Editorial Reviews for Nominees
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 Score: 96/100 (9.6 out of 10)
Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence in Special Education by Ange Anderson is a truly exciting and fascinating book about education and emerging technologies! Let's face it, learning has always been a challenge, and teaching has always been tough. Add disabilities into the mix, and the difficulty level increases exponentially. Or it did... until new technologies arose which provide hope and opportunity for all including students with disabilities and those who teach them. Listen: this is a subject that's near and dear to our hearts. Not only have we struggled with different disabilities in the past, but we know dozens of children and adults in our lives who've also wrestled with them. It can be very limiting, demoralizing, and discouraging. It can feel like everyone has the inside scoop on things that you don't. It can feel like everyone is "normal" and you're not. It can feel like you're behind and there's no hope of ever catching up. Well, technologies are emerging that are changing all of that--they're helping to level the playing field and give those with disabilities a fair shot. Among these are virtual reality, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence. This is such an encouraging and inspiring book! But it's also practical. This book accepts that there are limits, hiccups, and wrinkles to these technologies, and that nothing is perfect. We love to see that. Often times, the most frustrating thing about books like this is how idealistic they are. This book strikes a great balance between idealism and realism--between hype and practicality--between promise and proof. We're on board for it! Ironically, we were just talking about how kids learn through play, especially younger kids. Let's be real: learning is more pleasant for adults too when it's fun or entertaining. So, why not use technology to make learning easier, more accessible, more exciting, more entertaining, and more fun? Imagine the possibilities! We don't have to imagine them, they're actually right in front of our eyes. Computers, laptops, and smartphones can becomes effective learning tools, believe it or not (when used intelligently). We now have technologies like Oculus Quest headsets that can drop a student into a coral reef for ten minutes or a whole period. Speaking of periods, virtual reality now makes it possible to virtually go on field trips to different time periods! Even the Jurassic Age! So, if you have students who love dinosaurs, now is your chance to engage them! You can even visit different periods in human history like Feudal Japan or Ancient Egypt. You can visit a volcano, Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam, the sunken wreckage of the Titanic, or even Mars! It's like the Magic School Bus come to life! And, hey, what about our glasses? Smart glasses like those made by Bose can be integrated into aids by adding sound to the world instead of screens. They can whisper a prompt at the right moment, read a label, or give a quiet “turn left to the library” without taking a student’s eyes off their surroundings. That makes help feel private and hands-free. Picture a few quick wins: step-by-step cues during a cooking task, social-story lines rehearsed in the actual hallway before class, vocabulary that plays when you look at the science station, gentle reminders to pause and breathe. For learners who get overwhelmed by visuals, audio-first guidance can lower the noise and raise confidence. An iPad can turn your classroom into a 3D solar system. A phone can overlay labels on a skeleton in AR or live-caption a lab demo for a student who needs it. Even without headsets, 360° videos and simple AR apps make field trips and close-up explorations possible from a desk. For learners who need extra support, this gets powerful. Visual schedules become interactive. Social stories can be practiced in safe, repeatable scenes. Step-by-step prompts can appear right when a student needs them. Choice and voice grow, because students can explore, rewind, and try again without fear of judgment. And you do not need a huge budget to start. Cardboard viewers and free apps work. One shared headset can rotate in five-minute turns. The goal is not fancy gear. The goal is better learning. “Used intelligently” means a few simple guardrails. Set clear outcomes. Keep sessions short at first. Check for comfort and motion sickness. Offer an easy opt-out. Get parent consent and communicate the plan. Debrief what was learned, not just what looked cool. Play does not end in kindergarten. It just gets smarter. If technology helps us keep curiosity alive while making learning more accessible and joyful, that is worth leaning into. And there's a safety component to this too. Field trips are both fun and scary in real life, especially with very young children or those with disabilities. Not only can children get lost, but some with disabilities have particular anxieties, apprehensions, and phobias like about boarding a bus, train, or plane, crossing the street, or being around people or certain things. And, obviously, there are serious dangers (and/or impracticalities) involved with visiting an actual volcano, hanging out with dinosaurs, or going to Mars. And we know what you're thinking: virtual reality shouldn't replace or substitute real experiences. There's nothing like the real thing. And you're right to think that. But these technologies don't have to replace or substitute reality, they can enhance them. Imagine this: virtual reality can ease kids with phobias to become more comfortable doing things like crossing the street, boarding a plane, meeting with people, and being in the presence of animals (like bugs or dogs) that might otherwise terrify them. Imagine the potential and possibilities! And think of augmented reality and augmented communication this way: Imagine if you could use all your senses and multiple ways to both communicate and understand others. It's actually not as far-fetched or extreme as it sounds. When you talk to others, do you look them in the eyes? Do you use hand gestures and facial expressions to enhance or emphasize what you're saying verbally? When you studied in college or university, didn't it help to both HEAR the instructor as well as SEE their PowerPoint presentation? Didn't it help to see graphs, chats, diagrams, pictures, and symbols rather than just hearing someone talk/teach or reading their words? So, imagine if verbal and written communication could be augmented with words, symbols, and more. Wouldn't you be able to learn and understand things better? Wouldn't you be able to communicate better? Think about it like sign language. Could you imagine how a deaf person might communicate without being able to augment their communication with signs? The tools are there because there's a need for them. They're there to help humanity, not hinder, hamper, or hold us back. One of the lines that really stood out to us in this book is: "Children are becoming bored with traditional schooling. Governments around the world have been updating their schools’ curriculum to try and secure better outcomes for children. Teachers have a professional responsibility to deliver the curriculum through the best teaching methods possible. Pedagogy should determine our educational use of this new technology and how it might contribute to our set of educational aims. Pedagogy should drive the technology and not the other way around." Piaget's pedagogical ideas are beautifully and effectively emphasized and exemplified throughout this book. Piaget proposed that learners build knowledge by doing, noticing, and adjusting. This book keeps that center stage. Students are not passive viewers of “cool tech.” They are active makers of meaning. The technology gives them richer concrete experiences, then the teacher guides reflection so new schemas form. The more active and engaged you can make your learners/students, the better they will learn! Ok, this book isn't all sunshine and rainbows, but that's to be expected. Everything needs rules and guardrails, and there's a big, huge, long section near the end of this book about practical rules and guardrails that schools and educational institutions can employ to make sure that these technologies are being used with as few problems possible. You can't have kids misusing these technologies. At the same time, this part of the book really seemed limiting and controlling. And it kinda made us uncomfortable, honestly. For example, it was saying things like kids shouldn't be using their school devices to make money or run a side hustle. We know this is gonna sounds weird, but... shouldn't we be encouraging kids to develop into productive members of our economy in the future? It was also saying things like the students would get penalized if they failed to charge their iPad the night before and would still be required to do the assignment... somehow... without a charged iPad. At least that's what it sounded like to us. We've been in 4th and 5th grade classrooms in which the kids are expected to be even more responsible than their parents--than grown adults! They get yelled at just for not getting a signature on their planners from their parents. You know... the adults who should be doing it? Why is it the kids who get yelled at? That's something that always bothered us. Anyway, for the most part, this is an exceptional and very forward-thinking/forward-looking education book. Check it out on Amazon!
