This book focuses on United States history. I love history, and am generally not a fan of United States history, so I wasn't sure I would make it through this book without being bored to absolute insanity. I have read a lot of reviews about this book, and it has been discussed a few times in this Non-Fiction book group that I am part of. Based on the comments, I was expecting this to be pretty much the worst US History book ever written. The author did his research into each event/time period he wrote about, and I appreciated that. The writing style was good, not boring like I assumed. I will not say that this was my favorite history book, or that I loved it, but I did like it. I thought there were a lot of really good points in it, and it was nice to see a book that wasn't written based solely on an idea of American nationalism where the people did nothing wrong ever. I would say that this book offers a nice supplemental perspective to some of the current history textbooks.

A lot of the things that I was personally taught in elementary and high school were VERY whitewashed. Everything centered around these AMAZING white men, who traveled to this continent and perpetrated genocide and subjugation. Of course, I respect the work that was put into creating the Constitution and other documents that formed a country that I was born and raised in. I certainly would not know how to go about forming a country. There were a lot of brave people who stood up for what they believed in, whether it was wrong or right, and gave their lives for their beliefs. I have people in my ancestry (which I have had a great time researching) that have fought in the American Revolution and Civil War on both sides of the spectrum, and cannot pretend to know their reasons or circumstances. I think that it is a shame that students (at least where I went to school) were not told all the details about the genocide of Native Americans, and are told about the skirmishes, wars, and murders as though Native people weren't well within their right. I think it is a shame that we were not taught about servants in the White House being black, or about key figures in history being mixed race. People are really just DETERMINED that forced labor and inequality were not used to build this country, and that is really an obtuse thing to think. People will never learn or grow as people, or as a collective country, without reviewing all of the facts of history as they are, not how we wish they were or want them to be. 

 I was very interested in this book, because the events happened in Selmer, Tennessee. I live a little farther than that, but it was still interesting to see. This book is about the case of Pastor Matthew Winkler, who was found murdered in his church, and his wife and children were missing. Police began an investigation immediately. Diane Fanning is also a good author and always presents the facts in a way that is easy to follow and keeps your interest. 

 This is the personal account of Tanya Levin, a member of a fundamentalist Christian religion, Assemblies of God, that grew into what we know as Hillsong. I have to say that I dislike organized religion in general, but I especially dislike the mega-church aspect. This is a multi-million dollar organization that operates under the tax-free leeway given to churches. This takes advantage of members, and I hate seeing people be fleeced for religion. In this book, she does touch on the sexual issues of the church leaders. Yes, he was unfaithful, lots of people are. When people in positions of power engage is sexual misbehavior and then use the church and nonsense to try to make themselves the victim, it is disgusting. It is manipulative and abusive. The author does take a look at American ministries, where Hillsong also operates now, which I also found slightly unfair. She sort of makes the assumption that all churches operate like Westboro Baptist Church (which I find to be the most disgusting next to the FLDS). Mega Churches and fundamentalist churches in the United States are gross and criminal. Churches operate under that tax-free thing, but they want to involve themselves in politics. I can't stand that, and it should not be allowed at all. I did like the points she made about Southern Baptists, because I live in the South and Southern Baptists are rampant and a lot of them are miscreants that engage in all types of abuses.

I hate to say that I am extremely disappointed in this book. I always like books about personal experiences, so I hate to say that I did not like this book as well as I anticipated. I do not want to negate someone's personal experience. The writing in this book was rambling at points, and hard to follow. Scenes change randomly, without any rhyme or reason. I would not recommend this book. There has to be other books out there that are better reads. I would encourage you to watch the Hillsong documentary (I think it is on Discovery Plus) for a more thorough look at this ministry. That is what motivated me to buy this book. I generally enjoy learning about cults, and while this made some good points, it was not at all what it was touted to be. It really let me down. 

 This book tells the story of Marianne Ellenbogen, who was nineteen years old at the time of her escape to the underground. She managed to escape the Nazi regime's 1943 deportations, and spent the remainder of the war hiding in various places all over the country. I cannot begin to imagine how harrowing that must have been. The amount of stress you would have to live with, knowing what would happen to you or anyone helping you if you were caught, would be astronomical. This book really gives a detailed image of what life was like for people from all different situations, not just Marianne's. It really makes you think about how hard life is during war time, especially if you are part of a population who is being subjected to genocide. 

 This book was enraging, and this might be a long review, so if that isn't what you are interested in....skip now. If you just want to know what I thought about the book, I will say that it was a lot different than Columbine. The focus of this book was about the activism and issues that the March For Our Lives and other Parkland students faced in the aftermath. In fact, the perpetrator's name was never mentioned in this book, which is a huge digression from a lot of true crime books. I would absolutely encourage you to read this, if for no other reason that to open your eyes to how adults in this country behave. Dave Cullen did a great job on this book. For those who want to know my real opinion, I will do my best to focus my real speaking points, so hang on with me.

