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

This book is a non-fiction and its about a lion fighting a hyena clan (5 hyenas). It was a battle and it was time to fight and the hyena leader was pushed to the ground by the lion. One hyena tried to sneak up from behind and the lion spotted him and bit him. My favorite part was that the lion won!

It was an interesting read and I discovered some new facts. In a nutshell it explains how Earth was formed and how everything lined up just right at the precise times and distances to create life as we know it. It delves into the subjects of chemistry, biology, and physics throughout, while naming notable scientists, physicists, etc. Overall, it took me quite some time to get through the book because it did not hold my interest, page after page.

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

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.

Book number two in the Aloha Reef Series. This one is about Annie Tagama who is a volcanologist. She recently had an injury and is trying to work her way back to where she was before the accident. She and Mano Oana, who we met in the previous book are trying to help her brother whom they thought was dead. The mystery of why he returned and who is threating the family.

Honestly, I just found this really boring? There was nothing novel about the storyline or the characters, and I didn't care about what happened at all. Set in a small neighborhood were everyone knows each other, the story takes place 14 months after Ruby Fletcher, a girl who rented a room in one of the houses, was convicted of killing two neighbors. With her conviction overturned, Ruby reappears in town determined to get revenge on everyone who turned against her. Everyone in town, in turn, is determined to completely ignore her until she leaves. Maybe it was because the victims were dead before the novel started, and were clearly disliked by everyone in the community anyway? There was no real reason to feel anything - and that goes for all of the characters. The narrator is really unreliable and wishy-washy, and her building the case of what happened at the end was illogical and would never hold up any weight in court. The rest of the neighborhood also seems like it's filled with jerks. It was just a very lackluster read, unfortunately.

It is June 1940. Paris is occupied by the Germans and Adolf Hitler is scheduled to visit. Kate Rees, an American sharpshooter, who learned to shoot on a farm in rural Oregon, is living in England with her Welsh husband when he and her baby daughter are killed during a German bomb attack. Kate is recruited by British intelligence and after some brief training, armed with only a rifle and a need for revenge, she parachutes into Occupied France to assassinate Hitler. She misses and runs for her life coming to the realization that the plan was a decoy, and she was set up. Extremely well-written historical thriller. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The next book in the Maze Runner series has basically the same review as the Maze Runner. The stakes are higher, and it turns out that escaping the maze was only the beginning. I was gripped at some times, wanted to give up on the book at other times. Overall, the book was rather exciting and really had me thinking.

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.