**spoiler alert** Name of the book is quite deceiving, I barely finished the audiobook and listened at 1x.75 speed.
I wish I liked the book; I really **spoiler alert** Name of the book is quite deceiving, I barely finished the audiobook and listened at 1x.75 speed.
I wish I liked the book; I really wish.
- the author denies the existence of trauma and states that no experience is the cause of our success of failure. - anger is not just an emotion, but rather a tool we can take out when we need it to overpower someone???? - all the problems come from interpersonal relationships??
Genre ~ fiction Setting ~ New York in the past, present different states, Chicago Publication date ~ August 13th, 2018 Est page Cou**spoiler alert** 1⭐
Genre ~ fiction Setting ~ New York in the past, present different states, Chicago Publication date ~ August 13th, 2018 Est page Count ~ 291 pages; 26 chapters Audio length ~ 9.40 hours at x1.4 - x 1.7 Narrator ~ Nancy Wu POV ~ Candace, the main OP Featuring ~ pandemic, pregnancy, car accidents
I wanted to like the book, I really was in the mood for an end-of-the-world book. but as a result, I was utterly disappointed: the writing, the plot with jumps between past and present, the characters that are somehow all annoying
OP was found almost unconscious, she was the last one to leave New York.
before the diseases: she had a boyfriend of 5 year, Jonathan. he broke up with her cause the city was too hard for him. she immigrated to USA as a kid. worked for 5 years in a Bible's department of a big company.
- the disease was a fever one. Shen Fever, a fungal disease, first was named as an outbreak, not a pandemic. the Fevered continue moving by habits, watering dead plans. - i did not like the past vs now story, really distracting.
- the cold countries, like Finland, had the lowest rate of infections. travel ban was enforced there. seemed functional now as well. Bob kept her iPhone she had, she thought it was turned off but Bob broke it. said it is just an artifact of the old life and she needs to accept it, not wanting to see the photos.
OP is pregnant. - Bob, the main dude of the group, decided that he needs to lock up OP for "safety" after she joined others on a night trip. her first night at facility.
then there was a long part about how the OP's dad and mom moved to the US, how hard it was for them, then she had to stay with her grandparents. she became angry and then also moved to the US. mom was very mean. then more talking about her relationship, the way the world acted at the beginning of the pandemic, then she was offered a big bonus to stay in the office and sign off a liability waiver in case she gets the fever due to work.
At the Facility, everyone works 5 days a week while OP is exempted. Then for a month, she was locked up and a person died.
more story about before the leaving, where OP was taking photos for her blogs per requests of people all over the world. She was hallucinating/dreaming about her mom for a while and planned an escape cause was fearing that after the baby was born, she would be in danger.
she managed to escape and get a car. drove to Chicago. ...more
**spoiler alert** "Malice" 4⭐ Genre ~ fiction Setting ~ Japan Publication date ~ September 1, 1996 Page Count ~ 288 pages; 9 chapters Book length ~ 4 hou**spoiler alert** "Malice" 4⭐ Genre ~ fiction Setting ~ Japan Publication date ~ September 1, 1996 Page Count ~ 288 pages; 9 chapters Book length ~ 4 hours 30 minutes POV: Osamu, writer and friend of the killed man; Kaga the detective and someone who knew Osamu from his teaching years. Featuring ~ murder, car accidents, bullying, mention of rape, cancer
wow. I didn't expect this book to surprise me in the end.
1996 • Osamu Nonoguchi: used to be a teacher, now is a writer, writes kids stuff. went to meet up with Hidaka, a childhood friend. chatted a bit, then left home. After a dinner with the editor, I went to meet up with Hidaka again, but the house was dark, so he waited for Rie at a cafe. when they walked into the locked house and office, H was dead. daaamnn. strangled with a phono cord shortly after calling Osamu.
• Hidaka Kunihiko: married, no kids, nice house in a good area. had a first wife who died 5 years ago in a car accident. a popular writer, wa getting ready to move to Vancover very soon. confessed to poisoning Niimi's cat cause he was pooping in the garden, and it would have been harder to sell, damn. chatted with an upset Ms. Fujiho, who was not happy about revealing the plot of a book.
• Rie, Hidaka's 2nd Wife: younger that H, and only married for a month. it was her idea to move to Canada. she was a fam of the writer before dating and marrying him.
• Niimi, a neighbor of H&Rie was in their garden for some reason, holding a grudge.