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 Score: 95+/100 (9.5+ out of 10)
Losing Austin by Michael J. Bowler is a riveting, heartfelt mystery about brotherhood, guilt, and the strange ways love can guide us through the rain. It turns a missing-person search into a redemption story you feel in your chest, all while tactfully exploring the subject of autism spectrum disorder and its impacts on individuals and their families. And, let's face it, this book does kinda jump the shark and become a fascinating (albeit tonal-shifting) becomes a fascinating (albeit tonal-shifting) X-Files-adjacent detour. It raises eyebrows, sure, but it also raises stakes, reframing the mystery through wonder instead of dread. So, if you're up for a sci-fi mystery with some nods to folklore and superstition, this might be up your alley as well. This novel follows a very compelling protagonist, Colton Bowman, who is a gravely misunderstood kid whose brother, Austin, lives with autism. Now, what makes Colton so compelling and so misunderstood? Well, the very fact that he is misunderstood, mistreated, underappreciated, and disrespected is why we (the audience) feel compelled to get behind him. His life is truly unfair, and he is treated so unfairly at every turn and every opportunity. He is mislabeled as "troubled" and "psychotic" because he gets into so many fights at school in defense of his brother. Eventually, he is even accused of his brother's murder, a slanderous rumor which spreads like wildfire due to social media and public hysteria. Oh, and his mom sucks. We know that's not tactful to say, but Colton (and Austin's) mom comes across as a terrible person throughout most of this book. She's rarely physically abusive, but she definitely has an emotional, mental, and psychological impact on Colton, who often feels unloved and unwanted because of the way his mother treats him. Anyone who has been mistreated, mislabeled, or wrongfully accused of something can relate to the way that Colton feels. That relatability and that feeling of unfairness oozes off of the pages. You—the reader—just want to get in there and stand up for Colton the same way he stands up for Austin. Speaking of Austin... his sudden and shocking disappearance is the inciting incident of this novel, but not after a traumatic incident in which Colton, frustrated, tells Austin that he hates him. This profoundly haunts Colton, filling him with guilt and a drive to reconcile with his missing brother, something which seems impossible in his absence. Austin's disappearance sets off a media circus and hysterical public frenzy with Colton and his family caught in the middle of it. Was he abducted? Was he murdered? Did he just wander off? Now, in all honesty, this part of the book was a little wonky and off in our opinion. First of all, time FLIES in this section. Seriously, years and years pass in which Austin is missing. And what's weird extra weird is that we keep being told that Colton wants to find and reconcile with his brother, but we don't remember him actually going out there and searching in those 2-5 years. Like, you're telling us that in 2-5 years, he never bothered to at least search in the direction of the rainbow that Austin was pointing to? It never occurred to him? Instead, he jumps to some really weird conclusions, chief of which is his alien abduction theory, which he becomes fixated on. Of all things? Now, he does do some digital sleuthing which leads him to form relationships with Keilani, a Hawaiian girl online whose brother has also gone missing (having a paranormal, folkloric explanation for these disappearances), and Emily ("Fringe Girl"), a conspiracy theorist and message-board sleuth who brings receipts—archived threads, odd ‘implant’ photos, and mirror/rainbow theories that push the case past the ordinary. These girls, alongside Colton's friend, Casey, form a Mystery Inc-like group chasing the truth about Austin's disappearance. This highlights one of the things we appreciated about this book and the plot involving Austin's disappearance: it brings people together. Yes, there's the crazy media and paparazzi. Yes, the CDC, DHS, and FBI get involved. However, it's the friendships and bonds that Colton gains with Casey, Keilani, and Emily that are truly special. We'll get to more of his relationships later, but back to the plot... WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD ________________________________________________________________ Surprisingly early on in the book, Austin suddenly and inexplicably returns. He hasn't aged a day and is even wearing the exact same clothes he was wearing the day he disappeared. We'd say this is a spoiler, but it happens really early in the book (about 20-25% of the way in). A lot of this book is actually more about the aftermath of his return and the mystery of what happened to Austin rather than finding him. We were actually a little disappointed about that. Anyway, Austin is viewed as a miracle and scientific marvel. Everyone is fascinated and baffled by the fact that he hasn't aged despite the fact that he should be about 20-years-old at the time of his return. Again, the CDC, DHS, and FBI get involved. Numerous tests are run on Austin, and the mystery only grows. Conspiracy theories go wild. Colton, Keilani, Emily, and others come up with all sorts of exotic explanations. All the while, Austin isn't exactly acting like Austin. He seems to be trying to communicate something through art. He's also more willing to be hugged, especially by Colton, and actually seems to prefer his care and company compared to his parents—a stark contrast to how Austin was before. Oh, and he actually makes eye contact a few times, something which he never did before. So, something is definitely up with him. We'll try not to spoil the ultimate explanation for you, but it's a somewhat satisfactory explanation. And, to be perfectly honest, the final scene with the two brothers is one of the most emotionally-riveting scenes we've read in a long time. You can tell that the author must've been in tears writing it. We were close to tears! It's really a reversal of the dynamics in their relationship, and it's thought-provoking. It makes you think about what it must be like to be autistic--the frustration of feeling unable to connect or communicate like "normal" people along with the feeling of being trapped. We mentioned how one of the things we loved about this book was how the plot brought a lot of people together. In fact, a lot of people become romantic partners/couples. Everyone has an arc. In fact, when Anderson Cooper runs a special about Colton, Austin, and their family, people tell Colton about how their story inspired them to make changes in their lives and/or reconcile with others. There's even an opportunity for Colton's terrible parents to redeem themselves. Essentially, Colton's story is an epiphany for a lot of people around the world. _____________________________________________________________ MAJOR SPOILERS END We love that everything in this book seems to matter and isn't just there as fluff. For example, yes there are weird explanations and theories for Austin's disappearance, but even they serve as thought-provoking red-herrings. We also love Colton's growth as a character. He goes from being someone who is mistreated, unappreciated, and disrespected to someone who is looked up to and viewed as inspirational. Check it out on Amazon!  Score: 91/100 (9.1 out of 10)
We all know what it feels like to sense something without being able to explain it, that gut feeling that says something isn’t quite right, or that the moment feels right. Down to Earth takes that familiar experience and shows how to use it in daily life. Rather than treating intuition as a mystery, the book teaches you to notice it, test it, and treat it like any other skill you can practice. If you’ve ever felt a quiet yes or no, this is the part of you the book speaks to. Demircubuk’s goal is to make intuition clear, useful, and accountable, pairing it with simple steps so it works alongside logic instead of replacing it. The promise is straightforward: pay attention to your signals, write them down, and check them against what happens. Over time, those small habits turn intuition from a vague idea into something you can rely on. Down to Earth is a field guide to intuition that tries to pull the concept out of the clouds, give it shoes, and make it show up for work. It is half explainer, half workbook. It mixes quick summaries of well-known studies with simple exercises, journaling prompts, and short meditations. It is also, at times, repetitive, soft around the edges, and too content to gesture at science without fully wrestling with it. For us, that combination lands in the high-B range: genuinely useful in parts, but not something we loved cover to cover. Perhaps the things about this book that bothered us the most was how idealistic and head-in-the-clouds it seemed. We occasionally encounter books like this. For example, we read and reviewed Real Psychology by Dr. Scott Flagg and Awaken to Your Truth by Joanna Alexopoulos. Something always bothers us about these types of books, whether its the pseudo-sciency feel or the metaphysical, spiritual stuff. It often seems like these books are trying to promote something magical or supernatural like a new religion or something. Well, at least this book tries to push forward the idea that intuition is not magic and actually has some scientific basis and backing. Intuition is pattern recognition that happens faster than conscious thought. It can be cultivated like any other skill. The author breaks it into channels you can actually notice in daily life: a