THE ANGEL OF HIGHGATE by Vaughn Entwistle

PUBLISHER: Titan, 12/2015

GENRE: Historical Fiction

MY RATING: 4 stars

SYNOPSIS: It is October 1859, and notorious philanderer Lord Geoffrey Thraxton cares for nothing except his own amusement. After humiliating an odious literary critic and surviving the resulting duel, he boasts of his contempt for mortality, and insults the attending physician. It is a mistake he will come to regret. When Thraxton becomes obsessed with a mysterious woman who appears to him one fog-shrouded night in Highgate Cemetery, he unwittingly provides the doctor with the perfect means to punish a man with no fear of death…

MY THOUGHTS: This was pretty interesting and never boring. I like Dr. Silas Garrette and his jars of children best of all. He's pretty unique and sadistic. I really don't see the point of main character Geoffrey's best friend Algernon being in here other than to help him fight off mobsters during one scene. I think the 'angel' Aurelia is pretty bland and found her relationship with Geoffrey to be very underdeveloped and rushed. Two kidnappings involving her were too much. I like the cast of mobsters and what a motley crew they were. The action involving them and Geffrey and Algernon was too over the top though. 

ONE DUKE DOWN by Anna Bennett

PUBLISHER: St. Martin's, 1/24/2023
GENRE: Fiction/Historical Romance
SERIES: Rogues to Lovers, book 2
MY RATING: 4 stars

SYNOPSIS: Miss Poppy Summers is determined to keep her family’s fishing business afloat. Her poor widowed father has fallen ill, and her foolhardy brother has moved to London, leaving her precious little time to read or pursue her own dreams. But she’ll do anything for her family, so she cheerfully spends mornings in her rowboat, casting her nets. The very last thing Poppy expects or wants to find tangled in them is a dangerously attractive man. Especially one with a head wound—who’s convinced he’s a duke.

Andrew Keane is the Duke of Hawking, but he’s having the devil of a time convincing his fiery-haired rescuer of that fact. The truth is he came to the seaside resort of Bellehaven Bay to escape his life in London. Unfortunately, someone in Bellehaven wants to kill him—and he intends to find out who. He implores Poppy to tend to his injuries and hide him on her beach, reasoning it will be easier to find his attacker if that man assumes Keane is already dead. She wants no part of the scheme but can’t refuse the generous sum he offers in exchange for food and shelter while he recovers. It’s a mutually beneficial business arrangement…nothing more.

Under Poppy’s care, Keane regains his strength—and a sense of purpose. As they work together to solve the puzzle of his would-be murderer, he’s dazzled by her rapier wit and adventurous spirit; she’s intrigued by his mysterious air and protective streak. Though Poppy’s past gives her every reason to mistrust someone like Keane, the seawalls around her heart crumble in the storm of their passion. But when clues hint at the prime suspect in Keane’s attempted murder, Poppy must decide where her loyalties lie. Torn between the world she’s always known and the one she’s always dreamed of, she’ll need true love for a shot at her fairytale ending.

MY THOUGHTS: This was a light read though serious topics are explored but not with any depth, like abandonment and attempted murder. The story is 330 pages and the time span is about four months. The cover is really pretty.

I really like green-eyed Keane. I don't have much to say about him other than he's really into Poppy and isn't disrespectful to her in any way. There's no friction or miscommunication between them at any time, which is something I do like in my historicals.

Poppy's your average likable twenty-three-year-old heroine who's out there getting it done, helping to financially support her brother and father, who's ailing. I like that she doesn't come from money and knows how to take care of herself.

I have to say I was very excited to unravel the mystery of who's trying to kill Keane but dang, it was lackluster, to say the least. Keane was unbelievably forgiving in that matter to those involved.

I never thought the day would come that I'd complain about too many sex scenes in a book. I've been reading historical romances for 29 years this year, since I was a teen, and I can't really tolerate them anymore and generally skim them. This story has four of them, three of which I believe are descriptive, which is too many for a non-erotic novel of only 330 pages.

Complaints: Pet peeves of mine are when hero/heroin ages aren't given, or the year. If Keane's age was given, I missed it, and the year this story began isn't mentioned. A major pet peeve of mine is when authors put modern day ways of typing into historical stories. Here are two examples of that from this novel, "Let.Go." and "You.Are.Mine." There are two typos in the book too. The heroine has auburn hair yet it's said to be 'strawberry' colored too, which is nothing at all like auburn. Also Poppy has "blue-green" eyes that were once described as being sapphire! Overall this was a decent read.

