"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.

"Switched" by Amanda Hocking

Book Details:
Title: Switched (Trylle Trilogy #1)
Author: Amanda Hocking
Published: January 2012- St Martin's Press
ISBN: 978-1-250-00631-8
Pages: 293 pages
Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy
Rating: 5 of 5
Read In: 2 days

My Review:
Most young adult novels follow a similar pattern- girl meets boy, girl falls hopelessly in love with boy, something tears girl and boy apart, girl gets into trouble, boy runs to her rescue, the end. Many very popular series follow this model successfully and become huge hits, like the Twilight Saga and House of Night series. Others miserably miss the mark and land with their face in the mud. Thankfully, Amanda Hocking's Trylle trilogy is off to an amazing start in Switched.

Female readers everywhere will fall in love with girl's main squeeze, the mysterious and hard-to-get Finn. "Girl" is Wendy- she's clumsy and scatterbrained and you can't help but feel for her, especially in her fight for finn and her struggle to remain herself while everyone around her demands she be someone else.

This particular story has one quality I feel really sets it apart from the rest- there are no vampires. I was a little disappointed myself at first, but Trylle are something better than vampires, they're trolls. But not in the living under bridges eating goats sense, but in the magical abilities, lots of money and glam fashion. Now what makes these creatures better than vampires? They don't have to drink blood to maintain their abilities and composure, so aside from the overall waning of abilities among their species, they really have no weaknesses.

I really enjoyed this book, aside from the infuriating ending. I seriously recommend waiting the extra month after publication to buy the second at the same time, because the need for the next book is far too strong! I could not put Switched down for two whole days and it leaves me sad it's over.

I give Switched five out of five stars only because I can't give it six, and I strongly recommend any fan of young adult novels not miss out on this series.

"Fezariu's Epiphany" by David M. Brown

Book Details:
Title: Fezariu's Epiphany
Author: David M. Brown
Published: 2011- Createspace
ISBN: 978-1-456-50059-7
Pages: 379 pages
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 5 of 5
Read In: 10 days

My Review:
This is the first installment in the Elencheran Chronicles series by David M. Brown. As a fervent fan of the fantasy genre, I found this book to be everything I expected and more. Not only are the characters well-developed and memorable, the reader is taken away to an equally well-developed fantasy world that rivals the worlds of popular, established fantasy writers, such as Robert Jordan and Mercedes Lackey.

Brown features a vast variety of both primary and secondary characters. Some are members of fantasy races the author himself creates, such as a canine-like people and humans with naturally purple hair. The main protagonist of this series is Fezariu, who is followed from birth in this novel. As he grows and enters different stages of his life, other characters enter and leave his life, always leaving a mark on his life. From his mother, a prostitute trying only to do the right thing for her son, to Fezariu's fellow mercenary friends, every character is memorable.

I was greatly disappointed that my copy does not have maps of Brown's fantasy world. He describes in great detail the geography of the various countries and cities, but they are expansive and difficult to follow without visual representations. However, each region has their own well-devised history, much of which the reader learns through the protagonist's travels. It is very clear that this series will be impressively in-depth and the author leaves no aspect of his world to the imagination. He has thought of everything, from the races inhabiting each region, the individual histories of his countries and cities, and even the different governing systems.

I am very excited for further installments of what is sure to be a hit fantasy series. I gave Fezariu's Epiphany five out of five stars and firmly believe it deserves every one. I feel I can be a tough critic of fantasy novels, but I hold this one in high regards and anxiously await the publication of its sequel!

"This Letter to Norman Court" by Pablo D'Stair

Book Details:
Title: This Letter to Norman Court
Author: Pablo D'Stair
Published: 2011- Pigeon Grift Press
ISBN: 978-0-6155-0553-4
Pages: 132 pages
Genre: Crime/Noir Novella
Rating: 1 of 5
Read In: 1 day


My Review:
This first of five novellas about petty crook Trevor English was one of the worst works of literature I have ever read. Not only is the entire thing lacking any kind of sentence or chapter structure, the grammar is painful to read through.

One reason many people enjoy books is the characters and how the author presents them and their personal growth and how much the reader can connect and enjoy the character. This Letter to Norman Court, however, had absolutely no likable characters. Trevor English is a pickpocket living life on the outskirts of society and barely getting by crashing on couches, drinking and smoking profusely, and lifting wallets to fund his habits. When he is offered two thousand dollars to deliver an incriminating letter, he takes advantage of the situation to make even more money by ruining lives of everyone involved in the letter. When his scheme begins crumbling around him, I found myself hoping and praying the cops would get him, because a person like that, even a fictitious one, deserves nothing less. Not only is the main protagonist is a miserable low-life, all the people he meets along his journeys have some hidden agenda or secret to hide.

Although pretty short, it was difficult for me to read through this mind-numbingly ridiculous novella. I give "This Letter to Norman Court" one of five stars, merely for the author's brave attempt at writing something another person may want to read. But that person is not me.