REVIEW⤏ WHERE ALL LIGHT TENDS TO GO

BY DAVID JOY

SYNOPSIS FROM AUTHORS WEBSITE⇣
The area surrounding Cashiers, North Carolina, is home to people of all kinds, but the world that Jacob McNeely lives in is crueler than most. His father runs a methodically organized meth ring, with local authorities on the dime to turn a blind eye to his dealings. Having dropped out of high school and cut himself off from his peers, Jacob has been working for this father for years, all on the promise that his payday will come eventually.  The only joy he finds comes from reuniting with Maggie, his first love, and a girl clearly bound for bigger and better things than their hardscrabble town.
Jacob has always been resigned to play the cards that were dealt him, but when a fatal mistake changes everything, he’s faced with a choice: stay and appease his father, or leave the mountains with the girl he loves. In a place where blood is thicker than water and hope takes a back seat to fate, Jacob wonders if he can muster the strength to rise above the only life he’s ever known.

BOOK TAGS⇣

⤏ THE REALIST SOUTHERN GRIT-LIT
⤏ METH, DEATH AND TRYING TO DO THE RIGHT THING
⤏ BORN OF CIRCUMSTANCE
⤏ SERIOUSLY, THERE IS NO JOY IN DAVID JOY'S BOOKS

BOOK DETAILS⇣

AUDIO PERFORMED BY⇢ MACLEOD ANDREWS

SOURCE⇢ LIBBY AUDIOBOOK (LIBRARY)

AUDIOBOOK LENGTH⇢ 7 HOURS, 31 MINUTES

MY THOUGHTS⇣

I've now listened to two books by David Joy, and I feel that I can safely say that he doesn't do the quintessential happy ending.  He does the harsh, realistic ones.  The gut-punching type...and he does them really well.

Between Where All Light Tends To Go and The Weight of This World, I have to say I liked WALTTG even more than TWOTW...Which was in large part due to me liking this MC more.  He was much more relatable and I was so pulling for him.

Both books are not only very well written, but they are also both very well narrated by Macloed Andrews.  He does the accent perfectly and invokes just the right tone and intensity needed for these stories.

BREAKDOWN⇣

Plot⇢ 4.5/5

Characters⇢ 4.5/5

The Feels⇢ 5/5

Pacing⇢ 5/5

Addictiveness⇢ 5/5

Theme, Tone or Intensity⇢ 5/5
Originality/Believability⇢ 5/5

Flow (Writing Style)⇢ 5/5

Ending⇢ 4.3/5

REVIEW⤏ RITES OF PASSAGE

BY JOY N HENSLEY

SYNOPSIS FROM AUTHORS WEBSITE⇣
Sam McKenna’s never turned down a dare. And she's not going to start with the last one her brother gave her before he died.
So Sam joins the first-ever class of girls at the prestigious Denmark Military Academy. She’s expecting push-ups and long runs, rope climbing and mud-crawling. As a military brat, she can handle an obstacle course just as well as the boys. She's even expecting the hostility she gets from some of the cadets who don’t think girls belong there. What’s she’s not expecting is her fiery attraction to her drill sergeant. But dating is strictly forbidden and Sam won't risk her future, or the dare, on something so petty...no matter how much she wants him.
As Sam struggles to prove herself, she discovers that some of the boys don’t just want her gone—they will stop at nothing to drive her out. When their petty threats turn to brutal hazing, bleeding into every corner of her life, she realizes they are not acting alone. A decades-old secret society is alive and active… and determined to force her out.
At any cost.
Now, time's running short. Sam must decide who she can trust...and choosing the wrong person could have deadly consequences.

