This was just kind of boring? It's the story of real-life Belle da Costa Greene, who was hired by J. P. Morgan to be his personal librarian. She is in charge of finding and purchasing all of the rare books he wants for his collection, and in exchange he pays her a salary that is sufficient enough to keep her family comfortable. There's a lot of room for things to be stressful here - first, Belle is a woman, and it's not common for a woman to be hired for this position during the time period. She also deals with the stress of being the main income provider for her family, as her father left when she was a child. And, of course, Belle has to content with the fact that while on any official document she has been checking the "white," box, with enough digging, anyone would be able to find out she was lying - Belle's father is black. This is very much historical fiction, and is not at all a biography about Belle - however, with that in mind, I expected more to happen? It seems like a book where the character is constantly stressed, but nothing ever really seems to happen. There's no real tension or drama here to make the book compelling.

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.

This is another one of those books where the journey is really fun, but then the author proves that writing endings is really challenging. You can have a great idea for an atmospheric mystery, but you also need to have a great idea for how you are going to close things out, which Sarah Pearse didn't seem to have. The book follows Detective Elin Warner, who isn't really a detective anymore after a case went wrong and she decided to take some extended leave. Elin and her boyfriend, Will, have arrived at a hotel in the Swiss Alps to celebrate her brother's engagement. The hotel just happens to also be a really creepy former sanatorium, because the designer thought that would be a super cool place to build a fancy hotel. To continue with wonderful decision making skills, Elin also decides that this would be a fitting trip to accuse her brother of possibly killing their younger sibling during a childhood vacation. Because, hey, nothing says "happy engagement!" like "did you kill our brother, though? You can totally tell me if you did." There are just a few problems with this plan - first, Elin doesn't really talk to her brother anymore, so finding time to accuse him of this is a challenge. Second, his fiancée just went missing, and it may or may not be in poor taste to accuse him of anything given those circumstances. Third, there is an avalanche approaching the hotel, so they really all need to leave. And, of course, fourth, some people are starting to get murdered. After staying behind and getting trapped from the avalanche, Elin has to really deal with all her personal issues at once because she is the only cop-like person on the mountain who can investigate anything. No one can come help until the weather clears, which probably won't be for a while. There were a few issues I had with the book, two of which I found to be major issues. The first is that this was a fun crime novel, but ultimately it seems like no one could ever be punished for the murders that happened here. Elin isn't a detective in this area, as she points out again and again, and she tends to disobey the orders she is given (or just hides what she is doing because if she doesn't ask permission, she isn't doing anything wrong?) so it seems like everything she has gathered would be utterly useless. She also has a weird tendency to tell everyone around her everything she has discovered. Like, maybe they don't all need to know every piece of evidence you have gathered? You know someone around here is killing people, maybe stop telling everyone everything and you'd have better luck. The second is that the ending was just really dumb. The culprit didn't really make any sense, and it seemed like a massive overreaction for that person to be the one responsible for everything. I think it's worth it for the fun atmosphere of being trapped in the mountains with a killer, as long as you keep your expectations in line for the ending.

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.

This book is by a woman for women. It is about feminism and being the person you were meant to be, not the one society tells you to be. It is a memoir about one woman’s journey through this process and the lessons she learned along the way. Fast read!

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.

This is a very slow-paced book about a sibling relationship. I do not feel like the synopsis did this book justice as I was expecting something different. The plot was lacking substance for me in general. Overall, it was an okay book that I wouldn't re-read.

I liked the book a lot!

Good book, wish it had more details, a lot of suspense, overall I would recommend it to certain people.

Very good story, shows how far bravery can take you. Also demonstrates how judgmental people can be, and why it is bad for society.