with a freshly-turned and radicalized Miaow, they launch a revolution to overthrow the tyrannical King Roar and supplant him. Along the way, we see the deterioration of old orders as well as old norms, values, and virtues. Even our main protagonist isn't immune to a deterioration of his moral character as he become progressively more bigoted, violent, and fierce—a chilling contrast to his earlier personality and disposition. This is a world, like our world, in which people are capable of behaving like monsters and demons, and a world—like in Batman—in which a hero might live long enough to see themselves become the villain. So, as you can can probably tell, this book is pretty heavy-handed with its satire, allegory, and symbolism. You could even say that it hammers you over the head with a Mjolnir-sized mallet. The author has a ton to say and needs to get it off their chest. You sorta just have to deal with it and accept it for what it is, it's probably the author's magnum opus and life's work after all. They're clearly treating this book like it's everything they want to teach and show the next generation, a manifesto in fiction form. We get that. However, the aggressively didactic and heavy-handed nature of this book is made very apparent when looking at the maps, which not-so-subtly portray locations in the real world, mainly Eurasia. You can almost feel the author grinning at you, nudging you in the side like, “Get it? Ain't it clever?” Something bothers us about this book. It's hard to describe, but it seems incredibly pretentious and overwritten. It's like that one uncle at the family dinner who feels the need to crack a politically-charged joke, then waits a good five seconds with his mouth open waiting for everyone to laugh. Some of us just want to eat. Yes, that's an allusion to style over substance. Then, you get the sections at the end of the book that basically spill the beans on everything you were supposed to have learned from the book and every major historical inspiration for it. No, it's not like a “Making of” or “About the Author” section, it's a beat-by-beat breakdown of what every major part of the story was supposed to say and/or represent. That's helpful for a teacher or a student, however, a large part of the fun of reading fiction is figuring that stuff out for yourself. Instead, we're practically told at the end of the book that this is this and that is that. We're told how we should've interpreted things instead of interpreting it ourselves. We get told that one part represents the Battle of Balaclava (there are actual, explicit references to the “charge of the light brigade” while the animals are in battle), another part about Napoleon at the battles of Austerlitz and Waterloo, and how different types of governments operate and are represented in the novel. Yes, it's extremely impressive, and we were somewhat excited that we caught those references without being explicitly told about them, however, at what point does solid storytelling end and shoehorning-in-ideologies-and-the-entire-colonial-history-of-Europe begin? Like, some people (ok, a lot of people) just don't like being pandered, lectured, and preached to. Some people can sense when their chain is being yanked. It's sorta like those social media pages with all the cool, cute animals doing all the cool, cute things. You just can't help but click, like, share, and bookmark them because they're so cute and so cool. Yet something about that feels... off. You know the feeling? It's a feeling like you're being tugged on a leash and psychologically manipulated. Those animals aren't the ones seeing and enjoying the social media engagement, their owners are. Those animals aren't the ones making the money from ad revenue, their owners are. However, you clicked, shared, liked, and bookmarked BECAUSE of those animals and FOR those animals. You know you were played, yet you keep going back and being played. It's like an abusive relationship. With all that said, we finally figured out what bothers us so much about this novel. It seems to lack subtlety. Things like the Union Jack, blitzkrieg, crossing the Rubicon, and the charge of the light brigade are explicitly mentioned, often more than once in case you didn't get it the first time. And, while we're talking about references to Eurasia, how do hyenas on the sixth day of creation know what Russian roulette is? Remember that movie Crash? The one that won a ton of Academy Awards and Oscars including the Academy Award for Best Picture with an Oscar-bait cast and Academy Award-bait plot (i.e. RACISM IS BAD). We almost had that same feeling... this feeling like it was set up to be a book that checks boxes. It almost feels... too plotted to the point of being forced and contrived. There's something about this book that doesn't entirely feel 100% natural or organic. Something about it doesn't sit or flow 100% right. It's like everything was put in several neat, tidy boxes that were perfectly 12x12x12 and labeled. Meanwhile, everything on a long list of buzz