Armada by Ernest Cline

From the author of Ready Player One come Armada.

I liked this book, but honestly not as much as Cline's debut novel. 

Back are references to the geek past. This time the focus is mainly on the alien invasion and space adventure genre of books, movies, and video games.

Armada is the name of a video game played by main character Zack and much of the world's population. He ranks 6th on the all time best list of the players. Tera Ferma is a companion game that fights similar alien invaders but from the ground. When he was a baby Zack's father died in a "shit plant explosion" leaving Zack alone with his mother and boxes of his fathers belongings. These include video games, VHS tapes of movies and tv shows. And a notebook filled with what looks like an insane conspiracy theory. 

The theory is that video games where players battle alien invaders and movies and tv shows about these invaders are the governments way of preparing people for an inevitable alien invasion and training people to fight the aliens. 

And guess what? It turns out to be true and Zack gets recruited to join a world wide military force to help defend earth. There are a lot of battle scenes and they are quite detailed, as battle scenes tend to be. But these involve computers, video game consoles, virtual reality, and drones. 

There are some twists in Zack's story but I won't spoil you. As I said, I liked Ready Player One better but I enjoyed Armada. 

(Finished July 29, 2015)

One Last Thing Before I Go by Jonathan Tropper

This was my first Jonathan Tropper read. I want to read and saw the movie This Is Where I Leave You. I really liked the movie and hear the book was very good. This book was similar in style, sarcastic, irreverent, moving, and thought provoking.

The ending made me drop the book and feel a WTF moment and it is the only thing that kept me from giving it 5 stars on Goodreads.


What if your life was a mess and it was completely your fault. What if you lived in a crappy apartment surrounded by other people who also fucked up their lives. And then what if you found out you were dying unless you had an operation. Would you wise up, have the operation, and then make things better? Or maybe you would think that the only way to make things better was to not have the operation because if you were well you would go back to being the same hot mess you were before you got sick.
This is what One Last Thing Before I Go is all about.

Past his prime one hit wonder rock star Silver has messed up his marriage and been a shitty father. Then he finds out he needs heart surgery or he will die, soon. And his 18 year old daughter is pregnant and has come to him for support, even after he has never given her reason to think he would be would be there for her. And his ex-wife is about to get remarried. So he chooses to not have the surgery. He thinks having it will make him continue to be the crap man he has been.

I was moved by Silver, and angry at him, and pulling for him. I liked him but hated him. And I wanted him to be ok.

(Finished July 19, 2015)

Midnight and the Meaning of Love by Sister Souljah

The story of Midnight, who is a side character in the book The Coldest Winter Ever, begins in Midnight and then continues here.

To begin reading his story you need to put aside any credibility issues his age will cause you to feel. Yes, it could feel like there is no way someone as young as him could do these things. Put try not to focus on the number and just think of him as young. It is also the 1980's and the world was a different place then. A young person could get on a plane and travel alone with very little trouble then. Trust me, I know, after all when I was 10, in 1981, I ran away from home and managed to buy a ticket, get on a plane, and fly from NY to CA alone. I have been on my own since I was 15. So just put aside the 2015 mindset that a 14-15 year old couldn't live the life Midnight was living.

You also need to put aside your own world view, thought on religion, thoughts on women's independence...this isn't a story about if it is right to have more than one wife, if the Muslim faith is good or bad...it is the story of how one young man lives and loves as he feel the things young men feel and he tries to live according to his faith the way he knows it, the way he was taught it from birth, which was not in America but rather in Sudan.

Also, religion and lifestyle aside, some of what he is capable also defies what one would think possible, but there this is much like other fictional character, they are able to do things we air breathing mortals who do not live on the pages of a book only wish we could do.

And lastly, Sister Souljah could be called the hip-hop version of Jane Austen or George R. R. Martin, in that she will write as Austin did, many paragraphs about the color of the sky or the decoration of a room, or like Martin 6 pages about every damn meal. But it isn't crippling. For instance when she writes about what Akemi's room looks like, the stained glass, you can really see it.

