Nonfiction

Travelers in The Third Reich

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Travelers in the Third Reich
Author
Boyd, Julia
Rating
5 stars = Bohemian Rhapsody Awesome!
Review

Travelers In The Third Reich tells the stories of some people who lived in Germany during the second world war. The book shows the horrors of life in Germany at the time by describing the hangings and executions through the eyes of the people that were there. It also talks about the politics and economy during the war and how it changed the lives of the German civilians.

Reviewer's Name
Dave

Book Review: Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood

Author
Noah, Trevor
Rating
4 stars = Really Good
Review

I had to read this book for my AP English class and usually I am not the biggest fan of books I have to read for school but this one was really good. This book contains a bunch of different stories of comedian Trevor Noah's childhood, ranging from the small interactions with his family and friends to the event that changed his life. Trevor Noah delivers these stories in a fun and lighthearted way even if the stories themselves are not. The book was fast paced and really well written. The humor combined with the pacing helped me to stay engaged and I really enjoyed reading it. I enjoyed how short the stories were and how it helped the audience to empathize with Trevor and gave them an insight to what it was like to grow up in South Africa. I recommend this book to anyone looking for a quick and lighthearted read.
Reviewer Grade: 11

Reviewer's Name
Makenna

Book Review: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

Author
Kamkwamba, William
Rating
5 stars = Bohemian Rhapsody Awesome!
Review

The Boy who Harnessed the Wind is a nonfiction autobiography about a boy falling in love with science. The boy, William Kamkwamba, is the son of a poor African farmer. William grows up creating toys and playing games. When his father can no longer afford to send William to school, William goes to a library and learns about electricity generation. William soon builds a windmill out of the discarded items found at the local junkyard and provides his house with electricity when the windmill spins. Word of his incredible accomplishment spreads, and soon William gets the opportunity to fly to other countries and talk about his accomplishments and how his technology can be imitated throughout Africa to make life easier for Africans. Because of his success on the world stage, he now has the connections and money to send himself and his siblings to school. After completing college in the United States William moved back to his old hometown and inspires young children by giving them opportunities to enrich themselves in education.

Reviewer's Name
Finn

Book Review: Real Friends

Author
Hale, Shannon
Rating
4 stars = Really Good
Review

The graphic novel “Real Friends” is about a girl named Shannon. Shannon and Adrienne have always been best friends, but when Adrienne begins hanging out with the popular girl, Shannon is just left in the dust. The novel follows Shannon as she goes through one big roller coaster called middle school. The book touches on the subject of how difficult middle school can be and challenging middle school friendships.
I enjoyed this book because I can relate to the lessons and feelings Shannon has towards her friendships and surroundings. Middle School is a tough and confusing time in everyone’s life, and knowing that you have similar experiences to others is nice to know. I would recommend this book to anyone who is struggling to find themselves throughout middle school or even awkward years.
Reviewer Grade: 8

Reviewer's Name
Abigail

Book Review: Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever

Author
O'Reilly, Bill
Rating
3 stars = Pretty Good
Review

Killing Lincoln, written by Bill O'Reilly, is a historical fiction novel detailing the account of the Civil War and the events that led up to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The narrator takes the reader along a tale of battle, and a timeline of Booth growing more and more anti-Lincoln until he finally decides to buy a gun and shoot Lincoln. I enjoyed the book because there is so much information, it's almost as if the narrator were there, writing everything down in the present. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes history, as well as anyone who is possibly enrolled in a history class.

Reviewer's Name
Finn

Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixites

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Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixities
Author
O'Neill, Tom
Rating
4 stars = Really Good
Review

O'Neill's 20-year investigation succeeds at systematically breaking down an impressive amount of the infamous case's centrifugal details and characters, many previously unknown, untold or cast as insignificant. The guy's manic fixation is contagious. The only thing I found unnecessary was the frequency and extent to which O'Neill expressed self-doubt in the 'coda' sections of many chapters, second guessing "where it all goes." It doesn’t matter that there aren’t neat ends; his scrutiny has produced more than enough evidence not only to explode the popular understanding of the details surrounding the Manson story, but also suggest far-reaching implications for all of us in the process.

Reviewer's Name
Kate

Story Engineering

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Story Engineering
Author
Brooks, Larry
Rating
2 stars = Meh
Review

Every successful author eventually concludes that they have something to provide for the neophytes of the craft. The problem is that the most insight any individual author might provide for someone who wants to get into writing stories has probably been said before. In Story Engineering, I was hoping for some useful tips on structure but instead was accosted with incredibly biased opinions from the author (and his obsession with a handful of books). He seems to think there is only one singular way to be successful and his book is the only way to understand it. I’m used to biased non-fiction, but not nearly this much of it.

