Month: September 2021

#Diverseathon2021: October’s Host and Prompt

How is October 1st tomorrow???  This year is the complete opposite of last year which lasted about 10 years… Now, it is time to talk about Ocotber’s prompt and host for #Diverseathon2021:

For October the prompt is: A main character who lives/lived with abuse.

October’s Host is Yami @ A Bookworm’s Thoughts
She will host at Facebook and Instagram.

**She will also be having a giveaway: See her Facebook and Instagram pages for information on the giveaway.

For full details on this year long read-a-thon, please click here.
And don’t forget about the awesome GRAND PRIZE at the end of the year. Click the link here for that information.

What am I reading for October for #Diverseathon2021?

A Breath too Late by Rocky Callen

Book Description:

For fans of Girl in Pieces, All the Bright Places, and Girl, Interrupted comes a haunting and breathtaking YA contemporary debut novel that packs a powerful message: hope can be found in the darkness.

Seventeen-year-old Ellie had no hope left. Yet the day after she dies by suicide, she finds herself in the midst of an out-of-body experience. She is a spectator, swaying between past and present, retracing the events that unfolded prior to her death.

But there are gaps in her memory, fractured pieces Ellie is desperate to re-assemble. There’s her mother, a songbird who wanted to break free from her oppressive cage. The boy made of brushstrokes and goofy smiles who brought color into a gray world. Her brooding father, with his sad puppy eyes and clenched fists. Told in epistolary-like style, this deeply moving novel sensitively examines the beautiful and terrible moments that make up a life and the possibilities that live in even the darkest of places.

What are YOU reading for #Diverseathon2021 in October?

Book Review: The Boys from Brazil by Ira Levin

The Boys From Brazil
Author: Ira Levin

Published: February 12, 1976
312 Pages

Reviewed By: Kim
Kim’s Rating: 4 stars

Book Description:

Alive and hiding in South America, the fiendish Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele gathers a group of former colleagues for a horrifying project—the creation of the Fourth Reich. Barry Kohler, a young investigative journalist, gets wind of the project and informs famed Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman, but before he can relay the evidence, Kohler is killed.

Thus Ira Levin opens one of the strangest and most masterful novels of his career. Why has Mengele marked a number of harmless aging men for murder? What is the hidden link that binds them? What interest can they possibly hold for their killers: six former SS men dispatched from South America by the most wanted Nazi still alive, the notorious “Angel of Death”? One man alone must answer these questions and stop the killings—Lieberman, himself aging and thought by some to be losing his grip on reality.

At the heart of The Boys from Brazil lies a frightening contemporary nightmare, chilling and all too possible.

Kim’s Review:

I randomly found this book referenced in a silly conspiracy book I found in the clearance section of Books-a-Million. It was about Hitler’s use of dark magic in his rise to power and all it did was disprove the author’s whole thesis. I didn’t make it through chapter 3 of that book, but thankfully, I got a good book recommendation out of it.

I’m not sure I’d call Rosemary’s Baby horror, and I kinda feel the same way about this book. The overall idea is a scary one. However, the book comes across more as a thriller with some medical leanings. I mean, Dr. Mengele is the main villain so of course there’s gonna be some medical weirdness happening. I don’t want to give away the twist, though I knew half of it going into the story. I was still surprised once the twist was completely laid out for me. I didn’t see the whole picture clearly until then and I actually liked that. Even the open ending didn’t bother me!! It did get a little slow in the middle, but other than that, I really enjoyed this book!!

Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK

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Book Review: The Girl in the Locked Room by Mary Downing Hahn

The Girl in the Locked Room: A Ghost Story
Author:  Mary Downing Hahn

Published:
200 Pages

Reviewed By: Kim
Kim’s Rating: 3 stars

Book Description:

A family moves into an old, abandoned house. Jules’s parents love the house, but Jules is frightened and feels a sense of foreboding. When she sees a pale face in an upstairs window, though, she can’t stop wondering about the eerie presence on the top floor—in a room with a locked door. Could it be someone who lived in the house a century earlier?

Her fear replaced by fascination, Jules is determined to make contact with the mysterious figure and help unlock the door. Past and present intersect as she and her ghostly friend discover—and change—the fate of the family who lived in the house all those many years ago.

Kim’s Review:

Not my favorite of her books. Normally she goes all out with the scary, even though she’s writing for kids. This one was just … weird. Ok, it has a ghost but then Hahn throws in some science fiction stuff about alternate realities and there’s kinda sorta time travel but not really. As a kids story, it was ok. As a ghost story, eh; I prefer my ghosts to be scary. As a horror story,  it was no good. I wasn’t scared. I doubt anyone who reads it would be scared. The characters are ok, nothing really stands out about them. Oak Hill is fabulous but other than a few descriptions, it doesn’t even play a big part in the story. This book was just alright. Sure, I’d give it to a kid to read, but I wouldn’t expect an adult to get much out of it.

Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK

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