BOOK TAGS⇣

⤏ MILITARY ACADEMY
⤏ MISOGYNY
⤏ MYSTERIOUS SECRET SOCIETY
⤏ YOUNG LOVE
⤏ CONTEMPORARY

BOOK DETAILS⇣

AUDIO PERFORMED BY⇢ KHRISTINE HVAM

SOURCE⇢ LIBBY AUDIOBOOK (LIBRARY)

AUDIOBOOK LENGTH⇢ 10 HOURS, 28 MINUTES

MY THOUGHTS⇣

First off, you can really tell that this Author knows about Military School, being a Military Brat, and how it feels to be one of the only girls in something that men/boys feel is only for them and not for the "weaker sex".  The misogyny is strong in this one.  If you read the author's bio it says she once went to military school on a dare, even.  So maybe that's why so much of this story feels genuine.

How one feels about this book would probably depend on what they were looking for from the story itself.  If you're looking for a super swoony romance with a military school backdrop...than you might be disappointed because the romance really takes a backseat to the trials of making it through her first year at the Acadamy.  For me, I thought it was easy to invest in the story because you really want to see Sam prove to these boys that she can do it and that she can take all their BS and still come out on top.

I only had a couple of issues, one with trying to keep track of all the characters and their many names they were referred to...I got confused a number of times.  Another was with how things played out in the end, not all of the guilty parties got their comeuppance and it was disappointing to have it end like that.

BREAKDOWN⇣

Plot⇢ 4.3/5

Characters⇢ 3.5/5

The Feels⇢ 4.5/5

Pacing⇢ 4.7/5

Addictiveness⇢ 4.5/5

Theme, Tone or Intensity⇢ 4.2/5
Originality/Believability⇢ 5/5

Flow (Writing Style)⇢ 4.5/5

Romance/Chemistry⇢ 3.8/5

Ending⇢ 2.5/5

REVIEW⤏ ECHOES BETWEEN US

BY KATIE MCGARRY

SYNOPSIS FROM AUTHORS WEBSITE⇣
Veronica sees ghosts. More specifically, her mother's ghost. The afterimages of blinding migraines caused by the brain tumor that keeps her on the fringes and consumes her whole life haunt her, even as she wonders if it's something more...
Golden boy Sawyer is handsome and popular, a state champion swimmer, but his adrenaline addiction draws him to Veronica.
A girl with nothing to live for and a boy with everything to lose--can they conquer their demons together?

BOOK TAGS⇣

⤏ QUIRKY HEROINE
⤏ CLIFF-JUMPING HERO
⤏ YOUNG LOVE
⤏ ADDICTION & BRAIN TUMORS
⤏ CANDIDATE FOR THE WORSE MOTHER OF THE YEAR AWARD

BOOK DETAILS⇣

AUDIO PERFORMED BY⇢ BRITTANY PRESSLEY & GRAHAM HALSTEAD

SOURCE⇢ LIBBY AUDIOBOOK (LIBRARY)

AUDIOBOOK LENGTH⇢ 12 HOURS, 34 MINUTES

MY THOUGHTS⇣

At first, I found this to be slightly cheesy, specifically Sawyer...when he was chanting in his own head, I need that high, gotta get that high...I was so not feeling this addiction to cliff-diving element.  Then we meet his mother...and seriously, she is a piece of work.  If there is an award for the worse Mother of the year award, she should get it, at the very least be in the running.  The things she said to her son...were just wrong.  She was behaving like a bully, to her own child...it was sad how pathetic she was.  Maybe, even too much to be believable.

I did like Veronica right from the start...she's quirky, she sees ghosts, and she has a secret she's keeping from everyone, and her Dad was great.  She also has a lot of heart and sorta made the story feel more believable for me or at least made it so I was to overlook what felt wrong and focus on what was right.

The narration was super good; Brittany Pressley is a fav, and Graham Halstead is steadily becoming one.  My only issue was with the beginning of each one of Sawyer chapters; he read from an old journal that he found written by a girl who stayed in an old asylum near their house.  If a third narrator had narrated those sections, they would have been less confusing.