topics was checked off. But we digress. We digress because this book is worth digressing for. It's great. It's excellent. It's impressive. It's amazing. It's all of that. Don't get it twisted. It might be the best book of the past year in the same way that Citizen Kane is the best film of all time or in the same way that Crash is the best film of 2004. There's a lot of context to the weighted word “best.” Is “the best” the one that brings you the most joy and entertainment? Or is “the best” the one that does the most things and does them well? It's the whole Tom Brady versus Patrick Mahomes debate. You have one guy who does the basics, makes high-percentage passes, and always seems to win, and another guy who does these extraordinary, mind-blowing things—scrambling all over the dang place, doing flips and spins, throwing underhanded, throwing side-armed, throwing 70 yards with a flick of a wrist—that make you think, “Man, maybe he should win.” It looks cool. It looks different. It catches your eye. It looks impressive, but does it really work? There's a difference between a really good circus and a really good Shakespeare play. This book reads a lot like a really good circus (or Patrick Mahomes) attempting to be King Lear. You can accept it and run with it, but you can't help but be a bit troubled by it. It's like cognitive dissonance. It upsets your senses like a compass encased in concrete and dropped in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with a layer of lava poured over it, then teleported into the Bermuda Triangle on the opposite side of the world. It's rather easy to accept and cope with the heavy-handedness because the writing is so eloquent, sophisticated, and beautiful. This might be the best-written book we have ever read, fiction or non-fiction, regardless of genre. The writing is borderline immaculate. It's difficult to describe, but it's almost like prose written in a sing-songy, poetic manner. Does it get cloying, gimmicky, and a bit self-indulgent after a while? Heck yeah. However, there's no denying its beauty, splendor, and artistic value. You constantly have descriptions and phrases like feline lines, frustrations and temptations, wriggling rattlesnakes, dastardly despot and demon dogs, heart of abscess, hear the hairy clouds, step on eggshells to deal with the chickens, and build a stage to entice lady luck that make use of a number of literary techniques you'd normally expect to see in songs or poems: rhymes, alliteration, anaphora, personification, double entendre etc. The toolbox that the author draws upon is deep. How about this line: “They are what they are. The blood of cruel killers flows in their veins. They can't help it; they can't change.” Oh, why don't you just shoehorn-in a semi-colon to show the world how well you write!? A period, comma, or em-dash would've been beneath Mr. Bush; he just couldn't resist, and neither could we. Anyway... Wow! Not only does this line read like a line from an epic poem, it actually says a lot about the character's views on their race/species as well as the hope for future generations to change. The pessimism oozes from the page. We're forced to ask ourselves: is he right? Our ancestors fought each other, tortured each other, killed each other. Wars have been fought. Genocide has occurred. Does that mean that we'll always hurt each other and fight each other? Is it just part of the human condition? Something tied to our nature? Something unavoidable? Another major theme in this book is the circular, cyclical nature of power and violence, perpetuating and violating its vivacious, voracious, voluptuous volition (or something like that). In layman's terms: kingdoms rise and kingdoms fall, there is war and there is peace. Insert mid-60s folk song joke here. This theme isn't something new or particularly unique to this book, however, the author adds some flavor to this pot roast with eloquent language and some appealing characters. Miaow, as we've mentioned, seems to undergo the Walter White-arc. Where as Walter White in Breaking Bad was intended to supplant the crime lord Gustavo Fring, Miaow seems hell-bent to supplant King Roar. We've seen this in Animal Farm and, in real-life, with people like Robespierre and Napoleon, or Saddam Hussein and IS*L—you rid yourself of one monster only to create another. There's also a lot said in this book about how human nature tends to be self-serving and how destructive that can be. When people only care about themselves and their kind, tribalism results and society is more divided and worse-off for it. It's a pretty straight-forward and somewhat cheesy message, but there's some truth there. We just read a book called Start with Collaboration that coincidentally talked a lot about this very thing. So, how does General Jack compare to other 9.6/10 novels we've read—the best of the best? Is it as emotionally-engaging as Finding Grace? No. Although there are some moments in here that might hit you hard. Are the stakes as engaging as The Angels of Resistance? No. Is it