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.

Ms. Bixby's Last Day was a different kind of book than what I usually gravitate towards (sci-fi). But I really loved this book anyway. It's about three boys who were in Ms. Bixby's class. When Ms. Bixby resigns during the school year because of terminal illness, the three boys band together to help make Ms. Bixby's dreams come true, to acknowledge how she changed their lives forever. I loved this feel-good realistic fiction that bounced between flashbacks and present day, told in turn by the three boys. I strongly encourage this book to basically everyone.

I have only ever read one book by Jodi Picoult before so was not sure I would like this but it was a very clever and interesting story with a twist at the end. Also it had a lot of interesting information on elephants which has made me want to investigate them a bit more too.

In this book, Henry's parents went to the Sweetheart Dance. Henry and Mudge went to stay at Mrs. Hopper's house. While they were there they played with all her costumes. Henry dressed up like a man and Mudge was a poodle. They had so much fun. Henry's parents came back and were surprised to see them dressed up!

The 7th and last book of the Rock Harbor Series. I am sad that I got to the end of the series. But loved reading about Rock Harbor and watching them learn and grow as people (characters). Dana, friend to Bree, is returning to Rock Harbor after her relationship hit the rocks. The past and the present come together. Love the Rock Harbor series and will try another series by this author.

Great book! Today's society glamorizes influencers and this book shows the dark side of what we consider influencing today. I felt connected to the characters. It was a very fast read, and I wish I could read it again for the first time. Highly recommend!

All of the bikes are really cool. My favorite is the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-12R because I am wondering if ninjas use this bike and it is the "king of all sports bikes."

I didn't really enjoy this book until I started getting closer to the end, to be honest. The interview format is definitely not for me, someone who tends to skip dialogue tags and just figure out context as I go - at one point I realized I should probably have made some kind of guide as to who was who and their relationship, but it felt like I was too far in the book to really bother with it. It's a great story about how everyone struggles, and how not everyone gets redemption. There was no one really likeable in the book, though? Everyone had so many faults that I wasn't really rooting for their success as a band. It's not as as good as The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (by a longshot) but could be really good as an audiobook, especially with different people narrating each character.

This is very much more of a character-driven story, and a character-exploration story, rather than a page turning, thrilling mystery novel. The main character, Anna, has just recently returned home after suffering a family tragedy and being kicked out by her husband. A detective who specializes in missing children, Anna's hometown has long haunted her as a girl she went to school with went missing in a still-unsolved case. Just as she returns, as it happens, another girl has gone missing - and Anna very quickly finds herself involved in solving the case. As she does so, her past trauma comes to light and becomes a force she will need to deal with if she is going to find Cameron and return to her family. I didn't really find this to be a page turner. In fact, it took me a while to get past the first section, because it's really just setting the stage and nothing much happens. I finally sat down and just plowed through the book in a day. It wasn't bad, but everything felt kind of flat and I didn't really care about Anna as a character. Even as she cried about the unknown trauma she had experienced, I never felt myself dying to know what had happened to her that led to her husband kicking her out. I just didn't care. I also don't love using real-life cases in a fictional story. It just felt exploitive and gross to me. Polly was a real girl who underwent something terrible, as did her family, and using it as some form of entertainment just doesn't sit right with me. Especially when you're going to make it a big piece of your plot, with your character investigating her bedroom and listening to a psychic talk about her.

Elena Ferrante continues with themes of background, growth, and discovery. The story takes place again in Naples and explores the two worlds of the higher and lower classes. The protagonist, Giovanna, is torn between where she fits in and what is the truth.