May, June and July Book Reviews

At the beginning of May, I read two non-fiction books, which were both really good, and then I started book one of a long trilogy.  That first book (The Passage) is almost 800 pages long so I told myself that if I didn't bond with it right away, to let it go.  I immediately loved it so I grabbed the remaining two books and planned to read those in June, but I had a couple of other books to finish first.

I don't know about you but I always think I'm going to get sooooo much reading done while I'm on vacation and that usually doesn't happen.  My kids have the audacity to ask me questions and to start conversations with me on the plane.  The nerve of them.  (Sarcasm.)  Then when they're in the pool, I kind of have to keep an eye on them, and Rich and I talk.  So while I did do some reading, it wasn't nearly as much as I thought it would be.  And that's perfectly fine.  This was a family vacation, not a reading vacation.

I decided to delay my book review until I had finished all three books in The Passage trilogy, which is why you are reading three months of books in one post.







If you like reading Stephen King and/or you've read and enjoyed Margaret Atwood's The Maddaddam Trilogy, you're a good candidate for The Passage Trilogy.  It sometimes falls in the apocalyptic category, which is how I came across it, and it had really good reviews, so I decided to give it a chance even though I didn't think I would like anything to do with vampires.  Cronin is such a fantastic writer, he immediately drew me in and kept me interested.  I love reading books that really pull me in and make me feel like I'm there.  One night after I had read all three books I was walking on the bike path and there was rustling above me in the trees.  I kind of jumped and thought, "Vampires!" because I had become so involved in those books.

American Prison and Bad Blood were the two non-fiction books I read back in May.  



American Prison is an in-depth look at both the current and past prison systems of the U.S.  It's written by a journalist who went undercover to work in a private prison in Louisiana.  I learned so much reading this book.  The goal of privately run prisons is to turn a profit.  There was a time in history when prisoners were leased out, so to speak, as laborers.  The abuse was such that these prisoners were forced to work like slaves.  The author balances the book by alternating chapters between the history of prisons and his time spent undercover working in a prison.  Some of the information could have easily been a dry read but he kept it interesting and didn't drag it out.



I'm assuming everyone knows about Bad Blood so I'm not going to recap.  I found it super interesting and liked how the author set up the chapters.  I was fearful there would be too much blah blah background information dragging the book down but this wasn't the case for me.



Daisy Jones and The Six is a fictional account of a band told through interviews with its members and related parties.  This book has been hyped up everywhere by everyone and I was excited to read it because I've always been interested in the music industry.  Don't hate me but . . . I did not love it. I thought it was just okay and certain sections seemed to drag on for me.  I do give the author, Taylor Reid Jenkins, credit for a creative idea, but, in my opinion, it fell flat.  All of the characters seemed to have the same voice, so unless I read who was "speaking" it could have been any of them.  I know people say this is an amazing book to listen to, but I'd much rather read.  That's just what I prefer and listening to a book I've already read just to hear how much better it is as an audible isn't worth my time.

Over the years, I've had several friends who have worked (and still do) in the music industry, specifically with bands on tour.  I even hired a CPA (there's a good work story behind this that always makes me laugh to myself) to work on my team who, in a previous life, had been the drummer in a band with a record deal and a tour.  I used to ask them (and I still do) a billion questions because the act of putting together a rock show is super interesting to me and I love learning about it.  I know this is probably going to sound obnoxious but I picked up on "inconsistencies" in the parts of the book where the band was out on tour.  Maybe touring life was different back in the 1970s but it's a common misconception that bands return to their hotel rooms after a show.  They actually hit the road and drive through the night.  It's the best way to guarantee you won't be late for the next show.  Also, new, not well-known bands (like at the beginning of the book) usually don't even get hotel rooms.  They sleep on the bus and shower at the venue.  Record labels want to spend as little money as possible on new bands and if they did provide hotel rooms, you'd have two people to a room.  Also, they seemed to be spending a ton of time in hotels.  Did they only perform twice a week?  That's not going to bring in much revenue.  Okay, so a bit detailed, but stuff like that bothered me and made the fictional aspect of the book glaringly obvious to me.  



I picked up The Last Summer of the Camperdowns because it takes place on Cape Cod.  Warning: the first couple of chapters are slow, but it picks up and was an enjoyable (albeit a bit sad), somewhat poetic read.  Twelve year old Riddle Camperdown witnesses a crime but keeps silent.  Events surrounding the crime unfold over the summer, and as summer ends, the mystery is solved.  Fans of suspense will like this.  It's a little different than the typical thrillers that are so popular right now.



After I finished The Passage trilogy, I need a palate cleanser so I picked up The Flight Attendant.  Cassandra Bowden, a flight attendant, awakens in a dark hotel room in a foreign country next to a man who has been stabbed.  She's no stranger to heavy drinking, picking up strangers in different countries and lying.  The lies begin and continue until there seems to be no way out.  I thought this was pretty good for a trendy thriller.  I was able to figure out one of the twists at the end, but whatever.  A good, quick read.



The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace was such a thought-provoking book.  It's really an incredible book.  I finished reading it the other day and even though I've started reading something else, I'm still thinking about it.  Rob Peace grew up in crime-ridden Newark NJ, the son of a single mother and an incarcerated father.  While some people are considered smart because they are able to score high grades due to freaky memorization skills, Rob had a curious mind and wanted to understand each and every layer of what he was learning.  In short, he was brilliant.  He graduated from Yale with a degree in molecular biochemistry, but for reasons no one truly understands, he never followed through on his future potential.

This is one of the best books I've read this year.  The author does an amazing job at bringing you right into Rob's life while breaking down how race, class, drugs, family, friends, community, guns impacted how he lived.  Everyone should read this.  It's an American tragedy.  




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