I received this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

THE GOOD SON by Todd Strasser, book vs film

PUBLISHER: Pocket Books, 1993
MY GRADE: 4 stars

SYNOPSIS: Here is the chilling story of a young boy sent to live with relatives after the death of his mother, and of his prankish cousin, who is responsible for increasingly dangerous "accidents".

MY THOUGHTS: Though I'd seen the film a few years ago I didn't realize until recently it was novelized at the time of its release. I read it since I like the film. The novel's better. I don't like Macaulay Culkin in this role at all. I think he's quite awful. Fortunately when I read it I didn't have trouble picturing someone else as Henry/Macaulay. Henry comes across as more sinister in the novel and that's another reason why novel is better than film. Since the novel is only 212 pages, it's pretty condensed, going from one incident to another. Had it been longer, with more dialogue between incidents, I think it could have been a 5-star read for me.

-There's a scene in the novel when Mark is climbing the tree where Henry is and the piece of wood he's stepping on breaks, causing Mark to dangle. He later looks at the piece of wood and sees that it had been partially cut with a saw, making it easier to break when stepped on. That part with Mark discovering what Henry had done wasn't in the film.

-Richard, Henry's dead two-year-old brother who died in the bathtub, his whale toy that he'd play with in the tub was changed to a yellow rubber duck in the film.

-Henry and Mark are playing on train tracks before Henry hurts the dog. A train's coming and Henry waits until the last minute to get off but that scene's not in the film at all.

-Later, Mark threatens Henry with a screwdriver but in the film it's changed to scissors. I think it's during that scene in the novel when Henry threatens to harm his mother but it's not really said in those words in the film.

Henry's Freddy Kruegeresque green and red jacket wasn't lost on me.

PROM DRESS by Lael Littke

PUBLISHER: Scholastic, 1989
MY RATING: 4 stars

SYNOPSIS: The pretty lace dress that Robin finds in her myterious employer's attic does not look deadly; it looks perfect for the prom. Robin cannot resist the power the dress holds over her an decides to 'borrow' it to wear to prom. But the dress has a horrifying secret and lures innocent, unsuspecting girls into an evil and terrifying nightmare.

MY THOUGHTS/POSSIBLE SPOILERS: This was pretty entertaining and suspenseful. I like how the possessed dress came to be in each person's possession. Robin is the main character. She's in high school and looks after an elderly woman named Miss Catherine. Catherine lets Robin choose between two many-decades-old dresses that she's seen in Catherine's attic but Robin wants the one she can't have, the lacy cream colored one. It's the one Catherine wore herself to her own prom way back when. Catherine has a deep secret that's revealed at the end and I liked it. I didn't see it coming. I like too that the dress goes on to be owned by another unsuspecting young woman, Natalie.

A tragic accident happens to Robin at prom. The dress punished her for wearing it. It ends up in the hands of another thief, twenty-one-year-old nurse, Felicia. I really like what the dress is doing to her. Once she takes the dress off I don't care for this part of the story as it gets real stupid and the slightest bit convoluted. The next girl, Nicole, who's either in high school or college, I was never sure which, comes by the dress via Felicia's abandonment of it. She steals it and in a tragic accident, is severely injured. That injury, like Robin's, affects the rest of her life.

This book could have been even better if it could have been more than 167 pages. I was disappointed to see that Robin's 14-year-old sister, Gabrielle, didn't get punished for stealing it....and wanting to steal Robin's boyfriend, Tyler. I first read this as a teenager around 1993.

EMMET OTTER'S JUG-BAND CHRISTMAS by Russell Hoban

PUBLISHER: Parents' Magazine Press, 1971

READ FREE: link
MY RATING: 5 stars

SYNOPSIS: Both Ma Otter and her son, Emmet, hope to win the $50 talent show prize and surprise each other with a special Christmas present.

MY THOUGHTS: This is a sweet story about a poor mother and son who steal an item from each other without the other knowing so that each one of them can use the item to help them win a talent contest. Neither knows the other one is entering the same contest. They want to buy a Christmas present for the other.

The 1977 48 minute CBC film adaptation is better, more detailed. It aired on HBO in 1978 then went to ABC in 1980, I think. I know it from ABC in the very early 80s. The Riverbottom Nightmare Band doesn't make an appearance in the book until they're at the talent contest but in the film they're introduced early on. In the book they have a female lead singer, Mary Jane Chipmunk. Emmet and his crew never meet them in the book.

