An Immense World

 

An Immense World:  How Animal Sense Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong Zoology

(from Amazon)  The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every kind of animal, including humans, is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of our immense world.  In An Immense World, Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, allowing us to perceive the skeins of scent, waves of electromagnetism, and pulses of pressure that surround us. We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires, turtles that can track the Earth’s magnetic fields, fish that fill rivers with electrical messages, and even humans who wield sonar like bats. We discover that a crocodile’s scaly face is as sensitive as a lover’s fingertips, that the eyes of a giant squid evolved to see sparkling whales, that plants thrum with the inaudible songs of courting bugs, and that even simple scallops have complex vision. We learn what bees see in flowers, what songbirds hear in their tunes, and what dogs smell on the street. We listen to stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, while looking ahead at the many mysteries that remain unsolved.

(My Review)  Did you know that a whale's siren can be heard from the Bahamas to Ireland?  Have you wondered about the communication of animals?  This book was amazing!  Ed Yong guides us on an adventure, learning about the amazing senses of animals.  He provides so much interesting information, but does not talk over your head.  I felt this book would make an amazing documentary series.  I highly recommend this book.

Demon Copperhead

 

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver               Literary Fiction/Coming-of-Age Fiction

(from Amazon)  Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.  Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens’ anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can’t imagine leaving behind.

(My Review)

Demon’s story is heartbreaking. Kingsolver weaves his story, mimicking that of Charles Dickens “David Copperfield”, adding a whole host of Dickins' inspired characters that young Demon meets along the way. This book deals with the poverty and drug abuse of the Appalachian Mountain region of the US, and also the foster care system. It’s unflinching, tragic, thought-provoking, and sobering- this book is fiction, but these events occur everyday.

Nine Liars

 

Nine Liars by Maureen Johnson                      Teen & YA Thriller/Mystery/Suspense/Detective

(from Amazon)  Senior year at Ellingham Academy for Stevie Bell isn’t going well. Her boyfriend, David, is studying in London. Her friends are obsessed with college applications. With the cold case of the century solved, Stevie is adrift. There is nothing to distract her from the questions pinging around her brain—questions about college, love, and life in general.  Relief comes when David invites Stevie and her friends to join him for study abroad, and his new friend Izzy introduces her to a double-murder cold case. In 1995, nine friends from Cambridge University went to a country house and played a drunken game of hide-and-seek. Two were found in the woodshed the next day, murdered with an ax.  The case was assumed to be a burglary gone wrong, but one of the remaining seven saw something she can’t explain. This was no break-in. Someone’s lying about what happened in the woodshed.  Seven suspects. Two murders. One killer still playing a deadly game.

(My Review)

Stevie is at it again, and this time in LONDON!!!  David is studying in England, and he manages a visit with Stevie and the gang.  And of course, they get caught up in investigating a cold case.  Jolly good fun!

Clown in a Cornfield

 

Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare (Book 1 of 2)             Teen & YA Horror/Thriller

(from Amazon)  Quinn Maybrook and her father have moved to tiny, boring Kettle Springs, to find a fresh start. But what they don’t know is that ever since the Baypen Corn Syrup Factory shut down, Kettle Springs has cracked in half.   On one side are the adults, who are desperate to make Kettle Springs great again, and on the other are the kids, who want to have fun, make prank videos, and get out of Kettle Springs as quick as they can.  Kettle Springs is caught in a battle between old and new, tradition and progress. It’s a fight that looks like it will destroy the town. Until Frendo, the Baypen mascot, a creepy clown in a pork-pie hat, goes homicidal and decides that the only way for Kettle Springs to grow back is to cull the rotten crop of kids who live there now. 

(My Review)

Quinn and her father move to Kettle Springs thinking they've moved to a boring little town - it is anything but.  Not knowing the tragic events of the past, Quinn joins her new friends going out looking for fun.  What they find is not the fun they were looking for, but people trying to settle the score - even if it destroys everything.    I enjoyed this way more than I thought I would.

Just Like Home

 

Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey                          Ghost Thrillers

(from Amazon)

“Come home.” Vera’s mother called and Vera obeyed. In spite of their long estrangement, in spite of the memories ― she's come back to the home of a serial killer. Back to face the love she had for her father and the bodies he buried there, beneath the house he'd built for his family.  Coming home is hard enough for Vera, and to make things worse, she and her mother aren’t alone. A parasitic artist has moved into the guest house out back and is slowly stripping Vera’s childhood for spare parts. He insists that he isn’t the one leaving notes around the house in her father’s handwriting… but who else could it possibly be?  There are secrets yet undiscovered in the foundations of the notorious Crowder House. Vera must face them and find out for herself just how deep the rot goes.

(My Review)

It's so hard to go back home - especially if your father was a serial killer.  Vera returns home to see her dying mother.  She left as soon as she could after her father was arrested for multiple murders.  When Vera returns, she discovers the house holds all of the secrets, all the way down to its very foundation.  This is a creepy read.  

The Dead Romantics

 

The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston                         Paranormal Romance

(from Amazon)

Florence Day is the ghostwriter for one of the most prolific romance authors in the industry, and she has a problem—after a terrible breakup, she no longer believes in love. It’s as good as dead.  When her new editor, a too-handsome mountain of a man, won't give her an extension on her book deadline, Florence prepares to kiss her career goodbye. But then she gets a phone call she never wanted to receive, and she must return home for the first time in a decade to help her family bury her beloved father.  For ten years, she's run from the town that never understood her, and even though she misses the sound of a warm Southern night and her eccentric, loving family and their funeral parlor, she can’t bring herself to stay. Even with her father gone, it feels like nothing in this town has changed. And she hates it.  Until she finds a ghost standing at the funeral parlor’s front door, just as broad and infuriatingly handsome as ever, and he’s just as confused about why he’s there as she is.  Romance is most certainly dead . . . but so is her new editor, and his unfinished business will have her second-guessing everything she’s ever known about love stories.

(My Review)

I absolutely adored this book!  Florence sees dead people.  She is also a ghostwriter for a famous author, with aspirations of writing her own books.  When she goes home for the death of her father, she surprised to see the ghost of her editor, who she is quite attracted to.  As she deals with her eccentric family, and helping the ghost, she finds...romance.  

Babel

 

Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translator's Revolution         by R. F. Kuang             Literary Fiction/Historical Fantasy

(from Amazon)  1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel.  Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.  For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide…

(My Review)

Wow!  I'm not sure where to start (I literally just finished reading it).  As the book starts out, I found myself really enjoying the dark academia vibes.  I loved the descriptions of Oxford University, of academic life, the discussions of the linguistic lectures.  It was so very scholarly and interesting.  But, there were instances that were a bit unsettling.  Kuang did a great job building up this tension, until about 70% through the book, and you're like...WHAT??  This story is so powerful, making you think about how complicated language is - how it separates us, and brings us together.  This story also looks at the complicated history of colonialism.  I HIGHLY recommend this book!!!