I Read, Therefore I Blog

The Blurb On The Back:

Virginia, 1968. In the segregated American South, surgeons raced to do what many still thought was impossible: transplant a human heart. After Bruce Tucker, a black man, was admitted to the state’s top hospital with a head injury, he never left the hospital alive: but his heart did, in the chest of a white man.

The decades of scandal and investigation which followed uncovered a long, gruesome history of human experimentation and racial inequality, of body-snatching and cover-ups stretching back to the nineteenth century and still resonating today. The story is told here for the first tie in full by Pulitzer Prize-nominated reporter Chip Jones.

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The Verdict:

Charles “Chip” Jones is a former communications director of the Richmond Academy of Medicine and earned a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize during his 30 year reporting career. This is the horrifying account and fascinating account of the murky circumstances in which a black man’s heart was put into a white man’s body in 1968 Richmond, Virginia, which Jones ties back to the state’s historic segregation and poor treatment of its black community.

THE ORGAN THIEVES was released in the United Kingdom on 15th August 2020. Thanks to Quercus Books for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Welcome to the Embassy of the Dead.
Leave your life at the door. (Thanks).

Awarded an official position working for the Embassy of the Dead, Jake’s job is to protect souls in need. But journeying deep into the mysterious world of ghosts, Jake overhears a plot to destroy the very fabric between the land of the living and the dead.

With a ghostly gang at his side Jake must do the impossible. He has to be a hero. HIs life - and the fate of EVERYONE ON EARTH - depends on it …

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The Verdict:

The second in Will Mabbitt’s spooky fantasy series for readers aged 9+ (gorgeously illustrated by Chris Mould) is fast-paced, has a hero who remains easy to relate to and sets up an interesting scenario for the next book but it is fairly episodic and takes a while to get going while Cora has little to do and is two-dimensional. I enjoyed it but it teeters towards being formulaic and the female characters don’t pop like the male ones do.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Hello.

I am Rory Branagan. I am actually a detective. My school is having a talent show - with Mr Bolton’s ridiculous rap, Mr Meeton’s epic guitar solos and my friend Cat’s amazing dance - but, right in the middle of it, there is the deadliest crime in the history of our school. I have to find out who did it and why - before they strike again!

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The Verdict:

The fourth in Andrew Clover’s comedy mystery series for children aged 9+ is more substantial than the first book and gives a clearer indication of what happened to Rory’s dad (promising heart ache ahead). Ralph Lazar’s illustrations work brilliantly to bring the story to life, there is a poo joke that genuinely made me giggle and while I wanted a little more development for Cat I did enjoy discovering that she isn’t as unflappable as she seems.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

During Frankie’s first sexual experience with the quiet and lovely Benjamin, she gets her period. It’s only blood, they agree. But soon a graphic meme goes viral, turning their fun, intimate afternoon into something disgusting, mortifying and damaging. As the online shaming takes on a horrifying life of its own, Frankie begins to wonder: is her real life over?

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The Verdict:

Lucy Cuthew’s debut YA contemporary novel cleverly uses a verse format to explore the taboos of sex and periods and expose the double standards used against girls for demonstrating their sexuality. However, while I enjoyed the girl power ending, it doesn’t reflect what would happen in reality (other than the lack of consequences for the antagonist) while Frankie and Harriet’s broken friendship is a little contrived and through the motions.

BLOOD MOON was released in the United Kingdom on 2nd July 2020. Thanks to Walker Books for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Alva clings to her sleeping wolf as the Viking longship pitches and rolls over the North Sea’s crashing waves. Soon she will reveal herself as a secret stowaway, but only when there’s no chance of turning back. This is her opportunity to put her shield maiden spirit to the test - exploring strange new ands, solving mysteries, and most importantly finding her father …

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The Verdict:

The second in Janina Ramirez’s historical mystery series for children aged 9+ (atmospherically illustrated by David Wyatt) uses real people from the early 10th century but Alva’s reason for going to England makes little sense and undermines the first book, the plot meanders with the mystery not arriving until the final quarter and being solved too quickly and the writing clunks with modern day expressions such that I don’t think I’ll read on.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Alva rushes through the trees in the dead of night with her sniffer wolf, Fen. Being out alone when there’s a kidnapper on the loose is reckless, but if she ever wants to be an investigator like her Uncle Magnus, she’ll need to be first to the crime scene.

But what Alva discovers raises more questions than it answers, drawing her into a dangerous search for truth, and for treasure …

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The Verdict:

Janina Ramirez’s first novel for children aged 9+ is a sturdy historical adventure set in Viking times with a determined and rebellious female main character and featuring moody and evocative illustrations by David Wyatt. However, the writing is stiff in places, the mystery elements rely on backstory that wasn’t previously mentioned and there are a couple of anachronisms that threw me out (although children probably won’t notice).

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

None of us ever agreed on the exact beginning.

