The Line by Bob Mayer was a fun read, or rather I should say listen.  I listened to the audio version of the book on my phone. From the beginning, I was hooked. It is a military thriller and the writing and use of military jargon made it seem authentic.  The story is about two West Point grads who are in the army. Major Boomer Watson, a member of the Army’s Delta Force and Major Benita Trace who is a…

Camino Island by John Grisham is an easy to read book. The characters are interesting and the story has a lot of promise. After the rather long beginning, the story draws the reader in and it is a light, fun read. That earns the story 3 stars, but I expect more from Grisham. Spoiler alert. The remainder of the review contains a lot of story details which I go into in order to show how badly the book missed opportunities….

“According to science, humans have no souls. There is no afterlife or guardian angels or ghosts or spirits or anything at all supernatural. Our world is purely physical. The government has systematically removed God from society.” So begins The Gifting by K.E. Ganshert, a dystopian science fiction story where “science won.” The protagonist of the story, seventeen-year-old Tess, has a problem. If there is no supernatural, why is she having visions and dreams that come true? Before the government can classify…

I enjoyed reading The Enhanced by T.C. Edge. It is the first book of a series. The story takes place in the city of Haven which is a relatively safe place in a world that has been decimated by nuclear war. It is a class-based society. At the top are the Enhanced, people who have special abilities through genetic modifications of their ancestors and live in the inner city, and the Unenhanced, aka normal people who live in the outer city….

I’m a big Scott Westerfeld fan and was pretty psyched to start reading Zeroes. It is the story about 6 teenagers who each have a unique, special power. I wouldn’t call them “super powers,” though they were pretty cool: Flicker is blind but can see through other people’s eyes. Crash is able to “feel” electric and electronic fields and manipulate them. Mob can influence the mood of a crowd. Anonymous is someone who people immediately forget about. Scam has a…

Michael Bornstein was 4 years old when he was rescued from Auschwitz by Russian soldiers on January 27, 1945, which made him one of the youngest Auschwitz survivors.  A few days later the Russians photographed the children that had been rescued to document the event.  Michael Bornstein didn’t see the picture until he stumbled across it many years later as an adult.  Then he found the picture again, but this time on a website for Holocaust deniers.  He decided it…

I thoroughly enjoyed this journey to 13th century France and I’m glad to have experienced it through a book and not in person!  And for those who are “listeners,” the readers on the audiobook, Jayne Entwistle, Allan Corduner and Fiona Hardingham were absolutely amazing. The tale is told by three narrators: Botille, one of three orphaned sisters who traveled around the countryside stealing food until they found a tavern to run in a small town; Dolssa, a gentlewoman who is…

The Good Braider by Terry Farish chronicles the experiences of a South Sudanese girl and her family fleeing their war-ravaged country and making their way to the U.S. to start a new life.  Although this is a fictional story, the author, Terry Farish, did a lot of research so that the experiences of her characters would mirror the real-life experiences of refugees from South Sudan. Viola lives in Juba, South Sudan with her mother, grandmother and young brother during the…

Balcony on the Moon: Coming of Age in Palestine by Ibtisam Barakat is a memoir about Barakat’s struggle to finish school and become a writer while growing up in the West Bank.  It is about her search for an identity as a Palestinian, a people without a country, and her determination to be valued and respected as a girl in a society where women have few rights. Her memoir focuses on her life as a young girl through her teen…

Have you ever had a dream where you felt like you were running down an endless corridor? Well, that is what the middle of Dark Matter by Blake Crouch was like. A little boring and frustrating. Fortunately, the endless corridor feeling was surrounded by some engaging suspense in the beginning of the story and a creative and exciting finish. Dark Matter is a mystery, science fiction, and romance story. The main character of the story, James Dessen, is a college…