Irma Coon and Harvey Muskrat aren't in the film but are in the book briefly. Some of the first names were kept but the last names, which is the type of animals they are, were changed for some reason; Wendell Coon in the book's name was changed to Wendell Porcupine in the film. Charlie Beaver's name was changed to Charlie Muskrat. I think Ester Snapper in the book was changed to Hetty Muskrat in the film. In fact, lots of names were changed. The Nightmare band in the book's name was changed to Riverbottom Nightmare Band, which I like a lot better. Those were just some examples of name changes. I'm sure the songs were changed too.

The illustrations are full-color and very nice. Russell's wife at the time, Lillian, did the artwork. 

My favorite image from the book is when Emmet and his mother are playing on a slide, pictured below. That's a really fun scene in the film too.

The late author's website says this book was written in 1969 but not published until 1971. 

DRESSED TO KILL by Brian De Palma and Campbell Black, book vs. film

PUBLISHER: Bantam, 1/1980
MY RATING: 4 stars

SYNOPSIS: A psychiatrist's patient is brutally murdered by a mysterious blonde woman with an obviously troubled sexual history. A call girl witnesses it and is now on the murderer's list to kill.

MY THOUGHTS/SPOILERS: Campbell Black wrote the novel that's based on Brian De Palma's screenplay. I like the novel better than the film. The novel gives us more background on Bobbi, one of Dr. Robert Elliott's transgendered patients. We get a few flashback scenes of her childhood that aren't in the film. Also not in the film are two scenes of her chatting with men in bars.

I don't like Bobbi's reason for killing. I think the reason's really stupid. I also think Nancy Allen's acting was terrible. I thought the scene where Kate meets the man at the museum lasted far too long and that the scene in the taxi with him on the way from the museum was ridiculous and unnecessary. Her finding out the man had STD's was completely pointless considering she got murdered immediately afterward.

Some differences between novel and film are:

-Kate Myers' (Angie Dickenson) last name was changed to Miller in the film. 

-Near the beginning of the novel, Bobbi leaves a message on Dr. Elliott's answering machine telling him she's stolen something but doesn't say what it is, leaving him to figure out what it is. In the film she says she stole his straight razor.

-The man Kate meets and goes home with was given one more STD in the film than in the novel. In the novel he only has gonorrhea but was given syphilis too in the film.

-The character Norma, Liz's friend, was in the novel visiting Liz and she thought she'd seen the killer in the elevator of Liz's building. That's not in the film at all.

-Dr. Elliott speaks to his wife Anne several times on the phone in the novel but she's only mentioned once in the film and he never speaks to her on the phone.

-The scene in the film where Peter, Liz's fifteen-year-old son, played by Keith Gordon, is in the police station eavesdropping on a conversation, in the novel he's doing it by putting a dirty drinking glass to the wall then putting his ear to it. In the film he's got a listening device attatched to the wall and his ear.

-It's stated in the novel that Liz is twenty-one but ages aren't mentioned for her or Peter in the film.

-Liz's character is softened up a bit in the film. In the novel she's far more foul-mouthed.

-In the film, after the killer is identified, Liz spends time at Peter's house while his stepfather's away, then she has a terrible nightmare. In the novel she only makes plans to have lunch one day with Peter and doesn't go to this house. 

-Major spoiler for the ending of novel- I don't think the ending was a dream Liz was having but I'm not quite sure. She's attacked by Bobbi and, "A dream, Liz thought. A bad dream. In a moment she would wake. Any moment now, she would open her eyes and the dream would be over. But it hadn't yet begun." Her bad dream in the film was clearly a dream. When Bobbi visits her at the end of the novel, that sequence was different than in the film and I don't see it was being an actual dream. So the film had a happy ending and the novel, as far as I'm concerned, didn't, which I like.

I learned that this was similar to the Italian film The Bird With the Crystal Plumage. I watched it and it is indeed similar. That one was likely inspired by the novel/film Screaming Mimi. In the DVD extras on my edition, no one interviewed mentioned this film being inspired by another one.

CURIOUS TOYS by Elizabeth Hand

PUBLISHER: Mulholland Books, 2019

GENRE: Historical Fiction/Mystery

MY RATING: 4 stars

SYNOPSIS: The year is 1915 and Pin, the fourteen-year-old daughter of an amusement park fortune teller, disguises herself as a boy to run with the teenage boys who thrive in the dregs of Chicago's street scene. 

