Natchez Burning by Greg Iles

Started: 11/6/2021

Finished: 7/28/2022

Year: 2014

Pages: 862

Genre: Mystery/thriller

Grade: B+

Reason for reading: TBR pile

Type: paperback

Blurb (from Amazon): "Raised in the southern splendor of Natchez, Mississippi, Penn Cage learned all he knows of duty from his father, Dr. Tom Cage. But now the beloved family doctor has been accused of murdering the African American nurse with whom he worked in the dark days of the 1960s. Once a crusading prosecutor, Penn is determined to save his father, but Tom, stubbornly invoking doctor-patient privilege, refuses even to speak in his own defense.

Penn's quest for the truth sends him deep into his father's past, where a sexually charged secret lies. More chilling, this long-buried sin is only one thread in a conspiracy of greed and murder involving the vicious Double Eagles, an offshoot of the KKK controlled by some of the most powerful men in the state. Aided by a dedicated reporter privy to Natchez's oldest secrets and by his fiancée, Caitlin Masters, Penn uncovers a trail of corruption and brutality that places his family squarely in the Double Eagles' crosshairs.

With every step costing blood and faith, Penn is forced to confront the most wrenching dilemma of his life: Does a man of honor choose his father or the truth?"

Opinion: Definitely suspenseful, especially if you have a good imagination. The ending definitely leaves you wanting more and I'll be reading the second in this trilogy soon.

Plus Size by Mekdela

Started: 7/8/2022

Finished: 7/8/2022

Year: 2021

Pages: 88

Genre: Memoir

Grade: B-

Reason for reading: goodreads.com giveaway/review for Reader Views

Type: paperback

Blurb (from Amazon): "'Plus-Size: A Memoir of Pop Culture, Fatphobia, and Social Change' chronicles the rise of the body positive movement and body positivity through pop culture reviews and personal reflections. This essay collection illustrates the insidiousness of fatphobia through analyses of film, television, books, and how they affect our perceptions and treatment of others. Altogether, the essays paint a big picture of fatphobia, misogyny, misogynoir, ableism, and capitalism in American society. Furthermore, this essay collection emphasizes the potential for social change. Featuring media from the 1990s, early 2000s, 2010s, and up until today, this memoir tells a story of America's uneasy and ever-changing relationship with fat.

Opinion: thorough review is posted on Reader Views

Nein, Nein, Nein! by Jerry Stahl

Started: 7/16/2022

Finished: DNF

Year: 2022

Pages: 262

Genre: Memoir

Grade: F

Reason for reading: LibraryThing.com giveaway

Type: hardcover

Blurb (from Amazon): "In September 2016, Jerry Stahl was feeling nervous on the eve of a two-week trip across Poland and Germany. But it was not just the stops at Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Dachau that gave him anxiety. It was the fact that he would be traveling with two dozen strangers, by bus. In a tour group. And he was not a tour-group kind of guy.

The decision to visit Holocaust-world did not come easy. Stahl’s lifelong depression at an all-time high, his career and personal life at an all-time low, he had the idea to go on a trip where the despair he was feeling—out-of- control sadness, regret, and fear, not just for himself, but for the entire United States—would be appropriate. And where was despair more appropriate than the land of the Six Million?

Seamlessly weaving global and personal history, through the lens of Stahl’s own bent perspective, Nein, Nein, Nein! stands out as a triumph of strange-o reporting, a tale that takes us from gang polkas to tour-rash to the truly disturbing snack bar at Auschwitz. Strap in for a raw, surreal, and redemptively hilarious trip. Get on the bus."

Opinion: I could not finish this one-I gave it my standard 100 pages. It was very jumpy-between subjects and stories. Felt like I either needed to have ADHD or be high (not that I have had any experience with this) in order to comprehend Stahl's writing. 

Chicago by David Mamet

Started: 7/6/2022

Finished: DNF

Year: 2018

Pages: 338

Genre: Historical thriller

Grade: F

Reason for reading: goodreads.com giveaway

Type: ARC

Blurb (from Amazon): "Mike Hodge―veteran of the Great War, big shot of the Chicago Tribune, medium fry―probably shouldn’t have fallen in love with Annie Walsh. Then, again, maybe the man who killed Annie Walsh have known better than to trifle with Mike Hodge."

Opinion: So I made it about halfway through before I decided to not finish it. It took that long before Annie was even killed. Not sure if it was the writing style, the subject, or what it was that could not keep my attention but with having over 500 books waiting for me to read, I'm saying good-bye to this one.

The Kingdoms of Savannah by George Dawes Green

Started: 6/30/2022

Finished: 7/6/2022

Year: 2022

Pages: 278

Genre: Fiction

Grade: C

Reason for reading: review for Celadon books

Type: ARC

Blurb (from Amazon): "It begins quietly on a balmy Southern night as some locals gather at Bo Peep’s, one of the town’s favorite watering holes. Within an hour, however, a man will be murdered and his companion will be “disappeared.” An unlikely detective, Morgana Musgrove, doyenne of Savannah society, is called upon to unravel the mystery of these crimes. Morgana is an imperious, demanding, and conniving woman, whose four grown children are weary of her schemes. But one by one she inveigles them into helping with her investigation, and soon the family uncovers some terrifying truths―truths that will rock Savannah’s power structure to its core.

Moving from the homeless encampments that ring the city to the stately homes of Savannah’s elite, Green’s novel brilliantly depicts the underbelly of a city with a dark history and the strangely mesmerizing dysfunction of a complex family."

Opinion: It dragged in the beginning, almost to the point of where I didn't continue with it. The historical features made this interesting enough to read through and finally get to some suspenseful mystery. Definitely not something that I would search out to read but am okay that I read it.

In the Closet by Geri Gale

Started: 6/26/2022

Finished: 6/29/2022

Year: 2021

Pages: 350

Genre: literature

Grade: C

Reason for reading: review for Reader Views

Type: paperback

Blurb (from Amazon): "S. lives with her grandparents in their house in Ossining, New York, where she has been abandoned by her mother, and S. is in the closet. The closet is a safe place to hide, to think, to ruminate. In the Closet is a triptych and each third has two parts.

"In part one, S. is ten. Her grandfather is a piano-tuner in love with Thelonious Monk and his story is interwoven with that of Monk.

"In part two, S. is twenty. Her grandmother is a librarian and a poet in love with Emily Dickinson and her story is interwoven with that of Dickinson.

"In part three, S. is thirty. S.'s mother is a famous photographer, who lives in Brooklyn and is obsessed with Diane Arbus. The story of S.'s mother and Arbus weave together, and in the end, like Arbus, S.'s mother commits suicide.

"S. longs for her mother. But she has the great love of her Russian-Jewish refugee grandparents and ends up accepting the lesbian love of her best friend, Sophie, who has been a rock through it all.

"In the Closet: a triad is a story about love's wreckage, about growing up amid intimacy and abandonment, about redemption and sacrifice and art."

Opinion: A thorough review is posted on Reader Views