altlovesbooks

I fully admit I read this to keep up with my Goodreads goal for the year. It's also been on my to-read list ever since I finished Circe and Song of Achilles, so it wasn't entirely picked for ulterior reasons. I'm actually glad I gave this a chance, it was very short but also very engaging.

It takes the name from a Nereid from mythology, but as far as I can tell, the rest of the story has nothing to do with the actual (fairly sparse) story. It's actually more like a perspective-flipped Pygmalion, which is acknowledged by the author in the afterword and in other reviews here.

It was actually kind of a super creepy story that I expected to go a different way. I kept reading (for the half hour or so I spent with it) to find out where things were headed, and didn't even mind that it's a bit lacking in depth.

So, not only did it keep me and my arbitrary Goodreads goal afloat another week, I actually really enjoyed it. Definitely read either Circe or Song of Achilles first if you haven't yet, but this is a nice little bite-sized story after you're done with those.

The bones of this book are good, but the material dates itself pretty quickly. There's a number of references to websites, plan providers, and other specific resources that either no longer exist or no longer provide the resource indicated.

All that said, the very basics of collection development are discussed here, but I stress the point that every library is different. No book can tell you what your specific population will be interested in, so it's important that you know your own patron base and what's popular with them.

I will say there's plenty of further reading resources provided within this book, though. So, for all that it's kind of flawed as a resource guide, there's tons of cited papers and books that will help fill in the gaps and satisfy additional questions you might have when reading this.

I really ought to stop reading general fiction, even if the book is about a librarian/books. I generally come out the other end vaguely disappointed and bored, and then I have to figure out if it’s a “me” thing, or a “book” thing. It could honestly go either way with this one, so I’ve given it my 3-star “it’s a perfectly adequate book” treatment, with a huge librarian-centric caveat at the end.

To summarize, Sloane Parker, librarian, meets cantankerous old Arthur McLachlan, ex-literature professor and history buff while shelving books at her library. After taking pot shots at her Pollyanna attitude towards life and her reading list, Arthur leaves, and Sloane finds out that the rest of the library staff live in perpetual fear of this guy coming in (every day, like clockwork) because of how awful he makes them feel. Sloane being, well, idealistic and librarian-y, decides to work at befriending him. The two become, maybe not friends immediately, but chummy adversaries who exchange barbs everytime they meet. Except for when Arthur suddenly doesn’t show up one day and Sloane gets worried. Then again the next day, no Arthur. Sloane gets incredibly worried, her boss tries to talk her down, but instead she…accesses his patron records without cause to do so(!), writes down his home address(!!), and cons her fiancée into driving her there so she can spy on the guy to make sure he’s okay(!!!). She finds out he’s medically not okay, but it’s through this intervention that she becomes his de facto caregiver because she doesn’t want to leave this poor old man alone, and a good thing too because she lost her library job after defying her boss and using his personal information without cause and needs something to do. The rest of the book revolves around Sloane, Arthur, and an impromptu book club that springs up around them, including a nosey neighbor, an estranged relative, a driftless friend who can’t decide what he wants in life, and a enemy/former friend. Each book club member has their own viewpoint in the book, and we learn about their struggles and problems in life, and how the book club comes to mean so much to them.

It's a heartwarming book in places, but ultimately I found each member’s book club story a bit boring. They each come to the book club with baggage of a sort, and we follow them as the book club members help each other to a conclusion of sorts. Some of the viewpoints/stories are better/more believable than others, and none of them are all that deep or complex. I wasn’t satisfied with how the book ends either; we resolve each person’s conflict (sort of), and then the book ends without a proper wrap-up…we just stop having sentences. It’s a perfectly adequate book for, say, an easy book club read or someone looking for some easy to digest general fiction, but I was left disappointed and kind of impatient for my audiobook copy to finish in the end.

And now a bit for the librarians out there who were just as horrified by Sloane’s actions as I was. Sloane accosts this old man in her own library, encourages his rude behavior by responding in kind, and doesn’t ban a patron who verbally sends employees into tears whenever he shows up. Then, she looks up his own personal address information and goes to spy on him (admittedly with good intentions) for good measure! I’d be horrified and mortified if an employee of mine did that to a patron. Just….no. Didn’t like the librarian inclusions at all. Don’t stalk your patrons, guys.

