I picked this book up on a whim, but I found it incredibly insightful, funny, and interesting. It felt like she wrote this because she had something to say, and she said it well. I don't think I'd realized she was a writer now, but it shows. Her writing was wonderful. There was a brief moment where I was tempted to give this a full five, but I did think there were sections where it lagged a bit for me. But overall, it was fascinating. I think this is the first time I've thoroughly enjoyed listening to an audiobook without any sense of wishing it was a physical copy.

I'd highly recommend picking this up, regardless of if you're a fan of Mara Wilson. It's just a really good, well written book. If you're a fan of her, then absolutely go for it. But even separate from that, it's a worthwhile read.

I was torn between three or four stars, but the ending made me cry so I gave this book the benefit of the doubt. I do like it, but as an adult, I see a lot more flaws. I love learning the history of Afghanistan and do appreciate that being brought into the story, but on the flip side, it felt awkwardly brought it. It wasn't a natural part of the character's lives and story. Instead it was mostly discussed in dialogue or just narration of who was in charge of the country.

It felt like it was borderline tragedy porn, which made me uncomfortable. Bad things happen, particularly in war torn countries. I expect heartbreak. But it felt like Hosseini was throwing every terrible thing he could think of at these women in order to make it more heartbreaking, rather than actually developing any of the issues further.

It felt somewhat disjointed, and I struggled to follow the timeline and remember how much time had passed. Sometimes there would be long sections covering the span of a few months, other times it would skip two years ahead, sometimes nine years ahead. And flipping between the two characters only made it worse. Following the chronology was easy, but because it covered so much time in such a short book, it felt like we were skipping through the story too quickly and missing major points of character development.

The characters felt flat to me. They seemed like ideas of people, rather than true people themselves. Despite that, I was sad in the end and this book did make me cry. For all the flaws, Hosseini made me connect to the story in some way, so I have to give credit for that.

Going in, I expected this to be anecdotes and stories from her time working in a crematorium. While there is a bit of that, this book is largely about her beliefs on how current American death practices are wrong and why we should change them.

I actually enjoyed a fair amount of the information. Discussing why we perform some typical rituals (like embalming) and how they came to be is interesting, same goes for when she discussed other culture's practices. And honestly, I actually agreed with many of her points.

But my big issue with this book was Caitlin Doughty herself. She came across as condescending and judgmental throughout the entire book. She preached about respecting other cultures' death practices (one example she brought up included cannibalizing the dead, and I did enjoy learning the why behind that), but then she'd turn around and use words like "lurid," "shameful," and "ignorant" when discussing American death practices.

She seemed to have this idea that the death practices that were comforting to her would be the same for everyone else. She said explicitly that if only other people could overcome their superstition, they could feel that confident, stable, comfort that she did in her personal death practices. Which seemed incredibly condescending to me, particularly for someone who talked so highly of respecting other people's cultures earlier in the book.

At one point she was discussing cremating babies, and said: "We logged their names, if they even had names. Often they would be labeled only as 'Baby Johnson' or 'Baby Sanchez.' It was sadder when they had full names, even when they were something terrible, like Caitlin spelled KateLynne." (page 92 in my edition) Imagine being the kind of person who mocks a dead infant's name. I think up until that point I was working so hard to give her the benefit of the doubt, maybe her sense of humor wasn't for me. But after that, I gave up.

It didn't get better. That might have been the worst example, but there were others of her making fun of the mother of a dead nine year old who tried to pay with the wrong credit card, wondering what kind of uncaring person booked cremation services online, saying people ought to shop around and do research like they do with cars and if they got ripped off that it was their own fault. Those were only the few I wrote down while reading, but there were many more.

In short, this book gave me an intense dislike of Caitlin Doughty as a person. I'd intended to watch her web series after reading, but I definitely won't be doing that. I wouldn't recommend this, but I'm the minority, so maybe I'm missing something that everyone else sees. I just thought this was pretty awful.

