LUCKIEST GIRL ALIVE by Jessica Knoll

Finished Su 5/28/23

This is one of the paperbacks that I bought at the Rochester book sale on Sa 5/20/23.

It's an excellent, although difficult read. A young high school girl is raped and this incident triggers a high school shooting. 

The rape is difficult to determine since all of the people are underaged, uninformed, and blind drunk. The girl never says "I am being raped. Stop immediately", and because she doesn't say these words the boys feel it's OK to continue. 

The day that I finished reading the novel, I noticed that it was streamable on Netflix. I watched the movie and I think that was even better than the novel. 

From the book's page at Goodreads:

"HER PERFECT LIFE IS A PERFECT LIE.

As a teenager at the prestigious Bradley School, Ani FaNelli endured a shocking, public humiliation that left her desperate to reinvent herself. Now, with a glamorous job, expensive wardrobe, and handsome blue blood fiancé, she’s this close to living the perfect life she’s worked so hard to achieve.

But Ani has a secret.

There’s something else buried in her past that still haunts her, something private and painful that threatens to bubble to the surface and destroy everything.

With a singular voice and twists you won’t see coming, Luckiest Girl Alive explores the unbearable pressure that so many women feel to “have it all” and introduces a heroine whose sharp edges and cutthroat ambition have been protecting a scandalous truth, and a heart that's bigger than it first appears.

The question remains: will breaking her silence destroy all that she has worked for—or, will it at long last, set Ani free?"

This is the first novel for Jessica Knoll and parts of the book are things that happened to her although it's not a roman a clef or a memoir. 

DARK SACRED NIGHT by Michael Connelly

 Finished  Tu 5/23/23

This is a hardback that Janny loaned to me and I've probably read it before, but it's Michael Connelly! This is one of the later novels in the series and he's already left the LAPD and teamed up with San Fernando PD. 

From the book's page at Goodreads:

"LAPD Detective Renée Ballard teams up with Harry Bosch in the new thriller from #1 NYT bestselling author Michael Connelly.

Renée Ballard is working the night beat again, and returns to Hollywood Station in the early hours only to find a stranger rifling through old file cabinets. The intruder is retired detective Harry Bosch, working a cold case that has gotten under his skin. Ballard kicks him out, but then checks into the case herself and it brings a deep tug of empathy and anger.

Bosch is investigating the death of fifteen-year-old Daisy Clayton, a runaway on the streets of Hollywood who was brutally murdered and her body left in a dumpster like so much trash. Now, Ballard joins forces with Bosch to find out what happened to Daisy and finally bring her killer to justice."

Bosch is investigating the death of fifteen-year-old Daisy Clayton, a runaway on the streets of Hollywood who was brutally murdered and her body left in a dumpster like so much trash. Now, Ballard joins forces with Bosch to find out what happened to Daisy and finally bring her killer to justice.

Anything dealing with Harry Bosch or his confederates in 'the police' is well worth a look (or multiple looks). 

BLOOD FEUD- The Hatfields & The Mccoys The Epic Story of Murder & Vengeance by Lisa Alther

 Finished Fr 5/19/23

This is a hardback that I ordered from Amazon while I was reading 'KINFLICKS' which wa also written by Lisa Alther. 

The author is from Kingsport, Tennessee and has a family connection to some of the 'feudists'. 

I spent only a couple of days skimming/ reading this book because it was packed with various names of people that were 'possibly' involved in the feud. So much of what happened is not accurate because the participants were completely biased. 

'HILLBULLIES'- violent families and clans of Tennessee, West Virginia, & Kentucky. 

Theory: Herding cultures are more violent than non-herding cultures. These people must be tough or their herds will be stolen. 

The Hatfield/ McCoy Feud lasted approximately from 1860 to the 1880's.  

All the 'facts' of the book are based on secondary sources and myths. This isn't a bad thing, because I don't think there will ever be a completely reckoning of the various events. I noticed that some people commenting on the book had connections to either the Hatfields or McCoys and their sources seemed to reflect this bias. 

Melungeons- A 'race' from this area of the country that was made up of poor whites, free blacks, 'free men of color', and native Americans. 

The writing was good, but I much prefer Alther's novel, 'KINFLICKS'. However, I would definitely read more by this author. 