as exciting to read as Surviving the Second Tier? No. Are the core characters as realistic and believable as in Secrets in the Mirror? No. Is the writing more impressive and jaw-dropping than all of those? Yes! Does it accomplish a lot? Yes! We've talked a ton about this one book. We haven't even touched on the second-wife/pseudo-prophetess/Madame Mao/Nancy-Reagan/Josephine-like character, Sabine. We haven't even talked about the kamikaze chickens, how this fits into Christian creationism (somehow and for some reason), or how “the myth [of Miaow] became a malicious lie.” Check it out on Amazon! P.S. Apparently, the author is a truly amazing person who helps cancer patients and is published in international medical journals (which explains how and why he writes so well). Apparently, this masterpiece is his DEBUT NOVEL! Score: 93+/100 (9.3+ out of 10)
There's something about these detective murder-mysteries and crime dramas that just captivate the imagination. They have you glued to the pages, hanging on every word, every clue, wondering what's going to happen next. Corruption by Parker Samuels is a great example of this type of novel. The novel stars a loose-cannon detective, Griff Hunter, who narrowly avoids being killed in a shootout as he tears off the band-aid to several cold cases and mysterious activity. He scratches and claws to get to the bottom of several dead bodies mysteriously discovered in parks across the city over the course of 20-30 years. What initially appears to be a gang-related string of murders devolves into something even deeper and sicker, involving corruption within the police department itself and a terrifying villain. WARNING: the following may contain spoiler & descriptions of triggering/sensitive content. With a gang leader, Benni, and other leading suspects behind bars, these murders begin to look like an inside job—the work of a rogue cop named Donovan. Donovan proves to be a menacing villain, the perfect contrast to Hunter with a parallel life and career in the force. You almost wonder if things were different if Donovan could've turned out “good” like Hunter or if Hunter could've turned out murderous and evil like Donovan. Over his several decades in the police department, Donovan was known to have blackmailed several homosexual officers with videos of them in the act in attempt to make himself untouchable in the department, all the while committing absolutely heinous crimes of increasing severity—everything from simple misconduct to rape and eventually even murder. He was eventually picked up as a mole for the Poliakoff mob within the department, and it begs the question if there was any chance of redemption for him between that time and his first murder. It is believed that he drugged and poisoned multiple victims, intentionally making these deaths look like overdoses. He specifically seemed to target homosexual men. So, while he's not the over-arching villain of the book (with a boss working over him), Donovan proves to be the most direct and terrifying face of evil that we read about. And that makes the ending all the more satisfying. The whole book, you're just dying to see this crooked serial-rapist, serial-killer get his comeuppance, especially since he's constantly trying to kill our hero. And, my gosh, is the comeuppance so satisfying! Again, it plays with the idea that sometimes the good guys have to do bad things and play outside the rules or the norms, especially when dealing with a villain with no ethics or morals. We will say that the final physical altercation, while captivating and satisfying, is strangely kinda funny and awkward when you think of how Hunter struggles his way out of the situation, particularly while he's being strangled. Like, would that really work in real life? It's one of those suspension of disbelief things. It did have us on the edge of our seat and cringing though! Speaking of “funny,” this book is actually a bit funny. Despite all the murder and sexual things, it strangely takes a lighthearted, humorous approach. For example, no matter what's happening—no matter who is dead or dying or if his own life is in danger—Hunter always seems to have time to consider how his sunburns hurt and how he should've used sunscreen. He also has a light will-they/won't-they romantic angle with a new strawberry-blonde female detective named Crunch, probably this contest's first nominee for “Hottest Character.” Hilariously, Hunter really wants Crunch to become a police captain someday just so that he can call her “Captain Crunch.” This is kinda how his brain is wired and how this book reads. It's surprisingly fun and light given the subject matter. Check it out on Amazon! Score 95+/100 (9.5+ out of 10)
