4/17/2014

Review: Landry Park


Landry Park
Landry Park by Bethany Hagen

My rating: 2 of 5 stars




I wanted to like it, but it really doesn't live up to the giants of the genre at all. It's Kansas City setting is just incidental, and there's a troubling anti-Asian thread that made me uncomfortable at nearly every mention.

There are better books for nearly every aspect of this novel, and a lot of the plot here left me rolling my eyes.

Unfortunate.



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4/10/2014

Review: My Story


My Story
My Story by Elizabeth Smart

My rating: 0 of 5 stars




I can't bring myself to give this a rating using stars. I have seen and heard Elizabeth Smart interviewed multiple times since she's reached adulthood. I have found her to be smart, thoughtful, and very composed when she speaks about what happened to her when she was 14.

That said, this book is not very good, which should probably be laid entirely at the feet of the ghostwriter. I hope it made Elizabeth a lot of money she can put toward her foundation: she's doing the real work of changing minds and lives there. This book isn't likely to do much of that on its own.



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Review: Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery


Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery
Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery by Robert Kolker

My rating: 3 of 5 stars




As a book that explores how women can be sucked into the world of Craigslist sex work despite its obvious risks of disease, pain, and in the case of these women: death. The book struggles in the last third because of the lack of leads/suspects in the case, and there's no satisfying conclusion to the book because there's never been an arrest or even a likely suspect or person of interest. Attempts to make one of the residents of Oak Beach appear like the killer are pretty flat.

It's a well-written book, but it almost feels like it came before it's time. So close in time to the deaths of these women, and without a lot of the answers that a coherent investigation/prosecution would have provided, it's ultimately unsatisfying. I think it would have been better edited down to a piece of long-form journalism.



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4/02/2014

Review: Panic


Panic
Panic by Lauren Oliver

My rating: 4 of 5 stars




This book is probably the best one that Lauren Oliver has written to date. It has a marvelously evocative setting: in many cases the scene descriptions will hint to you what is going on in a scene long before the action or dialogue take you there. It's believable and yet dark, and the realistic tone grounds what could have otherwise become a silly story. This is the Hunger Games without the fantasy setting. It's a story of poverty, desperation, and the threshold between childhood and adulthood. I really liked it a lot. The only thing that keeps it from five stars is that it either ended too quickly or not quickly enough. The last chapter felt tacked on in a way that either should have been expanded on or excised completely.





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