Carolyn

A quick, fun read, but wanted more...

Revisado: 06-15-22

I picked this up impulsively, without being familiar with the author or series. The cover caught my eye, so I listened to a few minutes of sample audio and wanted to hear more. As it turns out, that sentiment is my only real quibble with the book.

The author packs in quite a few interesting bits of local lore, ghost stories, strange deaths, and unexplained disappearances, but the format is more like a guide book with brief sections on each story or location. It does include visitor information such as addresses, phone numbers, websites, etc. so if you are intending to use this book to plan a trip, that could certainly be helpful.

Again, I purchased this book right after listening to the sample, and didn't look at any other details, so I started with basically no information about length/format/style, which is entirely my fault. I really would have enjoyed more in depth explorations of the stories, as the author's style is engaging and descriptive in a way that helps you imagine being in each scene. But, if my biggest gripe about a book is that I wanted more of it, I think that's a pretty good problem to have!

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Interesting read, odd choice of narrator

Revisado: 07-10-21

I think it should go without saying that this is not a book for the faint of heart. While not gratuitously detailed, the book is thoroughly researched by a writer who has dedicated years to the subject, and does cover gruesome territory, both real and of the urban legend variety. Ormsby does a solid job of portraying the moral ambiguity of certain aspects of the Dark Web and exploring the uncomfortable draw that it seems to stir in some internet users. If you can stomach the content, this is definitely worth a read.
One note on the listening experience: I am not sure what was behind the choice of narrator or his style for this book. The pace and inflection of his speech comes off like a campy radio melodrama and is at best distracting, at worst inappropriate. However, if you speed the playback to between 1.25x and 1.5x it becomes tolerable enough that you can focus on the book itself and not the bizarre stylistic choice of narration.

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Brilliant and devastating

Revisado: 06-29-21

A lesson I have learned in both writing and theater classes is that if you really want to make a reader (or audience) cry, you have to make them laugh first. There's something emotionally that ties the two together at a deep level. If you need evidence of that, Chris Farley's life and work offer a painfully real example.

The book uses brief passages of exposition to establish dates, places, and times. But the bulk of the narrative is beautifully composed of memories and commentary from the people who knew and loved Chris. The variety of perspectives reveal how much he touched the lives of such a broad swathe of humanity in so many ways, both personally and professionally.

The stories are not sugarcoated; they provide perspectives on Chris' creativity, deep insecurities, his engagement with his Catholic faith and volunteer work, his sometimes volatile behavior and difficult relationships; his years of substance abuse and his triumphs during sobriety, and his desire to leave the world a happier, funnier place.

You may or may not be familiar with his work, as well as his tragic death, but these collected memories of the people who were by his side through everything create a profoundly human portrait of Chris Farley. This book will make you laugh, it will make you think, and it will indeed make you cry.

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Good information, not ideal for audio

Revisado: 04-30-21

This is definitely a book worth reading, but perhaps not one that lends itself to audiobook format. It's written in more of a "listicle" style than a narrative one, which I wasn't really expecting, and I had to keep stopping to jot down authors and titles to look into, or I would completely lose track. Not the end of the world, but I think I would have preferred the print version.

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Enough already...

Revisado: 01-29-21

This could have been a really engaging and insightful account of the author's severe but mysterious illness and his fight to survive. Instead, it reads more like a laundry list of how inferior he considered everyone around him during that time. I feel for the author and what an awful experience his illness and hospitalization must have been. However, the overall tone and delivery of the story comes off as whiny, entitled, and quite unsympathetic to his fellow patients. I finally gave up after the frankly cruel and dehumanizing description of a patient there for bariatric surgery.

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esto le resultó útil a 9 personas

Nerd Heaven!

Revisado: 07-12-20

This book is flat out awesome. It has the perfect balance of detailed information, bizarre facts, relevant contemporary topics, and entertaining humor. The narration is spot on, and brings the book to life.

