The Benefits Of Being An Octopus brilliantly captures the story of Zoey, a middle schooler charged with the task of taking care of her three baby siblings. So when a teacher notices her ability to speak up when it matters, Zoey is encouraged to join the debate team. At home, Zoey deals with an overworked mom being verbally abused by her boyfriend. Explaining topics such as gun violence, verbal abuse, and finding friends, The Benefits Of Being An Octopus follows Zoey as she speaks up for the things that matter to her and those she cares about.

Set in a world where Slasher films really did happen, Lynnette is a member of what's known as the "The Final Girls Club." The club is made up of women who meet a very specific criteria - they all were the only survivors of two massacres, and they all killed the person responsible. They meet once a month to support each other and work towards moving on with their lives - until one day one of the members doesn't show up on time. Her monster has come back to kill her. Now, Lynnette is on a race to not only keep herself alive, but to keep the members of her club alive as well. This probably would have worked pretty well as a movie, honestly, but as a book it didn't quite work for me. First, Lynnette as a narrator was awful. She's unreliable from the start, so I found myself utterly distracted the entire book because I was always trying to figure out if I should believe what was happening. I know a lot of books use the unreliable narrator trope now, but it was a difficult sell in this book. I would have much preferred if a different narrator (Heather?) was responsible for telling us what was going on. Or if Lynette's character was tweaked a little. Second, the plot twists were not really plot twists. It was really easy to figure out who was going to be responsible for the killings happening, so that was disappointing. The twists didn't leave me going "oh wow!" so much as "ugh, finally, we got there." My third issue is that it seems like Grad Hendrix either didn't keep track of everything, didn't want to explain everything, or thought that no one would pay attention. For example, at one point a character is mentioned to have a cell phone that they are going to use to keep track of Amber Alerts and to check in with every five hours. Three sentences later, they say that they're going to keep the phone turned off and only have it on for the check in times. How...how are you checking for Amber Alerts? Why did you make a big deal about checking for Amber Alerts, only to then say you're turning the phone off and not getting them anyway? In another scene, Lynnette is dictating a message for someone to send. She claims that it was a difficult process, and that she had to spell out a lot of the words. The example given is using "p as in Paul which is fascinating, because the only words with "p" in her message are purchased, photos, people, and peace. Am I really supposed to believe that someone couldn't spell one of those words without help? Really? I could go on and on, but honestly? I had high hopes for this book. The summary sounded great, and I was really excited to read it. I'm glad I didn't spend money on it. The writing is just not good.

A very exciting book. Has many humorous elements but once again I wish it was more in depth.

This isn't my usual type of book but I liked it a lot. Jiles did a great job of creating two unique and interesting characters, Captain Kidd, a tired and grizzled veteran of 71 who travels through Texas reading the news to groups who gather to hear him, and Johanna, a 10 year old white girl who was rescued after being held captive by Indians for four years. In the quest to return Johanna to her relatives, both of them grow and learn and show the reader what real family means.

This book is a great read whether you're familiar with Alan Cummings or not. In addition to his other skills as an actor and performer, Cummings is an excellent writer and an even better storyteller. I highly recommend the audiobook, read by Cummings himself, as the best way to take in this sad, funny, honest and very engrossing memoir.

Eileen is a dark and disturbing Christmastime story about a young woman living in an unnamed New England town, sometime in the 1960s, caring for her alcoholic father while working at a prison for boys. Is Eileen an unreliable narrator or are things really about to go off the rails? Moshfegh's writing paints a vivid picture of this bleak winter, and the doomed friendship that gives Eileen a sliver of hope for her future.

Told from the perspective of fifteen-year-old Libby during the 1980s, the story starts one night when Libby's younger sister, Ellen, annoys their mom so bad that she kicks Ellen out of the car and tells her to walk home. Ellen decides to hitchhike her way back, only to get into the car of a strange man who doesn't seem willing to let her out, resulting in her having to jump. I was expecting this to be more of a thriller or mystery, following what happened after the car ride and them finding the guy who did it. That's not really the story, though. This is less a mystery/thriller and more a coming of age story about a family who just happened to have a girl who was molested in a car. I found Libby to be really boring as a narrator, and the timeline itself was very confusing - you'd be reading something present tense and all of a sudden, within the same paragraph, they suddenly jump to an event that happened years ago. The premise was interesting, but I found the writing style to be disjointed and the summary didn't really match what the book was.

I loved this book. I enjoyed how it included elements of the LGBTQ+ community. The storyline was great and it had unexpected yet interesting plot twists.

What a fun book! I like the alligator character in the book. I also enjoyed how the elephant sneezed out the words-that was funny and creative. The illustrations were perfect and the elephant images turned into letters was really clever. Elephants are one of my fav animals!

I really liked how funny this book was! It had all genres and I recommend it to ANYONE!!!