I’m conflicted by this book. On one hand, it’s supremely good at showing what burnout in librarianship can look like, particularly in large cities. Libraries are being asked to shoulder an enormous burden that’s only getting larger, without getting the support it needs to do so. It’s no wonder that librarians everywhere are experiencing a great deal of burnout and disillusionment with the field they started in, and it’s unfair of other librarians to shame them for doing so. I thought a lot of points the author brings up about the unhoused and the constant struggle between helping them where they need it most and being unable to do so from a lack of funding, training, or general inability were great points. I remember this topic coming up oh-so-briefly during my own MLIS experience, and I think it gets glossed over entirely too much for up-and-coming graduates to get a real sense of the full picture.

On the other hand, though, as a book and a narrative carrying a cohesive thread, this book falls flat. The thought thread from one chapter rarely carried over into the next, and so I had a hard time figuring out where this book hangs out. It talks about the history of librarianship–is it a history book? It talks about the author’s personal experiences at Northwest One in DC–is it a memoir? It segues into the lack of support for the unhoused, drug abuse, violence within the community, and general crime within libraries–is it a social sciences thought piece? It meanders into the evils of social media, the lack of information literacy, the unaddressed racial issues everywhere–is it an op ed? I don’t know, and I can’t tell you either. There’s good points everywhere in this book, but I don’t think the author carried any one of them very far before hopping to the next. It gave the book kind of a disorganized feel. I also felt like the author, with her nine months spent in an actual library setting at Northwest One, maybe isn’t the best voice for speaking about how it is everywhere. She undoubtedly experienced more than any one of us can say, as I know I haven’t gotten PTSD from working at my library for six years, but I hate when people paint issues like these with broad strokes. It’s rarely accurate for anywhere outside of your own experience.

All that said, it’s clear the author cares deeply about these issues, and they’re real topics that need to be addressed for libraries to continue doing what they do for the public, for free. Resources are not infinite, and libraries need support from the community in order to keep their doors open.

Vote local, support your local libraries.

"If there had ever been a time when there had been honor among thieves, it was long over in this galaxy."

My journey through the OG Star Wars novels continues. My husband dropped this series in my hands after we watched the most recent Mandalorian season, since I had questions about the Mandalorians in the old canon. It's arguably quicker to read the books than it is to pore over the Wookieepedia on some topics, honestly.

This was.... fine. Kind of a mess in places, but still fun. I'm still not sure why the subtitle is "The Mandalorian Armor" when it's not even a plot point or even mentioned at all, despite Boba Fett being the main character. The other bounty hunters I remember from Tales of the Bounty Hunters by Kevin Anderson were also part of this one, though their voices/actions felt a bit different (quite a bit different in Zuckuss'/Dengar's cases) from what I remember. I guess that's a product of the different authors.

The middle part of the book crawls a bit, (middle book spoilers here) particularly in the case of the Shell Hutts/d'Harhan inclusion. Not sure why we made a stop there, when ultimately they left empty handed and the Shell Hutts didn't even seem to mind the, uh, mild disturbance. I thought the beginning and ending were the best parts.

A book that's just fine. I'll be reading the rest in the series (my husband will insist), so I'm looking forward to how the rest play out.

"Cruelty dispensed, cruelty served."

This was a sad book about Vietnam. I guess I'm slowly making my way around the world and reading books about all the worst parts in history. I have a thing for stories that need to be heard.

This book uses the dual viewpoints of Trần Diệu Lan in 1920 and her grown granddaughter Hương during the Vietnam War to tell a family story of loss. Trần Diệu Lan had 5 young kids and owned a farm during the land reform period of Vietnam's history. She was ousted from her house, beaten, separated from one of her kids, and the only reason she survived was because of the intervention of a friendly neighbor. Her land and belongings were divided up amongst her village, and she fled with no money and 5 kids to look after. Meanwhile, Hương lives with her grandma, after her uncles, father, and mother left to go fight in the war. Her family slowly comes back, but the war has changed everyone and everything, even her family.