The writing is accessible and has a great narrative flow, so even if you're not hugely into microbiology, you can learn and enjoy it. Did you know that certain strains of e. coli can take stock of a human's gut microbes and create a "report" on the state of things? Do you know how bacterial strains and species can trade genetic codes just by being in each other's presence? Do you know how a veterinarian collects microbe samples from a dolphin's blowhole? Do you know how hyenas can communicate with their nether regions? Do you know how creatures in the deepest parts of the ocean "feed" themselves without light, a mouth, or s digestive tract? Did you know there's a creature called a Yeti Crab? (look it up, it's even cooler than you imagine it). Well, you'll learn about all that and way more in this book.

If you love science/medicine, this book will be a real treat. I mean, this author has a favorite bacteria! (The Wolbachia family, to be specific.) So you know the book comes from a real place of love and fascination. I would happily read/listen to another ten chapters.

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Couldn't put it down...

Revisado: 06-26-20

True Crime is one of those odd genres, attempted by many but mastered by few. There is a nearly ubiquitous tendency to rely on gorey details and shocking revelations while skimping on quality writing and research. Fortunately for readers, Mr. Epstein seems to have the knack for writing a gripping but thoughtful book that does justice to the people described therein.

This book is Epstein's second, and at the beginning of the book, he explains his choice to wait on writing until he found a crime that inspired his investigation and writing, rather than jumping on the easiest or most accessible story. Aside from the basics -- Mike Williams, a young husband and father disappeared under very strange circumstances during a duck hunting excursion -- I wasn't at all sure what to expect. But the author's own passion for telling this story pulled me in.

The events unfold at an engaging pace, but not too quickly to develop and describe the "characters" (if that is the right word for real people in a story). Carefully selected details about the seasons, weather, geography, fauna, and flora all contribute to the feel of the environment where the events of the book took place. I admit to still having a slight case of the creeps from the description of the Hydrilla beneath the surface of Lake Seminole. As it turns out, the thick, grasping underwater plants are a pretty apt metaphor for the subtext and secrets surrounding the death of Mike Williams.

Reading this book, it is clear that the author has a real love of writing and true compassion for the victim and the many people whose lives he touched. The book will definitely keep your interest and keep you listening well into the night; but the respect and care with which it is written will remind the reader of the real people who loved, lost, and fought for the truth of this case.

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Unlike anything else I have read

Revisado: 05-24-20

...wow. I wish I had a more eloquent way of starting this out, but I am just going to stick with the visceral reaction I had to this gut-wrenching, mind-boggling, and incredibly impactful book.

For decades, the subject of terrorism has pervaded nearly every facet of life, from changes to the law in the name of national security, immigration policy, and even popular culture. An ugly and sinister vein of xenophobia and nationalism has grown throughout the west.

Meanwhile, life for many citizens from south Asia to the Middle East to Africa has become a revolving door of corrupt governments, military interventions from other nations, sectarian violence, echoes of colonialism, and religious fundamentalism and extremism.

What does all this mean to a woman who is a practicing Muslim? As the stories in this book show, it means a lot of different things. It means fear, uncertainty, disillusionment, defensiveness, and an incredibly complex search for identity and empowerment when it seems the whole world demands something different of you, with many of those demands in direct conflict with one another.

More than anything these stories put human faces to these very real women; to situations in their lives you may never experience, to choices you may never have to make, to beliefs that may starkly contradict your own. And, these are not pat, neatly-wrapped fables or morality plays. These are the lived experiences of women who, for one or many reasons, were drawn into the Islamic State and what it purported to represent.

Do not go into this book with judgment in your heart. If you cannot set aside anger and condemnation for long enough to get through this book, wait until you are at an emotional point where you can. It sets forth a complex and challenging narrative, and a reader would do themselves a disservice by picking up this book with a preconceived notion of what the "women of ISIS" will mean. If you can approach this book with your mind open to seeing these women, their dreams, their choices, and how their lives have played out, it is an amazing read that will stay with you.