Unbeknownst to the well-heeled city-dwellers and visitors who come to enjoy its attractions, Riverview Park is also host to a brutal serial killer, a perfumed pedophile who uses the secrecy of a dark amusement park ride to conduct his crimes. When Pin sees a man enter the Hell Gate ride with a young girl, and leave without her, she knows that something deadly is afoot.

The crime will lead her to the iconic outsider artist Henry Darger, a brilliant but seemingly mad man obsessed with his illustrated novel about a group of young girls who triumph over adult oppressors. Together, the two navigate the seedy underbelly of a changing city to uncover a murderer few even know to look for.

MY THOUGHTS: This was a very interesting and enjoyable read. I read it in 48 hours, which is a miracle for me these days. I'm not entirely satisfied with the ending and how the killer was caught. That's what kept this from being a five-star read. I never suspected him until it became obvious. The author had him be too clumsy at times which I thought wouldn't have happened in real life, especially in broad daylight. I'd have absolutely loved some background information on him but we got none. In fact, none of the characters were well-written. I really like the amusement park setting but felt there were too many characters.

I didn't see the point of the author having the police briefly accuse a Black man of the crimes or make the lead, fourteen-year-old Pin, a lesbian as this plot had not one damn thing to do with her sexuality. It was put in there just to be put in there, maybe in hopes of getting put on some LGBTQ+ book recommendation lists. I don't like that Pin has a tie to the crimes/killer. Too coincidental for my liking.

 

UNMASKED- MY LIFE SOLVING AMERICA'S COLD CASES by Paul Holes

PUBLISHER: Celadon, 4/2022
GENRE: Nonfiction/Memoir
MY GRADE: B

SYNOPSIS: For a decade, The Golden State Killer stalked and murdered Californians in the dead of night, leaving entire communities afraid to turn out the lights. The sadistic predator disappeared in 1986, hiding in plain sight for the next thirty years in middle class suburbia. In 1994, when cold case investigator Paul Holes came across the old file, he swore he would unmask the Golden State Killer and finally give these families some closure. Twenty four years later, Holes fulfilled that promise, identifying a 73-year-old former cop named Joseph J. DeAngelo. Headlines blasted from the U.S. to Europe: one of America’s most prolific serial killers was in custody.

That case launched Holes's career into the stratosphere, turning him into an icon in the true crime world with television shows like The DNA of Murder with Paul Holes and America's Most Wanted, and with the podcast Jensen & Holes: The Murder Squad. Everyone knows Paul Holes, the gifted crime solver with a big heart and charming smile who finally caught the Golden State Killer. But until now, no one has known the man behind it all, the person beneath the flashy cases and brilliant investigations.

In this memoir, Holes takes us through his memories of a storied career and provides an insider account of some of the most notorious cases in contemporary American history, including the hunt for the Golden State Killer, Laci Peterson's murder and Jaycee Dugard's kidnapping. This is also a revelatory profile of a complex man and what makes him tick: the drive to find closure for victims and their loved ones, the inability to walk away from a challenge--even at the expense of his own happiness. Holes opens up the most intimate scenes of his life: his moments of self-doubt and the impact that detective work has had on his marriage. This is a story about the gritty truth of crime solving when there are no flashbulbs and “case closed” headlines. It is the story of a man and his commitment to cases and people who might have otherwise been forgotten.

MY THOUGHTS: I wanted to read this memoir because I know who Paul is through his work with the EARONS (I refuse to call Joseph James DeAngelo, 'JJD' the Golden State Killer) case, which I've known about since early 2001. I also was a big fan of his now defunct show on Oxygen, "The DNA of Murder with Paul Holes." Paul learned of the EARONS in 1994 when going through a file cabinet at work with the Contra Costa County, CA sheriff's office. He also discovered Q-tip evidence in 1997 from an EARONS attack and got the ball rolling with the genetic geneology stuff that got JJD identified then later arrested in 2018.

Paul's a nonbeliever, an introverted loner who's shy, has anxiety and panic attacks and drinks too much. I don't think he said if he'd eased up on the drinking or not. He comes from a strict Catholic home. His father was in the air force, his mother's anorexic and his brother has OCD. That's pretty much all he said about them. He's definitely not much of a father and for that he should be ashamed. He's a bit too boastful when talking about his 'gift' for solving crimes and it borders on arrogance. Though very open, I felt this lacked in the noncrime part of the memoir.