physical sensation, a flash of knowing, a nudge of emotion, a stray inner sentence. Then the book offers drills to strengthen those channels. You learn to calm the noise, ask a clear question, receive a signal, write it down, and verify it with reason and real-world feedback. The loop is practical and repeatable. That is the book at its best. Several chapters are especially helpful. The early “foundation” section lays out what intuition is and is not. It tries to head off wishful thinking by insisting you pair gut feeling with logic checks. We appreciated that. So many books in this space fall into the trap of selling intuition as a silver bullet. Demircubuk, for the most part, does not. The priming sections are also strong. The “sacred space” meditation is short, adaptable, and inclusive of non-visual thinkers. The act of writing a pointed question before you listen is a small but clever constraint. It keeps the practice from becoming vague mindfulness wallpaper. Later, the symbol and metaphor work gives readers a way to translate those odd mental images we all get into something actionable. It sounds squishy. In practice, it is a structured meaning-making exercise, and it is grounded in the fact that humans think in metaphors more than we like to admit. There is a humane streak throughout. The chapter on using intuition with other people asks you to be more empathic and ethical, not more manipulative. The self-care material nudges you to differentiate between what would truly restore you and what merely looks productive. None of this is revolutionary, but it is considerate and often kind. Readers who are depleted or decision-fatigued may find these pages comforting. So why the 91 and not something higher? A few reasons. First, the science scaffolding is thin. Like we alluded to before, a lot of this reads like pseudoscience. The book name-checks landmark ideas about somatic markers, unconscious thought, and naturalistic decision-making. It invokes the familiar firefighter-nurse-pilot examples to argue that experts often “just know” in complex situations. All true enough at a distance. But the translation from lab effect to life choice is where the rubber should meet the road, and the book mostly waves you through the intersection. For instance, if nonconscious cues can improve accuracy in certain tasks, how do you build a home practice that is robust to bias and overconfidence? What does a real calibration protocol look like beyond “keep a journal and reflect”? We get hints, not a complete bridge. Readers who want an airtight methodology will notice the gaps. Second, the symbol work is ripe for confirmation bias. The author does warn you to verify impressions with additional checks. Still, it is easy to see how a reader could start bending symbols to fit preferred outcomes. Without clear counterfactuals or blind checks, you can end up rewarding yourself for being right and quietly forgetting when you were not. The book nods at this issue. We wanted firmer guardrails. Even a simple weekly audit template with prompts like “What did I predict?” “What happened?” and “What surprised me?” would help a lot. Third, the writing voice slides toward the generic self-help register more than wd’d like. There are clean, concrete passages. There are also sections that feel padded with reassurances and familiar encouragements. The tone is warm. It is also safe. That safety makes the book approachable. It also makes it blur into a dozen other well-meaning guides about listening to yourself. When the author is specific and procedural, the pages fly. When the prose leans into generalities, the energy dips. Fourth, the structure repeats itself. A concept appears in an early chapter, returns in the exercises, and reappears in later applications with similar framing. For beginners, repetition is a feature. For readers who move quickly, it can feel like jogging in place. We found ourselves skimming to get to the next new tool or example. Finally, we wanted more stories. Not just vignettes proving that intuition sometimes works, but honest case studies showing when it does not. Show me a decision that initially felt right, then did not pan out, and walk me through the post-mortem. What did the signal feel like? What did you miss? How did you update your practice? That kind of transparency would earn trust and sharpen the method. With that said, there is a lot here you can put to work the same day you read it. The simple act of establishing an “intuition log” is sneakily powerful. You capture what you felt, when you felt it, the context, and the eventual outcome. Do that for a week and patterns emerge. Do it for a month and you start to see where your intuition is sharp and where it is noisy. Pair it with a quieting ritual that suits you, and you have a foundation. Add a short symbol-interpretation pass and a hard logic check at the end, and you have a decision loop that is both humane and accountable. Who is this book for? People who feel split between a spreadsheet and a hunch. Creatives who already live by texture and tempo but want a bit more rigor. Students and founders making daily micro-bets who need a lightweight way to weigh options when time is tight. Coaches and clinicians who want to listen better without abandoning evidence. If you are allergic to anything remotely “inner,” you will likely roll your eyes in places. If you want a therapy-level deep dive into cognitive bias, you will not find it here. But if you want a friendly starter kit that treats intuition as a skill you can practice without burning incense on the hour, this will land. Some of the best chapters in this book discuss the "primers" on noticing signals in your own body and mind. There are also chapters and sections about quick meditations you can do that do not demand an hour on a cushion. There are others that provide conversational guidance for using intuition ethically with other people. Furthermore, the self-care pages are intended to help nudge you toward restoration over performance. One of the key takeaways we got from this book is to treat intuition as one input, not the only input. That keeps the whole enterprise grounded. Now, here's where this book lost us: the frequent recycling of core claims, the gentle gloss over methodological thorns, and the tendency to stop just short of making the exercises falsifiable. At times, the voice encourages more than it challenges. For a topic that invites self-deception as easily as self-knowledge, a little more challenge would help. In an ideal world in which nothing bad ever happens, everyone is kind and good, and there are never any inconveniences, everything in this book might actually work. However, we read about what sometimes happens to people who get too caught up in metaphysical/spiritual stuff in Alden Windrow's book about Zander Wolbach. Reality tends to hit you like a bag of bricks. You can't expect to become like some Tibetan Buddhist monk meditating all day every day and be honky dory. The real world doesn't work like that. We wish it did. Ok, we just had to get that off our chests... Sorry. Let's come back down to earth. Pun intended. Down to Earth is a compassionate and usable guide to tuning your inner instruments. It gives you a handful of practices that can make daily decisions feel less brittle and more alive. It just does not push as hard as it could on proof, error correction, or guardrails, which keeps it from graduating into the must-own tier for me. We learned from it. We used parts of it. We did not love it. This is a helpful, well-meaning toolkit with soft science edges and a gentle voice. Calibrate it with your own data, demand a little more rigor than the book requires, and you will get real value out of it. Check it out on Amazon!  Score: 86+/100 (8.6+ out of 10)
UPDATE: Apparently, the events in this book are based on real events. In other words--as crazy and unlikely as it sounds--the events described in this book actually happened to people the author knew! This actually forces us to adjust some of our prior feelings about the book. In the original review, we expressed feeling like the suspension of disbelief (that works of fiction should be striving for) was missing. The insight that these stories are fictional retellings of actual, real-life events actually changes things a bit, providing context. _______________________________ Original Review: Are you up for some shenanigans and hijinks? Are you geared up for some classic slapstick humor with a bit more edge? Hysterical Hangouts with the Hindlegs is a satirical, reality-TV-styled novel (or script) told as a “Season 1” of an eleven-episode show. In this goofy tale of mischief and woe, 20-something-year-old Viktor Sniperbone becomes smitten with his girlfriend Mandi, whose family is a piece of work. He then decides to secretly record her chaotic family, the titular Hindlegs, to create the “realest” reality show ever. Comedy ensues! Well, at least in concept it does. This story is somewhat like The Osbournes meets Jackass, a wild family reality circus with Osbournes-style personalities and Jackass-level stunt energy, all tied together by a season-long secret camera scheme. Or maybe it's more like a classic family or ragtag friend drama like Leave It to Beaver, Three Stooges, or The Little Rascals with a lot more edge and crudeness, perhaps like Family Guy, The Simpsons, or American Dad. It's like a mix of different things, and these were perhaps the most flattering comparisons we could think of. This script/story/book really seems to be finding its legs like a newborn giraffe that's just fallen eight feet from its mother's womb. It's sluggish and a bit sloppy. There's almost no formatting