- after chapter 1: Detective Sadoka at the scene.
another detective was Kaga, someone Osamu knew, both used to teach at the same school. a bit of interrogation in the car.
he was suspicious of Osamu since the first minute when he asked about the time of death, as it's quite a weird question to ask a police officer. in the first 30%, he arrests Osamu (Osamu didn't leave around 5 pm, he hid in the garden, then went into the window, killed Hidaka, programmed his fax to call Osamu's phone at home, went home, invited the editor to come over asap, accepted the fax call and pretended to talk to the already dead Hidaka and used editor, cafe owner, and the wife as triple alibi, quite smart!)
Osamu has cancer.
The detective dug deeper and found out that before the 1st wife of Hidaka died, Osamu had a relationship with her. the two plotted to kill Hidaka, but he recorded everything on video, blackmailed Osamu, took all his drafts of novels, and released them as his own. after some stress, wife #1 jumps under a car, and Osamu is heartbroken. 5 years later, he really kills Hidaka.
detective digs deeper into their middle school years, lots of contradicting answers from witnessed from the school.
what detective found out was the following: there was no plagiarism. Osamu got calisis on his finger from hand writing all of Hidaka's novels by hand. "“Of course, if there was no attempted murder, no blackmail, and no plagiarism, then it would only stand to reason that the precondition necessary for all of those events to take place—Hatsumi’s adultery—also did not occur." It was simply that: an accident. There was no motive for suicide." “Clearly this wasn’t a momentary loss of control or an act carried out ‘in the heat of the moment.’ It was a terrifyingly premeditated execution, the result of a great deal of planning. While you put an impressive amount of thought and energy into it, this alone doesn’t distinguish your crime from all the other murders. I have to admit, the twist you put on it was genius. Typically, much of the planning that goes into a premeditated murder involves schemes to establish an alibi, avoid arrest, or, at the very least, avoid blame." “The trick you used to establish your alibi—using the fax software on the computer—was brilliant. Smart enough to fool an older detective—I’m pretty sure the chief still hasn’t figured it out, by the way—and yet flawed enough, with the monitor left on and the wrong redial number on the house phone, that someone was sure to see through it." “It turns out that the original photograph had already been thrown away. But I knew that Mr. Hidaka had had it in his possession and had plenty of time to make a copy. Thus, this CD. Sorry, I know I’m being overly dramatic, building up to this; but there really isn’t any need, is there? You already know what photo I mean. It’s an old Polaroid of Masaya Fujio assaulting a middle-school girl." You know what I saw in that photograph. It was exactly what I’d anticipated. You were the one holding her down, Mr. Nonoguchi. You helped Masaya Fujio rape that girl." That was worth a little effort, sure, but murder was just another step in your plan to destroy everything Hidaka ever built and taint everything he ever had." “But where could such malice have come from? I looked into your past and his in great detail, but I couldn’t find any reason why Hidaka earned your hatred. He was a good boy … no, an exceptional boy. You should have thanked him, not killed him. Even after you’d spent all that time egging on Masaya Fujio, goading him to torture Hidaka, years later he was there to help you. “I know you felt inferior to him. And I know how, as an adult, you envied Hidaka. The one person in the world you couldn’t bear had become a hugely successful author. Everything you wanted, he’d achieved. When I imagine how you must’ve felt when he received his first award, it makes all the hair on my body stand on end." “When you realized your own death was imminent, you stopped holding back. You couldn’t bear to leave this world with so much rage burning inside you. The fact that Hidaka knew about your past and he had proof that could expose those secrets, that wasn’t the reason you acted. But it was enough to push you over the edge, to push that darkness you held within you out into the light. You decided to spend your last days planning the perfect crime. You murdered a man and let yourself get caught in order to steal everything from your victim—to ruin his name and his honor and everything he loved, even stealing the credit for the books he wrote."
**spoiler alert** 4⭐ Genre ~ fiction Setting ~ Alaska, Point Meatier city tiny city Publication date ~ January 9th, 2023 Est page Count ~ 298 p + 53 ch**spoiler alert** 4⭐ Genre ~ fiction Setting ~ Alaska, Point Meatier city tiny city Publication date ~ January 9th, 2023 Est page Count ~ 298 p + 53 chapters Book length ~ 8 hours (x1.5 speed) Narrators ~ Aspen Vincent, Shannon Tyo, Anna Caputo Featuring ~ domestic violence, murder, drugs
The plot was pretty interesting, liked the twist towards the end. might want to read something similar about Alaska settings.