This was a very sad story, written beautifully by the author. Very descriptive, very lyrical, it was easy to get swept up in the descriptions and feelings evoked here. I didn't particularly care for the dual viewpoints, however, because the two voices felt the same in terms of story told. But everything else about the book was fantastic. I learned a lot about Vietnam, especially about the land reform period. Good book.

"The more I've studied history, the more I've maintained that great achievements aren't so much about aptitude as about timing."

This one never really came together for me. I had similar concerns going into Tress of the Emerald Sea, but I ended up finding it pretty charming in the end after I'd spent some time with it. This one lacked that charming part, and just felt a bit of a chore to get through. It just wasn't what I expect out of Sanderson, and even beyond that, it was just....fine. Even reading it blind without knowing who the author was, I probably wouldn't rate it much higher.

I'll keep this brief and un-spoilery. A man wakes up in a field, surrounded by burned grass, doesn't remember how he got there or what he was doing or even who he was. Around him in the burned grass are charred pages of some book; reading these he starts piecing small things together. Turns out he's bought a pocket dimension in medieval England, but now he's stranded and has to figure out what to do, how to get home, and how to help the local people that rescued him.

Right off the bat I'll say Johnny's tendency to mentally rate experiences (like a Yelp reviewer or something) really grated on my nerves. It always felt forced and shoehorned in, and even after it's directly addressed near the end it didn't help. The humor in this one, too, felt repetitive, with a lot of the same joke beats being hit each time. Lots of eyeroll jokes. I also wasn't really invested in Johnny as the main character, as he felt really bland and boring. He does get quite a bit of character development near the end, but it's basically dumped on you all at once and doesn't feel very authentic as a result. The side characters aren't really explored all that much either, which, I guess, is a product of the relatively short nature of the book.

I loved the artwork though! Most pages feature at least a doodle at the bottom, with several full color spreads throughout. The concept of buying your own dimension to live out your medieval fantasy in is interesting, but since this seems like a one-off novel I'm a bit disappointed it can't be explored more. The story itself is....fine. Serviceable, but not remarkable.

In summary, kind of a miss for me. An adequate book, but not really a Sanderson book.

"You see, I've discovered that it's all right to need help. So long as you've lived your life as the kind of person who deserves to be rescued."

I'll be honest and say I didn't know what to make of this when I first started it. Aside from being aware that it was a Cosmere book, I went in basically blind, ready for a twisty whirlwind epic fantasy adventure. Instead, I got something a bit more thoughtful, a lot more tongue-in-cheek, and perhaps more fairy tale than epic fantasy. Temper your expectations accordingly; this is more like Sanderson-writes-Princess-Bride rather than 1000-page-Sanderson-Epic-Fantasy.

Tress grew up on a small spit of rocky land in the middle of a green spore sea. No seawater, all green pollen that reacts violently when exposed to water. In the case of green spores, you get a wild vine explosion that can be rather, well, deadly if the water ends up being human water (of which, we have a lot of). There's different colored spore seas, and each of the different spore colors reacts differently when given water. So, content with her life, her crush ends up getting himself kidnapped by the Sorceress of this world, who resides all the way over in the Midnight Sea. What follows is Tress's quest to save the one dear to her, and all that she learns about herself, her resourcefulness, and the larger world she never knew along the way.

It's a bit of a slow burn and took me a bit to get drawn in. I generally don't read a lot of light-hearted stuff, so when I first started this book, I thought I'd have to force myself through. Turns out, given the space and the time to tell a story, this is actually a really good one. The book is told, not from Tress's point of view, but from someone witnessing the whole thing (and who is familiar to anyone who reads Cosmere books), and we get some side commentary from them about the whole thing that I appreciated. It does read very much like The Princess Bride, but with a different take on the story (and that's mentioned in the afterword). I was really into seeing how Tress would get through her next scrape, and my only real minor complaint is that maybe the tongue-in-cheek humor is laid on a bit thick in some places for my personal tastes.

