This Year in Review

Here is an overview of the 37 titles I've read this past year, sorted by rating.

5 Stars

                Only Time Will Tell- Jeffrey Archer

                Glow- Amy Kathleen Ryan

                Fezariu’s Epiphany- David M. Brown

                Cavemen, Monks & Slow Food: A History of Eating Well- Devra Gartenstein

                The Deal- Adam Gittlin

                Switched- Amanda Hocking

                Wizard for Hire- Jim Butcher

                The Da Vinci Code- Dan Brown

                Lord of Chaos- Robert Jordan

                Of Cats and Men- Nina de Gramont

                The Fires of Heaven- Robert Jordan

                Broetry- Brian McGackin

4 Stars

                Conversations and Cosmopolitans: Awkward Moments, Mixed Drinks, and How a Mother and Son Finally Shared Who They Really Are- Robert Rave & Jane Rave

                Shattered Dreams- Ellie James

                Struck By Living- Julie K. Hersh

                The Burning- Jane Casey

                Jane Was Here- Sarah Kernochan

                FOREX Frontiers: The Essentials of Currency Trading- Ivan Cavric

                Search & Destroy: Why You Can’t Trust Google, Inc.- Scott Cleland & Ira Brodsky

                White River Junctions: Empires of Flour, Steel and Ambition- Dave Norman

                Daughter of Dreams- Marshall Miller

                Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood- Koren Zailckas

                Born Free: A Lioness of Two Worlds- Joy Adamson

3 Stars

                The Faculty Club- Danny Tobey

                In Their Blood- Sharon Potts

                On Lives Subway Supplement- Michael J. Parish

                Making Rounds with Oscar- David Dosa

                Women of Shadows: A Study of the Wives and Mothers of Southern Italy- Ann Cornelisen

                The Roald Dahl Omnibus- Roald Dahl

                The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer- Ellen Rimbauer

2 Stars

                Midnight Wilderness: Journeys in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge- Debbie S. Miller

                Eviction Earth- T.C. Pannone

                Valentino Speaks: The Wisdom of Rudolph Valentino, Cues and Views from the Other Side- Wayne Vincent Hatford

                The Monsters: Mary Shelley and the Curse of Frankenstein- Dorothy Hoobler

1 Star

                This Letter to Norman Court- Pablo d’Stair

                Just Kid Me Old Highway Old Wildway O Pecos Bill- William Linehan

                Sector 64: Coup de Main- Dean M. Cole

 Reviews for most of them can be found here on my blog. Happy reading!!

"Just Kid Me Old Highway Old Wildway O Pecos Bill" by William Linehan

Book Details:

Title: Just Kid Me Old Highway Old Wildway O Pecos Bill

Author: William Linehan

Published: 2011- Sagebrush Press

ISBN: 978-0-930704-35-3

Pages: 590 pages

Genre: Fiction

Rating: 1 of 5

Read In: 7 days

My Review:

The title says it all- this book makes absolutely no sense. The majority of the time I found myself staring dumbfounded at the pages, hoping Mr. Linehan had been on some kind of mind-altering drug while writing. Then again, I don’t know what would possess Sagebrush Press to publish this novel either. It was painful to finish and I may have lost a few brain cells along the way.

Words elude me when I try to think of something good to point out about Just Kid Me Old Highway Old Wildway O Pecos Bill. I spent so much time convincing myself to read just one more chapter and maybe the protagonist will wake up and it turns out it was all a really messed up dream. Unfortunately, that never happened.  The best I can guess is that the main protagonist, known as the Kid, had a very overactive imagination as a boy and now nearing middle-age, he’s reverting back to the fantasies he had in childhood- playing baseball with Pecos Bill, running around with Johnny Appleseed, a turtle camouflaged as a hubcap, the weirdness goes on and on. But that doesn’t make up for the fact that 80% of the novel is complete nonsense and the other 20% is not a very exciting story line. When Pecos Bill shows up in his yard in the middle of the night, the Kid tries to convince him he's not the Kid anymore and can't just leave to go on a roadtrip, as Bill suggests he needs to do. Alas, he changes his mind and off they go.

One thing that stood out in Linehan's writing is his overly extensive use of color when describing things. At some points, color even comes right out of the characters' mouths. Which is just plain weird and there's really no point for it. But he includes color somewhere on just about every page in the book, something that began to bother me fairly early in as there is more to description than colors... 

Overall, I don't recommend anyone waste their time reading this novel and I sincerely hope Linehan looks for another creative outlet because novels just aren't his forte. One out of five stars for Just Kid Me Old Highway Old Wildway O Pecos Bill.

"Broetry" by Brian McGackin

Book Details:

Title: Broetry

Author: Brian McGackin

Published: 2011- Quirk Books

ISBN: 978-1-59474-517-1

Pages: 128 pages

Genre: Poetry

Rating: 5 of 5

Read In: 2 days

My Review:

This book of poetry for "bros" is absolutely hilarious! McGackin uses true poetry-writing skills and techniques and applies them to popular topics among college-age guys. Naturally, there is plenty of material about sex, drinking, and being broke (isn't that what college is all about?), and he also pulls quite a lot of material from popular culture (superheroes, action movies, classical music, and World of Warcraft, just to name a few). The major social networking websites are all properly represented, as well.

 Nowhere else will you find such entertaining poetry. McGackin's Broetry breathes life into the embers of the ebbing art of poetry, tailoring it to those coming-of-age in the 21st century. He writes about life as college-age kids see and experience it, throws in witticisms and just a dash of foul language, and there you have it- Broetry. I would recommend anyone read this as it's a welcome relief from the stuffy poetry of previous generations and is guaranteed to keep you laughing from beginning to end. I give it five out of five stars and look forward to future publications from Brian McGackin.