- Amy: was a young woman (17) who, with her friends, was the first one to find the parts. lives in a city with 205 people only. one building. she and her mom moved when she was 3 yo. have a Chinese restaurant. the police officer was from Anchorage (the small city people call those "Otters" due to it being similar to "others") does not trust police and told them there was only 3 teenagers when there was actually 4 people. (Spencer was there but Amy kept quiet). Amy was dating Spencer.
- Cara: a detective. her husband and son died a year ago on a hike. (they went on a trip to Denali National park after some fighting and distrust.). on the third da of the trip, the dad and son went to play in the snow and went missing for a whole year. she kept on trying to have new research teams search but did not find them. the remains of an adult man and a boy was found after a year. the DNa matched.
- Lany seems mentally ill, very very paranoid, has a Moose Danny. the moose's mom was shot so she took him in as a "pet". tourists love the moose. saw her mom die (domestic abuse) and was sent to the Institute. Chief bosses her around? says she needs to keep secrets.
a tunnel got closed down due to an avalanche, Cara had to stay in the city in a small hotel. the tunnel seems to be closed for about a month per predictions.
The Japanese singer payed a teenager for him to knock on the hotel room so he scares off Cara. found out that Cara was taken off active duty. she is on disability due to PTSD after the lost family members.
in Lany's old area the body was found. Cara dug it out.
Amy did a DNA test as a kid in school and found out that she is more Korean and Japanese, not Chinese as her mom said. mom told her that they are North Korean, not South Korean.
daaaamn that's an interesting turn. the mom said they are in the USA illegally so they must keep quiet. she said her dad lost his life to help them escape. Amy had a huge identity crisis and realized she never even tried Korean food, only Chinese.
the Wolves group came to the city and hotel? quite rude. were armed and searched the room of the man that was found on the beach. same night Spencer, his mom, and brother disappeared. the teacher mom confessed (Spencer's mom) to doing that to the beach man, who was her ex from whom she escaped, while the two sons are still missing. apparently, the kids were hiding in the cave only a few kids new about in between cities. some fighting scene in there with Cara and the "wolves"
Amy stabbed a Wolf gang man to escape, Cara finished him up.
Lany was a witness to the dismemberment. in the last part it was revealed that it was not Spencer's mom who finished the guy, but rather Troy, the quite the 13 year old kid, when he saw his dad. he was abusing towards the kids as well, the youngest was 6 year old then.
Cara found out and tried figuring out a way to save Spencer's mom.
Amy told her mom she wants to leave the small city once she graduates. she decided to apply to California universities where citizenship is not asked for.
Lany also hid every part she found.
Cara coordinated with the Chef and others so that their statements will be the same for the Anchorage Police Department.
5+⭐ Genre ~ historical fiction Setting ~ London, 1939-1945 Publication date ~ April 6, 2021 Est page Count ~ 304 p + 21 chapters Featuring ~ war, bombin5+⭐ Genre ~ historical fiction Setting ~ London, 1939-1945 Publication date ~ April 6, 2021 Est page Count ~ 304 p + 21 chapters Featuring ~ war, bombing, death, loss&grief
What an exceptional book! It's been a while since I've read a book about WWII, let alone one so well written. With each page, I was getting more and more immersed into London from the book. It was so well described that I felt as if I was in the book store next to Grace, trying to organize books, next to Grace in the underground station, listening to her reading the book. I felt sad whenever there was a loss, heartbroken when people suffered, hopeful when there were letters sent to London from Viv and George, and happy to know that Tabby the cat survived. I'll remember this book for a long time. Thank you to the writer....more
**spoiler alert** I'm upset I spent my weekend choosing this book. I should have spent it on something else and I would not have been so disappointed.**spoiler alert** I'm upset I spent my weekend choosing this book. I should have spent it on something else and I would not have been so disappointed. I thought it's a book about childfree women, and that was not the case. the auditor is just trying to say that childfree women MUST not have their own groups but instead join the one with mom. why? because apparently we're all the same. also, 0 stars for the unexpected pregnancy for Annalise.
• Poppy, Childfree. good job married to Garret. he was cheating with her best friend, Karleen. she was her friend of 30 years but husband wanted kids. made a childfree Facebook group once she met up with a new friend, Annalise.
Viv knows the truth about Poppy? Viv was Frankie or her sister. doesn't matter at this point.