The issue of school safety is one that has been discussed a million times, yet seems to not be getting any better. Administration spotted Cruz walking towards the building, knowing he was behaving oddly and was no longer a student there, yet did not follow, stop, or initiate lockdown. You would think after having MULTIPLE incidents of this nature since the 1999 Columbine kickoff, school systems would make more efforts to secure campuses. Unfortunately, we live in a time where we have to have bulletproof glass everywhere, lockdown drills, automatically locking doors, security cameras, and metal detectors...yet schools are often not equipped with some of these things. Legislators are cowardly and ignorant on the issue of gun control, so they should, at the very least, make an effort to overhaul and secure all schools in the country.

The failure of administrators to stop Cruz before he entered the school is one issue, but the failure of administrators to issue lockdown protocol until AFTER one saw a body and heard gunfire is atrocious. They apparently had some debate about who had the authority to do so. Who cares? If there was no reason for it, deal with that later, but issue the lockdown. At this point in our society, we need to focus on the "better safe than sorry" and make some effort to save kids. We also should not have resource officers and security guards who will stand in hallways and outside buildings doing absolutely nothing while children are slaughtered inside. The officer at the school in this case said he didn't know where the shooting was coming from. Alright...but he still made no effort to find out or attempt to do his job. It was a small scale travesty that is galling in light of a larger instance of this travesty that recently occurred. (Uvalde is a shining example of that cowardice and nonsense.)

Cruz had issues his entire life. He was adopted by the Cruz family at a young age, and had behavioral problems that were documented since PRESCHOOL. Some of those reports included threats made against other students. He was banned by the school system from wearing a backpack on the campus due to the threats. A mental facility did not feel that he needed to be committed and claimed he had a lot risk for harming himself or other people, though he had been making documented threats and videoed himself on social media cutting himself. He also had been making statements about buying a gun. He made multiple posts on social media with various weapons and in support of President Trump and his hate speak. Authorities received nearly 100 calls regarding Cruz, for various incidents at home or reporting that he was dangerous and making threats in the time period before the shooting..... yet none of that was investigated or anything done about it. Police always say IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING (which you should) but what is one meant to do when they do not take MULTIPLE CALLS seriously?? We have GOT to start listening to people and taking them seriously. There needs to be a sweeping reform in the way that police are policing and mental health services are servicing. Things like this (and other murders and domestic assaults) could be prevented if so. This kid was CLEARLY an issue from the outset, and should have been stopped before this happened. I can see why so many students and parents were enraged when they found out about this. (In fact, several students said that they could imagine him being a school shooter. I had one of those in my school, and I am honestly shocked he hasn't yet been picked up for murder, because he was disturbed.)

Gun control is such an obnoxious issue. People (especially Southerners and certainly Republicans) throw little baby fits and scream YoU cAnT tAkE mY GuNs.... Sit down and shut up Billy Bob and Jenny Lynn. Nobody is saying that you cannot own a handgun for protection or a hunting rifle for hunting, or even a competitive shooting rifle. We are saying there should be mandatory background checks, waiting periods, insurance, registration, and laws about people with documented violent crimes and mental health issues buying weapons. There should be mandatory training and licensing. We are saying that there should be an age limit for purchasing weapons, and it probably doesn't need to be 18 or lower. Obviously, this will not stop criminals from buying weapons, or stealing them, but it is a start. Private sells with no checks would help tremendously. Also, a handgun can kill you just as dead as an assault rifle. Guns themselves are not the problem- the lax laws and ignorant, irresponsible people that have them ARE. Another issue with this topic is generational. People, especially the ones in the South, just listen to whatever their parents say. They did not grow up and go to school in the world in which we live now. Their thinking is self serving and out of date. Young people need to educate themselves and VOTE.

The MFOL kids were heckled and followed around on their speaking tours by gun-toting morons. Any time the issue of gun control is raised, the cry babies get out and wave their pew pews and scream and spit and make themselves look like absolute jackasses. These kids were HIGH SCHOOL kids. What does that say to them about their experiences and feelings and their motivation to make the school system safer for themselves and other kids? It says that adults do not give a s**t about them. It says that them amassing stupid assault rifles and truckloads of ammunition is way more important that being responsible gun owners. It says that kids are not important. (They do not care about women and they do not care about kids, and maybe when something happens directly to someone they love, they will start to care.) Grown people were sending these kids DEATH THREATS to their homes and on social media.... Grown adults were sending kids death threats. Say that several times until it sinks in how disgusting adults in the United States are. Gun control is a political issue, but it should be a common sense issue. These kids were trying to reach out to all political parties, but one side refused to talk to them very much. Guess which side that was. (I hate political parties, don't mistake me.) Stuff like this is exactly why the rest of the world thinks the way they do about Americans, and especially why Southern people are viewed in the way that they are, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why people are too obtuse to see that. I will say again, GROWN ADULTS WERE SENDING DEATH THREATS TO KIDS THAT JUST WENT THROUGH A SCHOOL SHOOTING IN WHICH THEIR PEERS WERE MURDERED. If you are the kind of person who would do this, you are trash, and you really need to take stock of yourself and make some changes and some amends.

