Welcome to my weekly update for March 23, 2025! It was a fairly quiet week. We went to the Cherry Blossom Festival at the Japanese Friendship Garden and Museum in San Diego last weekend. It was way more crowded than we would have liked but the garden is always beautiful. Then on Thursday evening we [...]
4 Stars. I dinged book two of this series for being a little too reminiscent of Harry Potter. I still see direct parallels between a lot of the plot points in this book and The Wizarding World but I must not have cared as much this time around. It’s been two years since I listened to Amari and the Great [...]
4 Stars. It is absolutely amazing to me that the author and her team tracked down this man who had evaded capture for 40-some years in 63 days. Days. She is quick to point out that the officers, medical examiners, forensics workers, and others kept this cold case alive and laid the groundwork for [...]
Welcome to my weekly update for March 16, 2025! I’ll keep this as apolitical as possible, but I wanted to let you know that I recently used the 5 Calls app to contact my Congressman and Senators about an issue. I cannot adequately express how much I hate calling strangers but I decided that I need [...]
Every time I read a book by Ann Patchett, I wonder why I don’t read her work more often. She’s a thoughtful, beautiful writer. I guess I’m spreading out the love by reading her books slowly. This book is an exploration of family relationships and the bonds between siblings and between parents and [...]
4 Stars. I’m digging up this review from 2009. So much more than just a “murder” mystery, this is really a story of Christopher’s personal growth. He knows that he’s different, he just doesn’t know how to be any other way. He can’t read people’s faces or body language. He says “I think prime numbers are [...]
3 Stars. Hmmm. It’s hard to write reviews of memoirs that don’t exactly work for you, isn’t it? I don’t want to discount someone else’s life experiences. But I personally felt there were some serious issues with the writing. Enjeela and her family experienced a terrifying journey when they left Afghanistan [...]
3 Stars. I'm not a foodie but my husband is so I thought he would like this book as a road trip listen. It's a cozy, gentle read with lots of descriptions of Japanese food (and even one Italian dish) that probably leave real foodies drooling. That's not me so I missed a lot of the appeal of the [...]
Welcome to my February 2025 month in review! Travels/Exploration: If you’re new here, you should know that my husband is a traveling healthcare professional and we travel the United States in our RV. He works three months or more at one hospital and we have fun exploring the area on his days off [...]
Welcome to my weekly update for March 2, 2025! My husband is on call for emergencies at the hospital this weekend so I’m taking it easy around our camper. It’s cool and cloudy anyway, so it’s perfect for staying indoors. He didn’t have to work Thursday so we decided to spend the day at Disneyland [...]