It would be easy to try to sum this book up as something like“working together is better than working alone.” However, that wouldn't be doing justice to this fascinating book that has so much more to say than just that. Yes, collaboration is a lot about working with others, cooperating with others, and accomplishing greater things as a team rather than as individuals. We've heard these things since preschool; however, how much successful collaboration do we see relative to the sheer number of people and businesses in our world? How much discord and cutthroat competitiveness do we see in business, education, athletics, and even politics? It seems that people are always at each other's throats. It seems as though people are always trying to succeed at the expense of others. Now, a certain amount of competitiveness is good. It's one of the hallmarks of American capitalism. At the same time, there are numerous examples (as provided by the author) of people who were able to substantially increase their success, longevity, and overall well-being by working with other people. The example that stuck out in our minds from the book was Blockbuster and Netflix. There is an entire generation (perhaps even two) growing up right now who don't even know what Blockbuster is. However, there was a time it dominated video entertainment. What happened? Well, not only did it fail to adapt to an ever-changing streaming and video-sharing market, but it failed to collaborate when given the chance including with a fledgling Netflix. Perhaps there is some alternate reality in which Blockbuster agreed to buy out Netflix and gain a monopoly on the video-sharing market before HBO Max, Hulu, and Disney+ could come about. However, this isn't that reality. Blockbuster crumbled, largely at the feet of a competitor who had once offered to work with them or even for them. This might seem like a super niche example, but think about what WWE (then WWF) accomplished in the early 2000s by buying out its chief competitors, WCW and ECW. Now, here's the thing: WWE subsidized ECW to a certain extent. Yes, they actually invested in their competitor. That might sound strange to some people, but there was a reason for it. ECW served as a sort of feeder or developmental league in which great talents who hadn't yet hit their stride could be cultured and break into the business. ECW also served as a testing ground for new ideas that the WWE later cannibalized for its own benefit, making itself a lot of money in the process and surviving (and thriving) to this day. Collaboration doesn't only apply to business, it applies to almost every area of human existence. The book provides good and bad examples of disaster relief efforts in the context of collaboration. Collaboration between different local, state, and federal organizations is showcased in the wake of a Minnesota Bridge Collapse. Due to a coordinated Emergency Operations Plan (EOP), damage and death were minimized. This is compared to the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans, Louisiana in which different government agencies did not adequately cooperate or inform each other of the severity of what was going on, thus leading to a stunted evacuation and very slow response to the crisis that left over a thousand dead and thousands more homeless. The author uses bands and music as a great example of collaboration. Heck, we know people personally who regularly collaborate with other musicians to diversify their skills, network (yes, we know the author makes the point that networking isn't full-on collaboration), to grow and their audience. Going back to the point, the author uses The Beatles as an example of a band that actually struggled with collaboration in their earlier days because Paul McCartney, the story goes, played most of the instruments and made most of the noise. This led to a lot of frustration and loss of enthusiasm among the band members which hindered and later crushed their creativity and productivity. Well, when the band came back together, they were better able to diversify the skills sets, show off their various talents, and become far more creative and productive than they ever were before. It's true, variety really makes the music. No one wants to hear the same sound over and over again, no matter how beautiful it is. A lot of beautiful sounds played in synchrony make a prettier song. That's the power of collaboration. There are some great passages in this book, but our favorite was that “Fish lose the benefit of being in a school if one fish eats all the food.” It tells you that humans as social animals work better together than apart, and that—as the adage goes—a high tide lifts all ships. Imagine a football team with one great player and a bunch of one-star and two-star supporting talent. We've seen it before. It's a recipe for mediocrity. Football is a sport that requires 11 players on a team to work together at one time. More often than not, you'll find that the best teams aren't the ones with the best individual stats (for things like running or passing), but ones that are more balanced and work together—with a good offense, defense, and special teams. It's the lesson we all learned when the one-man aerial circus of Dan Marino's Miami Dolphins faced a very well-balanced 49ers team in the Super Bowl. Speaking of dolphins, this book is full of other sea-life analogies. Fish feed, hunt, and swim together. They are also sometimes faced with big predators like sharks. Sharks are analogous to critics and negative people in our lives and who get between us and our goals. Working in a "Collaboration Ecosystem" (as the author puts it), like a school of fish, will help you to survive the slings, arrows, and gnashing teeth of sharks who want to divide and conquer. One last thing we want to bring up is that this book is very well-structured and well-organized. We appreciated the bullet points and how things were formatted so that they stood out, making everything easier to read and digest altogether. Check this out on Amazon! Score: 94+/100 (9.4+ out of 10)