BREAKDOWN⇣

Plot⇢ 4/5

Characters⇢ 4.3/5

The Feels⇢ 4/5

Pacing⇢ 4/5

Addictiveness⇢ 4.5/5

Theme, Tone or Intensity⇢ 4/5

Flow (Writing Style)⇢ 3.8/5

Originality/Believability⇢ 3/5

Ending⇢ 4/5

REVIEW⤏ WHERE THEY FOUND HER

BY KIMBERLY MCCREIGHT

SYNOPSIS FROM GOODREADS⇣
At the end of a long winter, in bucolic Ridgedale, New Jersey, the body of an infant is discovered in the woods near the town’s prestigious university campus. No one knows who the baby is, or how her body ended up out there. But there is no shortage of opinions.
When freelance journalist, and recent Ridgedale transplant, Molly Anderson is unexpectedly called upon to cover the story for the Ridegdale Reader, it’s a risk, given the severe depression that followed the loss of her own baby. But the bigger threat comes when Molly unearths some of Ridgedale’s darkest secrets, including a string of unreported sexual assaults that goes back twenty years.
Meanwhile, Sandy, a high school dropout, searches for her volatile and now missing mother, and PTA president Barbara struggles to help her young son, who’s suddenly having disturbing outbursts.

BOOK TAGS⇣

⤏ WHERE THEY FOUND HER DIDN'T REALLY MATTER ALL THAT MUCH??? 
⤏ MYSTERY
⤏ BABY MAMA DRAMA AND THEN SOME
⤏ SECRETS, LIES & BETRAYALS
⤏ TWISTY-ISH, I GUESS...

BOOK DETAILS⇣

AUDIO PERFORMED BY⇢ Tavia Gilbert, Lauren Fortgang, Rachel F. Hirsch,  & Therese Plummer

NARRATION RATING⇢  3.5/5

SOURCE⇢ LIBBY AUDIOBOOK (LIBRARY)

AUDIOBOOK LENGTH⇢ 11 HOURS

MY THOUGHTS⇣ 

Too many characters, too many POVs, too many time jumps, and too many babies Mama's, Daddies, and whatnot.  I couldn't keep track of it all.

It was awesome that it had additional narrators for each POV and most are really good narrators, a couple of them sounded the same, and I never knew who's head I was in...except for the Journalist, Molly, and that's because she was narrated by one of my least favorite narrators, Tavia Gilbert.  All these additional POVs did for me was confuse me, honestly.  By the end, I didn't know who did who; and who got who pregnant.  The question section on the book's Goodreads page cleared some of that up for me or at least told me I had it all wrong.

Then to top it off, the twist at the end was literally out of nowhere...I just can't with this book...or this bucolic town of Ridgedale...more like Drama-dale.

MY RATING⇢ 2½✰STARS✰

BREAKDOWN⇣

Plot⇢ 2/5

Characters⇢ 2/5

The Feels⇢ 2/5

Pacing⇢ 3/5

Addictiveness⇢ 3/5

Theme, Tone or Intensity⇢ 3/5

Flow (Writing Style)⇢ 3.5/5

Twisty-ness/Mystery⇢ 3.5/5

Believability⇢ 2/5

Ending⇢ 2.5/5

REVIEW⤏ THE VANISHING DEEP

BY ASTRID SCHOLTE

SYNOPSIS FROM AUTHORS WEBSITE⇣
Seventeen-year-old Tempe was born into a world of water. When the Great Waves destroyed her planet five hundred years ago, its people had to learn to survive living on the water, but the ruins of the cities below still called. Tempe dives daily, scavenging the ruins of a bygone era, searching for anything of value to trade for Notes. It isn’t food or clothing that she wants to buy, but her dead sister’s life. For a price, the research facility on the island of Palindromena will revive the dearly departed for twenty-four hours before returning them to death. It isn’t a heartfelt reunion that Tempe is after; she wants answers. Elysea died keeping a terrible secret, one that has ignited an unquenchable fury in Tempe: Her beloved sister was responsible for the death of their parents. Tempe wants to know why.
But once revived, Elysea has other plans. She doesn’t want to spend her last day in a cold room accounting for a crime she insists she didn’t commit. Elysea wants her freedom and one final glimpse at the life that was stolen from her. She persuades Tempe to break her out of the facility, and they embark on a dangerous journey to discover the truth about their parents’ death and mend their broken bond. But they’re pursued every step of the way by two Palindromena employees desperate to find them before Elysea’s time is up–and before the secret behind the revival process and the true cost of restored life is revealed.