I'm appalled and insulted that he said that 'in a way' Michelle McNamara (who penned one of the worst memoirs ever written) was a victim of the EARONS too. No, Paul, she's simply a victim of drug abuse that you're blaming on a then unapprehended serial killer. I sincerely hope true victims of JJD's have contacted him to let him have it for that comment.

I didn't care to hear anything about old well-known cases like Scott Peterson and Jaycee Dugard that he'd worked on. I like learning of lesser known crime and he didn't disappoint with the chapter on the still unsolved murder of Emmon Bodfish, from 1999, a wealthy transgendered man who was bludgeoned beyond belief in his home, and his son who killed himself shortly after.

I received this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

YOU by Caroline Kepnes

PUBLISHER: Pocket Books, 2014
GENRE: Fiction/Suspense
MY RATING: 4 stars, bordering on 3

SYNOPSIS: When a beautiful aspiring writer strides into the East Village bookstore where Joe Goldberg works, he does what anyone would do: he Googles the name on her credit card.

There is only one Guinevere Beck in New York City. She has a public Facebook account and Tweets incessantly, telling Joe everything he needs to know: she is simply Beck to her friends, she went to Brown University, she lives on Bank Street, and she’ll be at a bar in Brooklyn tonight—the perfect place for a “chance” meeting.

As Joe invisibly and obsessively takes control of Beck’s life, he orchestrates a series of events to ensure Beck finds herself in his waiting arms. Moving from stalker to boyfriend, Joe transforms himself into Beck’s perfect man, all while quietly removing the obstacles that stand in their way—even if it means murder.

A terrifying exploration of how vulnerable we all are to stalking and manipulation, debut author Caroline Kepnes delivers a razor-sharp novel for our hyper-connected digital age.

MY THOUGHTS: You'd think a book written from a stalker's point of view would be interesting, right? It was for awhile but was very repetitive and never-ending. Nothing was happening and it dragged. I did love reading from a stalker's perspective. Sadly we didn't get any background information on him and we only know one thing, something awful, about his past. 

I absolutely hated Beck from the start.​ ​I've never read a more self-absorbed character in my life. There wasn't anything interesting about her. It's not surprising to me that the Lifetime series made her blonde though she's brunette in the novel. 

I don't like the nonsense of the cage being in the bookstore's basement​.​ I'm picturing the cage from The Silence of the Lambs with a drawer you can put stuff in and the person in the cage can get the object out of but I don't know if my mental image is accurate. The story was very dragged out and I almost couldn't take it. Most of Joe's ​dialogue​ is his inner monologue and damn, is he funny...and deranged. I laughed out loud many times. Unfortunately he speaks (thinks) in run-on sentences the majority of the time so it gets annoying real​ly​ fast. For that reason I won't be reading the sequel. I read the first two chapters, which were in the back of my edition of You, and it was just like reading You; the writing style was identical.

Beck is twenty-four and Joe's age wasn't given. I think I read that he was a child in 2001 so they're both millennials. I ​can't imagine why the Gen X author ​was drawn to write about millennials. I read that the Lifetime/Netflix series made many changes/added characters so I won't be watching any of it.

OPEN BOOK by Jessica Simpson

PUBLISHER: Dey Street, 4/2020

GENRE: Nonfiction/Memoir

MY GRADE: C

SYNOPSIS: Jessica tells of growing up in 1980s Texas where she was sexually abused by the daughter of a family friend, and of unsuccessfully auditioning for the Mickey Mouse Club at age 13 with Justin Timberlake and Ryan Gosling before going on to sign a record deal with Columbia and marrying 98 Degrees member Nick Lachey. 

Along the way, she details the struggles in her life, such as the pressure to support her family as a teenager, divorcing Lachey, enduring what she describes as an emotionally abusive relationship with musician John Mayer, being body-shamed in an overly appearance-centered industry, and going through bouts of heavy drinking. But Simpson ends on a positive note, discussing her billion-dollar apparel line and marriage with professional football star Eric Johnson, with whom she has three children.

MY THOUGHTS: The book started out very strong then dropped down to 3 stars. Jessica has always seemed very likable and girl next door to me, if you ignore the fact she had, while married, a nonsexual inappropriate relationship with Johnny Knoxville, who was married too, in 2005 while working together on The Dukes of Hazzard remake. She's very vain, told us at least three times she weighs under 120 pounds, thinks highly of herself, and even referred to herself in third person when talking about her husband near the end of the book, and truthfully I wanted to put the book down but carried on with it since I was almost finished. She's unrelatable, as I'm sure all celebrities are, and the only thing anyone could maybe relate to is someone's childhood, before they were famous. I'd like to know how you go from believing in no sex before marriage to years later having two pregnancies out of wedlock. She's very needy too, always has to have a full house and tells everyone in her life all her personal business for the attention it brings.