MISSING YOU by Harlan Coben

 Finished Th 5/18/23

This is a hardback that Janny loaned to me and it's one of my favorite novels by Coben.

The title of the novel is taken from a 1984 song by John Waite- 'Missing You'.

Kat Donovan is a cop and the daughter of a cop who was murdered 18 years previously. The novel is about Kat trying to find her father's killer and also she was approached by a young man, Brandon who is trying to locate his mother. The kid's mother has been missing for several days and she was involved with an online dating service. 

The storyline deals with 'catfishing'. Professional criminals pretend to be 'lovers' online, but they are really out to clean out clients savings accounts and then killing the victims. 

From the book's page at Amazon:

"It’s a profile, like all the others on the online dating site. But as NYPD detective Kat Donovan focuses on the accompanying picture, she feels her whole world explode as emotions she’s ignored for decades come crashing down on her. Staring back at her is her ex-fiancé, Jeff, the man who shattered her heart—and whom she hasn’t seen in eighteen years.

Kat feels a spark, wondering if this might be the moment when past tragedies recede and a new world opens up to her. But when she reaches out to the man in the profile, her reawakened hope quickly darkens into suspicion and then terror as an unspeakable conspiracy comes to light in which monsters prey upon the most vulnerable.

As the body count mounts and Kat’s hope for a second chance with Jeff grows more and more elusive, she is consumed by an investigation that challenges her feelings about everyone she’s ever loved—her former fiancé, her mother, and even her father, whose cruel murder so long ago has never been fully explained. With lives on the line, including her own, Kat must venture deeper into the darkness than she ever has before and discover if she has the strength to survive what she finds there." 

Notes:

Kat's boyfriend killed Kat's dad because dad hated gays. However, dad was involved with a black gay man named 'Sugar'. 

Kat lives in an apartment at 67th St. Central Park West

KINFLICKS by Lisa Alther

Finished Su 5/14/23

One of my ancient trade paperbacks that I had never read. I loved the book and it reminded me a little of Erica Jong's 'FEAR OF FLYING'. Both novels deal with 'Second Wave Feminism'. 

From wikipedia.org:

"Second-wave feminists grew up where the politics intertwined within the culture, such as "Kennedy, the Vietnam War, civil rights, and women's rights". In contrast, the third wave sprang from a culture of "punk-rock, hip-hop, 'zines, products, consumerism and the Internet"."

Ginny is called back to her home because her mother, Mrs. Babcock is dying and the book alternates between their interactions and Ginny's life and how she got there.  

Joe Bob- Ginny's high school sweetheart when she was a 'flag waver'.

Clem- Ginny's next boyfriend who was the polar opposite of 'clean-cut Joe Bob'. Clem almost killed Ginny in a motorcycle accident, but it also 'saved' Clem and he became a 'snake handling preacher'.

Miss Head- an important figure in Ginny's life. This woman turned her on to the joys of philosophy.

Eddie- Ginny's lesbian girlfriend.

Ira- Ginny's 'straight' husband and Wendy is Ginny's daughter.

Hawk- A US army deserter that turned Ginny on to Tantric Yoga.

The Melungeons:

"“Kinfolks” traces the history of the little-known Melungeons, a Southern Appalachian ethnic group with dark skin and, occasionally, extra thumbs. Alther first learned of the Melungeons from a baby sitter when she was a kid, and the six-fingered humans became bogeymen in her imagination. As an adult, she discovers a potential Melungeon link in her own family, and heads off on a stop-and-start investigation not only into her own genetic background but into that of a much-maligned subculture, a trip that takes her everywhere from Turkey (a possible point of Melungeon origin) to contemporary Melungeon gatherings." 