Still, this ended up being a really enjoyable read, and even though I guessed a part of the conclusion, there's still a lot there to be discovered. Highly recommend for Sanderson fans.

“At present, we are all thinking so much, and saying so little.”

My mom and I talk on the phone every week or so about what we're reading, and when she asked me this week what I was reading and I told her I was reading this book, there was a pause on the line and then an “oh.......... that doesn't seem like you.” I had to laugh a little, because it really doesn't when you look at my read list. Before this book, I think the only other mystery series I've kept up with was Louise Penny's Armand Gamache books. I've always counted Agatha Christie books as “the books my grandma read” when I was growing up, and I'm ashamed to say I never gave them the time of day. Now that I work at a library though, I've cast my literary net far and wide to scoop up the genres I don't normally read and the “pillars” of each genre to compare them against. It's been a wild ride.

I won't summarize the entire plot (since there's approximately 5 million other reviews here that will do a better job), but basically we're introduced to Hercule Poirot through the perspective of our ride-along character Arthur Hastings at Styles Arms. There's a lot of familial in-fighting within Styles about rich old Emily Inglethorpe's choice in men, and wouldn't you know it, she turns up dead. Hastings, staying at Styles Arms, hears by chance about a group of Belgians staying at a nearby house, and wouldn't you know it, his old detective buddy Poirot is there. Together, the duo wade through the complex family drama and we're introduced to Poirot's method of detective work, equally frustrating and amusing from Hastings' (and our) perspective.

I will say I enjoyed this book a whole lot more once I stopped trying to second-guess the murderer's identity and started just enjoying the process. I noted several comments where people were annoyed they couldn't follow along and guess the murderer, which I get is a feature in some cozy mysteries, but I enjoyed the surprise and the method much more once I stopped worrying about it. It very much felt like a Columbo episode, which I loved.

I didn't expect to be so captivated with yet-another-greek-mythology-retelling, but I'm extremely glad I listened to my friends and gave this a shot. I look forward to trying out some of her other books. I also listened to this in audiobook format, and thought the narrator was a perfect fit for the characters.

I enjoyed this one a lot. I know very little about the region aside from what you can find in the news, and it was nice getting another, more personal, view. A lot happens to the main character, and I found myself love/hating each new chapter because I wanted/didn't want to know what happens. Extremely engaging to read.

“He looked at his hand. How inadequate it appeared when measured against such creatures as that worm.”

This is one of those books I always felt like I should read, but never actually ended up doing so. The mixed reviews from friends that oscillated between it being the best book ever to it being the most boring book ever didn't really instill confidence in me, and it's quite a large book to commit to if you're not even sure people like it. If it wasn't for the movie coming out, I likely would continue kicking the can down the road until I either ran out of can or ran out of road. My friends goaded me into finally reading it, and while it took me forever, I can finally say I've read it. I can also confidently say that this is the best book I'll never revisit.

For the good, the worldbuilding is spectacular, and the entire reason I finished the book. Full disclosure, I did not read the appendices, but what was included in the actual novel was enough to keep me engaged. I wanted to love this journey I was on, Frank Herbert kept my imagination fed and made it easy for me to picture the desert, the vistas, the people, the scenes. I loved reading the descriptions for that alone.

Unfortunately pretty scenery does not a great book make. I found the characters vaguely unpleasant, and boring in some cases. Herbert's reliance on the auto-win Bene Gesserit button also made any conflict predictable and flat. The pacing also felt really weird in places; things have a slow steady buildup in the beginning, and then suddenly we're clearing entire years in a few pages with very little warning.

I'm glad I read this in anticipation of seeing the movie, but I likely will not re-read it, nor will I read the followup novels.

This book was like, kiddy pool-shallow, which is unfortunate considering the setting and the subject. I think the author meant well, but the story itself just....fell incredibly flat.

The story follows a large family in the time of the Taliban takeover of Kabul. Needing to make ends meet, the large household of women who now find themselves at loose ends decide to take up dressmaking and seamstress work. They do so, they sell their dresses, and the book ends.