as far as indentations or indications of who is supposed to be talking in the script. Things are described in paragraph-form more like a novel. It always reads more like a draft, a teaser, or a trailer than a finished product. We thought that was problematic. There's an unfinished, hollowed out, bare-bones feel, like someone was supposed to come back and flesh things out later. This, unfortunately, seems like a placeholder for a bigger, better project. And, like a newborn giraffe, it struggles a bit, mostly because we weren't so enamored with Viktor, Mandi, or any of the other characters. They seemed very cartoonish and two-dimensional. We couldn't take anything they said or did very seriously. So, we also couldn't take their risks very seriously either. There's a severe lack of suspension of disbelief, which is something we experience from time to time with books that have stakes and/or characters we can't buy into. And that's a problem when you consider that every episode ends on a cliffhanger. The key to a cliffhanger is that you buy into the stakes and want to see what happens next. Yes, in The Simpsons or Family Guy, few things of lasting consequence tend to happen, but there's a certain charm and charisma that radiates from a character like Homer Simpson or Stewie Griffin. We just weren't feeling anything close to that with Viktor, Mandi, Commodore, Birtha, Rider, Tucker, and Hunter. Maybe it'll come with more episodes and more seasons that will allow some of these characters to develop and shine. The closest comparison we have for Viktor is that he's kind of like Ferris Bueller. He’s a charming rule-bender who masterminds a big scheme behind the backs of adults (here, secretly filming the Hindlegs) and talks directly to the “camera” as the ringmaster of the bit. Another thing that didn’t sit well was the streak of mean-spirited humor. Mandi’s dad loses a finger and the narration shrugs it off as “now he has nine,” which treats a serious injury like a throwaway joke. Rider opens the car door at 70 MPH and hangs out while Mandi screams that he could die, and the narrative literally tells us that he doesn't care. A batch of chickens are tossed around and killed as if they were cannon fodder, which reads more cruel than comic. Viktor gets hogtied by the brothers during a hazing bit and is treated like a prop while everyone cracks up instead of checking if he’s okay. Moments like these stack harm on humiliation, inviting us to laugh at pain rather than with the characters, and they undercut sympathy for Viktor’s secret-show scheme. Why it matters: when the comedy doesn’t pause to show care, consequence, or remorse, the tone tilts from playful to punitive. Readers start to feel the family is simply mean, and Viktor’s role as instigator feels less charming and more reckless. Now, in Jackass, the guys do messed up things to each other all the time. In The Simpsons, Bart is constantly playing pranks and vandalizing stuff. In Family Guy, everyone beats up on Meg. So, there's precedence for this kind of thing. But we were still caught off guard by it. Keep in mind, in the author's previous work, Trust on Trial, there was a much more refined, clean-cut, white-collar feel with very clear morals, ethics, and a seemingly positive direction. This seems to be the opposite. It fluctuates between poking fun at and celebrating the stupidity and antics of the characters. This book is also a lot more vulgar than we were braced for granted the author's previous work. A bunch of the characters are foul-mouthed and say immature things that are tantamount to your mama jokes. There are a bunch of innuendos. Characters outright cuss and curse. We're not prudes about this stuff, but it really clashes with the tone and style that the author had established in Trust on Trial, which might be the point. Let's put it this way: these aren't good examples to follow. They're cautionary tales. And perhaps that's something else that Hysterical Hangouts has in common with TV shows like Family Guy. We're not supposed to look up to and admire these people, we're supposed to say, "Gee, I'm so grateful we're not THAT bad, THAT stupid, and THAT crazy." In fact, it's tailor-made to make you feel good about yourself, your family, and your life. At least you're not THAT bad. Perhaps that makes sense. Now, with all the negatives aside, this still has the upside of a baby giraffe. Yeah, it might be sloppy, unfinished, and wonky right now, but we can definitely see the potential. It can someday grow into an 19-foot-tall wonder. Maybe this could be refined into a TV show someday. Check it out on Amazon!  Score: 89+/100 (8.9+ out of 10)
Protectors of the Light Crown is an imaginative sci-fi and fantasy hybrid that refuses to pick a single lane, veering into paranormal and even absurdist territory. It opens like a dark legend with an angel, a fallen king, and a ruined realm, then swerves hard into a near-future city where a sleepy gamer named Dexter Park crosses paths with an anime-coded swordswoman who raids his pantry for bouillon cubes and batteries. The result is bold and frequently fun. It is also messy and chaotic. You can feel the author reaching for a lot at once. Sometimes the reach lands. Sometimes it drops the ball. It comes across as ambitious and sometimes fun but ultimately messy and chaotic. The hook is strong. In the fantasy thread, Greith of Frays becomes the horned Venomous Wretch, a tyrant who tries to buy the divine with a red, coin-like power buried in his body. In the modern thread, Dexter’s vivid dreams bleed into reality, bringing in Tickle, a blue-haired warrior who slashes through chalk-dust monsters called Grounders. These worlds are set on a collision course, and that premise has juice. The best passages snap with comic-book energy and cinematic staging. A ghost-town showdown mixes demons, drones, and a rocket-chaired vigilante called Mr. Nice Guy while a living buzzsaw named Sable carves through the fray. Even the quiet beats land at times. A diner scene at Ray Ray’s gives this wild book something like a pulse. The author can do small human moments and splashy spectacle. On that front, it delivers. Where it stumbles is focus. Something about this book seemed really... off...to us. A lot of stuff happens, and there are a lot of characters in this book, but so little of it seems to have much oomph. And a lot of it just doesn't seem to make much sense. The storyline is so chaotic and topsy-turvy that it seemed borderline incoherent and aimless to us. There is a fine line between creativity versus throwing multi-colored paint at a canvas to see what sticks. This book sometimes chooses the latter. Characters flood in with cool names and powers, then fade in and out before they can anchor themselves in your harbor or before you can sink your teeth into them. Plotlines bloom and wilt in quick succession. This book has a major problem with tonal and topical whiplash. It goes from grim angelic judgment to kitchen-sink comedy to ultraviolence and back again. The shift can be charming in isolation. Stacked together, it can feel like channel surfing. It literally feels like flipping between the Syfy Channel and CW. It often seems like the narrative and the book itself don't know what they want to be and what they want to talk about. That indecision and lack of a distinct identity keeps readers at arm’s length. It’s like a football team that tries to be run-heavy, run-and-shoot, and air-raid all at once. You can admire the playbook and find it fascinating, interesting, and cool, but you also get delay-of-game penalties, too many men on the field, and missed assignments because nobody knows what the heck is going on. The constant scheming pulls attention away from the fundamentals: consistent character work, a clear offensive identity, and a drive you can track from snap to whistle. Here, dazzling ideas keep substituting in and out before the previous ones have finished their routes, so the possession changes feel flashy rather than earned. You know what it's like? It's like a team that has two QBs and hasn't decided on a starter, so they keep swapping back and forth. This book tries so hard to surprise and dazzle that it stumbles and distracts. It really is frustrating because there was a lot to love about this book. We think we know what the author was going for. This was supposed to be something like Doctor Who. It was supposed to feature a time-traveling character who can go anywhere and do anything at any time—the possibilities are literally endless! Like the Doctor, Dexter encounters angels, demons, monsters (like werewolves), all the while navigating all sorts of wild, wacky multiversal conflicts across timelines. We go from talking about Roguesheart and Greith of Frays/Venomous Wretch to talking about Dexter Park and Tickle gutting Grounders in a bombed-out warehouse, then we blink and we’re with Mr. Nice Guy rocketing off a saloon roof while Sable scythes through demons, then we’re inside Harmony-as-conduit wrestling an ancient bastard spirit, then Oath is doing timeline calculus behind the curtain, then Keepsake is deadpanning from a kitchen lab, then “Waitress” is not really a waitress but actually Janet but call her "Waitress" because she doesn't want to be called Janet; then Easy is smooth-talking through chaos, then there's General Bastard and his whole backstory, then a werewolf militia shows up, then drones arrive to televise a desert coronation in which a Light Crown literally refuses to be stolen; and before we can process that, we’re snapped back to the angel and the Wretch. Each beat is cool in isolation, but stacked end to end it plays like channel surfing, high on spectacle and low