I love Lindy West, which is why I made time to slowly read her book of essays over the course of a month. When I have time, I'm going to watch the movies and then re-read her essays. I think the Speed one made me laugh the most, but I want to read all of them again. I mean, obviously I need to know why "The Fugitive" is the best movie ever.

I'm not sure I have read an immediately post World War II novel. In this one, Zofia is finally ready to leave the hospital and find her brother, the only family she has left. With the help of a Russian soldier named Dima, she makes it back to her home, but it's not really the same, is it? And her brother isn't there. Zofia goes on a journey to find him, and, on the way, finds a new family.

This story will break your heart in the best way, and give you an idea of what it would be like to try to find people in an age before we had the internet, where everything was done through letters and phone calls. Hesse gives an overview of lots of different experiences that people had in camps during the War, and Nazi atrocities are mentioned, although not usually in graphic detail. There was one twist at the end that I'm still working my way through, but overall, an excellent historical fiction title.

This book was a hard read for me. Ellie commits suicide and then haunts her old life. Her life so was hard to read about (although I know that sadly there are many out there like that.) The story is told sort of epistolary (although I'm not sure I would have noticed that if it hadn't been pointed out.) The letters are written to her mother and to a boy named August for the most part. In flashbacks, you find out what was making Ellie feel so depressed. I did appreciate that the suicide itself was glossed over. I've seen some reviews state that they think it might be triggering. For me, it mostly highlighted how hard it is to leave abusive situations.

Liv's older brother was a daredevil. He was always living on the edge. When he sees a loaded gun on his best friend's attic shelf, he plays with it and it goes off. Who is responsible? The 17 year old who should have known better or the adult that left a loaded gun on a random shelf? Liv just wants her brother to be cared for and her mother to have some stress relief. She also still cares about the best friend's family, and they live right across the street.

I think it definitely describes rural Maine really well. It's a made-up town on the Kennebec, I pictured Madison, Maine because it sounds the closest to Maddigan to me, but could have been any number of towns. The gun safety discussion definitely feels realistic for the area too. I'm still thinking about Liv, who is working so hard to support everyone else at the expense of herself.

Three different people enter a race hoping for the same outcome, for three different reasons. I'll admit that it took me a little while to get into the book, partially because I couldn't figure out how the phoenix horses work. Once I settled in, I enjoyed reading the different perspectives and how they interact. Fun.

Manu and her mother live in fear of ICE discovering them in Miami. They have no papers and rely on the kindness of a friend to help them out. Manu is homeschooled, because of her unusual eyes and the lack of papers. Manu's father was part of a gang, and they are looking for the family too. An ICE raid on the house and clinic lead Manu stumbling into a mysterious world of brujas (witches) and lobizons (werewolves). Will Manu find answers here? Or is she going further into danger?

Great story, excellent themes, not my favorite romance plot.

I'll be honest--I'm not a Robin Hood person. Sure, I like the 'steal from the rich, give to the poor' mindset, but the Disney movie was never my favorite and I'm not sure I've ever read the original story either. I mostly just have read retellings. There are things to like about this--about halfway through it becomes a very good adventure. At the beginning though, when Isabelle is sort of just wandering around--that was hard for me.

Quan's life is hard, for many reasons. I think one of the best things Stone does in this book is show all the ways that the system could fail Quan (and does, in some cases). I think this book shares a lot of light about how the justice system works, in a context that isn't "Law & Order" or another heroic cop show. I think we need more media showing the nuances, especially about these children. This system is not designed to help children.

One comment I will make is that I wish I had a different car, or the cloudLibrary audiobook was rendered differently. It was hard to understand through my car speakers, although not on its own. Weird.

An early Valentine's Day present from my husband that I really needed on the day he gave it to me.

I think this might be the best one in the series.