alisarae's Reviews (1.65k)

I can definitely understand why this book is described as Bridget Jones + Americanah, but it took me a long time to catch on to the idea that, unlike Bridget Jones, Queenie's life won't be resolved by a man.

I liked this book a whole lot. It includes a lot of "here and now" slang and cultural issues that will forever place this in the mid-2010s, but I think it is important for society to have a body of work that addresses our current conversation topics head-on.

Also, the audiobook narration was great. The various accents really added to the experience of the story. And there was an added touch: when characters were texting, there were send and vibration sound effects.

Two sisters in Philadelphia—one a beat cop, the other an opiate addict—lead their separate lives despite having ties that go beyond blood. When Kacey goes missing in the midst of a string of prostitute murders and the rumor on the street is that it's a cop who's killing them, Mickey starts her own private investigation into finding the murderer—sorting out her past along the way.

This book came just in the nick of time for me. It's really well-written and a great distraction. I loved the characters, and in the audio you can hear those Philly accents.

Wow, a masterclass in false confessions. This book really gives an insider look into why and how false confessions are extracted. The public believes confessions are always accurate—why would you lie about killing nine people?—and it's hard to understand why a sane person might confess to something they didn't do if they weren't physically tortured into doing so. I have watched the docu-series on Netflix, listened to the podcasts, etc etc, but it wasn't until after reading this book that I really understood how I, too, would be vulnerable to giving a false confession.

In 1991, nine people were murdered at the Wat Promkunaram Buddhist temple in Waddell (Phoenix suburb), Arizona. It was the first mass murder in Arizona since its statehood. Based on a call from a delusional man in Tucson, five Tucson men were taken in for interrogation/custody (? it was ambiguous and later part of a lawsuit against Maricopa Police) and four of them ended up giving false confessions. The real killers, two teen boys from the Phoenix area, remained free on the streets for several more months while police focused on making five fake stories line up with the crime scene—wasted time that allowed one of the boys to kill again AND a separate false confession by a sixth innocent person to be extracted related to that murder. In the end, the "Tucson Four" plus the other man who had confessed to the later murder were released and signed settlement deals with Maricopa County.

It was during this chaos that Joe Arpaio, a retired DEA agent unknown at the time but perhaps the nation's most notorious sheriff nowadays, ran for the position of sheriff on the platform that he would impose stricter oversight, training, and guidelines for interrogations.

The book also goes into the prosecution's and the defense's courtroom strategies—both teens confessed: Alessandro Garcia cut a plea deal but Johnathan Doody had a jury trial to determine if his role in the murders qualified for premeditated first-degree murder (and the likely death penalty) or just felony murder (being present while someone is murdered during the event of a felony crime and thus would likely spare him from the death penalty). At the time the book was published, both boys were sentenced to life in prison, not the death penalty. Doody has since had two retrials (his first trial was overturned on the basis of a coerced confession, his second trial ended in a deadlocked jury, and his third upheld the sentencing of his first trial—9 life sentences).

In my opinion, Garcia is cruel, cold, and crass.... the very picture of someone who likes the thrill of killing and rush of attention and power. He boasted in an interview that he could write a handbook on how to get away with murder, and if he hadn't been caught "there would have been a lot more murders." I believe Doody's confession that they were playing a kind of ROTC game gone awry, with Garcia leading the way to eliminate all witnesses and Doody's shotgun grazing, but not killing, anyone.

What a shame.

I picked up this commentary because I had read a fantastic commentary on Galatians in the same series (different author). This commentary on Philippians was not nearly as interesting or well-written. I am still interested in this authors other books on women in the NT church, though.

Wow. Wow. Wow. Lamar Giles is doing the Lord's work.

Del is a high school senior in a small community in Virginia. When his long-time crush Kiera becomes single, Del concocts a plan to join the purity pledge group at their church in order to spend more time with her and, hopefully, make a move. When his best laid plans start to crack, Del is confronted with a harsh reality: maybe he isn't the "good guy" after all.

