Nate

I never watched the movie, but it was hard to avoid the references to needing a bigger boat, or the dun-dun, dun-dun theme music that announced the dreadful arrival of the beast on the screen. I wasn’t expecting the chiefs marriage dynamics to be so depressing, or the townspeople to be so depressing, or the mayor to be so depressing. I was expecting a thriller with a big shark…which made up about 20% of the plot and story. This depressing reality story of a tourism town sinking into the quagmire of history and changing times was the opposite of what I was expecting…and what I was needing. This rating and review may be harsh to those who love the book, but I thought I was getting something that would be energizing and have me not he edge of my seat. Instead I got a gloomy picture of life for everyone involved that infrequently punctuated by brief flares of dread and minor excitement. Not my cup of tea.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book. Reading about how and when it came to be created and the general idea of the storyline I thought it could be a curious tale that might hold my interest. In the end it proved to pull me in and keep me interested much more than I would have thought possible before I opened the cover the first time. There were some distractions, like the regular interjection of Latin, which found impossible to completely translate in almost every instance with what little I know about Latin, and just as impossible to completely ignore. It worked within the context, but at times felt like a little too much. Side plots were just vague enough to lead to thoughtfulness, but not so vague as to seem completely unrelated. All in all a surprising good read.

I fell in love with the Bobiverse books (some more than others) and I’ve read through almost everything that Dennis E. Taylor has produced as a result. This is not a bad audio listen. Characters were created with just the right amount of detail and interaction. This subject was just technical enough and relevant to current events to be interesting. Artificial General Intelligence, futuristic technology for travel, communication, and police investigation…all interesting and made me think/hope for the future of our species if we can just keep the ultra rich and ultra powerful from messing things up too much toward their own selfish goals. An enjoyable listen and well crafted. Still keeps me wanting to get more Taylor creations in the future.

Hard to say anything about this book that the book doesn’t explain/tell/relive better. As a person who was mystified by the holocaust and how people, any people, could do so much harm to so many with so little compassion or empathy, I have read many accountings of the events during WWII and this is a book that should be required reading for everyone. I spent many hours researching Auschwitz and the cruelty planned and built into the very structure of the camp and its expansions. This book makes all of those facts and historical accounts more real. It doesn’t put a face on the survivors. There are too few. It doesn’t put names to those who never made it through the end of the war. There are too many. Instead it puts a feeling that isn’t pity in my chest for all of those who suffered. We must be sure it never happens again. Anywhere. To anyone.

Better than I expected. I’d never read this when I was younger and in the last 10 years I’ve been making a list of books I wish I had read. This is one of them. It didn’t disappoint. The language and terminology from that time period and part of the country were a small hurdle in the first chapter or two, but the characters and the story more than made up for it. If you want to know what it was like in the south in the early 20th century, the classes, the racial challenges, how the law treated people at the time, this is definitely a window into what the author thought of the time and some of it seems to have the ring of truth. The characters really make the book come alive. To me it distills the essence of family and neighbors. Definitely worth reading.