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lifepluspreston's reviews
735 reviews
The Manor House by Gilly Macmillan
4.0
The Manor House by Gilly Macmillan--The concept for this book is simple. A couple wins the lottery, builds their dream home, and later, the wife finds her husband dead. The treat of this book is the writing from multiple perspectives, including the main suspects. The plot itself is convoluted in an enjoyable way. This was a decent source of peace and fun in a chaotic day. Thumbs up.
Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
4.0
Ace of Spades by Faridah Ábíké Íyímídé--This book is described as Gossip Girl meets Get Out, and it's pretty true to that. Two Black students at a prestigious private school find themselves battling against a blackmailer who seems hellbent on their social destruction. This was paced really well, with twists unfolding at almost every turn. I nearly missed a pickleball round robin for this. There is no higher praise. Thumbs up.
The Inner Clock: Living in Sync with Our Circadian Rhythms by Lynne Peeples
4.0
The Inner Clock by Lynne Peeples--Both a history of our relationship with sleep and an analysis of the science behind it, this book is fascinating. Everything from window shape to breastfeeding to time of medicine ingestion is fair game in this wide-sprawling review, and the stories inside are riveting. I enjoyed some of the meta-analysis of studies on sleep and performance across a variety of metrics. Thumbs up.
Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church by Eliza Griswold
4.0
The Quiet Damage: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family by Jesselyn Cook
5.0
The Quiet Damage by Jesselyn Cook--I raced through this book, stopping at some discrete moments to tear up, sitting in a house I'm not wholly familiar with in McKinney, Texas. Cook follows men and women around the country caught in QAnon. Mercifully, Cook doesn't waste a lot of time explaining what QAnon is, instead providing masterfully concise primers in the stories themselves. This allows her to spend time taking in the toll that the movement has taken on human lives across the country. Spouses torn apart, friendships demolished, parents estranged from their children, and so on. This quiet, but real, damage is tough to engage with, but this is a wholly worthwhile book. Two thumbs up.
No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai
4.0
No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai--It's unsurprising that this is a classic in Japan. This is framed as a series of journals documenting the life of a man living a rather ordinary life. But in its matter-of-fact banality, there's a lot of power. The protagonist feels lost in a world that's both changing and drawing folks toward conformity. The feeling of isolation or alienation is universal, a first principle that this gets at well. Thumbs up.
Unruly: A History of England's Kings and Queens by David Mitchell
4.0
Unruly by David Mitchell--What a delight. This primer on British royalty is written in Mitchell's signature comedic voice and is a quick and dirty (often dirty) look at the kings and queens of Britain. From children manipulated to govern to queens that get unfairly maligned, this book really has it all. Thumbs up.
Never Saw Me Coming: How I Outsmarted the FBI and the Entire Banking System—and Pocketed $40 Million by Tanya Smith
4.0
Never Saw Me Coming by Tanya Smith--Gripping and surprisingly emotional, this memoir follows a woman who scammed banks in the United States out of millions of dollars. She describes unbelievable heists and her adventures laundering that money, which as you know, is not a victimless crime. Smith is not a sympathetic figure yet tries to evoke sympathy, which is, erm, a bit annoying. I'm certainly open to the idea that disparities in race leads to bad decisions in our justice system. I'm less sympathetic to the idea that a woman who has escaped multiple times from federal prison somehow deserves much leniency. Despite this, it's a good book. Thumbs up.