She mentions being molested for six years, ages 6-12, by a girl who was one year older, who was also being molested by a male at that time, and mentions many times that she has a drinking problem but with those two subjects there's not much depth. Her parents literally ignored that she told them she was being molested and it was never talked about again, I guess. She never said if she brought it up to them as an adult. They're awful but she doesn't see it. She never said why she thought she began drinking in the first place, if being molested lead to it, and I don't think she ever called herself an alcoholic, but I could be wrong about that. She's a lifelong diet pill popper but never said if she's still on them or if she wants to stop using them. She also mentions God so many times you'd never be able to keep count.

 

THE MEANING OF MARIAH CAREY by Mariah Carey and Michaela Angela Davis

PUBLISHER: Andy Cohn Books, 9/2020
GENRE: Nonfiction/Memoir
MY GRADE: C

SYNOPSIS: It took me a lifetime to have the courage and the clarity to write my memoir. I want to tell the story of the moments - the ups and downs, the triumphs and traumas, the debacles and the dreams, that contributed to the person I am today. Though there have been countless stories about me throughout my career and very public personal life, it’s been impossible to communicate the complexities and depths of my experience in any single magazine article or a ten-minute television interview. And even then, my words were filtered through someone else’s lens, largely satisfying someone else’s assignment to define me.

This book is composed of my memories, my mishaps, my struggles, my survival and my songs. Unfiltered. I went deep into my childhood and gave the scared little girl inside of me a big voice. I let the abandoned and ambitious adolescent have her say, and the betrayed and triumphant woman I became tell her side.

Writing this memoir was incredibly hard, humbling and healing. My sincere hope is that you are moved to a new understanding, not only about me, but also about the resilience of the human spirit. Love, Mariah

MY THOUGHTS: My opinion of Mariah is that she's a narcissist who basks in her accomplishments. She's not humble and seems very unrelatable. I do appreciate her talking about her very dysfunctional family and abusive first marriage.

She refuses to ever say her age and most of the time the year she's talking about isn't mentioned so you have to figure out what year which single she's talking about was out then go from there. It's always been written in articles and Wikipedia that she was born in 1970 but I see now Wikipedia has her birth date as 1969, which shocks me.

She told the world a few years ago that she's bipolar yet never mentions it in the book, never mentioned getting huge breast implants in the late 90s, never mentioned gaining a lot of weight years ago, and never mentioned anything regarding her appearance. I'm guessing she needed some attention back when she told us about being bipolar.

She very clearly dislikes white people and doesn't try to hide it though she doesn't come right out and say it. She makes her ex-husband Tommy Mottola out to be racist but doesn't come right out and say that either. She claims her two siblings, who are older than her, were jealous of her growing up because her skin's lighter than theirs but didn't give any examples of comments they may have said to her to make her believe they were jealous of her lighter skin, so we don't know if their supposed jealousy is fact or fiction.

While she's definitely a victim of some things (shitty parents and siblings and shitty first husband) she plays the victim a whole lot, woe is me! She tells of an incident after Glitter, the film, came out, where she blew up verbally at her mother and her mother called the police. The police, escorted by her brother Morgan, took her to a 'spa' that was a mental institution where she had to stay for a few days or so. It's very unclear to me why she was taken there in the first place. She didn't say if the police told her she had to commit herself or was being committed. I guess there was a conversation she didn't tell us about where the officer(s) discussed that committing herself may be a good idea. But who knows? I'm sure a little more went on than just her yelling at her mother and that we didn't get the full story.

Her father's a piece of shit (physically abusing her siblings) yet where's her dislike for him? He's mentioned near the beginning of this memoir and not again until the end, and is included in her 'tribe of angels' section at the back where she's thanking people. It's not just your mother's fault you grew up poor. Why wasn't your father helping support you?

A COLLECTION OF WOODLAND TALES by Beryl Johnson, Illustrated by Dorothea King

PUBLISHER: Grandreams Limited, 1991

GENRE: Fiction/Childrens
BOOK IMAGES: link
MY GRADE: A

SYNOPSIS: Contains the previously published books The Spring Rainbow, Pipkin The Shy Pixie, Bigboots and the Midsummer Ball, Bushy Tail's Bedtime.