SACRED is a powerful, emotion-filled poetry book by O'Cyrus. It is definitely one of the better poetry books we've read. That's saying a lot considering we've probably read about a dozen or so in the last three years. SACRED blends aspects of a memoir with some poems that take a pseudo-biographical angle, discussing and speculating on the experiences of other people the author has encountered in their life—from the homeless, to military veterans, to friends and family. And adding to the beauty of this book, the author demonstrates a variety of poetic skills. Every poem is different from the others. Rhyme schemes change. Meter changes. The subjects and topics, as we've alluded to, also change. There are some sensitive things discussed in this book that may be triggering to some, so be forewarned. There are discussions of domestic and child abuse, sexual abuse, and suicide (among other things). However, it's not exploitative; rather, there's a compassionate, caring angle to all of it. The poet seems to care and wonder if there's anything we can do to better help those who are going through abusive situations or who are feeling suicidal, or if there's more we can do to help the homeless, particularly those who've served our country. Let's discuss that poem about the homeless veteran for a moment because it particularly sticks out in our minds. It encapsulates some of the themes of the book: showing compassion to people and not judging (or jumping to conclusions about) people. It is easy to judge or jump to conclusions about someone you haven't gotten to know. It's easy to say that they're in the bad situation they're in because of their own mistakes, drugs, or alcohol. Well, what the poet seems to have realized in the story they tell in this poem is that the homeless man is actually a victim of circumstances-- a divorced businessman whose business failed during the pandemic. If there's anything that can be said about these pseudo-biographical parts, it's that the poet puts themselves in the shoes of these people. Another set of poems puts you in the shoes of a person of color, rejected and criticized by society and finding themselves behind the wheel during a traffic stop (“Not Black Enough” & “Please Don't Kill Me”), being in danger of being shot if they even removed their hands from the wheel to pray. It's actually one of the more unique poems, using a variety of different text sizes and styles to play up the slings and arrows a person of color faces. Many of these poems take on a motivational, inspirational, positive, affirmative form. They champion things like finding your purpose, believing in yourself, knowing your self-value, and finding courage. The poet continues to put the variety of their skills on display. “POSSIBLE” takes the shape of an anagram, but doesn't stop there. It flows into a series of tercets and couplets. “Wake Up” and “Look in the Mirror” employ anaphora in using the phrases “A day” and “I'm”/”I am” respectively at the beginning of many lines. “SEESTERRR” takes a similar approach, employing anaphora with the repetition of the words “Grateful for...” while also pushing forward the ideas of gratitude and thankfulness. There are some beautiful, powerful poems in here about brotherhood and marriage. It might bring a tear to your eye. There's a story in here about a homosexual child who is perpetually abused by their father (and earlier by their uncle). It seems to be based on a true story that the author learned about. It is incredibly uncomfortable and sad. However, the author demonstrates another one of their techniques to punch home the emotion. A motif emerges with the poet focusing on the sound that the abusive dad's keys make, terrifying the child. Even when the child grows up, the sounds of keys or the jingling of metals terrifies them. It's visceral. Here are some of our favorite passages, possible nominees for “Best Quote”: “Named after an angel, murdered by a devil Burned by flames, beaten by metal” What great juxtapositions and piercing severity! “Chasing your dreams can become cold, dark, and lonely Sacrificed so much and now it's you and you only” “Many represent nothing, and even fewer take a stance.” Definitely check out this book if you're a fan of poetry. It's available on Amazon! |
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