July Wrap-Up

In the Neighborhood of True - Susan Kaplan Carlton

Started: July 4th 2020

Finished: July 5th 2020

Rated: 4

Likes: Southern Aspect, Standing up for what is right

Dislikes: Max, Ending

Notes: Book Tour for Algonquin Books: July 7th 2020

The Hate U Give - Angie Thomas

Started: June 13th 2020

Finished: July 7th 2020

Rated: 5

Likes: Real, Tells the factual backstory instead of the BS, Characters

Dislikes: None

Notes: #BLM

Red at the Bone - Jacqueline Woodson

Started: July 8th 2020

Finished: July 15th 2020

Rated: 2.5

Likes: Characters Recollections

Dislikes: No plot, Not attached, Confusing perspectives

Notes: This was a miss for me

Airframe - Michael Crichton

Started: July 20th 2020

Finished: July 20th 2020

Rated: 4.5

Likes: Writing Style, Technicality, Detail, Mystery

Dislikes: Open Ended Detail

Notes: Reading Rush 2020

The Prophecy of the Stones - Flavia Bujor

Started: July 21st 2020

Finished: July 23rd 2020

Rated: 1

Likes: None

Dislikes: Characters, Plot, Lack of Explanation

Notes: Reading Rush 2020

The Prophecy of the Stones - Flavia Bujor

Rating: ⭐

Not to be absolutely horrible, but this book doesn't even deserve one star. I desperately wanted to DNF this, but I pushed through (by skimming a large, LARGE portion) because this was to complete two prompts for The Reading Rush.

Everything about this book I didn't enjoy. The characters were immature, irritating and horrible. The plot was so chaotic and up and down that it didn't make sense. The context of the plot, like the background as to why this whole story is even happening, isn't explained well or at all. I'm so confused about this book as a whole.

The characters. Jade (disgraceful), Amber and Opal. A story about gemstones! How fun! No. These characters are unlikeable in all senses, Jade being the worst of them all (oh the irony). She has no manners and is stuck up and snobby. She does not respect anyone and sees herself above everyone and everything. Personally, this doesn't change throughout the book for me. While she completes "selfless" acts, she only does so because she has to. The other girls are just forgetful and unimportant.

I don't understand what The Prophecy in this was or why The Council even cared about the girls. Their background hatred wasn't explained and how the girls even came into existence? Nope none of it was explained.

I don't want to talk about this anymore. I do not recommend at all.

Airframe - Michael Crichton

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½

This is an author I've heard a lot about! He has a lot of author really famous works that I've heard of, but this was the book that came into my life first.

The premise of this completely captured my interest. A plane goes through a lethal disaster while up in the air. Three passengers are dead and fifty-six are injured. Safety and death is paramount and this causes a frantic investigation into what caused the disaster.

Especially how this book starts, it's a mother and taking care of her child on board a long flight. Her husband wakes up and decides it is prime time to film the child. While filming, disaster strikes and the camera flies out of the husbands hand as the plane begins to nose dive towards the ground. Like???? That had me hooked and I wanted to know what happened to the flight. As you read further, the more you understand what could've caused the problem, but none of these predictions end up being right... so what did happen?

We then follow our main character, Casey Singleton, who is the vice president at Norton Aircraft, the place where the plane involved in the disaster was made/produced (whatever the correct technical term is). We follow her through the investigation process, through her findings, her thoughts, and general business at Norton. But there is a lot more happening that Casey doesn't know about and somehow... it's connected to this plane. It's just so intriguing agh! I was captured and didn't want to put the book down until I figured out what happened to the plane and why. I also became intrigued by the workings at Norton and why certain people were acting so sketchy.

I really enjoyed the writing style and the detail of this book. The author uses a lot of plane terminology that is well explained for someone who knows literally nothing about any of that stuff. It actually made it more realistic and interesting for me. Like these are real things people do and these are problems that companies face (maybe not to such an extreme, but who knows), how interesting!

The only thing I had a problem with is I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO THE HUSBAND AT THE BEGINNING OF THE BOOK! Where did he go? Is he one of the ones who died...? Like what happened with that??? This in no way connects to the plot of the story so I feel like I can share what happened. He is filming the child, the incident happens, and the wife recalls looking over to her husband and he is no longer in his seat. Where did he go? Did he fly to the front of the plane? Is he injured? Is he dead? I WANT TO KNOW! When Casey arrives on the scene it is mentioned there is a mother and an infant, which I'm assuming is the perspective of those we first saw, and those I'm mentioning now. Where is the husband.... hmmmmm.