Finished In the Last  Week

 This is the first week in a long time where I’ve felt like myself in terms of reading.  I had a run of good books that kept me engaged instead of letting me drift off to something else without ever settling in.  Now I have lots of reviews to write.

 

 

 

What Am I Reading?

 

I saw this mentioned on Twitter and had to try it since the ebook was free.

 

When Thomas Khatt awakens to the magical world following the sudden, violent death of his elderly Archmagus neighbor, he doesn’t get the standard package of awesome power combined with a hero destiny. Nope, he trades his thumbs in for a tail, tawny fur and four feet with a very low co-efficient of friction on linoleum. His destiny as one of three talking mountain lions in the magical world? To be sold at auction and bonded to some pimply faced apprentice for life.

Thomas would rather eat dirty kitty litter.

Armed only with an impressive set of chompers and buckets of snark, Thomas faces off against a lightning-bolt throwing granny and a sexy union recruiter as he desperately tries hold the threads of his old life together. To stay off the leash he’ll have to take advantage of the chaos caused by the Archmagus’ death and help the local Inquisition solve his murder. A pyromanic squirrel, religious werewolves, and cat-hating cops all add to the chaos as Thomas attempts to become the first Freelance Familiar.”

 

What I DNFed

This was about a quilt and the family that made it including the enslaved people who they owned.  It was supposed to be about northern slave society.  I was supposed to learn stuff.  I started getting annoyed by the author’s daydreaming instead of research.  She’d go on and on imagining what a person’s life was like.  Literally, each sentence would start with “Imagine”.  Imagine her going to the market.  Imagine her trading her vegetables.  Imagine her talking to her friends.  Imagine me starting to bang my head against the steering wheel.  But I shut it off in disgust when she was talking about the death of a toddler.  He had multiple head injuries.  His father was a doctor and tried some blisters before he died.  She went off imagining how if the child had lived he would have always associated pain with relief and blah, blah, blah.  Also she said that women are sometimes referred to as “hoes” because of the farm tools instead of the real story where it is short for “whore.” All credibility gone.

 

What Am I Listening To

 

Not long after Rhoda Janzen turned forty, her world turned upside down. It was bad enough that her brilliant husband of fifteen years left her for Bob, a guy he met on Gay.com, but that same week a car accident left her with serious injuries. What was a gal to do? Rhoda packed her bags and went home. This wasn’t just any home, though. This was a Mennonite home. While Rhoda had long ventured out on her own spiritual path, the conservative community welcomed her back with open arms and offbeat advice. (Rhoda’s good-natured mother suggested she date her first cousin—he owned a tractor, see.) It is in this safe place that Rhoda can come to terms with her failed marriage; her desire, as a young woman, to leave her sheltered world behind; and the choices that both freed and entrapped her.

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