MY THOUGHTS: This is a large, thin hardcover without dust jacket and is 88 pages. It's in full bright colors with illustrations on every single page. The pages aren't glossy, though. Each of the four stories is 22 pages long. Since it's for children there's not a whole lot going on in each story but the stories are cute and the illustrations are beautiful.

The Spring Rainbow-  A hedgehog and rabbit realize spring hasn't sprung because there aren't any flowers in bloom. Three male fairies, Topper, Popper, and Hopper, try to help them figure out what's going on. They drink rainbow juice and get sick, and that displeases the spring fairies, as the 'juice' is actually paint the fairies were going to use to paint everything so that it looks like spring. This was a cute story and I give it 5 stars. 

Pipkin the Shy Pixie- Pipkin needs to buy a new saucepan but is too shy, so the three pixies from the previous story, Topper, Popper, and Hopper buy him one. Visually the story is nearly ruined because there are modern day cars! in the story, which is odd because the characters in every story are dressed like they are in fairytale times, pre 19th century. I give this story 4 stars.

Bigboots and the Midsummer Ball- Bigboots is the largest pixie in Woodlands. The Fairy Queen wants him to arrange everything for the ball that night. Talk about short notice. The whole town helps out and a good time is had by all. I give this 5 stars.

Bushy Tail's Bedtime- The character's name in the story is spelled Bushytail so I'm not sure why it's two words in the title. His mother tells him to be back home before dark, when it gets cold and Jack Frost is out. He disobeys her and gets his tail frozen by Jack. Those same male pixies from the previous stories set out to find him. I give this 5 stars. I love the darker illustrations for this story. 

You can see the images I took from inside the book here.

DEAN'S A BOOK OF FAIRY TALES, Ilustrated by twins Janet Grahame-Johnstone and Anne Grahame-Johnstone

PUBLISHER: Playmore Inc., 1977

IMAGES: link

MY GRADE: B

SYNOPSIS: Omnibus edition including the previously published books: Dean's Gift Book of Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales, Janet & Anne Grahame Johnstone Gift Book of Fairy Tales, Dean's Gift Book of Fairy Tales, The White Cat.

Contains the stories: Little Red Riding Hood, Mother Goose, Hop O' My Thumb, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Three Little Pigs, Rumpelstiltskin, Jack and the Beanstalk, The Frog Prince, The Princess and the Pea, The White Cat, Little Ida's Flowers, Ole Lucköie or the Dustman, Thumbelina, The Top and the Ball, The Darning Needle, Blockhead Hans, Babes in the Wood, Sleeping Beauty, Puss in Boots, Tom Thumb, Hansel and Gretel, Beauty and the Beast.

MY THOUGHTS: This is beautifully illustrated in full color and it's very colorful. Every single page has illustrations on it. It's a large hardcover without dust jacket. Most of the faces on the people are ugly. Most of the children have large heads, big eyes, and the boys have feminine faces and longish hair. Here's one example of a boy. The faces on Hansel and Gretel are hideous. I strongly dislike the artists giving the Princess from The Frog Prince large breasts and cleavage. 

A big chunk of story was left out of Hop O' My Thumb, the entire part where the brothers stay with a woman and her ogre husband, and the husband mistakenly murders his daughters thinking he's murdering the brothers.

The grandmother wasn't eaten in Little Red Riding Hood and instead escaped out the back door! Ridiculous.

Most versions of Hansel and Gretel that I've read have the stepmother in the story, not the biological mother, but this version used their real mother, which is how I prefer the story.

Rumpelstiltskin doesn't tear himself in two in this version. For leaving out or changing parts of these classic stories I rate this 4 stars and not five.

Below is my favorite image from inside the book. You can see more images here.

PLAYBOY: A CHILDHOOD LOST INSIDE THE PLAYBOY MANSION by Jennifer Saginor

PUBLISHER: Dey Street Books, 2005
GENRE: Nonfiction/memoir

MY GRADE: B

SYNOPSIS: You are six years old. Every day after school your father takes you to a sprawling castle filled with exotic animals, bowls of candy, and half-naked women catering to your every need.

You have your own room. You have new friends. You have an uncle Hef who's always there for you.

Welcome to the world of Playground, the true story of a young girl who grew up inside the Playboy Mansion. By the time she was fourteen, she'd done countless drugs, had a secret affair with Hef's girlfriend, and was already losing her grip on reality.

