Always Watching: Chevy Stevens

This was the third Book I have read by this author and I was happy again about the originality. This book was told from a psychologist's point of view. One of Nadine's patients escapes from a cult and tries to commit suicide after having a miscarriage. The woman's experiences trigger memories from Nadine's past where her mother took her and her brother and they lived with the same cult for 8 months. Years ago Nadine tried to find the answers to why she had such anxiety and claustrophobia. Through the book she has flashbacks of her time with the cult and the leader molesting her. Things escalate when her own daughter, who was a drug addict, joins the cult. This was a really good, fast paced book.

Top Secret Twenty-One: Janet Evanovich

Another cute read. This time someone wants Briggs dead and he ends up moving in with Stephanie while she hunts for his Killer. One of her bonds ends up having a collection of Chihuahuas which also end up at her apartment which is firebombed as someone goes after Briggs. Grandma Mazer and Lulu live up to expectations and Stephanie totals a few more cars.

The Postman Always Rings Twice: James M. Cain

I wasn't sure what this book would be about, I picked it up recognizing it as a classic. It was a thriller about a man who is a drifter, but then stops at a gas station with a restaurant and falls in love with the owner's wife. After one botched attempted murder of her husband the drifter leaves, but months later runs into the husband in town. Realizing they are still in love they concoct a scheme to kill the husband in a car accident and make it look like they were drunk and it was an accident. They just barely were found innocent and then start fighting amongst themselves. She finds out she is pregnant and while he rushes her to the hospital he accidently crashes into a wall and kills her. He is put to death for the murder of both of them.

Jaws: Peter Benchley

This book was very different than I had expected, though I have never seen the whole movie. The book focused more on the townspeople and the sheriff’s life in general, than on the Shark. A tourist town is plagued by a great white shark and no one understands why it has chosen that shoreline to hang out on. The policeman of the town had married one of the "summer people" and it is this summer his wife believes she has had enough of the simple life and misses the carefree abundance of her youth. She runs into the little brother of an old boyfriend and has an affair with him. The police officer listens to the town after the 1st death that the shark has moved on and not to mention anything because it would be bad for business. Two more people die. Then the Policeman, the "boyfriend" and a fisherman go to sea to hunt the shark down, only the policeman comes back but it is believed that the shark will die. The idea is that the shark is smarter than possible for a fish...and huge...and could pop up anywhere.

Never Knowing: Chevy Stevens

This is the second book by this author. I really enjoyed the originality of the first book, this one was still original, but I didn't see the need for it to be told in the same format as "Still Missing" where the protagonist tells the story by telling her psychologist. A woman, Sara, who was adopted, decides to search for her real parents, evidently driven by the need to know her family's medical history for her daughter, who is seemingly healthy? She finds her mother who seems terrified that Sara found her and wants nothing to do with her. She eventually learns her father was the notorious "Campsite Killer" and her mother was the only one of his victim who escaped and survived. The News gets a hold of the story and her father finds her location and contacts her. He wants to meet, then finds out she has a daughter and wants to meet his granddaughter as well. In the end he kidnaps them both, but to protect them from the police officer who had his own motive.

Lottery: Patricia Wood

I found this book to be hilarious, the narrator Perry L Crandall starts the story with " I am not retarded", you have to have an IQ under 75 and he is 76. He lives with his grandmother who says hilarious things like at KFC "You'd think they raise chickens with nothing but six flappers and an ass, the way they pack those boxes". His mother raised his two brothers and only visits him occasionally. his immediate family will not claim him, his mother wants to be called by her first name and his brothers are "cousin brothers" It is interesting to see the world through Perry's eyes, his comment about Social Security was "I thought it was cool you got a prize for dying". Once his grandmothers passes away his family miraculously appears and cleans out the valuables in the house. He was listed in the Will, but they tell him to sign some paperwork and give him $500 for the sale of the house. His mother changes her phone number as soon as the house sells so he cannot contact her. He has two friends, his boss and a coworker and they make sure he is ok. He wins the lottery after getting a bill for the hospital for his grandmother and his brother forwarded him the last electric bill from the house. Once again his family shows up and wants him to sign over his money. His friends try to protect him as much as possible. He falls in love with a checkout girl at the grocery store and you just know the story is going to end sadly. The girl, Cherry, falls in love with Keith who is a friend of Perry's. In the end Perry willingly gives his lottery winnings to his family, Keith dies in a car accident, we learn Cherry was a minor when she got pregnant by Keith, and then Cherry and Perry get married and raise the baby. It was nice there was a happy ending. This was a very enjoyable book.

Area 51: Annie Jacobsen

I guess I didn't know what to expect out of this book, it read like a report you'd do for school, hinting at things, but never really proving or disproving them. The book, since the information was gathered from interviews of people that worked there, was mostly about the lives of those who worked on the base. One person claimed to have seen aliens, others say the UFO sightings in both the US and Russia during the cold war were actually the newest technology, U2 planes and such. I got bored with the book bout 1/2- 3/4 of the way through, but then again I am not all that interested in spy planes and such, though some of the tests were frightening with the deadly chemicals they released. The nearby farmers lost a lot of animals and the ground at the test range is uninhabitable without proper garments.

Still Missing: Chevy Stevens

It's a little disturbing to state this was an excellent book since it dealt with a woman being kidnapped and raped for a year, but it really was excellent. The book deals with the psychological aspect of the abduction and the healing process. The story is told in first person and the dialogue is solely what she tells her therapist as she relives the experience. The therapist and other characters never directly speak in the book and the personalities of the other characters are only told through what the protagonist reveals. The protagonist is very likeable and while being sarcastic you can see she is also very tough. She was a realtor and is taken captive by someone who came to an open house. While with the man she called "The Freak" she gets pregnant. After having the baby girl, The Freak brings home a cold which the baby gets and he ends up killing the baby because he refuses to get medical attention and can't take the crying. So on top of trying to adjust back into her previous life after escaping (she ends up killing him with an ax) she also has to deal with the loss of her child. She blames herself for the baby's death because she wasn't able to save her. Although she knows The Freak is dead she still feels like she is in danger. At the end we uncover what the abduction actually was. The protagonist's mother had her kidnapped, but it was only supposed to be for a week because she was having financial difficulties and thought she could make money from selling her daughter's story of being kidnapped.

I am Malala; The Girl Who Stood Up For Education and Was Shot By the Taliban: Malala Yousafzai with Christina Lamb

This book was very good at describing not only life in Pakistan, but in how is changed once the Taliban came to power. It was also interesting to see how the United States was viewed by the capture of Osama Bin Laden and the aid we gave that never reached the people. The book was about Malala Yousafzai and her voice for education for everyone, I like how it left off as though her story is not over, but just beginning.