The Last Olympian Graphic Novel was great. Since the movies were not great they stopped at the second out of five in the series, so now I have a way to see what is happening in the books. Also you know what is happening because there are words so you know where you would be in the book with just words.

Number #16 in the Maisie Dobbs series. It is 1941 and Maisie works for SOE and is in pursuit of a murderer amongst the Free French stationed in London. If you've enjoyed the Maisie series, you will enjoy this one, too. Always well-written and engaging.

This book is based on the premise that the solidarity dividend is when folks come together across racial lines benefits society as a whole. It is a dense book written mostly from an economical standpoint which surmises that the cost of racism and white supremacy hurts not only Black people but white people as well.

I'm clearly missing something with this book, because the entire time I read it all I kept thinking was "there is no way this author is an actual human being." The book takes place over the span of 11 years. In most chapters, we follow Kate and Meredith, two neighbors living in a town where a woman named Shelby has just gone missing. Meredith, a doula with two children named Delilah and Leo, has started receiving threatening text messages from an unknown number. Shortly after, her and her daughter disappear. The book centers around what was going on with Meredith prior to her disappearance, with Kate providing insight into what happened after she disappeared. Set eleven years later, there are also chapters from Leo's point of view, where we get to see what it's like to have your sister suddenly return after being gone for eleven years. There are just so many reasons why this book didn't work at all. The biggest of them all is that it is poorly written. As an example of what you can expect, this is how the author thinks someone would describe potentially seeing figures outside of a house a few weeks before the occupants went missing - "It was dark out," Cassandra says, "a moonless night. The streetlight outside has been out a month or two. My husband, Marty, called the city about it a while ago, but it still hasn't been fixed. Our tax dollars...hard at work. The only light came from whatever porch lights were left on overnight." Yeah. Because when my neighbor turns up missing and I think I may have seen some strange figures skulking about their house, I'm definitely going to be remembering that it was a moonless night. Everyone else in the book is just as poor at their job. The pathologist couldn't correctly figure out how someone died. The police openly lied about evidence and just sort of hoped no one would ever question them or figure it out. A woman running a daycare is completely unaware of the abuse happening there - and then the mother just doesn't even care?? Who finds out their kid is being abused and is just like "eh, I better send them back the next day or they'll get soft." Are there no other daycares?? The final thing I'll mention is that the ending is completely bonkers. I guess if you're going to commit murder, this is the town to do it in - apparently no one is ever around to watch people murder people and then drag their bodies into their cars.

I really enjoyed this book. I found the characters to be very well developed and as I continued to read it I felt as if I actually knew them all. I typically enjoy mystery and thriller books, but I found myself not wanting to put this book down and highly recommend it.

Evelyn Valpey, aware of her painful past and unsure of her role in society and the war effort, takes on a job with the "War Office" where she takes on the enemy--Fifth Column--by adopting a character unknown to herself and her friends. A bit rambling at times and moving from 1939/40 to 1948, the story explores MI5, counter intelligence, and Evelyn's inner turmoil.

This was rather a difficult book to read not only from the point of view of the subject but also because of my lack of Russian knowledge. The names were tricky too, however it was very interesting and well worth persevering. The subject is the world's worst nuclear disaster which took place in Chernobyl in April 1986. We are taken through the events as they happened as well as the subsequent efforts to contain and clear up the fallout both literally and within the Russian government. It is a tragic tale but an important and noteworthy piece of history.

This book is about a family in the Jim Crow south. It centers around the story of a mother and daughter and the generational trauma of slavery and how it is perpetuated. Mental illness, abuse, and racism are heavy themes. While the book is set in the 1950s in a different era, there are clear connections to the present day.

Honestly, I just found this really boring? There was nothing novel about the storyline or the characters, and I didn't care about what happened at all. Set in a small neighborhood were everyone knows each other, the story takes place 14 months after Ruby Fletcher, a girl who rented a room in one of the houses, was convicted of killing two neighbors. With her conviction overturned, Ruby reappears in town determined to get revenge on everyone who turned against her. Everyone in town, in turn, is determined to completely ignore her until she leaves. Maybe it was because the victims were dead before the novel started, and were clearly disliked by everyone in the community anyway? There was no real reason to feel anything - and that goes for all of the characters. The narrator is really unreliable and wishy-washy, and her building the case of what happened at the end was illogical and would never hold up any weight in court. The rest of the neighborhood also seems like it's filled with jerks. It was just a very lackluster read, unfortunately.

I rate this 5 stars - it was a funny book because Hilo came crashing down to earth in his gray silver underpants. He never wanted to take them off which made me laugh.