MY THOUGHTS: This was very good but extremely repetitive, to the point I wanted to stop reading halfway through. Every page was the same, just about; endless drugs, drinking, and partying. Jennifer was born in 1969 and grew up with a wealthy father who she chose to live with when her parents divorced. There were no rules at all for her. She had an inappropriate relationship with her father, who was like a jealous boyfriend and who treated her like an adult. There was no true father/daughter relationship, ever. She cheated her way through school and college (she had tutors do her work) but that's really all we know about her. She didn't really say much about how her adulthood turned out. I have no sense of how she turned out. As for stories about what goes on at the Playboy mansion, she mentioned endless parties and dinners. Though I give this 4 stars, I wouldn't recommend it.

 

FAIRY TALES ADULT COLORING BOOK by Emelie Lidehäll Öberg

PUBLISHER: Gibbs Smith, 3/2017
PURCHASE: link 

IMAGES: link 

MY GRADE: C

SYNOPSIS: Reminiscent of classic Swedish fairy tales, Emelie Lidehäll Öberg’s debut coloring book fills 96 pages of sweetly sleeping animals, dolls come to life, and whimsical abodes. Color teacups, cuckoo clocks, birdhouses, peacocks, and fishbowls, and more. . . .

MY THOUGHTS: I'm not impressed with the illustrations in this at all. The faces on the females in here are ugly, with huge eyes and the faces are practically the same. I don't understand why this is called Fairy Tales. The original Swedish title is "Sagolikt", which online translators say means "fabulous", and I don't understand why it would be called that either. There are only a few images in here that look like what you read about in classic fairy tales. The paper is nice and thick but should be smoother. Sometimes the pencil didn't want to glide smoothly over certain areas. The pages aren't perforated near the spine so you cannot cleanly rip the pages out. You'll have to use a razor/box cutter (that's what I use) to cut them out. If  you just pull the pages out it will rip your paper and image. There's an image on each side of the paper. I used soft core colored pencils (Prismacolor Premier, AmazonBasics, Premium Art Supply) so I don't know if gel pens or markers will bleed through. 

The image on the cover is also in the book. You can see some of the images inside here, as well as the three I colored.

I received this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

TWO CHILDREN'S BOOKS BY IRENE HAAS: A SUMMERTIME SONG and BESS AND BELLA

TITLE: A SUMMERTIME SONG
PUBLISHED: 1997
GENRE: Children's Fiction
READ FREE: link
MY GRADE: A

SYNOPSIS: Magic begins when a frog hops through Lucy's bedroom window with a party invitation. What follows is a delightful summer idyll, complete with cricket music, a baby bird, and a birthday cake, and ending in the happy reunion with an old lost doll.






MY THOUGHTS: Lucy puts on the magic hat that the frog gave her and she's shrunk down to a size not much bigger than an insect. On the way to the party in a air taxi driven by Baby Bird, who's scared to try flying, she meets Madame and Mr. Mouse, Inchworm, a Japanese doll, and Owl, for whom the party's for. She didn't know it but the doll she found is the one her grandmother lost as a child. The book's title comes from a song her grandmother sings at the end.

There are a couple words in here no young child, and some adults, would have ever heard of, chapeau and fete, so I don't think they should have been used. Some of the pages are very, very dark colorwise which doesn't look quite right in a children's book, but I personally love it. Though there's no moral, it's a very cute and innocent story. The illustrations are so beautiful. Some have a 1970s feel, which I love. My favorite is below.

TITLE: BESS AND BELLA
PUBLISHED: December 2006
READ FREE: link
MY GRADE: A

SYNOPSIS: On a cold winter afternoon Bess and her doll are having a tea party with melted snow and cookie crumbs, when -- falump! -- a little bird named Bella falls from the sky. Bella offers treats for a proper tea, and a new friendship begins. Little does Bess know that this is just the first of many delightful surprises to come during that afternoon.



MY THOUGHTS: This is a cute story about a lonely child who makes friends with a bird named Bella. Bess and her doll Rose are playing outside in the snow. Bella falls from the sky with her suitcase after attempting to fly south for the winter but it got to be too much for her so she made a crash landing on Bess' tea party. Bess invites a crew of firefighter dogs who were passing by to join them, then eats a meal with a mouse family, then Bess heads home. Bella stays with her and lives in her room until springtime. Another cute innocent story with beautiful illustrations by Irene Haas. My favorite image is below.

Sadly the author passed away in 2013 at the age of 83.