I wish I could say I'm being tongue in cheek here, but considering the subject there was a surprising lack of conflict. The sisters, with no experience in dressmaking, learn how to make store-quality dresses in an afternoon. The first store they go to to sell their dresses accepts immediately. They need more money and more work, so they go to another store, who also accepts immediately. They start teaching out of their home, which does not go awry. There's zero conflict in this book, zero setbacks, zero struggles, to a degree where it almost felt sort of juvenile or YA in its approach. Very sterile, very introductory. Even the Taliban's presence in Kabul never directly affects the sisters or anyone in their neighborhood or anyone they know. Aside from a brief scene in the beginning involving a woman getting beaten and one of the sisters watching from inside, and a few “what are you doing??” harassing shouts at them, it was very tame.

Maybe I'm used to the tragedy-centric stories by writers like Khaled Hosseini, but this one fell incredibly flat in its execution. Boring and disappointing.

“If I learned anything Downtown, it's this: the only real difference between an enemy and a friend is the day of the week.”

I wasn't sure going into this book if I'd enjoy it or not, if we're being honest from the beginning. This book was featured in the book club I'm a part in, and I very nearly passed it up. I'm glad I stuck with it though!

Stark spent 11 years in Hell, escapes, and is now looking for revenge against the guy who put him there. Starting out from nothing he builds up a small mixed bag of friends, and together with stolen cars, guns, and a basically immortal body (mostly the immortal body part), he starts working towards an end goal that seems more complicated by the day.

This is very much a dark humor book. Lots of sarcasm, lots of violence, some low brow humor, and some moments where it feels like the main character has paused to mug for the camera and wait for canned laughter. If you can get past all that, there's surprising scenes of philosophy mixed in, where Stark contemplates good vs. evil, what makes monsters different than men, and the cost of vengeance. The characters, side and main alike, are all written convincingly, I think, and the settings all managed to be varied and interesting despite the book taking place (basically) in LA.

I'm glad I took the time to read this!

You know, for a book about premonitions and foretelling disaster, this was pretty boring.

Back in 1966, there was a major industrial accident in Aberfan, Wales. Several tons of coal mining debris collapsed, slid down the mountain it was perched at the edge of, and buried a school. Several people all around the world experienced premonitions of the event, in the form of dreams of black or a choking feeling. John Baker, a psychiatrist, collected all this information, and became convinced of the idea that people can and do experience predictive moments. That future disasters could be staved off if only he could harness the power of these predictions. Thus, the Premonitions Bureau was established.

If the book had actually been about this Premonitions Bureau, maybe it would've been more coherent and interesting to me. Unfortunately I think this book suffers from a compelling idea without a lot of information behind it. NPR's review of the book says that this book was written based on an article in The New Yorker from 2019 about John Baker (can be found here), and honestly after skimming the article, there isn't much else about the Bureau that wasn't included in the article.

What can be found in the book is a lot of meticulously researched ideas and examples of premonition in human history. Lots of weird coincidental events, people dreaming of disasters, visions of something happening, that actually come true. None of them are related to one another and there's barely a mention of the Premonitions Bureau throughout, but mildly interesting on their own nonetheless.

Ultimately this was a miss for me, though. It wasn't cohesive, I couldn't really tell why I was reading each event or how it related to the book until quite a bit in, and honestly it was dry as dust throughout. I thought the most interesting part of the book was learning about the mining disaster up front, honestly.

This was a delight to dive into. I'm a huge fan of artbooks, and this one was staggeringly comprehensive. Character art, full color spreads, notes from the development team aplenty, and so many small details I would never have caught otherwise were included in this book. There's even sections on the graffiti on the walls, the posters, signs, and various ephemera that really brought Midgar to life–even if you never really stopped to look at them. There's just so much going on here!

Highly recommend, this was fantastic.

I'm very much a 90s kid, but didn't really follow comics until I married my husband. I of course watched the TV series with my younger brother and remember playing the arcade game with him, and I of course had a favorite turtle (Leonardo, don't @ me), but this is my first time reading TMNT comics.

