3.5 stars This is the third book in the Rock Kiss series, but it can easily be read without any previous knowledge of the other books or characters. Noah St. John is the guitarist in world famous rock band Schoolboy Choir. Due to some really dark shit in his past, he’s incredibly messed up and has tremendous difficulties trusting or connecting to people. He doesn’t really feel comfortable around anyone but the other guys in the band, who he’s known since he was a kid […]
Wallender must find the targets of a vengeful woman before she does
This was my first foray into the world of Swedish detective Kurt Wallender, and while the main character shares the same alienated, depressed profile of so many of his counterparts in the Scandinavian police procedural literary genre, there is something else to Mankell’s protagonist that makes for a different and interesting reading experience. Wallender’s angst as he goes about his duties does not stem from some personality or mental disorder, but rather from the social and cultural decline he feels is swirling around him, day […]
It’s getting plainer all the time
This book is the follow up to Why I Left The Amish. That book dealt with the author’s “now”, her mature years while confronting her father’s impending death, and her remote past, her childhood. This book fills in her young adult years. Saloma grew up in an abusive family, physically abused, emotionally damaged, and sexually violated. As we left her in the first book, she was escaping to the real world of her dreams, Vermont. Saloma makes what seems to be a successful transition. She […]
It’s plain to see…
Working as I do with the Amish, it’s interesting for me to get a look at what Amish life is like when we English aren’t around. Bearing in mind that this is a different state (and the Amish can differ quite a bit from one church district to another, let alone another state), and a different era, it is still clear that the Amish are just people, dealing with many of the same issues we all do, but in a completely different framework. Saloma left […]