Mystery/Thriller Reading Friends discussion

APR
☀ Stargazing by Jen Wang -4
Read for another challenge, this is an award-winning graphic novel about 2 eleven-year old Chinese-American girls and the normal process of friendship.

☀ The Okay Witch by Emma Steinkellner -3.5
Again for another challenge, a middle grade graphic novel about a young girl who discovers she's a budding witch. It was cute.

☀ Where There Was Fire by John Manuel Arias -3.5
Read for my Reading the World challenge, this debut novel centers around the culpability of the American companies in the "banana republic" regions and the impact on the lives of the peoples working for them. As always I had to do more research to determine what was "history" and what was "historical fiction". The history is worse than the fiction. I may never eat another banana. As a debut, it wasn't a bad read, but the various storylines were a bit disjointed.

☀ The Dragons, the Giant, the Women: A Memoir by Wayétu Moore -5
A nonfiction about a family, from the perspective of the 5-year-old duaghter (Wayetu) and later her mother, on the families escape from Liberia during the civil war.

☀ Food of Ghosts by Marianne Wheelaghan -2.5
A Scottish female police detective accepts a transfer to head up a team in Kiribati, where she was born. The storyline could have been great, unfortunately ruined by a debut author trying too hard. This was supposed to be the first in the series. There is only a second book, which I wont' try.

☀ The Mistress of Bhatia House by Sujata Massey -4
The latest in the Perveen Mistry series in which the only female lawyer (workikng for her father) in 1920's India is working to solve the murders of several prominent men. The story touched on some sensitive topics that surprised me for the era.

And you all read my trials with the pages in the hardcover itself. Wait til you hear about the next one...

☀ Z For Zachariah by Robert C. O'Brien -3
An Edgar award winner, this is the story of 15 year old Ann, the only living human in the farming area where she grew up, after a nuclear war has decimated the US. Until Mr. Loomis shows up in his specially-made hazmat suit. It was a bit of an uncomfortable listen, but one that I wanted to finish. I paused my audible subscription yesterday, listening to all but the last 7 minutes during my trip out of town today. When I went back a few hours later to finish those last minutes, I discovered that audible had locked the book because it was in the Plus Catalog and I couldn't listen to it with a paused subscription. Sigh. So a search was on to find something that would tell me the ending. Thankfully there are people still writing reviews with spoilers in them...

Gail, what a trial to finish those two books this month! Between the print publishing industry and the ‘joy’ of not owning outright a streaming audio from audible you had quick a few roadblocks. Seven minutes left and locked. Crazy. Thank goodness for reviews with spoilers! I know we should download the audio books we pay for or that are included in our subscriptions but who has time for that.