The Case of the Missing Bubble Gum Card
The Case of the Missing Bubble Gum Card: A Jarvis Mann Detective Short Story
Author: R Weir
27 Pages in Kindle
Published: April 3, 2014
Dates Read: July 14-18, 2016
My Rating: 5 Stars
Book Summary from Amazon:
Jarvis Mann was a Private Detective, whose business thrived on the mundane, paying the bills following cheating spouses, getting in the middle of messy divorces and working for the Fat Cat Insurance companies running down false insurance claims. But one day on his office steps a young man coaxing with the simple word “Please” convinces him to help on a Winter’s Sunday afternoon to find a missing valuable Ernie Banks Rookie Bubble Gum Card. With a dry sense of humor he drives the Denver streets from door to door, friend to friend, until a clue leads to a surprising discovery, a young man’s personal pain and his friends selfish act, teach Jarvis a life lesson that will shape him with new hope and resolve.
My Review:
There are some short stories that are good and some that are bad. They can leave you wanting more in a good way or in a bad way. They can be a complete story or frustrate you ad they leave you hanging. They can be a good introduction to a book. The Case of the Missing Bubblegum card was a complete short story. It is short- just 27 pages- but is completely satisfying. We are introduced to Jarvis Mann, a private investigator. A young man comes to him in search of his missing baseball card. Jarvis decided to help and the story is the search for the card with some unexpected results.
I got this short story on Amazon for free. I honestly did not have high expectations of the story (sometimes there is a reason why things are free….). I was surprised and highly enjoyed this short story and liked Jarvis Mann. It can definitely be read in one sitting.
I plan on checking out the next book in the series to see how a full length novel plays out. That next novel is Tracking a shadow. And if I like it I may check out the rest of the series.
I highly recommend this short story!! In this short story I already like Jarvis Mann, much as I like Cormoran Strike in Robert Galbraith’s novels.
***I will be reading the next book in the series( Tracking a Shadow) very soon as R Weir sent it to me. Thank you R Weir!
Thirteen Reasons Why
Author: Jay Asher
AUDIOBOOK
Published: October 18, 2007
Dates Read: July 9-13, 2016
My Rating: 4 Stars
Book Summary from Amazon:
You can’t stop the future.
You can’t rewind the past.
The only way to learn the secret . . . is to press play.
Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker—his classmate and crush—who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah’s voice tells him that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he’ll find out why.
Clay spends the night crisscrossing his town with Hannah as his guide. He becomes a firsthand witness to Hannah’s pain, and as he follows Hannah’s recorded words throughout his town, what he discovers changes his life forever.
My Review:
Thirteen Reasons Why is a powerful book. I listened to the book in audio form which was the perfect choice. You get the reasons why Hannah committed suicide from her in her own voice. I found the choice of cassette tape very interesting and different!! I didn’t realize that teenagers knew what cassette tapes were!! (I may have missed the reason why cassette tapes were used as I was listening to this while I was driving in the car). The narrators who performed Clay and Hannah were PERFECT! They expressed all the emotion the characters had. You could really feel the torment Clay had as he listened to the tapes and wondered why he was sent them. The anguish and anger he felt towards the end. Hannah as well.
The whole story comes down to the ripple effect. And each story is connected to the other. Some of the reasons/stories were better than others. It was sad in some ways as you know from the beginning that Hannah did commit suicide. Her story comes in her own words, but you have to wonder how did no one see the signs that she showed of a girl in trouble. By the end of the book you can feel how much Clay has changed.
I recommend Thirteen Reasons Why and definitely recommend the audio form. Audio is the perfect medium for this book!
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