meg reads and reads

Title: The Recovery Agent Author: Janet Evanovich This is a light-hearted. fairly mindless read. I wanted to do some light reading after a lot of heavy thematic material recently. This is exactly what I was looking for. This book follows an insurance fraud investigator, Gabriela Rose, who, through her grandmother (who heard it from a "ghost" she talks to named Annie) heard that there is possibly a treasure map buried beneath the house Gabriela inherited in St. Vincent. The problem is that Gabriela's ex-husband, Rafer, got that house in the divorce. Rafer gets pulled into this treasure hunt that ends up taking them through the Peruvian jungle and various other places in the Americas.  They encounter the main villain, El Dragon, who is also seeking the same treasure (a ring called the Seal of Solomon), and things start to get crazy. There are guns, explosives, drugs, and, yes, there are snakes. Lots of snakes. I had fun reading this book, but it is by no means fine literatu...

Title: With Grimm Resolve Author: Jeffery H. Haskell After a long hiatus, I am back. I did not quit reading. I just stopped the reviews for a while, because I was just so...tired. Since it's been nearly two years since my last book review, it is not feasible that I go back and review the 50+ books I've read since, so I just decided to start with my most recent read. With Grimm Resolve is book two in a military sci-fi series called Grimm's War . The story is interesting enough, but the book is in dire need of editing. The errors are to the point where they're just distracting. Sometimes sentences don't even make sense because of poor word choice or lack of editing (or both). The other issue I have with this is the blatant Islamophobia. The author doesn't even disguise it. The Caliphate are some of the main villains in this series, and it's like, Why? You have created a science fiction series set hundreds of years in the future. You could have literally made u...

Title: A New Dawn Author: John Jackson Miller For a book that marked the reboot of the Star Wars Extended Universe, it really wasn't very remarkable. The story itself is okay, the characters are okay...but it never really got past "okay" for me. I guess I was expecting an epic story, and it just really wasn't even close to that. I just never found myself particularly interested in what was happening.  The story mainly follows Kanan, a Jedi in hiding. He has been living on a mining world that doesn't rotate and reluctantly stumbles across a plot to boost mining productivity at the expense of the planet itself. He gets pulled into a Rebel attempt to stop this from happening.  The action sequences are mildly entertaining, but the villains are dull as dirt. And I just couldn't bring myself to care very much about the heroes. I have not watched the Disney XD series that this ties into, and this didn't make me have any desire to watch it either. I'm throwing...

Title: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Author: J.K. Rowling I first read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone about 20 years ago, when I was in the eighth grade at Dobbins Middle School in Powder Springs, GA. I liked it, but for whatever reason, I was never motivated to continue reading the series. Here I am, a grown woman, finally continuing with Book 2. Even though I find J.K. Rowling problematic as a person, I'm not disappointed in reading this book. I've heard a lot of people say that this is their least favorite book in the series. I had seen the movie before, so I knew basically what was going to happen, but I really enjoyed reading this far more than I remember enjoying the first book. It was a really quick, easy read, and the shenanigans Harry and Ron got into were delightful. I also enjoyed reading about Ginny, who has a much larger presence in the book than in the movie. I'm not normally a YA reader, but this was fun. I also liked thinking about how m...

Title: The Valley of Amazement Author: Amy Tan I read several unfavorable reviews of The Valley of Amazement. However, I am pleased to say that I completely disagree with them. This book has love, loss, tragedy, humor, birth, death, pandemic, and much more. For the most part, it follows the life of Violet, a biracial young woman who, through an act of deceit, ends up becoming a courtesan.  The historical context is what I found particularly fascinating. This is largely because I read it during another global pandemic. The book vividly (and accurately) discusses the Spanish flu and its aftermath. The parallels to today's COVID-19 pandemic were striking. In short, I found the book to be engaging and interesting to read. The main characters--sometimes victims of others, sometimes victims of their own bad decisions--were likable and sympathetic.  I, without hesitation, give this book five out of five stars. ------------------------------------- QUOTES: "To save myself, I destroyed...

Title: Origin Author: Lew Gibb I got an ARC of this book, but I wasn't able to complete it before its publication date. I did enjoy reading it, though. The story is smart and well-paced, and Jessica is an interesting character. My friend Jessica passed away back in September, and I couldn't help but think of her the entire time I was reading this, which contributed to the slowness of the read. The writing style reminds me a bit of Barry Eisler, to whom the author does a shout out in the text of the book. Jessica is a bit like Livia Lone without the polish. I'm interested to see what happens in her story in later installments of this series. All of that said, the book itself needed a good edit. Since it was an ARC, I'll chalk it up to that. The errors were a little distracting and took away from my enjoyment a bit. Three out of five stars. --------------------- READING PROGRESS: The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan: 84% A New Dawn by John Jackson Miller: 41% The Regulators...

Title: Prodigal Son Author: Dean Koontz I can honestly say that I absolutely detested this book. It was boring, unoriginal, and I'm certain Mary Shelley would hate it. Koontz has basically cannibalized Frankenstein, and set it in modern times, which is something that's been done again and again. The writing was dull, and I found my mind drifted quite a bit, because it just could not hold my attention. This was my first Koontz, and I was not impressed. I don't think I'll be eager to read another. Two out of five stars. ----------------------------- QUOTES: "The concept of a weary severed hand, exhausted from relentless creeping, made no sense." "When Mary Shelley took a local legend based on truth and crafted fiction from it, she'd made Victor a tragic figure and killed him off. He understood her dramatic purpose for giving him a death scene, but he loathed her for portraying him as tragic and a failure. Her judgment of his work was arrogant. What else...