dckathleen's reviews
266 reviews

King of Armadillos is about a boy who immigrated from China to the US and is then sent to a leper colony when he starts to show symptoms. The book is based on the author's fathers true experience, and that personal connection really comes through. This could be a bleak story, but it's wonderful. (The audio has an interview with the author and her father at the end). Highly recommend.

Just One Damned Thing After Another is a fun story about time traveling historians. I'll be reading more in this series. 

First Lie Wins was excellent as long as you don't care about believability. It had twists and I didn't guess most of the ending, though I had some theories that checked out. This was engaging fluff. 

Hansel and Gretel are all grown up. Gretel is busy baking delicious baked goods from a questionable book and trying to keep Hand out of trouble. There are magical animals, witch burnings, and soldiers returning from war. This was great. 

this reads like a series of long form magazine articles...mostly because that's what it is. If you like a bit of Egyptology, some archaeology, a murder investigation loosely involving the author, and the end of the dinosaurs then this is good. 

Original and silly and great! 

good premise, weird/bad execution.

fascinating nonfiction account of the different ways that various pathogens have changed human history over the course of the last 60,000 years. 

New Yorker writer investigates his Nazi grandfather's role in WW2.

I finished this, but ultimately I wish I hadn't. Main character lives and works on the plantation where she grew up and where her family was formerly enslaved. The descendants of the enslavers still own the plantation and....they're awful. They hold terrible "slavery times" plays and plantation weddings. There's a murder.