Writer Kevin Eastmen has started things off really well with a great reimagined origin story, setting the stage for future fun to come. Things seemed pretty fast-paced throughout the collection, and I appreciated that there was clearly time taken to tell a story (with lots of dialogue) alongside the great visuals. Eastmen even takes the time to develop April and Casey, two people who have a presence in the old cartoons but not much else. I don't even have a lot to quibble about, except maybe a minor quibble about the Michelangelo one shot included in the first third or so. The artwork was a huge step down from the rest of the book, in my opinion.

Still, can't wait to pick up volume two!

“A job? What was I going to do with a donkey, prospect for gold? Pioneer westward?”

I went into this with zero expectations beyond “this is a story about a donkey, and I like animals”. I was delightfully surprised to see how lighthearted, cheerful, and wholesome the story was, and by the end I was absolutely rooting for Sherman and his merry band. Sherman was rescued from an animal hoarder, and during the process of rehabilitation, a friend told the author that for a donkey to find joy in life, they have to have a purpose. That purpose, it ended up being, was to be a racer in the donkey race World Championships in Colorado.

The book was a little meandering in places, as fair warning. The strict format of the book is, he runs into a problem involving Sherman's training or the race, he meets someone/knows someone/is put in contact with someone who can fix the problem, and then you get a chapter or two about this person's history and why they're involved with donkeys or marathons or any number of tangents. The author knows a lot of people as it turns out, and this pattern can get a bit tedious in the middle. The ending is also a bit abrupt, and I would have liked more detail about how things wrapped up.

All in all though, I really enjoyed this donkey/human story. I liked the messages of persistence and confronting things that scare you, and am glad I spent time reading this book.

The premise of this book seemed amazing, unfortunately the actual thing didn't deliver. While the beginning of the book was interesting as it covered Mali history and the origins of the manuscripts, around chapter 5 or so the book took a right turn into non sequitur land. The manuscripts were talked about less and less, and instead ended up with a not-so-brief regional instability history and much talk about terrorists and music(???). As an example, about halfway in, the book starts talking about a concert that Bono from U2 showed up at. I don't really know why. There was also pretty in-depth descriptions of hands and limbs being chopped off in chapter 13. I admit, I skipped that chapter once it was clear where it was going.

The actual book saving portions were interesting, and I wish the author had focused strictly on that. The book might have been shorter, but would have better fit the title.

Plot advancement! The people of the Mud Whale, being given a brief reprieve by the apatheia troops sent to eradicate them, set about defending their home against their eventual return. Because these people are pacifists by nature, there's a lot of soul searching in these pages as they each decide what the Mud Whale means to them and what they'll do to defend it. During the assault, the Mud Whale residents split into two groups, with the main group defending the noncombatants, and a smaller group sent to infiltrate the enemy's ship and disable it. It's a race to see if the Mud Whale's meager training is enough to withstand the imperial apatheia invasion!

This really is a super unique series! I like the role that emotions evidently play in this world, and how the people of the Mud Whale are seen as criminals and deviants for having them. It's also pretty sad, and the writer doesn't pull any punches in the feelings department. I can absolutely see the problems people have with it being a slow plot and it being kind of complex, but personally I'm not having any problems, and I actually like the ambiguity as we move along.

This will be a short review, mostly because there isn't a whole lot to really say about it that hasn't already been covered. Joy returns to China to seek her roots and her family, and gets wrapped up in all the fervor surrounding Red China in the late 1950s. She makes (many) poor decisions. Like mother, like daughter, I suppose.Joy spends most of the book being an unreliable narrator, where her poor decision-making skills are buried in her optimism and intentionally only seeing things at the commune she lives at in China the way she wants them to be seen. She genuinely seems to believe everything she's being told at the commune, which seems like a strange departure from the confident, world-experienced college student she was portrayed to be in the first book. Everything that happened to her felt very much contingent on her remaining (willingly or otherwise) oblivious to what's going on around her, and it was hard to really feel bad for her because of it.I'm glad I read the book to wrap up the events from [b:Shanghai Girls 5960325 Shanghai Girls (Shanghai Girls #1) Lisa See https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327968416l/5960325.SY75.jpg 5991850], but ultimately neither book really felt really solid to me.

