I have been waiting to read this book! So glad that it taught me the dangers and advantages of being sick with a disease.

I had a weird feeling about this book as soon as one character saw a boy bleeding to death in a field and decided it was appropriate and normal to refer to him as the "beautiful boy." I kept going, and this book was just not entirely what I thought it was going to be. The expectation here would have been that this book was about finding whoever was responsible for hurting Karel, the boy left to die in the field, but that's really not the point at all. This is more a coming of age story about the three children who found him. Matthew is dealing with his new realization that the world has darkness and is unfair, and that sometimes finding answers doesn't bring you the closure you wanted in life. Zoe has just found out that one of her parents is involved in an affair that she can tell no one about, unless she wants to risk breaking apart her family. On the same vein, she's exploring the idea of love figuring out who she wants to be. Duncan, the youngest, has taken the trauma of finding a dying boy in a new direction - he has realization that, being adopted, now is the time for him to seek out his first mother, before something happens to her.

One of the best books I have ever read!

I actually enjoyed this more than I did The Silent Patient. It is a quick read with an interesting twist at the end. The Greek mythology and university society (“The Maidens”) make for an interesting plot as does the therapist who is the main character.

This was quite a short book but had a lot of story in it. The ending was very surprising and I am not actually sure I liked that part but the rest of it was interesting and kept me reading. I have never read any other books by this author but might just after this.

Leopards is a non-fiction book about Leopards. Leopards live in Africa's grasslands and forest. They're able to stay cool hanging out in the shade. They hunt for antelope, birds and small mammals. Leopards are very strong and use their legs to climb tall trees.

My sister recommended this book to me! It was pretty good. It had a few twists you didn't see coming. Some of the incidents at the beginning of the book happened to fast for me and I didn't understand. Then the book had a good story with characters you end of liking. I would recommend this book as a light, easy beach read.

I really enjoyed this book. I loved the way that the author used different chapters to take us to various different parts of the world and the United States to demonstrate how the history of the slave trade in America is represented and passed on either truthfully or not quite as truthfully. It is incredibly interesting, whilst at the same time exposing some horrific facts. Unfortunately I listed to this as an audiobook and did not feel that the author Clint Smith, despite being a poet, read it with much feeling or empathy. It was a relatively quick read but definitely leads me to want to do some more exploring of the information touched on in the book.

READ THIS BOOK. One of my absolute favorite books this year, easily. Akkad has created a beautiful and haunting tale that I loved every single moment of reading. Amir is a nine-year-old boy escaping from Syria with his family in search of a better life. His journey takes him first to Egypt, and then onto a boat heading to an island, where his family is sure they will have better chances of survival. With the chapters alternating between what Amir experiences on the boat and what happens after, every moment of this story is just tragically amazing.

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.