From Kirkus:

"Kinflicks has already had lots of previews; it's expected to do very well and if you're looking for an audience, try Shylah Boyd's American Made even if Shylah, while she talked just as much, wasn't quite as tone deafening. To extend the points of reference: both girls come from the South; both have a liability/legacy in the form of a parent. Here it is Ginny Hull Babcock's spine-stiffening mother, who conferred on her all kinds of principles and inhibitions which impeded Ginny's own life as well as any feeling she might have had for her mother, now dying home in Hullsport, Tennessee, of idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (can Joe Gannon pronounce that?). In between her vigils at the hospital, Ginny remembers all those kinflicks or home movies which were her mother's record of all the family firsts--the first tooth, the first smile. Ginny's own equivalents thereof include her time at Hullsport High as flag swinger and girl of football-playing Joe Bob who bulged all over, not necessarily at the right time. After more failed sex and sex redivivus, she went away to a small college, dropped out, had a good experience with Eddie (a girl) in New York and then at a Vermont commune, and finally went straight with Ira and had a baby until he threw her out for trying some further-out ritual coition with a real unreal freak. At the end her mother dies after all those dress rehearsals but she gives Ginny a nice send-off--shuck the past and ""Look after yourself, Ginny dear."" You're not quite sure how or where, nor is she. Author Alther can write--with lots of energy, humor she doesn't have to try for, and an awesome candor about the business of living and dying in between these waystops of experience. But she doesn't really make you care enough since her kinflick first novel documents more than it projects."

RUNNING THE LIGHT by Sam Tallent

 Finished Mo 5/8/23- My first audiobook and I downloaded from the library and listened to it via Hoopla.

I watched Sam Tallent on J.R.E a couple of weeks ago, but I'm still surprised about how funny his book is.

I loved listening to this book walking through Washington Park and I would love to own this novel because Tallent is a REAL writer. His descriptions are delightful!

From the book's page at Amazon:

"Debauched, divorced and courting death, Billy Ray Schafer is a comedian who has forgotten how to laugh. Over the course of seven spun-out days across the American Southwest, he travels from from hell gig to hell gig in search of a reason to keep living in this bleak and violent glimpse into the psyche of a thoroughly ruined man. Ex-inmate, ex-husband, ex-father - comedian is the only title Schafer has left. Trapped in the wreckage of his wasted career, Billy Ray knows the answer to the question: what happens when the opportunity doesn’t come - or worse - it comes and goes?"

I plan to listen to more audiobooks from the library in the future.

A link to an exceptional review in the Chicago Reader:

https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/the-sad-funny-monster-in-running-the-light/

THE FOOTPRINTS OF GOD by Greg Iles

 This is a paperback that Janny loaned to me and I finished on Fr 5/5/23.

It's a novel about a near future where AI has arrived. Science tries to make computers 'think' and it seems the easiest way is to 'copy' a human brain and this becomes a reality. 

The solution is that a man and a woman must be 'mixed' rather than to have a single brain. The thinking is: 'Any person who aspires to be president is automatically rejected because that person would be too narcissistic'. 

One of the characters believes that he has dreams in which he is 'the messiah'. The hypothesis is that the entire universe is striving toward consciousness and that God created the messiah so that he (God) could experience what it was like to be human. The messiah was for God, and not necessarily for Man's salvation. This was an interesting take and reminded me of PK Dick's thesis that mankind is 'stuck' in time waiting for the resurrection. What is seen as History is just an illusion. 

From the book's page at Kirkus:

"Wildly unbelievable tale of a sentient computer that—what else?—seizes control of the Internet, the world’s military defense systems, and a medical ethicist.A great, grab-you-by-the-throat beginning (“If you’re watching this tape, I’m dead”) rapidly loses strength as Iles (Sleep No More, 2002, etc.) piles up several far-fetched premises. Dr. David Tennant, a conveniently widowed medical ethicist who’s partly responsible for the development of Project Trinity, has been troubled by periods of narcolepsy, followed by peculiar visions, ever since his brain was scanned by a tremendously powerful MRI machine. Tennant’s scan, along with others, has been used to create a secret supercomputer for the National Security Agency. Tennant’s medical knowledge leads him to believe that the fatal stroke recently suffered by another member of the computer development team, Dr. Arthur Fielding, was actually murder: Fielding had misgivings about the computer, contemplated halting the project, and used holographic technology to hide information about the project in the crystal of his fob watch. The NSA, with egotistic tech billionaire Peter Godin and scheming NSA Deputy Director John Skow, want the project to continue, and they’ve gotten the psychotically vicious NSA security operative Geli Bauer eager to lie, cheat, steal, and kill to please her superiors. Only Tennant’s psychiatrist, Rachel Weiss, believes that he just might not be crazy as they set off, with $20,000 in cash and NSA goons on their trail, to Fielding’s Nags Head vacation home and then to Israel to learn more about the source of his visions. Meanwhile, Trinity takes over, neutron bomb-tipped missiles are launched and, instead of stopping them, Trinity insists on discussing gee-whiz theology with Tennant in preparation for a final step that might give Trinity godlike powers."