This will be my last speaking point before my conclusion. As disgusting as it was for Cruz and his threats and behavior to be overlooked by people who could have stopped him, as disgusting as it was for administration and the police officer at the school to have failed to act the way they should have, as disgusting as it was for the kids to be treated the way they were my the media/politicians/adults, it is equally disgusting to have the conspiracy theorists open their trash mouths on this situation. People listen to trash like Alex Jones and whoever else about how Sandy Hook was a hoax and blah blah blah. The same thing happened here. People were talking about how one of the students was a crisis actor. This was a crisis, and not a single one of theses kids were acting. They discount and discredit the facts, evidence, and experiences of people to try to make people believe that they are safe and things like this didn't happen and that it is a tactic used by one political party to take the "rights" and guns away from another. PEOPLE DIED. KIDS DIED. KIDS GO THROUGH THIS EVERY SINGLE DAY ACROSS THIS COUNTRY. If you are supporting people who believe in this nonsense, share this nonsense, or support these podcasts and hateful, ignorant people, please stop and think about the harm you are doing. We need to be calling people like this out. We need to stop letting people get away with running off at the mouth. Just because you have the RIGHT to say what you want, does not mean that you cannot be held accountable and have CONSEQUENCES for that you say. These are human beings. These are kids. They are not conspiracy theories. Stop letting people get away with this vitriol. 

 I was so excited when this show came out. I ordered this book in hopes of learning more about Ryan, and it definitely served that purpose. This book goes into detail about how he came into the paranormal investigation family and why he continues to do it. This was a pretty interesting read, though it wasn't my favorite book of the year. 

 I read another book about the Camp Fire that destroyed the town of Paradise not long ago. I ran across this one in a suggestion section on Audible, so I picked it up when I got my monthly credits. It was interesting to read a different perspective and personal experiences this time. So many people were impacted by this and all have personal stories of survival and loss. I really liked this book and highly recommend it. 

 Love Canal construction began in 1894. William Love, a railroad entrepreneur, scouted out a tract of land in Niagara Falls, New York, with the idea that he would build an idyllic community of grid streets and preplanned houses and buildings. Love Canal was meant to be a shipping lane, as well as provide hydroelectric power for the town that Love envisioned. Unfortunately, construction was halted due to economic crisis, as well as the lobbying of preservationists to save the waterway of Niagara Falls proper. One construction stopped, the City of Niagara began dumping household and business garbage in the canal.

In the 1940's, Hooker Chemical Company was granted access to dump waste in the canal by the Niagara Power and Development Company. They turned the 16 acres around the canal into a chemical waste dump. They buried 55 gallon drums full of all manner of chemicals, which totaled an estimated 22, 000 tons. The city bought back the site in the 1950's and built a school atop the former chemical dump. As the years went by, residents began to complain about horrible smells, puddles of weird colored water in their yards and basements, and black fluid coming from the canal. People were developing rashes, breathing problems, reproductive issues and birth defects, and cancers. (Hooker Chemical Company was bought by the OXY company.)

This book is well researched about the history of the site, the legal issues, the clean up, etc. I learned a lot of information about this previously unknown to me location and disaster. The author included a lot of personal information about key residents and officials that were involved in the clean up. I googled to see what the town looked like, as I bought the Audible version of this book, and ran across an article that says people that living around this supposedly cleaned up and contained area are experiencing the same exact issues the residents in this book did. Clearly, they did not clean up as well as they thought they did, though I cannot begin to imagine how much of the chemicals have seeped into the surrounding water table and ground. Slapping some new siding on contaminated houses isn't really a clean up. I cannot believe I have never heard of this until now. This was a really good book. I listened to it the entire day while I was doing things around the house. If I had a physical copy, I would say that I couldn't put it down. This has inspired me to look into other SUPERFUND sites to see if there are any other books about them out there. 

 Paper Love is the story of a woman who comes across some documents and letters that belonged to her grandfather after his death. She had once found photographs of a woman that her grandfather kept. When she asked about the photographs, her grandmother had told her that the woman in the photographs was her grandfathers true love. Now, the documents and letters she found added fuel to her desire to uncover the whereabouts of this woman, who had stayed behind in Europe when her grandfather fled the Nazis.

This was a very moving journey about self-discovery. I think that anytime you learn more about your family members, their pasts, and their connections, you learn more about yourself. Sometimes, it explains a lot about why people were/are the way they were/are. I know what it is like to make a life with someone who is not the love of your life because that person is no longer around, so this book kind of hit me in a more personal way that I would have thought. I enjoy mysteries and investigations, so this was a real page turner for me. I shouldn't have picked this book for my car book, because it took me a whole week to get through it by only reading it in the pick up line, when I normally could have had this finished in one or two days. I loved the way that this author told her story, and I am glad that I finally got around to reading this book that has been on my shelf for at least two years. 

 This was only a 2 hour read on Audible, and it was included with my membership. Rampage was interesting, so I thought I would try the rest of the series. It was also interesting, but people who rape and murder little kids are a special brand of vile. This was a gross book, in that sense.