I was floored by how well this story teaches the concept of toxic masculinity. Cuz, if even the so called "nice guys" can have destructive and harmful behaviors and attitudes, what hope is there for change, right? The story lights a clear path forward.

Besides that, the portrayal of Christianity in this book is so so so good. I'm a church girl myself, and I've made the rounds. This book is accurate. How Mr Giles built layers of scripture, honest questions about God, different types of relationships towards God and religion, toxic churches, youth group kids, and modeling of Jesus' behavior and teachings blew me away.

This story has meat. YA at its finest: sharp, funny, poignant, deep realistic characters, seamlessly woven cultural layers. Dang. Hats off.

I always appreciate Kristof's grace-filled reporting and writing. This book is no exception.

Tightrope is a compassionate look at the wave of "deaths of despair" that has swept over American society in the past couple decades. The numbers are appalling but this book focuses more on individual stories of friends from Kristof and WuDunn's hometown in Oregon to help the reader develop a comprehensive empathy for the plight of working class Americans. The book touches on policy decisions and glaring gaps in ideologies on both sides of the American political landscape, so I thought it was a very fair chiding of deliberate blindspots. The book directly and repeatedly challenges the fantasy of "pulling yourself up by the bootstraps," wryly explaining that the idiom originally meant the opposite of what it means today--it is physically impossible to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.

I have read extensively on the subject of the "deaths of despair," mostly because it is hard for me to rectify the smoldering America I now watch from a distance with my perception of the America of my 1990's youth. It is hard to wrap my mind around what's happened and what has changed. So because of my reading, most of the information here was not new to me. The numbers are always shocking though, and overall it's depressing to contemplate. I felt physically upset while reading the book this week.

I did appreciate that there are action steps at the end of the book (something I felt compelled to write on my blog after I read Just Mercy and was left high and dry on what to do next). But to be honest, American culture needs a reckoning. Every person needs to be struck in their emotional and spiritual core in order for a change to take place. I can only pray that all the carnage caused by COVID-19 and the painful lessons we are learning about how the economy and employment really function will not go to waste.

As an aside, one thing I couldn't stop thinking about while reading this is my growing belief that American Christians should not be sending missionaries to other countries. No more. Enough. I've done my share of short term trips, and I grew immensely as a person during that time. But I think that level of "getting out of your comfort zone" for a week or two could easily be found by serving the poorest and most downtrodden in the US, and there are millions of those to be found. Semester-long mission projects/internships could instead be spent lobbying politicians, community organizing, and volunteering with afterschool programs. Isn't an oft-quoted adage by long term m's in the field that "the best people to reach a people are their own people" citing lifelong work by people who natively know the culture and language as the most effective? America is cancerous, its church is violently ill, and we're kidding ourselves if we think our spiritual nudity isn't on full display to the world. I live abroad but praise God I stopped fooling myself about my spirituality years ago. /end midnight rant.

Soul food indeed. Lots of frying, so I wasn't really interested in dealing with that. But I did make the coleslaw recipe and Silas and I both declared that not all coleslaws are created equal; in fact, this one tops them all. So that should be an indication of the rest of the book.

The pop art collages are really fun. It would be great if this chef replaced Antoni on Queer Eye.

These recipes are the sorts of staples or basics that you can keep in heavy rotation and easily learn to make and improvise with. Nice tips and guidelines for people looking to transition to cooking from memory, or for people trying to learn to be a "spur of the moment" pantry chef. I'm already pretty good at that.

Recipes lean towards Mexican-themed, so lots of different types of peppers are called for.... Brazil isn't big on peppers, so if it isn't a bell or a bird's eye, I'm not gonna find it.

I read it but didn't try it because these recipes call for quite an investment of tools that I don't have.

SO CUTE and exactly my kind of GN. I've been wanting to read this for aaaages and the library finally got a copy. It was exactly what I had hoped for.