This is such a lovely book, featuring a sweet romance between two teenagers. It's a little hate to love, a lot opposites attract, and just a really good story overall. Remy is one of my favorite of Dessen's protagonists because she experiences such character growth over the book. Yes, she's a brat, but that's the point. She's a realistic teenager who has a lot of growing up to do, and does a fair amount over the course of this story.

I will say Dexter's behavior at the beginning made me uncomfortable. The guy who doesn't take no for an answer really makes me shudder, especially when he's told explicitly and repeatedly to back off. But those issues faded and I really enjoy this.

The cast of characters is also great. It's interesting to read this as an adult and have my opinions change, like with Jennifer Anne. Remy really hates Jennifer Anne and as a kid, I did too. As an adult, it's funny to me how similar they are in many ways.

I do think it suffered a bit from having such a large cast of characters and wasn't able to delve deeply enough into all of them (Jess in particular got the short stick, despite being a great character), and I kind of wish there were fewer just so more time could be allotted to them. But all in all, a really fun read that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys contemporary YA romance.

This was a stunning book. I was so enthralled by the story, and I have to admit, a little crushed by the ending. I thought this was the kind of book I'd want to read slowly, but it took less than a day. I kept putting it down intending to take small breaks, but then I'd have to pick it up again to find out what happened.

The strength of this book, for me, was the voice. Baldwin captures Tish perfectly, I could hear her in my head. It was written subtly, but so strong that it was nearly overpowering. There were sections I had to read again and again just to understand it fully because the voice could overwhelm the content, but I loved it.

I struggled a bit with the almost omniscient first person narration. Most of the story was Tish's experiences told from her point of view, but sometimes she joined Fonny in jail or her mother in Puerto Rico to tell their stories, even though she wasn't present. It threw me a bit and I think that was where my disconnect came from.

The word people keep using in their reviews is passionate and that's so true. This was so full of love, hate, fear. It's raw and powerful. And it's still incredibly relevant today. I would highly recommend this book because it's so incredibly worthwhile and I'll definitely be picking up more Baldwin.

Another solid cop thriller from Lisa Gardner. I generally find myself enjoying her books for their easy flow and captivating entertainment, although they tend toward the generic side of the genre. Which is to say, if you like cop thrillers, I highly recommend checking her out, but she's certainly not doing anything groundbreaking or spectacular.

I did want to like this one a little better than I did, however. I had some issues with how separate the two different story lines were for most of the story. Flora and the cops are investigating one thing, Evie is off doing something different. Yes, they're connected (that's not a spoiler, of course everything is connected in some way), but it felt like it took too long to get there and it was jarring to switch between them. I felt like I'd get invested in one story line only to have to switch over to something unrelated, and each time it was just a bit irritating. It made me want to put the book down on occasion. It just seemed like there was too much going on with too many main characters, which left the story feeling unnecessarily convoluted.

The whole Flora teaming up with the true crime junkie was weird and seemed 1. completely unnecessary for the plot (she said she went to him because she needed him, but he didn't seem to play any necessary role? it literally could have been a nameless fbi computer tech and everything would have been the same) 2. the suggested romance was a little gross and cringey. I guess we know what's going to be up with Flora in the next book or two. I really like Flora as a character, but it feels like Gardner is running out of interesting things to do with her. Find Her was probably my favorite, but I wouldn't be disappointed to see Flora's character take a break.

I also had an issue with the plot twist at the end. Tropes like that don't need to exist in 2019. Will discuss in spoiler tags, but it's a heavy spoiler that is literally the main point of the book, so be warned.

Spoiler

Essentially, the villain responsible is gay and was in love with the victim, he killed out of anger for rejecting him. (It's more complicated, but that's it in essence.) I thought the whole evil gay thing had gone out in the 90s. Like obviously gay characters can be villains, it's not about that, but when it's the only gay character and it's kind of centered around their gayness? Plus I've read a lot (most) of Gardner's books and she very rarely includes gay characters, so it felt especially cringey.

But overall, still entertaining. Glad I read it, and I'll continue reading Lisa Gardner's new releases every year.

