The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale

by Margaret Atwood

Available on Amazon

Rating (1-5) 📘📘📘
Genre - Dystopian Fiction, Censorship & Politics
Format - Paperback
Pages - 311

*Amazon Blurb*

In Margaret Atwood’s dystopian future, environmental disasters and declining birthrates have led to a Second American Civil War. The result is the rise of the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian regime that enforces rigid social roles and enslaves the few remaining fertile women. Offred is one of these, a Handmaid bound to produce children for one of Gilead’s commanders. Deprived of her husband, her child, her freedom, and even her own name, Offred clings to her memories and her will to survive. At once a scathing satire, an ominous warning, and a tour de force of narrative suspense, The Handmaid’s Tale is a modern classic.

*My Review* 

This book....ugh. There was so much hype about the book and the shows. I was so excited when I got this book that I didn't even set it IN my TBR pile, but rather on top to be the next book I read. I think that the shows might be better than the book (don't shoot). I can't believe I actually just typed that. It all just seemed like everything was in slow motion. They walked here, they walked there and always moving at the same pace and not looking around. Each class of women wore the same outfits and spoke the same lines......zzzzzz.

Can someone who has read this tell me I am just in a reading funk and it was a really good book??

Not sure if I'll check out the next in the series, The Testaments, but I guess if I want to find out what happens with Offred I will have to.....or I can google spoilers (but what fun would that be?).

Asylum by Madeleine Roux

Asylum

by Madeleine Roux

Available on Amazon

Rating (1-5) 📘📘📘📘
Genre - Teen & Young Adult, Fantasy, Supernatural, Mystery, Thrillers, Horror
Format - Hardcover
Pages - 310

*Amazon Blurb*

For sixteen-year-old Dan Crawford, the New Hampshire College Prep program is the chance of a lifetime. Except that when Dan arrives, he finds that the usual summer housing has been closed, forcing students to stay in the crumbling Brookline Dorm—formerly a psychiatric hospital. As Dan and his new friends Abby and Jordan start exploring Brookline's twisty halls and hidden basement, they uncover disturbing secrets about what really went on here . . . secrets that link Dan and his friends to the asylum's dark past. Because Brookline was no ordinary mental hospital, and there are some secrets that refuse to stay buried.

*My Review* 

I think this was a good horror book for young adults. I did enjoy the book, right up until the end. The fact that an old asylum was turned into a college was a great story-line itself. It screams haunted. I mean what teenager wouldn't want to go and stay at an old asylum?
The story flows nicely with the kids meeting up and the trouble they get into. To me it just seemed that with all the secrets hidden beneath the dorms it should have led to more. I was really expecting more "excitement".
The ending seemed a bit rushed too. Maybe it has to do with the fact that this is the first in the series of 3. Overall a good book and I might look into the rest of the series.

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

To Kill A Mockingbird

by Harper Lee

Available on Amazon

Rating (1-5) 📘📘
Genre - Classic Literature, Fiction
Format - Audio-book

*Amazon Blurb*

One of the most cherished stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father—a crusading local lawyer—risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.

*My Review* 

I borrowed this Audio-book 3 times. I don't know why it was so hard for me to listen to, other than the fact that I couldn't do it with my 5 year old around because of the language.

I thought the book was going to have a lot about the trial of someone wrongly accused, but instead it just seemed to have a lot about the kids doing and saying whatever they want. I really feel as if I missed something with this and maybe I would do better with re-reading a printed copy in the future.

Gringo: My Life on the Edge as an International Fugitive by Peter Conti

Gringo: My Life on the Edge as an International Fugitive

by Peter Conti

Available on Amazon

Rating (1-5) 📘📘📘
Genre - Memoirs
Format - E-book

*Amazon Blurb*

Dan "Tito" Davis comes from a town in South Dakota that's so small everyone knows their neighbor's cat's name. But once he got out, he made some noise. While at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, he started manufacturing White Crosses, aka speed, and soon had the Banditos Motorcycle Club distributing ten million pills a week. After serving a nickel, he got into the weed game, but just when he got going, he was set up by a childhood friend. Facing thirty years, Davis slipped into Mexico, not knowing a word of Spanish, which began a thirteen-year odyssey that led him to an underground hideout for a Medellín cartel, through the jungles of the Darien Gap, the middle of Mumbai's madness, and much more.

*My Review* 

Where would you go if you needed to hide? Would you be able to leave your former life in the past and create a new one? Imagine never speaking to your family again. I thought the book started out a bit slow, but it picks up quickly and takes you on a ride all over South America. Tito is forced to not only leave his life in the past, but to create a new one that is believable enough to not make anyone suspicious of him. I had to keep reminding myself this story was based on real life events. I kept thinking that I would've probably given up many times, yet Tito pushes on. Not only does he stay out of trouble, but manages to be a law abiding citizen, a successful one at that. I'm not sure if it's the fact that I read the book on my Kindle or if the same would hold true in a printed format, but I did get a bit annoyed at all the footnotes. I don't see why most of them couldn't have just been in English instead of me having to constantly click on the footnote to understand what was being said.