Book Reviews Page 4

Looking for Alaska by John Green
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I come to the acclaimed book from a different perspective than most of the reviewers. First, I am an adult and, second, I attended the school it was based on. Being an alumni of Indian Springs School (where John Green also attended many years later) there are levels of enjoyment in the recognition of the school that other readers will not get. But like a non-New Yorker who loves Woody Allen movies in spite of his many inside the island jokes, you don't need to be an alumni to love this book. As an adult, I quickly stopped thinking about this as a teen novel and began thinking this about a novel about teens. To me it brought so many memories of the emotion filled pitfalls of my youth. At times while reading I wondered how I made it through those years sane. It also reminded me of the great questions about life we all have at that age and forced me to ask myself how I resolved them as I got older.

Ultimately, it is a very engaging story filled with memorable characters, romance, humor, lust and loss. I read it in two wonder sittings.

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My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Like others have said this book turns into a self-help manual halfway through. The information about the stroke was interesting. But the eight year recovery was then rushed through in a matter of paragraphs. While there was some interesting insight in the second half (and a lot of questionable insight) it was highly repetitive. This section was just not my area of interest and largely put me to sleep. But if it's your thing you may like it.

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Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is one of those books that you long for the half star because I would have given it 3 and a half. At it's core is an interesting store of a woman having an unexplained mental collapse. The story of the month of her crisis is fascinating. But unfortunately this story is straddled with a rather uninvolving life story (not her fault really, who has a book worthy life at 24?) I do blame her for the lack of detail on her current status and how she got through the final steps of recovery. Worth a read but do be expecting another classic like "An Unquiet Mind."

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Open Season by Archer Mayor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this because it was free on iTunes. Frankly, I thought is was just some self-published mystery that I would quit after a chapter. But I realized after a page this guy could write and after a chapter he could plot. I was hooked. Of course, I found out later that Archer Mayor is a popular writer who had been writing well regarded mysteries for years. Obviously this first book in his series was given away free to draw readers into the series. It worked, I am already enjoying the second book.

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The Black Box by Michael Connelly
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Same old Bosch and that's a good thing. Probably the best of his recent outings but still lacks some of the charm of the early books in the series.

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