on the steady drum that lets a reader’s heart stay with the same team or players through the season. Oh, and that's not even mentioning the reindeer jerky. Or Suni Mako, the father of Sky/Scarlet/Sable. Or the Norbine virus. Or how Joppa was able to outgun Vanticon? Or TanAndSexy23. Did we mention the reindeer jerky? It's just so much... stuff. So much stuff that seems like superfluous, excess fluff. We think we're supposed to be smiling and laughing. We think it's supposed to be comedic and humorous. It just doesn't seem to mix and mesh in our opinion. At the same time, there’s a lot of good ideas here to work with if the author were really trying to create a series or a saga. The fix isn’t to shrink the imagination; it’s to sequence it. Pick a North Star (Dexter as the anchor POV), cap the core cast per book (three or four mains, everyone else in cameo), and align each volume to a clean thesis: Book One = breach and belonging; Book Two = crown and cost; Book Three = reckoning and repair. Let relationships breathe between set pieces, save a few toys for the sequel (looking at you, extra factions), and keep the moral through-line--grace can’t be seized--front and center so the fireworks have something solid to orbit. Do that and the strengths already on the page--comic-book staging, sticky images (the Grounder rescue, the ghost-town gauntlet, the crown that refuses a thief), and the found-family warmth--will land better. In other words: the ingredients are there, the recipe just needs a steadier hand. If this is the pilot to a bigger saga, we’re in. Just give us a clearer lane to run. Update: Ok, after taking a step back and reading a very similar book called Childhood's Hour: The Lost Desert by E.E. Glass, we think we have a little more insight into what the author was going for. This book is supposed to be surreal and/or dreamlike because its main protagonist is narcoleptic. When you dream, your thoughts and the stories you dream about are usually quite confusing and don't always make a lot of sense. That's why a lot of people regret not writing their dreams down and trying the piece them together. Most of us forget our dreams. That's why there are literally dream interpreters who specialize in this stuff. With that context in mind, this book is actually quite fitting and can be interesting and fun. Aspry Jones is clearly a brilliant person, an Emmy Award-nominated, veteran news broadcaster. He is also clearly imaginative and creative, which we applaud. Often times, when you're super brilliant, creative, and imaginative, it's tempting to overthink and overcomplicate things for others. There's a lot of substance to work with here. Check it out on Amazon!  Score: 91+/100 (9.1+ out of 10)
What kinds of bright ideas did you have as a kid? Did you have a false sense of invincibility growing up? Did you race down a hill with your bike without an exit plan in case the brakes failed? Did you put a key in a wall outlet to try to see if electricity would actually come out? Did you jump into the deep end of a pool, overconfident about your abilities to float and swim? How did we survive as kids? Chances are, there was someone looking out for us--a loved one who pulled us out of the deep end, tended to our wounds after we hit the bottom, and calmed us after we'd been shocked. That's what this beautiful children's book seems to explore. In Luke's Sailing Adventure by Tuula Pere, we rejoin Emma from A Museum Robbery and her little brother, who in this story is named Luke (Emma had a brother named Oliver in the previous book, so we're just choosing to view this as Emma having different siblings rather than an outright continuity error). Luke is optimistic yet anxious about his upcoming summer sailing camp. Who wouldn't be? Imagine being a young boy who hasn't been out to sea (or out on the lake) before, now you're both excited and nervous about the prospect of being out there for a whole camp. Anyway, it's still spring, so Luke has some time to assuage his uneasy feelings. On top of this, it also happens to be Luke's sixth birthday, and he receives a miniature sailing boat as a gift. While thoughtful, the gift is also a trigger for Luke's anxieties and nervousness about the camp. He also worries that he won't be able to construct the sailing boat correctly and that he may not be able to get it to float or sail properly. Thankfully, he has a fantastic older sister in Emma, who repeatedly reassures and helps him throughout the book. Emma helps to make sure that Luke's boat floats. She uses engaging language, often getting Luke to cooperate and work with her. The two are a team—a dynamic duo—on top of being siblings. After getting the boat to float in a pond, Luke becomes increasingly ambitious and imagines floating it down the entire river, following and retrieving it at the other end. In his young, inexperienced, naive mind, there's nothing wrong with this idea and it should work out perfectly. However, as adult readers, we know the dangers and risks of doing such a thing. Surprisingly, this book is quite tense and suspenseful! When trying to retrieve his sailboat stuck in the raging water, Luke falls in! He calls for help and desperately clings for dear life. Thankfully, Emma's big-sister senses and intuition kick in, and she realizes something isn't right. She naturally comes to Luke's aid. Now, we'll admit that the resolution of this book and the rescue scene is incredibly brief and almost seems rushed. One moment, Luke is in peril, then on seemingly the same page, Emma helps him and they're sitting side-by-side. It kinda ruins the dramatic tension a bit. Then again, it makes it less scary for kids. You can't have characters in peril for too long, or the kids will truly start to worry. The illustrations by Dane D'Angeli, who returns from A Museum Robbery, are nice. Emma continues to put across a combination of cuteness and coolness, complete with a rainbow-dyed strand in her hair. Likewise, Luke has a cuteness, coolness, and relatability to him. He looks like an adventurous young man. We can all see our younger selves through him: hopeful, nervous, ambitious, and reckless. This book really showcases what a great big sister Emma is as she always comforts and looks out for her little brother. Check it out on Amazon!  Score: 90+/100 (9.0+ out of 10)
It took us a week to read this book. Most books take us 1-3 days. We're still not exactly sure what we read. It's ironic that one of the main protagonists is literally named Loste because we certainly found ourselves feeling lost, bewildered, and wondering: "What's the point of this? Why are all these details here? What direction is this going?" This book seems to make about as much sense as the last Cirque du Soleil show you watched. And we LOVE Cirque du Soleil. We just don't know what the hell is happening story-wise half the time. And most of the time, the "story" doesn't seem to be the point. It's more about the spectacle of presenting wild things and being different or special. This book is surreal. It's dream-like. It's, perhaps, experimental. It's thought-provoking. It's mind-numbing. It's like a kaleidoscope of mixed, warped colors, concept, and ideas placed in a blender and set to puree. It's like trying to swim in an ocean filled with water, juice, soda, vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, oil, and alcohol. You can't quite see five feet in front of you, which direction you're going, which way is up or down, all while you're struggling for air, your eyes are burning, and you have a sweet yet pungent taste in your mouth. This is ONE OF THOSE BOOKS. One of those books that drops you into an alien world and forces you to figure things out. In our experience and opinion, it's one of those books that prioritizes and heavily emphasizes the world-building and details to the point of becoming relentless, plodding, and overwhelming. We've read books like this before. For example, there was With Love, From Planet B by Zaayin Salaam, MD, another dream-like book that took us to a world full of cults and aquatic creatures with seemingly no end in sight. Anyway... with all that said, Childhood's Hour: The Lost Desert is a surrealist science-fiction/fantasy novel by E.E. Glass. You could also argue that the scale and stakes of this book qualify it as an epic. On a blue-sand desert world ringed by six realms, reality is periodically shredded by High Noom, a cosmic surge tied to a murderous moon called the dark bride. We'd compare this to something like the Eclipse from Berserk. Long ago a fanatic clergy fed children to a false god, Themon, until a lone Nightpriest exposed the truth and returned with Themon’s severed head. Since then, the deserts fear pretenders, meaning false gods in the land and sky, and they revere duty over dogma. Loste (the aforementioned main protagonist) is a traumatized outsider, a gwaeloo spat out of the Fray, a white, mind-shredding mist. He is the audience’s eyes and the center of a prophecy thread called Eliyon. Nadhez is a desert native, a Buhangen and Kloonie mix, with emerald healing elan and a raptor totem named Chihiti. He is the rescuer, guide, and moral heart. Mara is a leader and healer aligned with rose energy who rides the sauren Uris and runs incubation domes. She is calm under fire and decisive in crisis. Kushtakka is a silver-furred city champion who fights like a force of nature and is quietly driven by love for his ailing wife Halona and fragile daughter Kaya. Nijal is a battlefield controller, a mancy prodigy who nets monsters with disc-borne tethers and fells them with precision horn bursts. Ataros is Loste’s elder and grandfather figure, the last link to his past and the one trying to