Was it when we started drawing the chalk figures, or when they started to appear on their own?

Was it the terrible accident?

Or when they found the first body?

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The Verdict:

C J Tudor’s debut crime thriller is a confident and gripping affair filled with plot twists that effortlessly moves between two time frames to keep the action moving while also exploring notions of friendship, growing up and memory. I particularly liked how she uses traditional coming-of-age and first romance tropes, with Ed’s older self adding context and foreboding to the 1986 timeline and I enjoyed the open ending more than I thought I would.

The Blurb On The Back:

Five students walk into detention.

Only four leave alive.

Yale hopeful Bronwyn has never publicly broken a rule.

Sports star Cooper only knows what he’s doing in the baseball diamond.

Bad boy Nate is one misstep away from a life of crime.

Prom queen Addy is holding together the cracks in her perfect life.

And outsider Simon, creator of the notorious gossip app at Bayview High, won’t ever talk about any of them again.

He dies 24 hours before he could post their deepest secrets online. Investigators conclude it’s no accident. All of them are suspects.

Everyone has secrets, right?

What really matters is how far you’ll go to protect them.

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The Verdict:

Karen M McManus’s YA murder mystery is a pacy, clever read that combines THE BREAKFAST CLUB with CLUEDO while trying to give the traditional High School tropes more depth (although I think this worked best with Addy as the others are a little stock). McManus does well in slowly un-peeling the different secrets and motives and although I did guess who did it and I think the ending was overblown, it held my interest from beginning to end.

The Blurb On The Back:

He’s the Marvel Universe’s Merc With A Mouth! As quick with a pistol as he is with a one-liner!

Fan-favourite writer Daniel Way brings the crazy with his character-defining run on the Crimson Comedian, the Regeneratin’ Degenerate, the Asinine Assassin … Deadpool!

The X-Men’s favourite frenemy, Deadpool straddles the line between hero and villain, sanity and insanity. So when a Skrull invasion force lands on Earth, it’s anyone’s guess which side the unpredictable Wade Wilson will join! The wisecracking, gun-toting, one-man army single-handedly saves a baseball stadium full of fans from a Skrull attack - and promptly surrenders to the invaders, leaving everyone scratching their heads.

Deadpool infiltrates the Skrull ranks - and through all the allegiance swapping, back-stabbing and mental instability, he tries to make good on a contract and get PAID! But all hell breaks loose when the objective is compromised and his big, fat pay check gets cancelled. Wade sets out to settle the score - even if that means he has to fight his way through Norman Osborn’s new team of Dark Avengers, made up of the Marvel Universe’s greatest villains in disguise.

And as Deadpool storms his way to the top of Avengers Tower, Osborn goes all in and deploys his bloodthirsty black-ops team of assassins, the Thunderbolts! Plug up your ears, kids - it’s gonna get loud!

Plus: Two men who can’t die slice one another to ribbons and then blow those ribbons up with lots of explosives as Wolverine and Deadpool hash out their differences in a showdown for the ages!

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The Verdict:

This is a blackly hilarious, highly violent collection of 3 comics featuring Deadpool - Wolverine: Origins #21-25 by Daniel Way and Steve Dillon; Deadpool #1-12 by Daniel Way, Paco Medina and Carlo Barberi; and Thunderbolts #130-131 by Andy Diggle and Bong Dazo. The book contains a useful summary of Deadpool’s history that explains the interlocking storylines but I got lost at points due to backstory and confusion about which panels to follow.

The Blurb On The Back:

At the start of 1987, Primo Levi took part in a remarkable series of conversations about his early life with a friend and fellow writer, Giovanni Tesio. This book is the result of those meetings, originally intended to be the basis for an authorised biography and published here in English for the first time.

In a densely packed dialogue, Levi responds to Tesio’s tactful and never too insistent questions with a watchful readiness and candour, breaking through the reserve of the public persona to allow a more intimate self to emerge. Following the thread of memory, he lucidly discusses his family, his childhood, his education during the Fascist period, his adolescent friendships, his reading, his shyness and his passion for mountaineering, and recounts his wartime experience as a partisan and the terrible price it exacted from him and his comrades. Though we glimpse his later life as a writer, the story breaks off just before his deportation to Auschwitz due to his sudden death.

In The Last Interview, Levi the man, the witness, the chemist and the writer all unite to offer us a story which is also a window onto history. These conversations shed new light on Levi’s life and will appeal to the many readers of this most eloquent witness to the horrors of the Holocaust.

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The Verdict:

Giovanni Tesio is Professor of Italian Literature at the University of Eastern Piedmont and was a friend of Primo Levi. This book (translated from Italian by Judith Woolf) consists of 3 interviews with Levi for a planned authorised biography but Levi died before they were completed and Tesio was reluctant to press him when he became uncomfortable so what’s here seems a bit shallow and dull and I’m not sure what they add to Levi’s legacy.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.