BOOK TAGS⇣

⤏ DYSTOPIAN/FUTURISTIC TECHY
⤏ WATERWORLD-ESQUE
⤏  LIFE & DEATH DEALERS
⤏ DEALING WITH GRIEF
⤏ AN INTRIGUING SLIGHTLY FANTASTICAL WORLD

BOOK DETAILS⇣

AUDIO PERFORMED BY⇢ KARISSA VACKER & WILL DAMRON

SOURCE⇢ LIBBY AUDIOBOOK (LIBRARY)

AUDIOBOOK LENGTH⇢ 10 HOURS, 59 MINUTES

MY THOUGHTS⇣

There were a lot of things that could have been done with this incredible world that the author has created...and we only got a glimpse of what it could embody.  With a Water World-Esque-ness that is less rapey, and more techy or techier as Grammarly wants me to call it.  You know, sometimes Grammarly, I just want to make up my own words.  Shockingly, I wanted this to be longer, with more illumination on this futuristic, dystopian-ish world, and actually, a tad more character development wouldn't hurt, either.  Feeling that way is weird for me because I usually complain that I want books to be shorter with less inane chatter which blessedly, this doesn't have, at least.

An exciting world combined with characters that while I did want to know them a little better, at least I thought it would be worthwhile to know them better.  Plus the ramifications and moral dilemmas arising from the restoring the dead back to an alive state all added up to almost four stars for me...which I bumped up for the awesome narration.  Will Damron is one of my favorite male voices for narration...he is always exceptional, and Karissa Vacker has never disappointed me yet, either.  Together they kept the story moving along really well.

BREAKDOWN⇣

Plot⇢ 4.3/5

Characters⇢ 4/5

The Feels⇢ 4.3/5

Pacing⇢ 4/5

Addictiveness⇢ 4.3/5

Theme, Tone or Intensity⇢ 4.2/5

Flow (Writing Style)⇢ 4/5

World-Building⇢ 3/5

Originality/Believability⇢ 4.3/5

Ending⇢ 4.3/5

REVIEW⤏ FROM A CERTAIN POINT OF VIEW

SYNOPSIS FROM GOODREADS⇣
Forty years. Forty stories.

In honor of the fortieth anniversary of Star Wars: A New Hope, this collection features Star Wars stories by bestselling authors, trendsetting artists, and treasured voices from Star Wars literary history. More than forty authors have lent their unique vision to forty “scenes,” each retelling a different moment from the original Star Wars film, but with a twist: Every scene is told from the point of view of a background character. Whether it’s the X-wing pilots who helped Luke destroy the Death Star or the stormtroopers who never quite could find the droids they were looking for, Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View places the classic movie in a whole new perspective, and celebrates the influence and legacy of the unparalleled cultural phenomenon, Star Wars.

BOOK TAGS⇣

⤏ STAR WARS
⤏ ANTHOLOGY 
⤏  DEEP SPACE

BOOK DETAILS⇣

AUDIO PERFORMED BY⇢ Jonathan Davis, Ashley Eckstein, Janina Gavankar, Jon Hamm, Neil Patrick Harris, January LaVoy, Saskia Maarleveld, Carol Monda, Daniel José Older, Marc Thompson

NARRATION RATING⇢  5/5

SOURCE⇢ LIBBY AUDIOBOOK (LIBRARY)

AUDIOBOOK LENGTH⇢ 15 HOURS, 4 MINUTES

STORY BY STORY BREAKDOWN⇣ (COPIED AND PASTED FROM STAR WARS WIKI)