An additional note on the series aspect of this book: It's the 10th in the DD Warren series, but you don't have to read them all in order. However, the books do follow DD Warren in her life, so you will get spoilers, especially in regards to her personal life, and general commentary on some past cases. I would recommend reading Find Her first (which I believe is book 8 in the series). Find Her will give you a lot of important background info on Flora Dane. But if you don't want to read that, you could probably still get by okay in this book because Gardner does a pretty decent recap at the beginning.

I wanted to like this book more than I did. Not because I thought it was bad (I actually thought it was really good), but the storytelling inhibited my enjoyment. It's told in nonlinear style, mostly alternating between the present timeline and ten years prior. If it had been just those two timelines narrated by the main character, I'd have been okay, but it also covered time in between at random intervals and other characters' backstories. I didn't think she did a bad job at it, I just can't take a nonlinear timeline and put it back together again. My brain doesn't work that way, and I struggled with that aspect more than anything else.

The short chapters also made that worse for me. Perhaps if the story had been a little more linear or the chapters a little longer, I would have been able to enjoy this book a whole lot more.

I actually thought the characters and the overarching story were compelling, and I really liked her writing style. She's so descriptive and graphic in her writing without being lyrical or flowery. I enjoy flowery writing, but her frank, straight forward descriptions were a great reminder that writing doesn't have to be flowery to be descriptive.

I do understand why people really love this book, it just wasn't for me. I'm left feeling like I missed out because the lack of enjoyment was definitely a problem on my end. I would be down to read the sequel, or other VE Schwab books, especially if they're not written in the same nonlinear format.

I liked this better than Unstoppable (his book on climate change), but I still had real difficulty following what he was saying. I definitely gained more from this one, but I think in general, as a scientifically challenged person, it was always going to be difficult for me. I also listened to this on audiobook which probably made it even harder to understand.

It was more an argument against creationism rather than just a discussion on evolution, which shouldn't surprise me considering the subtitle is 'Evolution and the Science of Creation,' but I'm not a creationist, nor do I really care about their argument, so that aspect of the book wasn't for me. I was just here for the evolution and the heavy focus on creationism was extraneous and a bit annoying.

But I'm glad I listened to it, and if you're interested on learning more about evolution or the creationism debate, I'd recommend picking it up. It was worthwhile and I feel like I came away having learned things, even if a lot of it was over my head.

Continuing my reread of Sarah Dessen audiobooks, I picked up Just Listen and absolutely flew through it. As an audiobook, it was a fantastic listen, although the narrator made an effort to give every character a distinct voice, which could get a little cartoonish at times.

This was never one of my favorite Dessen novels as a teen, but as an adult, I really love it. The emotion is so strong in this book, and Annabel's character shines. She's passive and conflict avoidant, but Dessen does a wonderful job of crafting a story around a character who, for the most part, doesn't make things happen on her own.

My two main issues boil down to excess and flashbacks. It felt like the story had a bit too much meat on its bones. There were some scenes and characters that didn't seem to contribute anything, and didn't really need to exist. And so much of the story was told through flashbacks, almost like the bulk of the story was the flashbacks. It made it feel less immediate.

But those were fairly minor critiques because I adored this book. It's less romance focused than some other Dessen novels, and while there is a main romance, the story centers more around Annabel's family and in particular her sisters. I really enjoyed that, and I'd recommend picking this up if you want a heavier contemporary (tw for sexual assault, eating disorders) that deals with family.

I was given this book for review.

After finishing this book, it took a few days to reconcile everything I loved about it with the issues I had. At the beginning, I thought this was on track to be a solid four stars and my favorite true crime of the past six months. Then the issues began piling up and at the end of the day, I couldn't justify giving this book more than two stars. It's one that I don't think I could, in good conscience, recommend.

To start with the positives, I absolutely adored the courtroom focus. Most true crime books have some kind of angle, and this was almost the story of this family from the point of view of the court. There were long sections of courtroom transcripts and I think almost every page had some kind of excerpt, whether from court transcript, news articles, emails, etc. I can see how some people might find that boring, but I loved it so much. It was fascinating to read and by far my favorite part of the book. The court transcripts in particular were wonderful to read, while I found the news articles redundant.