"FOREX Frontiers: The Essentials of Currency Trading" by Ivan Cavric

Book Details:

Title: FOREX Frontiers: The Essentials of Currency Trading

Author: Ivan Cavric

Published: 2010- Merritt House Publishing, Inc.

ISBN: 978-0-9865803-2-1

Pages: 228 pages

Genre: Money Management- Foreign Exchange Trading

Rating: 4 of 5

Read In: 3 days

My Review:

As an introduction to foreign exchange trading, this book does its job very well. I began this book with absolutely no knowledge or previous experience on this topic, but felt I had a firm grasp of the basics upon finishing. It is a very easy read, so anyone interested in researching this career should have no problem understanding what they need to know to decide if FOREX trading is a viable option for them. I truly enjoyed learning about this trade, as it is something I previously knew nothing about, and I was greatly disappointed by the two major drawbacks I noted throughout the book- the author’s constant warnings that there is little chance of success in this trade, and the obvious lack of proofreading and editing.

One major setback I saw in the author’s approach to teaching FOREX is that he constantly reiterates how few actually succeed in this market and how novices barely stand a chance. While I appreciate Cavric’s caution and concern for his readers, I found it only made me afraid to even try to go ahead with my education of FOREX trading because the author seems to push that there is little to no hope for success anyway. He states numerous times that only five percent of FOREX traders are able to make a living from this practice, many being large banks, governments, and financial institutions. This leaves almost zero hope for your everyday, run-of-the-mill trader.

 From a literary standpoint, the editing of this book is simply horrible! There are words randomly missing and sentences that lack their first couple words, making some extremely difficult to understand as the reader must imagine what words belong there. I would hope that a system that boasts that it will “jumpstart anyone’s desire to enter the exciting world of FOREX” would take a little more time examining what they are providing someone looking to make a life-altering change. I was thoroughly enjoying learning about trading psychology, market trends, and strategies, but the constant lapse in grammar and sentence structure made me feel that maybe this information was just churned out quickly to reach a publisher and make a profit (since the editing step was obviously skipped over completely), and perhaps its information is less that completely credible.

FOREX Frontiers is divided into fourteen chapters, each highlighting a different area of interest to FOREX traders, such as money management, designing your own trading strategy, deciding if FOREX trading is right for you, and how to jumpstart your own career. The author utilizes graphs and tables to make the denser information more reader-friendly, and there are also many bulleted lists to help break up the information, when droning paragraphs would only lead to confusion. Although, one problem I saw with the author's choice of graphs is that he refers to different colored lines to show his points, but the book is printed in black and white! This makes it a bit difficult to even know which line he is referencing.

I really wanted to give FOREX Frontiers five out of five stars, but the negatives weighed heavily on me as a reader, so it will have to settle for four stars. I would recommend this as a source of beginner information for anyone interested in researching FOREX trading, but if you’re easily scared, you may want to find another reference. And if you’re skeptical about your ability to maintain your interest in foreign exchange trading, FOREX isn’t for you.

"Daughter of Dreams" by Marshall Miller

Book Details:
Title: Daughter of Dreams
Author: Marshall Miller
Published: 2011- Self-published
ISBN: 978-1-456-36814-2
Pages: 634 pages
Genre: Science Fiction
Rating: 4 of 5
Read In: 11 days

My Review:
Miller's Daughter of Dreams takes place in a futuristic, post-pandemic world closely resembling our own. The planet is divided into territories and technology has advanced, making bugging and eavesdropping a daily concern for everyone. Following a vast epidemic of the 'zeta virus', a weapon meant for biological warfare, a scientist living in the territory known simply as the City discovers the miracle cure. Unfortunately, it is this discovery that plunges him and his daughter Serda into a whirlwind of fleeing, terror, and most importantly for Serda, self-discovery and eventually acceptance of her uncanny abilities to sense and decipher the souls of those around her.

This novel gets uncomfortably deep in philosophy at some points, but was overall a breath of fresh air in it's ability to combine complexity with a gripping story line and elaborate history of all of it's main characters. The author include a fair amount of central characters and shares the story-telling among all of them, giving each sufficient time in the limelight.

Even the places the author has created for his world are intriguing and contain histories in their own rights. The Communes is a society that keeps space between themselves and the rest of the world, sharing a common set of beliefs known as the Way. These people value their relationship with the earth and value society and the good of all over the good of the individual. The City is the other territory highlighted thoughout the novel. It's a vast metropolitan area rife with politics, crime, and survival-of-the-fittest. Technology is greatly utilized and the border of the City is guarded by Tracers, pods that can scan and detect specific individuals' DNA to aid the Guardian police force in capturing fugitives. Another territory is briefly visited: the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth, though not as specifically described as the Communes and City, seems to be little more than  a peaceful suburban area.

The philosophies devised in this novel center around the soul and it's connection to dreams, and to a lesser degree, the power of love. Serda, later known as Maya, discovers she is a Dreamer while hiding in the Communes from a corrupt Councilor looking to torture the cure for the zeta virus out of her father for his own political gain. She begins to see that she can feel and visualize the feelings of those both physically and emotionally close to her. She meets Ian in the Communes and he begins her adventures to understand and contain her power, which later becomes her greatest defense. Though her power makes others unsettled and dangerously vulnerable in her presence, Maya finds that those who truely love her are unaffected by the negative affects of her power, allowing her the close human connections she has longed for her entire life. Much of the book centers around Maya and her extraordinary power, while the race to protect and properly utilize the cure sometimes takes the back burner.

I have given this novel four out of five stars. Sometimes it becomes very abstract and difficult to wade through, but the conclusion could not have been any better.