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.

The book Sisters was one of the best I have read. First I love that the author goes back in time so you can see what happens in the past but it still goes with where you are in the book. Also I like that Reinas siblings are in the book. Furthermore, the drawings were awesome.

Grace leaves an unfulfilling marriage in Australia and travels to Paris where she becomes a model for the House of Dior. Supposedly based on a true story, Grace finds her true self far away from home. Some of the setting seemed implausible; otherwise it was a quick and educational read (learning about fashion in the post WWII era).

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.

Sindbad in the Land of Giants was a wonderful book that we read together. It was beautifully illustrated. It tells the tale of a very long journey, part horror and part humor. Sindbad gets lost and lands on the Mountain of Monkeys. It was a fun adventure!

This work of fiction is both disturbing and uplifting at the same time. It follows the story of a child whose father was a meth dealer and whose mother was an addict and the family she made for herself outside of the traditional definitions of family.

How To Spy On A Shark was a good book. It tells the story of a team of marine biologists who go out to sea to study Mako Sharks. They catch, tag and release one mako shark and then follow it with a special robot that they can track the shark on. Pretty cool!

Louise Erdrich’s novel speaks of her ancestors and Chippewa culture. Her grandfather fought termination bringing his flight to Washington DC to help defeat the proposed dispossession of the Chippewa from Turtle Mountain, North Dakota. At points the book dulls and could have been shorter, but her characters come to life and her story teaches.

This book was complex in how it portrayed grief and how it can affect family/friends/lovers. There were thoughts I read that someone I know has expressed feeling at that time in their life and made me reflect on if I did the right things during that time.

This book was great! I loved the character of Sam Hill. Sam was born with a genetic abnormality, ocular albinism, which gives him red eyes! How he deals with that all the way through his life, with his loving parents, and best friends Ernie and Mickie! I really enjoyed this story.