I was expecting a courtroom drama centered in the American South and the 'supercomputer' theme was a surprise. Iles is such a great author that I'd read anything he might happen to come up with. 

DIMENSION AND MIRACLES by Robert Sheckley

This is one of my ancient paperbacks that I bought at 'The Book House' on Sa 12/4/93, but I never read. I must have bought this book when I used to take the Honda Shadow to St. Louis to visit that old house with all the books (and a ghost and a cat). I think that the original building was torn down and now they are at a different location.

Refinished  4/29/23 and I'm so glad that I finally got around to reading this very funny and thought provoking novel. 

Tom Carmody has been picked as a winner in the intergalactic lottery. He's just a normal office worker and had no idea that there were other inhabited galaxies, let alone a lottery system over all of reality. 

He defends his winning ticket against another 'Carmody' and he wins because even though it was technically a 'mistake', since nothing in the entire universe is perfect, the computer cannot be faulted.  

He is taken to a city that has a lethal excess of 'motherly love'.

He meets the god of a planet that seems bored and looking for a new direction. 

The book is full of delightful encounters that are funny and thought provoking.

The book's tone is very similar to the satire of  'THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY' by Douglas Adams'. And, somewhat like the writings of Philip K. Dick. 

From a blog post 'Jeroen Admiraal':

"On the face of it, this is a silly story about a Mr. Carmody, a regular office clerk, who is informed one day by an alien that he is the winner of the Intergalactic Sweepstakes and he is whisked off to the Galactic Centre to receive his prize. What that Prize is, isn’t clear, but it talks. The rest of the book chronicles his efforts to return to planet Earth. On the way, he encounters parallel worlds, incompetent bureaucrats, a guy who designs planets and lots and lots of the absurd and the unexpected."

"What stood out to me was that Sheckley, although he stuffed the book full of the absurd, is very philosophical about it. He invents the wildest motivations for all the strange characters in the story. Mr Carmody may have to deal with a faulty computer, but the computer might have a religion for which it piously commits errors in celebration of life and free will. Mr Carmody might solicit the help of a local God, but has to argue with the sulking God that its natural Indwellingness makes it unhappy and should therefore applaud the arrival of Carmody as an external reality. In what is probably a homage to Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics (1965), we meet inventors of basic laws of nature – including some laws that Sheckley comes up with himself.

The plot – for lack of a better word – is mostly just a series of set-pieces as Mr Carmody is sent from one place to the next. My impression is that Sheckley is foremost a short-story writer and this novel is a string of short stories stitched together. This approach can get stale fairly quickly but the book is quite short and a quick read. Its best qualities therefore do not lie in character or plot development, but in individual scenes and how they play out – in witty dialogues, wordplay, sudden unexpected circumstances and clever concepts."

THE RINGMASTER by Morris West

 This is one of my ancient paperbacks that I first finished on Mo 2/17/97 'at the Club'. 

I refinished Th 4/27/23 after the home visit from Aetna (Lindsey Terrell)

The story takes place just before the US invasion of Iraq to unseat Saddam Hussein.  The plot is driven by a possible famine that would take place in Russia at the collapse of the country's government. A partnership between Germany and Japan would develop a procedure to feed the country. Investors would provide the money and major companies would introduce distribution and transportation services to make the plan work. 

The problem is that many would be suspicious of a partnership between Germany and Japan. It brings back bad memories of WWII.

The details of the plot revolve around how these 'movers & shakers' try to implement this audacious plan.

I really liked the book and would read more of Morris West.

From the book's page at Barnes and Noble:

...Autumn 1990. The world is teetering on the edge of war in the Gulf, Germany is reunited and a crumbling USSR stares ruin in the face. In Japan, a group of powerful men and women gather to create a rescue plan that will bring all three countries together for the first time in fifty years. Polyglot international publisher Gill Langton is mediator-in-chief. Treading the highest wire of global power-broking, he alone can balance politics with intrigue, maneuver with counter-maneuver. But his love for the beautiful, enigmatic Martha could bring it all tumbling down.