My main issue was the biases of the authors. After finishing this book, it didn't feel like I had an overall understanding of the case. It felt like I'd just had one party's lawyers explain the case to me. (Which it almost kind of was- Allison Mann, one of the writers, was a paralegal at the law firm representing the father in this case.) In cases like this where the book's authors are close to one side, I expect there to be biases, but this went above and beyond what I generally would consider normal. I'd have even been more forgiving if they'd addressed their biases as part of the book, but instead it was written as though everything included was impartial.

This honestly isn't me disagreeing with the general conclusions of the book and the authors. I found myself agreeing with them for the most part (and I did some outside research as well, although it seems like most of the available information comes either from Brodkorb or various people on the mother's side who were even more biased). It was the writing style, word choice, and presentation of facts that rubbed me the wrong way. And I have no idea if that was intentional or a failure in the writing. At one point, Brodkorb talks about his lack of experience in this kind of writing (although he was referring to his news articles and not this book). He was a political writer, not a crime writer, so it's quite possible that came from his inexperience with this kind of writing.

I wrote down a few examples to illustrate that point. Although individually, all small details, they're indicative of how I felt about the overall narration.

On page 88, the mother and her lawyer travel to California in order to speak with a woman who was planning to sue the state over her custody case. The authors wrote the youtube videos they filmed, showed them acting "quite foolish." (This being while the two daughters were missing.) I'm not arguing that she wasn't acting foolish, I have no idea. But that's kind of my point. Foolish is an incredibly subjective word and there was no evidence or description of the behavior. Just that broad subjective statement.

On page 161, a man associated with the mother broke into the father's garage. The narration says this man "violently vandalized his vehicles with a knife." He slashed the tires and damaged some of the interior (this was clarified at a later point in the book). I'm not saying that's not a terrifying situation for the father to be in, but why use such imprecise, inflammatory language? As a reader, I would prefer to know the facts of what happened, rather than have it sensationalized for me. And especially for this book, it didn't need to be sensationalized. The facts themselves were sensational enough.

On page 109, "Lisa had proven to Dr. Gilbertson and the court that Samantha's statements had been false." It was a court transcript of the father's attorney questioning the children's therapist in regards to abuse claims the older daughter had made. In it, she illustrates how unlikely it would be that the older son would not have noticed any abuse and that at the time of one specific instance, the father had not had much contact with her. I'm not disputing that at all. My issue is more with the word "proven." In a legal context, that is an incredibly strong word, and it didn't feel justified in this instance. Elliott showed how unlikely the abuse claim was to be true, but in my mind (after reading the transcript of the conversation provided in the book) she didn't actively prove it false.

At no point did the book ever discuss if perhaps the mother was telling the truth. Which is not to say I believe she was, but rather in true crime, there's often a point (or many points) where the narration shifts slightly to explore the guilty party's side of the story and ask 'what if they're not guilty?' It's useful for readers who come in not knowing anything about the case. It allows for the evidence to be lined up and behavior to be examined in a different way. It usually exists to illustrate the flaws in the guilty party's version of events. In this book, I never felt like we got that, which led to it feeling incredibly one sided. There were small moments of pointing out things that she said and how they were wrong, but it wasn't enough for me.

Some more minor issues- there were a fair number of typos throughout the book. Normally this wouldn't bother me and I'd be even more forgiving of an indie book, but a lot of those typos occurred in quoted sections (court transcripts, emails, etc). Obviously [sic] was used to mark intentional quoted typos, but I'm talking about seemingly accidental ones. A small thing, but one that did bother me as the book went on.

I didn't understand Mann's POV sections. It didn't feel like they contributed anything that couldn't have been included in the general narration.

I was torn between 2 and 3 stars, because of how much I really did love the way the book was told through court transcripts, but overall, I didn't feel like I trusted the authors in the telling of this story. If I don't trust the authors, I can't justify a positive rating.