If you can do those things you will enjoy Midnight's story. It is erotic, violent, heartfelt, and filled with love at its heart. He is a young man who loves and respects women even if it seems like he is out to be in control of them. He is just doing and thinking what his faith tells him is the right way. It can be jarring if you hold different beliefs, but it gives insight to a lifestyle that may be different than anything you know. And isn't that a good thing? A story that is entertaining but also could be a window into a world that is not your own?


(Finished July 17, 2015)


P.S. There is a liberal use of the "n" word in both books telling Midnight's story. As a white woman, even though I am the mother of a young black man, it never felt comfortable to read it because I felt like I was saying it in my head, but in the context of the story is fits, but I still won't ever use the word.

Istanbul Passage by Joseph Kanon

Just after the end of WWII there are still some operations taking place, Jews being helped to safety. Negotiations with Russia and Germany for how things will run in peace time. Trading of spies and secrets. It is not really over for those in Istanbul. Among the populous is Leon. He works for R.J. Reynolds. But he is also involved in the underworld of backdoor deals, courier for a man in the American Consulate. He also has a wife who hasn't spoken since a horrible incident involving a boat of Jews she was helping to leave. She lives now, silent and locked away in her mind in a clinic while Leon gets caught up in a case.

Russians, Romanians, and Americans want this one particular asset. Leon was tasked by Tommy King to meet this asset and move him to his next stop as he is being sent to the U.S. supposedly with valuable information. But when the pick up goes horribly wrong Leon's life is changed.

Istanbul Passage takes place over the course of a few days as Leon tries to figure out what to do with the man he is left looking after, what to do about the incident in the docks, what to do with and how to do the new job he has been given, and who is anyone he can trust.

This is a slowly unfolding, tense drama filled with intrigue. This isn't a fast paced, action packed adventure, it is a slow burn, more Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy than it is Mission Impossible or a Jason Bourne story. But it is well told and satisfyingly stressful story.

(Finished July 12, 2016)

Midnight by Sister Souljah

Oh the buy 2 get 1 free table at Barnes & Noble...Oh how it gets me every time. Often I use it to get books I have been waiting to read for awhile, but sometimes I find books that I might never have come across otherwise. This was one of the later.

I read the back of the book and the setting was the setting of my childhood, the Brooklyn projects, and the time the story is set in was the years of my early teen years, as a matter of fact Midnight and I were born in the same year. While reading the exploits of 14 year old Midnight I was revisiting much of where my 14 year old self was at the same time. It was surreal, I could see the streets, hear the sounds. Sister Souljah had me back in 1985 NYC.

At times 43 year old me was thinking there was no way a 14 year old could be doing these things...then I remembered me at 14 almost 15. I was running around NYC by myself, riding the subway, hanging out in East New York, exploring Greenwich Village, going to Coney Island...

Midnight is way to tough and grown up for someone so young. But I knew boys like him and boys like those he tried to avoid back then. And it isn't so far fetched to think this was happening to any of them. When you are forced to grow up, you do. And so many young people in the projects are grown before they are of legal age.

This was a gritty read, a coming of age story unlike any I have ever read before. A young Muslim man comes to America with his pregnant mother from Sudan to escape danger there. He wants so badly to do what his father has taught him is right, to live by the tenants of his faith. He cares for him mother and once she is born his sister. He becomes the protector of his family at the tender age of 7 and by the time he is 14 almost 15 he is more man than any male in his neighborhood. He works, he loves, he protects, he struggles to do what is right in the face of danger and temptation. He does a couple of awful things to protect what is his, but he is really a very good human and it makes him an intriguing character.

This was my first Sister Douljah book but it won't be my last. If nothing else I need to know what happens to Midnight.

(Finished July 8, 2015)

The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story by Diane Ackerman

I stumbled across this non-fiction book when it was sitting on a table of free stuff at Barnes & Noble. I hadn't heard of it before but I have an interest in stories about Jewish heritage, that tell stories about survivors of the Holocaust, and tell stories about those who at great risk to themselves helped Jews survive WWII. This sounded like it fit into that interest so I grabbed a copy.