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Highly recommended

Revisado: 05-16-20

Cancer is, for many people, an extremely intimidating topic. You'd be hard pressed to find a person whose life has not been touched by it in one way or another. And yet, despite its ubiquity, we rarely talk about it in a frank, rational manner. As the author notes, there is so much emotion and fear tied to the disease that we don't actually learn anywhere near as much about it as we should. Breast cancer may be the clearest example of this phenomenon. And, as she proves in each chapter, we do ourselves, our loved ones, and the rest of the population a disservice by simplifying the illness into a big, pink monolith.

As a journalist specializing in health care topics, Ms. Pickert was no stranger to the complexities of the American medical system. And yet, as a young woman staring down a breast cancer diagnosis, she found herself in the same frightening position as any other patient. Fortunately for readers, she applied her research and analytic skills to the disease that interrupted her life, and has provided an invaluable resource in this book.

Pickert addresses breast cancer from a great number of angles. Her research reveals a rapidly changing landscape of treatment protocols, including radiation, surgical intervention, chemotherapy, and other drug therapies, and touches on the "cultural differences" between leading oncologists with conflicting treatment preferences.

Through her own experience and those of other women, she explores options to ameliorate some of the most unpleasant parts of treatment, and encourages patients to ask questions and be active in the decision making process about their cancer treatment. Using primary written sources, she profiles the historical pitfalls in surgery, anesthesia (or lack thereof) and aftercare.

She also sheds light on the dogma and politicking that have invaded this branch of medicine. This includes a look at the original idea of a ribbon awareness campaign (launched by a single woman hand making and distributing hundreds of peach-colored ribbons, inspired by the red AIDS awareness ribbon campaign), its co-opting and morphing into the pink ribbon used by so many companies and charities.

Also explored is the debate over the diagnostics that we have grown so accustomed to, especially mammography. While emotions still run high on the subject, multiple impartial studies have called into question the efficacy of annual mammograms in women under 50, as well as its usefulness as a tool in detecting certain types of tumors in dense or very dense breast tissue. She talks to experts who are evaluating other technologies, such as abbreviated MRI and ultrasound, which may improve testing accuracy and prevent the emotional and physical trauma of unnecessary procedures.

Overall this is an excellent book that covers an enormous amount of information and encourages us all to have a more active role in understanding breast cancer. The writing is comprehensive but accessible, and I would love to read more from this author.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Disappointing

Revisado: 05-07-20

wanted so badly to like this book. I really, really did. Unfortunately, no matter how long I wrestled with it, I could not make myself even want to finish.

The premise sounded amazing. I love horror, I love history, and this sounded like a cool take on both. The book presents an alternate history, wherein the eponymous vampire is resurrected and enlisted to fight the Nazis as they move to occupy Romania. Vlad Tepes, in his immortalized form, agrees to a somewhat uneasy detante with a cast of characters that includes the original Van Helsing, his adult daughter Lucille, a pair of English spies, and various less-developed secondary players.

The deal: help the freedom fighters by devouring as many Nazis as possible, don't eat your comrades, and Vlad can once again save his native land from invaders.

Bram Stoker's novel is cast as silly fluff, based very loosely around the original encounter between Dr. Van Helsing and Dracula, though the book borrows Stoker's epistolary format.

The chapters shift from the painfully lovelorn diaries of J. Harker, (the grandson of Jonathan Harker), to excerpts of Lucille's schmaltzy, unpublished work of bodice-ripping fiction "The Dragon Prince and I," to a series of diplomatic and personal letters between various ranking members of the Nazi party, real and imaginary, to the personal diaries of someone who may-or-may-not be Hitler himself, writing annoyingly in the third person about the day-to-day life of "Herr Wolf."

The hardest thing about the book was that it tried to do so many things at once, without committing to any of them, and the effect was both disappointing and irritating to read. It could have been a really engaging, dark and sinister take, or a fun and snarky misadventure, or an exciting adventure combining history and literature. It had hints of all of these, but the overall effect was mediocre, and it was impossible to really feel for any of the characters.

Again, I truly wanted to like this book. I kept reading and slogging through, waiting for the moment things would coalesce and become the book that this wanted to be. But it never happened. If you like stories in the alternate history/alternate literature vein, skip this and pick up something by Seth Grahame Smith, G.S. Denning, or Christopher Moore.

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