hand him a destiny he can live with. Chihiti is Nadhez’s luminous raptor totem and the embodiment of protective love, and her fate is the book’s sharpest emotional knife. Armastoya is a vast corrupted land-heart of mouths and rot, a modern pretender like Themon. The rimari are guardians of each desert, Azure, Gold, Titian, Emerald, Rose, and Crimson, who argue whether to endure or resist the cycles of noom. We only know this because we reread this multiple times and tried to write all these characters down. It's A LOT to keep track of! WARNING: POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD! SKIP AHEAD TO AVOID. ____________________________________________ Loste staggers out of the Fray into a world of blue glass sand and living light. Nadhez saves him, recalls Chihiti into a totem, and teaches him how to survive. By the fire, Nadhez recounts the Nightpriest and Themon history that explains why this world distrusts gods and prizes duty. Trust builds, awkwardly and honestly. Next the world widens. We zoom out to the rimari council on a crystal summit. Satha-nure of Azure urges action against the encroaching Fray and the coming High Noom while others say to endure. The map of six deserts clicks into place, and the word Eliyon starts trailing Loste like static, destiny knocking but not yet answered. Then Armastoya and the poison strike. On the march to the capital, Loste and Nadhez blunder into Armastoya. In a feral, maternal blitz, Chihiti attacks to free Nadhez. They break loose, but Nadhez is poisoned with muki, not just a toxin but spiritual rot. He forces emerald light through Loste to purge trauma sludge and orders a desperate plan. He will enter tordir, a deep-healing sleep, while Loste drags him to the city, alone and in secret, because outsiders on sacred ground get killed. The clock starts with High Noom. A violet comet, the dark bride’s child, slams near Vaylan’s Fountain, a mancy nexus outside the capital. The sky goes purple and the city mobilizes. Nijal nets and detonates dune leviathans, Kushtakka tears through whatever moves, and Mara rides out, drawn by reports and by Chihiti, who is flickering as the link to Nadhez stretches past breaking. The gauntlet to the fountain follows. Half broken, Loste drags Nadhez toward the fountain while noom warps reality. A noombeast hunts Loste, he channels crimson energy into a glass dagger, and he kills it from within. As it dies, it rasps a single word, Eliyon. Loste collapses, bleeding out. With noom guttering, help arrives exactly once. Mara, Kushtakka, and Nijal converge as Nadhez kindles viridian fire to keep Loste’s heart moving. Then comes rose plus emerald, the heartbeat scene. Emerald alone cannot stabilize a gwaeloo, so Nadhez asks Mara to braid rose with emerald, an intimate cross-spectrum healing that is considered taboo. They do it anyway, and it works. This is the book’s soul, survival powered not by purity or law but by connection and choice. Chihiti dissolves into stardust after going too far from Nadhez or spending too much of herself, love with teeth and a price. Nadhez, still poisoned, performs a once-in-a-lifetime feat by raising a crystal mountain to contain the muki, buying the city time. Ataros brings Loste to a final star-bright lesson, his last push to pass the mantle and make the boy see what this gift really is. The book lands with the city having withstood a night of noom and a comet-born incursion. Loste lives, barely, marked by the noombeast’s dying word and by the braid that saved him. Nadhez chooses to stay, ending his pattern of running. Mara stands beside both, now fully part of the same unit. Kushtakka returns to the walls because families like Halona and Kaya need tomorrow to exist. The prophecy thread, Eliyon, is no longer rumor, it is active. The war against pretenders in sky, soil, and story is far from over, but the team is real now. The book seems to explore several themes, one of them being the dangers of cults. False gods versus true duty shows Themon and Armastoya as parasites wearing divinity, and the answer is costly courage and care. Trauma and cleansing, called muki, frames poison as both physical and narrative, rot from guilt, memory, and lies, and the antidotes are purges, braids, and bonds. Choice over fate insists that Eliyon might be destiny, but the story values choices, such as Nadhez saying I will stay, Mara attempting a taboo braid, and Loste refusing to die quiet. Found family under fire says survival is not solitary, it is people braiding strengths across rules and borders. It can feel confusing because the story splices intimate survival with myth lore and council politics, drops invented terms without a glossary, and pivots points of view as the stakes widen. Read it as a straight line from Fray to Rescue to Armastoya and Poison to Comet and Noom to Fountain and Braid to Aftermath and Hand off to Destiny, and the shape becomes clear. The short version is that a broken outsider named Loste is saved by a desert healer named Nadhez in a world that once worshiped a child-eating false god. As a comet and the moon’s wrath rip the desert open, a corrupted land-heart poisons Nadhez, a totem raptor gives everything, and the city’s champions, Mara, Kushtakka, and Nijal, ride to meet the storm. At Vaylan’s Fountain, rose plus emerald are braided to keep Loste alive. The night ends. The team stands. Eliyon is not a whisper anymore. It is the road ahead. ____________________________________________ SPOILERS END ____________________________________________ Ok, we have a few issues. First, did you notice how DENSE and convoluted that plot is? Well, you could argue that another word for dense is layered, another word for convoluted is intricate. It's a rule of thumb to have only three or so characters per scene. It often seems like there are ten. The economy of language is also a thing. Speaking of which... You have to read the book to get what we're saying about the details. On one hand, you could argue that it's eloquent. On the other hand, you could also argue that it's fluffy and flowery. Do you know like when an ultra-tenured university professor is giving you a lecture about quantum entanglement (or, perhaps more fittingly for this novel, marine biology) and you nod along because the words are pretty, but it's in one ear and out the other. There must be over a hundred different descriptions of sea creatures/aquatic-adjacent creatures. It was great the first twenty or so times, then it started seeming excessive, cloying, and perhaps even repetitive. We could've sworn there were like a dozen of similar-sounding descriptions of jellyfish swimming by. Then came waves of kelp analogies draped over dunes, stingray shadows skimming the sand, octopus or squid arms curling around everything in reach, starfish and sea urchin spines glittering in the “tide” of noom, barnacle crusts on armor, coral cathedral walls, nautilus spiral motifs etched into every relic, eel and moray metaphors for every slithering threat, manta-wide “wings” blotting the sky, swordfish silhouettes that immediately get eaten by something larger, and the recurring horseshoe-crab carapace comparison for anything even vaguely domed. Add schools of glassfish-like lights, planktony bioluminescence across half the set pieces, and whole “reef” passages transplanted into the desert again and again, and the aquatic palette stops feeling rich and starts feeling like copy-paste with new adjectives. How many more times do we need to read about octopuses, clams, crabs, and horshoe crabs (isopods)? Is describing the swordfish that was eaten going to advance the plot? It often just seems meandering. But just when we were about to fall asleep because this book reads like how a bunch of ocean-themed relaxation/ASMR videos sound, we had SOMETHING HAPPEN! Characters were being tied to stakes, faces painted, limbs bound in painful angles, silk veils fluttering while handlers chanted to a sky bride. Torches flared, a bridesmaid screamed, and ash rode the wind. The crowd spit on the charred remains in a warped gesture of devotion, and the scene finally snapped the story back to consequence... ...before describing more sea creatures and aquatic stuff until we got to more action/battle scenes, at which point we were checked out. This book may be for you if you like surrealist, dream-like literature. Or it could be for you if you really like books with heavy emphasis on world-building. This book is not yet publicly available. Stay tuned.  Score: 96/100 (9.6 out of 10)