I enjoyed this one so much! I found it equal parts amusing and inspiring, and got a lot out of it that I didn't expect to. The 9/11 chapter I found especially moving, and I'm not usually one to get emotional over the event. The letters he enclosed that he wrote to various individuals were always insightful, and I particularly liked the line he delivered about berevity about halfway in:

“Personally, I try to spend twice as much time to make things half as long.”

I feel like that's applicable just about anywhere, as were many of the quotes I noted down in my reading journal for this book. Highly recommend. One of my new favorites.

This was delightful from beginning to end. I know there's lots of comments here about slow starts, but I appreciate that the author was able to cram in so much of Ester's backstory and motivation into so few pages without me losing interest and without it feeling exposition-y. We learn a lot about rocs, about the kingdom, about the main players, about the rookery, and about Ester herself in the beginning, and I think all of that is needed to appreciate the payoff in the second half.

I would definitely read a full-size story about Ester and Zahra, but I also think this was exactly as many pages as it needed to be to tell her story. I think my only complaint (and it's very minor) was the inclusion of (story spoilers here) Nasmin and the prince and the brief love triangle drama we had. It didn't really bring much to the story, and aside from Nasmin's roc being the catalyst of Darius' maiming later on, Nasmin herself and the prince as well was pretty much out of the story after that. It didn't fit in well with the rest of the book.

Still, a really great story. I picked it up to try and get my Goodreads goal back on track, and wasn't expecting it to be this great.

"The dose makes the poison."

As I write this, my husband is giving me the side eye after listening to me go on about how awesome this book about poisons and the people who used them was. I can't imagine why, because we both know I lack the attention span required to cook up a poison or two.

But in all seriousness, this was a fantastic book about several different natural and synthetic compounds that were used to commit crimes. Each chapter features a different poison, centers around a major case (and sometimes a minor one as well) where the poison featured prominently, and discusses medically what happens when the poison is administered and other neat (read: morbid) facts about efficacy, cures, and how the poison was made or discovered. My favorite chapter was the chapter on ricin, if only for the morbidly amusing story about an elderly woman in Vermont who cooked up poisons in her assisted living kitchen. The chapter on polonium was also fascinating.

It's not a very long book and the poisons discussed were all ones I had at least heard of, if not knew the details about. It's not a comprehensive book about all poisons ever, but what it does talk about is well fleshed out and entertaining to read about. Just a great, interesting read all around.

Maybe pick your audience carefully before discussing this book, though.

I'm fortunate that in my thirtysomething years on this planet I haven't required anything more serious than some antibiotics for strep, and the only time I've gone under the knife was for elective cosmetic surgery. My husband, likewise, is healthy as a horse (knock on all available wood). So I approached this book very much as an outsider with a general interest in, well, generally all things, and the premise sounded interesting. I was extremely surprised at how much I walked away with from this book, even having no ongoing medical conditions myself.

The book is structured in such a way that the author's points are mixed in with actual cases and examples emphasizing what she finds important. There's also two larger cases that span a good chunk of the book, one involving a patient named Jay and the other a burn victim named Glenn, that she uses to drive home points all throughout the book. I really liked this approach, and also appreciated the fact that everything was easy to understand and approachable.

The premise can be a little scary for some people, that mistakes can happen, but people are people and this is very hard to overcome. The author goes to great lengths explaining all the safeguards and thought processes in place to prevent mistakes from happening, and then also discusses all the ways these can be bypassed in the name of expedited care and overworked staff. The specific mistakes involved in the two larger cases (Jay's and Glenn's) are outlined at the very end of the book, and the author discusses how these mistakes and others can be avoided by the medical industry. Chapter 16 especially was good to read, as the author discusses what a patient can do to protect themselves, and also provides various resources to reach out to if negligent treatment is suspected.

All in all I enjoyed this book a ton and walked away with some valuable information that I'll hopefully carry with me as my husband and I get older.