I think that all writing methods have their benefits and downsides, but if you were to corner the author and ask him about pantsers (i.e., people who write by the seat of their pants via “exploratory writing”), he’d probably admit that they murdered his mother. In describing his successful publishing endeavors, I got the sense that the author didn’t realize that he was incredibly lucky to have achieved the successes he did, cementing in his mind that it was the only way to be successful. The irony is how he includes several examples of successful authors who follow the pantsing method and how their books still abide by this stringent Story Engineering structure.

When I see the idiom “burying the lede,” I often think of clickbait articles or newspaper columns that take forever to get to the point. This is the first time I’ve encountered burying the lede for an entire book. It takes forever for the author to get to the point, and by then it’s difficult to remember what we were even supposed to glean from it. There might be some useful information here, but it’s so bogged down in obvious things that every other author who has written a book on writing has already said.

No new writing tips in extremely biased non-fiction, I give Story Engineering 2.0 stars out of 5.

Reviewer's Name
Benjamin
Genres

Book Review: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Author
Jacobs, Harriet
Rating
4 stars = Really Good
Review

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, written by Harriet Jacobs, is a memoir of the oppression of slavery that Harriet faced as a slave. The book starts off talking about the pleasantries of childhood, but when her owner dies, ownership of her is shipped over to Dr. Flint, who ends up being a predator and wants to procreate with Harriet. Harriet refuses, but Dr. Flint becomes so demanding that Harriet turns fugitive. Ironically, Harriet hides for seven years at her grandmother's house, just across the street from Dr. Flint's plantation. Eventually, an opportunity arises for her to escape North, and after doubts, she does and is successful. In the North, she works hard to bring her family out of slavery, and one of the ladies that she works for purchases her and sets her free. The tale is brathtaking story of relentless perseverance, grit, and tenacity.

Reviewer's Name
Finn

The Heroine's Journey

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The Heroine's Journey
Author
Carriger, Gail
Rating
4 stars = Really Good
Review

When I started writing over a decade ago, I subconsciously modeled my story structures off the stories that I enjoyed. I didn't go into my first novel with the plan to make it the typical "Hero's Journey," and the result was far from it. The stories I was writing seemed to work, even if they didn't abide by the known structure many authors had used before me. The problem was, I didn't have a name for the style of story I was writing. After reading Gail Carriger's book, The Heroine's Journey, I can finally label the stories I write.

Carriger makes it clear that stories that follow the Heroine's Journey don't always have females in the lead role. Instead, the Heroine's Journey is the antithesis of the Hero's Journey. Where the Hero's Journey is about individual achievement and sacrifice, the Heroine's Journey is more about building community to tackle a problem larger than any one individual. There are a lot of YA works out there that hold to the Heroine's Journey much more than the Hero's Journey, which is probably why it can hold its own in today's society.

As with most books on writing, there are plenty of examples provided in The Heroine's Journey. This helped me identify where I was using this structure in my writing, since these comp titles correlated with what I had already written. My only qualm with this book is in some of the formatting. There were quite a few moments where I couldn't tell if the author was trying to emphasize a point, use a quote from one of the books she had written, or just break up the pages of normal text with something different. Still, if you can get past these odd moments, there is a lot of truth within these pages.

A non-traditional story structure with a proven track record, I give The Heroine's Journey 4.0 stars out of 5.

Reviewer's Name
Benjamin W.
Genres

Pity the Reader

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Pity The Reader
Author
Vonnegut, Kurt
Rating
2 stars = Meh
Review

People will always ask successful writers how they do what they do. What tricks do they have? What techniques make their writing timeless? Kurt Vonnegut is definitely a successful writer, so we'd want to know how he writes so we can apply his lessons to our own work. I picked up this book thinking it was like Stephen King's On Writing , not initially realizing that this book was released over a decade after his death. Consequently, this book was a disappointment.

I would say that Vonnegut did not actually write any of this book. If he had, I'm sure it would have been much shorter. Instead, we get a pseudo-biography of the man who wrote such classics as Slaughterhouse Five and Cat's Cradle. This is a book written by Suzanne McConnell. And while she may have been close enough to Vonnegut to glean a few extra writing tips, his writing already contained most of these portions of advice. It's nice to have them collected here in one place, but they are so diluted by anecdotes from his life as to almost be hidden in this book about how to write.

It's almost ironic that they titled this book Pity the Reader. I pity any neophyte writers who are looking to one of the greats of American literature for any sage advice. Over a decade after Vonnegut died, this book feels like a cash grab. A flashy bit of literature with his name on it, meant to sell copies to the unwitting weekend novelist or stay-at-home mom who writes on the side. He probably would have hated it, if for no other reason than him not seeing any profits from it.

A misleading book that takes advantage of Vonnegut's name, I give Pity the Reader 2.0 stars out of 5.

Reviewer's Name
Benjamin W.
Genres