Unpacking the Attic by Ann Mracek is a VERY special book! It's a memoir like no other. Memoirs usually follow an author's experiences in a linear, chronological manner. Unpacking the Attic, in contrast, is a beautifully fragmented, vignette-like collection of the author's memories, many of which are linked to items the author literally finds in her elderly parents' home. 99.9% of the time, we can't stand fragmented, vignette-like literature. Those types of books tend to come off as self-indulgent, style-over-substance affairs. They tend to be chaotic and hard to follow. In contrast, Mracek's memoir almost seems more episodic, like chapters in a storied life filled with powerful, touching, and inspirational memories. It's a lot more artsy, dare we say... musical. This book is almost like a collection of musical notes in a brilliant composition. Unpacking the Attic is a book about reflections and memories as the author's elderly parents tradition into a nursing home, leaving their house behind—a house full of sentimental items and tons of precious memories. As an aside: this was especially touching for us. You may have noticed, but we recently moved from a location we were at for 10+ years. We had to go through a lot of our old storage boxes, bags, and shelves, deciding what to throw away and what to keep. Thousands of decisions, sometimes difficult ones. Every item has meaning. Every piece of paper has meaning. That feeling is truly captured in this book. For example, the book opens with a tidal wave of memories triggered by sorting “sticker-dot” piles for a whole house move: green for the parents’ new apartment, blue for the daughter, orange for the author, until even a thermos or a box of Epsom salts becomes a portal back in time and a kind of healing elixir. The author discovers her father's old plush monkey, which practically disintegrates in her hands when she takes it out of the box. You can really feel the tragedy of that. From the porch swing, she watches movers carry out doll furniture and a tiny table (Teddy in the second chair), and the project to “empty the attic” quietly becomes the project to unpack a life. In “For the Birds- Little Spirits With Wings,” Billy the parakeet rattles his always-open cage door and squeaks, “Help! Let me out!” The metaphor snaps into place: sometimes the door to freedom was open all along. Then there’s the hysterical “pork roast” fiasco (Billy hip-deep in cooling gravy, smelling like a pork chop for weeks), which doubles as a gentle lesson about unlikely friendships (parakeet plus collies) and staying open to joy. In “The Wren House- Finding New Purpose,” the author and her dad build sea-foam-green birdhouses and tinker at a dusty workbench, then distills it into three life rules: “Be capable. Be self-reliant. Be adaptable.” It’s practical, tender, and immediately usable. The book’s emotional peak is “The Crash- A Lifetime of Pain.” A rear-end collision in 1972 (pre-headrests) breaks her neck; surgeons talk rods and a halo brace. She fights through with a soft collar, daily chiropractic care, and sheer grit, losing perfect pitch and long piano sessions, but eventually crafting a dancer’s life instead. The chapter is honest without self-pity; it’s resilience, scored for strings. “Trees- Rooted in My Heart” links remembrance to legacy, like Egyptians carving names in stone, then anchors it in the lopsided dogwood that survived hail and history. It’s memoir as living monument. And the small, luminous pieces keep coming: a sewing-needle holder her father hand-crafted from stacked rings of wood, a Czech heirloom-inspired act of love; a rescued turtle, soaked in warm Epsom-salt baths until it “almost won” the school race, each artifact becoming a lesson in patience, repair, and choosing hope. That’s why this fragmented form works here when it often doesn’t elsewhere: every vignette is anchored to something tangible and purposeful, and every object hands you a takeaway you can use tomorrow. And not every single item is directly linked to a specific memory. In fact, there's a pair of slippers that Ann finds which she can't figure out where they came from or what they were for. However, this does kinda lead into her discussion about her dancing career, which is arguably the best part of the book. Ann Mracek, along with being a renown profession musician was also a phenomenal dancer, and that's despite the fact that she was born with flat feet and was told by her dance teacher that she'd never be a dancer because of her flat feet. How inspiring is that? Speaking of inspiring, one of our favorite stories in the whole book--which runs adjacent to this dancing memory--is when Ann talks about the turtle that her father rescued. The turtle had been run over and left for dead by some driver. It was actually being eaten alive by maggots when they found him. However, their father removed the maggots with salt and gave the turtle a chance to recover at their home. Ironically, the school mascot for Ann's school was a turtle. Even more ironically, it turns out that her school held a special turtle race every year involving diffferent turtles that the students collected. Well, Ann's turtle almost won the race despite almost dying (being "resurrected') and only lost because he got disoriented and went the wrong way at the last moment. You really get the sense that this turtle memory inspired Ann to overcome all the obstacles that stood in the way of her dancing. Another special memory that stood out was about when Ann cut her hair after having super long hair most of her life. She describes the challenge of having long hair through her many performances, often back-to-back. She describes often having to clean and care for it for two hours! But then she cuts it, and it evokes a powerful memory with her father who cries when he sees her shorter hair. He had called her his "Troll doll" because of the Troll dolls that had hair longer than their bodies. Hey, we had a few of those! You may have noticed that many of these objects and the memories they evoke also provide some sort of lesson or takeaway. Something we really, really loved about were the quotes. Similar to Deion Sanders's book, this book is filled to the brim with great quotes! Here are some of our favorites: “The thing the garden needs most are the footsteps of the gardener.” “When someone shows up on your porch with a box of snakes, don’t sign for it!" “All lives have pivotal moments. Angry, hateful words sling like arrows from the very people we look to for compassion. But it is up to us where those arrows land.” “Sometimes we imagine we are trapped when the door was open all along!” “There is a path for healing your inner child. Walk down it with me.” “Hurt people, hurt people. Healed people, heal people.” “We cannot grow roots without fertile soil. What lies below the surface dictates our destiny.” “Sometimes we need to do a little digging to get to the truth.” “Is nostalgia truly a longing for the way things were, or for how we wished they were?” “We need to reconnect to the truth that simply being together is joy enough.” “I can learn how to do it. Other people do this, and I’m just as smart as they are.” “Don’t plan the meal until you pull the carrot.” “Learn to enjoy those successes and goals met in the present moment. Celebrate, or you will forever be chasing after the next award.” This book is beautiful and has a lot to offer. Check it out on Amazon!  Score: 95/100 (9.5 out of 10)
Behind the White Beard is a warm, photo-rich, oral-history-style biography of Virginia Santa performer Dale Ballew! Do you recall any of your experiences with a Mall Santa? Or did a "Santa" visited your house or Christmas party when you were growing up? Many of us have an experience like this as Santa has become a ubiquitous presence, brought to life via marketing, media, and—yes—by the hundreds of people who don the beard & red suit in order to play him during the holidays. These Santas spread comfort, joy, and Christmas spirit every holiday season. But have you ever thought about the people who play them? The men behind the white beards and red suits? This book does just that, chronicling the experiences of a veteran Santa named Dale Ballew. We found this book to be incredibly interesting and heartwarming. It's easy to get so fixated on the costume and the character that we forget that there's an actual, living human being behind all of that: someone with thoughts, feelings, emotions, experiences, dreams, motivations, aspirations, and so much more. So, that's why this biography is so poignant. It really peels back the curtain and reveals the layers behind Dale Ballew, a Santa for almost 20 years! Could you imagine what a Santa of 20 years must've seen and experienced? That's fascinating! Now, you'd think that this would be a mostly bright and joyful book (and it is), however, it opens up with quite a bit of darkness, hurt, and trauma. Ballew recalls working at a morgue and a funeral home, which was scary and unsettling and forced him to confront mortality and perhaps even the existence of paranormal, spiritual, or metaphysical things. Now, while that might seem creepy, weird, or irrelevant, it actually might lend credence to the idea that if scary phenomena exists, then positive ones might exist as well: angels or even the Christmas spirit. Ballew further recalls horrific abuse at the hands of his step-father including frequent belt-whippings, a strike in front of his friends, and even being shot at. Also, there's a profound sense of being unmoored, uncertain, and perhaps even unwanted in Ballew's early life, having virtually no connection or relationship with his biological dad ("Shorty") until the age of 27. Rather than breaking him down and making him a miserable, depressed, unpleasant person, these terrible things may have contributed to his deep sense of empathy and desire to bring cheer and joy into the lives of children who might not get to experience positive things every day. As we'll get to later, there are quite a few examples of children like that—children who are hurt, sad, desperate, or lonely. If Ballew (as Santa) can bring just a small bit of comfort, cheer, and hope into their lives, he knows he has done his job. Another thing that's worth noting is his relationship with his maternal grandmother ("Nana"), who was actually loving and supportive. Ballew credits his grandmother as being the most influential person in his life. And perhaps she helped lay some of the groundwork as an example of what a "Santa" could be—an elderly figure who could bring kindness, familiarity, and light in a world that often seems so cruel, confusing, and dark. Perhaps we're reading too much into that, but that was one of our take aways. Anyway, remember when we talked about the many children who came to Ballew with a lot of trauma and baggage? Well, one of the little girls asked him for a family, a mommy and a daddy. A little boy asks for peace on earth before leaving. One of the children asks for her mother to get better from illness, which Ballew is forced to improvise by saying that "Santa will pray for her." Ballew as Santa really went above and beyond. He recounts a story about how he managed to write a letter to get an autistic child a $485 train set. He also goes out of his way for a girl named Olivia, who was one of the first five people to receive open-heart surgery in America at the time. He talks about the time he arranged to arrive in a police car for a child who liked them. In a rather humorous and comedic scene, he also stages being ticketed by police officers in plain view of a child who stands up for Santa and tells the police officers they can't arrest or take away his sleigh because Santa needs to deliver his presents. This is a really touching and heartwarming biography. Check it out on Amazon!  Score: 95+/100 (9.5+ out of 10)