The Zookeeper's Wife is Antonia. She and her husband Jan (the zookeeper) lived on the grounds of the Warsaw Zoo. They cared deeply for the animals in their charge. Antonia even hand raised orphaned babies and cared for injured or sick animals in their home. She was very interested in animal behavior, she too the time to learn how they thought and formed the most interesting bonds with the animals. Jan ran his zoo in such a way that human visitors and animals were cared for and respected. There is a good deal in this book about the creation of the zoo and about the animals it housed. At times it might seem dry or leave you wondering why so many details instead of talking about the heroic acts that were happening. I wondered it while reading, but in the end I think it was because it helped explain the choices made, how Antonia was able to reason out how to handle certain situations, and it was capturing a history that might have been lost otherwise. But also, and maybe most importantly, it was what was real and important to Jan and Antonia.

When Germany under the rule of Hitler invaded Poland, when the Jews were forced into the ghetto, the zoo became an important hub of the underground movement to save as many Jews as possible. Some Guests came to stay for much of the war years, others stopped only long enough to be safe while longer term arraignments could be made. One of the people who made a pit stop at the zoo was Irene Sendler, herself a hero, saving many Jewish children, and the subject of the book Life in a Jar:The Irena Sendler Project.

What this couple did, what this woman did, because most of the time it was just her, her husband was away from the zoo working in order to allow them to feed themselves and the Guests, sneaking Jews out of the Ghetto, and later fighting with the Underground. Antonia was the housewife and conductor of what was going on at home. She kept people fed, hidden, calm, and even happy at times. She was the backbone of their operation and because of what they did, hundreds were saved, and of all those who stayed with them all but one family survived the war years.

These stories, people who risked everything, to help those who were being hunted in order to be destroyed, they need to be told, they deserve to be told.

(Finished July 5, 2015)

Crazy Rich Asians (Crazy Rich Asians #1) by Kevin Kwan

I heard about this book on NPR and it intrigued me.
I devoured this 527 page novel as if it were a pile of satay in the Singapore food stalls Rachel and Nick visit. And it was delicious.

Crazy Rich Asians is part over the top soap opera, part love story, part satire. The book could have been titled Crazy, Rich, Asians because Nick's family could defiantly be called crazy and they are very, very, heck they are obscenely rich. They think nothing of spending $200,000 on a dress and $50,000 on shoes, and a million on jewelry in one breathe and then pretend they aren't rich in the next. And while it is campy and over the top, it is fun and fabulous. Kevin Kwan spins a tale of manipulation, love, friendship, a $40 million wedding, and makes it fun to read even as you loathe some of the people in the world he created. And at times feel a little envious....

I didn't know there was going to be a book 2 when I bought this months ago but now that I read I can't wait to get my hands on the next part of the story, I want to spend more time with Rachel and Nick, and Astrid the only "normal" people in the story, but I want to read more about Nick's outrageous family too.  

(Finished July 2, 2015)

The House I Loved by Tatiana de Rosnay

I read and really enjoyed other books by Tatiana de Rosnay (A Secret Kept and Sarah's Key), so I have had this sitting in my pile of books waiting to be read. I finally got to it.

And it is as tragic as you'd expect if you read Sarah's Key. It starts out feeling like a book about saving a house that was a home to a family for generations, where a woman was welcomed in and finally part of a loving family, where life is lived and loss is mourned. And it is that.

But it is also a book about love. Real and deep love. And painful secrets kept to protect loved ones. While hiding in the cellar of her husband's family home in 1860's Paris Rose is writing to her husband, who happens to have died 10 years prior. She is catching him up on what has happened since he left her. Their home is about to be torn down in the redesigning of the city. She tells him of the people she has bonded with and how it helped save her life when she was forced to live without him. And she hints at something painful she needs to share with him.

As her writing unfold we learn all about Rose and eventually her painful secret is told as time marches towards the destruction of her house.

(Finished June 30, 2015)