• Frankie from work was the mole, Viv, in the childree group...more
"Lifting as we climb" 5⭐ Genre ~ nonfiction Setting ~ USA Publication date ~ April 21, 2020 Est page Count ~ 176 pages; 8 chapters Audio length ~ 5 hours "Lifting as we climb" 5⭐ Genre ~ nonfiction Setting ~ USA Publication date ~ April 21, 2020 Est page Count ~ 176 pages; 8 chapters Audio length ~ 5 hours at x1.4 speed POV ~ Karen Chilton Featuring ~ abuse, police brutality, lynching
- women raised money for abolishment movement - agreed not to buy cotton from south states or any other items that used slave labor to be produced - when white women and black women were not going to the same school, going to the same stores, buried in the same cemeteries, the anti slavery and pro voting discussion places were the only place they would be together - hearing how enslaved women were treated is just awful (kids were picking up cotton from the age of 5) - Nannie Helen Burroughs founded the first African American girls only school in Dc (1909), where they were not taught only "women's" classes - the way women protested and fought for the write to be in the same march as white women is so inspiring...more
**spoiler alert** pretty interesting plot: two girls going to Thailand to travel and end up fighting all the time. the weirdo who is obsessed with Ale**spoiler alert** pretty interesting plot: two girls going to Thailand to travel and end up fighting all the time. the weirdo who is obsessed with Alex kills her in rage and sets her in fire....more
3 ⭐ Genre ~ nonfiction/business Setting ~ California mostly, also Nevada, Oregon Publication date ~ October 17, 2023 Est page Count ~ 256 p Book length 3 ⭐ Genre ~ nonfiction/business Setting ~ California mostly, also Nevada, Oregon Publication date ~ October 17, 2023 Est page Count ~ 256 p Book length ~ 6 hours (x1.25 speed) POV ~ different: granddaughter of the founder, oldest employee, Featuring ~ death, child abuse, drug abuse,
having moved to California 4.5 years ago, I never fully understood the cultural importance of in-n-out. I knew the food was amazing and always fresh, but this book told the whole story. (i love how the presidents always say no to the company being public and how they changed to Coca Cola from Pepsi when Pepsi kept on buying out burger chains and one was very close to In-n-out store)
the use of God to excuse how very dysfunctional the family was wasn't of my liking...more
5⭐ Genre ~ nonfiction Setting ~ all over the world Publication date ~ February 15, 2022 Est page Count ~ 352 p + 10 chapters Audio length ~ 9 hours at x15⭐ Genre ~ nonfiction Setting ~ all over the world Publication date ~ February 15, 2022 Est page Count ~ 352 p + 10 chapters Audio length ~ 9 hours at x1.4 Narrator ~ Gabra Zachman POV ~ 1st, the author Featuring ~ work incidents, shooting, car accidents, drug overdose, fires
I loved the book! I deal with OSHA regulations at work and since I started it, I've noticed so many serious violation I have not noticed before. this book made this even more obvious for me
- the author's friend was killed in an accident: the driver was driving under the influence and the victim was on a bicycle. the author hated the - in the USA, 1 person dies by accident every 3 minutes - the car lobbying to put the blame from car manufacturers and cars being so fast to pedestrians and saying it's "an accident" and not a murder - fire in the chicken factory fire exits were bolted down - the main reason why companies started making the working places safer was because of laws of workers compensation made it more expensive to pay out the injured workers. before, they would just replaced the person, but now they had to pay them out. - airplanes: the bigger the plane and more seats, the higher the profit. - ignorance of risk: experts do not use crash dummies built like a female body. sexism killed thousands of women - the police always uses the "it was an accident" excuse over and over again in thousands of cases. they "accidentally" get in the wrong apartments, shoot, ran over - driverless cars issues with public safety ...more
Featuring ~ child sickness, violence, rape, murder, cancer
Kathy is such a strong woman!
Serial killers don't deserve fame. Ted bundy was not smart and charming. he was an absolute piece of shit.
my notes: it was such a breathtakingg moment when the nurse helping the author was the bride she saw a few hours earlier before the attack.
aftee, males students accompied female students around campus and slept in the dorms.
she had to get a cashiers job to face her fears of men, she worked there for a month and thus her exposure therapy worked. but she did this on her own, her mom did not believe in mental health help.
it's disgusting to hear how the trials went and how both judges said that "it was a shame that his life was cut short by these circumstances". he killed people. dozens of people. what about their lives?
she got divorced and raised her son alone and a mortgage.
her toddler asked about her scar and then said he'd "never let anyone hit her in the face again"
then she had a happy marriage.
I'm so happy she had support during cancer treatment.
is absolutely crazy that she lived where Hurricane Katrina took place and her house and debt was heavily affected by it.
the turtle bathtub situation made me laugh at work "airlifted the turtles and then they watched me bath"
thank you so much for writing the stories of each woman in the end and how they lived....more
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