Title & (My Rating)	Author(s)	Character(s)
"Raymus"  (4.5/5)	Gary Whitta	Raymus Antilles
"The Bucket"  (4/5)	Christie Golden	Tarvyn Lareka
"The Sith of Datawork"  (3.5/5)	Ken Liu	Arvira
"Stories in the Sand" (5/5)	Griffin McElroy	Jot
"Reirin"  (3.5/5)	Sabaa Tahir	Reirin
"The Red One"  (4/5)	Rae Carson	R5-D4
"Rites"  (3.5/5)	John Jackson Miller	A'Koba
"Master and Apprentice"  (3.5/5)	Claudia Gray	Qui-Gon Jinn
"Beru Whitesun Lars"  (2.5/5)	Meg Cabot	Beru Whitesun Lars
"The Luckless Rodian" (4.5/5)	Renée Ahdieh	Greedo
"Not for Nothing"  (5/5)	Mur Lafferty	Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes
"We Don't Serve Their Kind Here" (3.5/5)	Chuck Wendig	Wuher
"The Kloo Horn Cantina Caper" (3.5/5)	Kelly Sue DeConnick and Matt Fraction	Kabe, Muftak, Myo and Djas Puhr
"Added Muscle"  (3.5/5)	Paul Dini	Boba Fett
"You Owe Me a Ride" (3.5/5)	Zoraida Córdova	Brea Tonnika and Senni Tonnika
"The Secrets of Long Snoot"  (4/5)	Delilah S. Dawson	Garindan ezz Zavor
"Born in the Storm"  (4/5)	Daniel José Older	Sardis Ramsin
"Laina" (5/5)	Wil Wheaton	Ryland
"Fully Operational"  (3/5)	Beth Revis	Cassio Tagge
"An Incident Report"(4/5)	Mallory Ortberg	Conan Antonio Motti
"Change of Heart"  (4.5/5)	Elizabeth Wein	Unidentified Imperial Navy Trooper
"Eclipse"  (5/5)	Madeleine Roux	Breha Organa
"Verge of Greatness"  (4/5)	Pablo Hidalgo	Wilhuff Tarkin
**"Far Too Remote"	Jeffrey Brown	Cassio Tagge
"The Trigger" (4/5)	Kieron Gillen	Chelli Lona Aphra
"Of MSE-6 and Men"  (1/5)	Glen Weldon	MSE-6-G735Y
"Bump"  (3/5)	Ben Acker and Ben Blacker	TD-110
"End of Watch" (3/5)	Adam Christopher	Pamel Poul
"The Baptist"  (3/5)	Nnedi Okorafor	Omi
"Time of Death"  (5/5)	Cavan Scott	Obi-Wan Kenobi
"There is Another"  (5/5)	Gary D. Schmidt	Yoda
"Palpatine"  (2/5)	Ian Doescher	Darth Sidious
"Sparks"  (4/5)	Paul S. Kemp	Dex Tiree
"Duty Roster"  (4.5/5)	Jason Fry	Col Takbright
"Desert Son"  (4.5/5)	Pierce Brown	Biggs Darklighter
"Grounded"  (4/5)	Greg Rucka	Nera Kase
"Contingency Plan"  (4/5)	Alexander Freed	Mon Mothma
"The Angle"  (5/5)	Charles Soule	Lando Calrissian
"By Whatever Sun"  (3.5/5)	E. K. Johnston and Ashley Eckstein	Miara Larte
"Whills" (4/5)	Tom Angleberger	Unidentified Whill and another Whill

**This one isn't on Audio version...because it's in comic form.  From what I've read on reviews...I'm not missing anything.

MY THOUGHTS⇣

This is an entertaining collection of stories, it is even more fun to listen on Audio since the narration has basically a full-cast of voices and sound effects.  Some of the stories are too short and some are too long because I found them so annoying (Of MSE-6 and Men) and one of them is in verse (Palpatine) and I don't really like that sort of thing.  But all in all, I really enjoyed most of them.  The chart above is from the Wookieepedia, and someone has put some time in explaining each of these stories in relevance to the OG Star Wars Movie (A New Hope).  The number after each story title is MY ratings for each, not the Wiki.