Review: How to Train Your Dog with Love + Science: A Dog Lover's Guide to Animal Behavior and Positive Reinforcement Training

How to Train Your Dog with Love + Science: A Dog Lover's Guide to Animal Behavior and Positive Reinforcement Training by Annie Grossman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Full Disclosure: I received an Advanced Reader's Copy of How to Train Your Dog with Love + Science: A Dog Lover's Guide to Animal Behavior and Positive Reinforcement Training by Annie Grossman from Sourcebooks via NetGalley.  It should be available to the public on September 10, 2024

How to Train Your Dog with Love + Science: A Dog Lover's Guide to Animal Behavior and Positive Reinforcement Training by Annie Grossman is a good introduction to dog training.  There are some basic exercises you can do to start a foundation for training your dog.  More than anything, this book provides a good description of positive reinforcement training and how it differs from other dog training methods. This is really great for people who might be new to dog training or might be struggling to train a dog.  Even though my dog has been through training, I picked up a few tips.

View all my reviews

Review: Here One Moment

Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Full Disclosure: I received an Advanced Reader's Copy of Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty from Crown Publishing via NetGalley. It should be available to the public on September 10, 2024. 

I've read and enjoyed a few books by Liane Moriarty, but Here One Moment is my favorite so far. The book is told from various perspectives.  All the narrators were on a flight together.  One of them gets up during the flight and predicts the age and cause of death of all the others.  What happens after that is up to each of them.  There's a little mystery and suspense as we wait to find out if the predictions will come true.  More importantly, it makes you stop and think about what you might do if you were given the same information. Would you accept your fate or try to change it?  Be sure to check this one out!  

View all my reviews

Review: Red Side Story

Red Side Story by Jasper Fforde
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have been waiting a very long time to read Red Side Story, the second book in the Shades of Grey series, by Jasper Fforde.  I haven't read a book by Fforde that I didn't like.  For some reason, this series about colors always reminds me of the public gardens in Vienna, Austria.  What if I couldn't see them in color at all?  Or only in shades of one color?  Red Side Story plays on Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story with people divided by a color hierarchy.  Purple at the top. Grey at the bottom. This time though the star-crossed lovers are way smarter and fighting for a better world.  Well, one of them is way smarter and the other just might be really lucky.  While it is fun to read, it also makes you think about our world and how class affects us.  Pro tip: Save your spoons. They may be valuable one day.

View all my reviews

Review: Black Sheep

Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison checked so many of my boxes!  Taylor Swift references, making bad choices with bad boys, religious cult, and horror films.  The main character has spent her life trying to escape the fundamentalist religious group she grew up in. It is not that they are bad people, but she just can't find any way to share their beliefs. She can't help being curious though when she receives a wedding invitation for a childhood friend and decides to go back.  I did mention bad decisions, didn't I?  I recommend not reading any summaries before you read the book because it might spoil a really important point.  This is like if horror met chick lit and had a baby with all the best qualities.  Read it!


View all my reviews

Review: Fire and Bones

Fire and Bones by Kathy Reichs
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Full Disclosure: I received an Advanced Reader's Copy of Fire and Bones by Kathy Reichs from Scribner via NetGalley.

Fire and Bones is the 23rd novel in the Temperance Brennan series by Kathy Reichs.  If you watched the TV show, Bones, it was inspired by this series.  You could pick up this book and start reading the series here without having read the previous books.  This could also be read as a standalone if you are not sure you want to invest in a series of 20+ books.  

I think what most intrigued me about this one is that it is set in Foggy Bottom in Washington, DC.  Having just started my retirement journey from the US Department of State, Foggy Bottom holds a special place in my heart.  I don't know if the Foggy Bottom gang was a real historical thing or not.  Doesn't really matter to me.  It was a good excuse to get into the history of the area.  There are a couple of different "mysteries" happening in here.  I won't spoil any of them, but you won't be lacking for puzzles to solve if you like that kind of thing.  The only thing I couldn't stop wanting throughout this book was a crossover cameo from Kay Scarpetta.  Maybe in the future???  I'll keep my fingers crossed.  

Bonus points for Chuck.  That chinchilla is going places!  However, I am not ready for Birdie to take a backseat just yet.

View all my reviews

Review: Ascension

Ascension by Nicholas Binge
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Ascension by Nicholas Binge is somewhere between science fiction and horror.  It is presented as a collection of letters written to the main character's niece that were compiled and printed posthumously to warn humans about a threat to our existence.  I am always going to give an epistolary novel a go.  I just love that style.  There are editorial asides which lend to making it feel real.  This did make me think a bit about the movie, The Thing.  A team of experts in their field end up in a very brutal environment trying to figure out what is going on but also what killed the team before them.  The main question is how does a mountain show up out of nowhere?  The only way to find the answer is to ascend.

View all my reviews

Review: The Writing Retreat

The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz was a spectacular thriller.  If you favorite author of all time invited you to spend a month at a very exclusive writing retreat at their remote home with the chance to have your book published at the end, you would go wouldn't you?  Who would turn that down?  Some people might even kill for that chance.  Sure said author is an eccentric character who writes gothic horror and lives a life that reflects that.  The house itself has a ghastly history and may house a demon.  This isn't Stephen King and his corgis although it did give me The Shining vibes.

The main story is interspersed with excerpts from the book being written during the retreat so it is like getting two books in one.  Each story is crazy good in its own way.  Another book not for the squeamish! 

View all my reviews