Jake Fox: Ties That Blind is one of the most thrilling crime dramas and legal thrillers we've read in a long time! Author Michael Stockham is a real-life all-star, veteran attorney, and it shows! This book provides an authentic, believable, and eye-opening view of perhaps the most tense courtroom scenario imaginable. Oh, and it's incredibly engaging and entertaining. We couldn't help but get on board with the two major plots and get behind the major protagonists as they did their best through heartbreaking and traumatic circumstances. Where do we even begin with a book that tackles such heavy subjects as human trafficking, exploitation, murder, and self-termination? Well, maybe we should start from the beginning... This book has one of the most heart wrenching, shocking, and gripping openings of any book we've read, featuring the tragic death of the protagonist's daughter, Lucy, who hangs herself. The protagonist, the titular Jake Fox, is haunted by the questions any parent would ask when their child makes such a decision: - Why? - What did I do wrong? - What could I have done? - Am I to blame? - Can I ever be forgiven? Can she? - Did she still love me? Or did she hate me? While this traumatic scene sets the tone, demonstrates the stakes, and grips us, Lucy's tragedy actually isn't the main plot of the book. There are actually two major and overlapping plots:
These concurrent plotlines resonate with defense attorney Jake Fox on a deeply personal level. He later expresses how he sees his late daughter, Lucy, in both Rose and Beth, whose lives are about to be upended in a manner that seems completely undeserved, unjust, and unfair. This book really hits home the plight and vulnerability of kids, especially young girls, in our society. How often do we hear on the news about missing, exploited, or outright murdered girls? It's sickening, disgusting, and—for a lack of a better word—unacceptable. We should be doing more to protect the most vulnerable in our society. While Jake Fox is an excellent character in his own right, fueled by a heavy conscience and moral compass, he isn't the only memorable character in this book. Beth, the judge's kidnapped daughter, also stood out to us a lot. Despite the peril and trauma of her predicament, she still finds ways to cling to herself, her dignity, and her identity. She still finds ways to claw back at the perpetrators, showing herself to be more than just a passive and compliant "victim." Beth is targeted and trafficked as an "all-American" white girl with a major public figure as a parent, making her more "valuable" on the market due to the risks involved. This really introduces readers to the uncomfortable and disturbing mindset of traffickers and those who purchase from them. Zach and Lilith, the primary villains of the novel, do everything in their power to dehumanize and break Beth, to turn her into nothing more than a commodity. They dye her hair black. The chain her. They control when and where she uses the restroom. They control what she wears. They gag her in at least one scene, taking away her speech. They even try to rewrite her whole identity, calling her "Viv" or "Vivian." Yet their cruelty only magnifies her strength and our sympathy for her. Every small act of resistance, every flicker of her will to survive, hits like a triumph against the darkness. For example, she calls Zach by his real name constantly. Mind you, Zach isn't just abusive and a kidnapper/trafficker, he's a big, burly, biker/Viking-looking dude with a beard in two long braids. The guy would scare a full-grown man! But Zach sasses him and points out the dumb or short-sighted things he says and does, knowing she might face retribution. Beth even finds clever ways to drop clues for others to find her, like leaving the pamphlet in the toilet paper dispenser. Lilith is scary in her own way. While she's not as big or imposing as Zach, she's disarming in how feminine and womanly she comes across, at least in public. Aside from her red hair (which is a bit of a rare trait), she blends right in, all the while participating in horrific crimes behind the scenes. It almost makes you wonder about women like Lilith who are out there in society, scouting girls, preying on people, grooming them, and becoming almost a motherly figure or a "mentor" to them, all while exploiting them for profit. She's pretty much the Ghislaine Maxwell of the novel. Together, Zach and Lilith embody the ugliest truths about exploitation—how predators manipulate, control, and strip away humanity for profit and power. But the book doesn’t just leave them as faceless monsters. Their presence forces the reader (and Jake Fox) to confront uncomfortable questions about justice, accountability, and whether the system is enough to stop people like them. But there's another antagonist in the book we wanted to talk about: Krista Robb. Krista can only be described as a crooked and corrupt prosecuting attorney. She is the prosecutor opposite of Jake/Rose's side. To say that Krista is ruthless would be an understatement. You could almost argue that Krista is as evil and villainous as Zach and Lilith, enabling these traffickers and murderers to do what they're doing, all while trying to place the blame on innocent people. What does she care? As long as she wins the case and gets paid, right? It's funny... in real-life, it's defense attorneys who normally get a bad rap. Why? Well, society is programmed to buy into the headlines, jump to conclusions, and immediately see the accused as the convicted. Honestly, we buy into that way of thinking too. Sometimes, a case is so obvious (in the public's eyes) and the wrongdoer is so clear, that the formalities of a trial just seem tedious and unnecessary. However, our justice system exists with a burden of proof and with phraseology like "beyond a reasonable doubt" for a reason. In the past, extortion, bribery, torture, and other unscrupulous and cruel methods could be used to extract a confession and subsequent verdict. In the past, people were convicted and sentenced in kangaroo courts, often without knowing they had valid defenses. So, this book actually paints the prosecutor in a villainous role, at least in this scenario. We found that interesting. All of this to save Rose... a troubled and disgruntled girl who is accused of shooting her dad in the back of the head after allegedly being abused by him. Rose is interesting because, in a lot of ways, she's a lot like Lucy, at least Lucy in her darker times. Rose is not a happy camper and she rarely behaves herself, which makes defending her very difficult for Jake. But Rose is still worth saving. Why? Well, because if she's truly innocent, she should not do the time or be punished for something she didn't do. Oh, and there's Sheriff Stone, another protagonist. She's handling the law enforcement/investigative side of the both cases outside of the courtroom, which means a lot more when you consider that many of the other protagonists are tied up in one way or another: Beth is imprisoned by the villains, Rose is in jail during the trial, and both Attorney Jake Fox and Judge Harlan Dubose are tied up in court. So, a lot of resolving these plots actually falls on the shoulders of Sheriff Stone. One character whom we had mixed feelings about in this book is Judge Harlan Dubose. On one hand, he's a good judge. He's also funny at times. For example, when Jake tries to pressure him to recuse himself from the case due to conflict of interest, then threatens to appeal, Judge Dubose says, "Go ahead. I'll be sure to let the appellate judges know about your complaint when I play golf with them later this week." This got more than a chuckle from us. However... Judge Dubose was also very frustrating. Picture this: the man's daughter is kidnapped. Horrible things are possibly happening to her. In fact, we know that some horrible things are happening. There are times when Beth is beaten, half-starved, half dying from dehydration. Yet, Judge Debose is disturbingly stoic and calm, even cracking snarky comebacks like the golfing one. You could argue that this is all a fascade (and it probably is) to hide the storm going on inside of him, but it still bothered us deeply. Judge Dubose isn't just functioning in his role, he's putting his full faith in law enforcement and dedicating thought and effort into a case which may have little to nothing to do with his daughter's disappearance. Could you image if you were him? Would you be acting like that? Anyway, what really sealed this book was the ending involving Jake and Lucy, who kind of follows him around as a ghost or memory. It's very beautiful. Check it out on Amazon! |
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