Chuckles Mini Reviews Catchup

I review everything I read, on my blog and on Goodreads. Most reviews are of a decent length but sometimes you don't have much to say about the book because of its length or you DNFed it or various other reasons. In cases like that it makes sense to write a few mini reviews in one post and clear them out your way! So lets catch up with some reviews from December!

1) Pierce Brown-Red Rising
Darrow is a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he works all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of Mars livable for future generations. Yet he spends his life willingly, knowing that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better world for his children. But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. Soon he discovers that humanity already reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and sprawling parks spread across the planet. Darrow—and Reds like him—are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class. 

Inspired by a longing for justice, and driven by the memory of lost love, Darrow sacrifices everything to infiltrate the legendary Institute, a proving ground for the dominant Gold caste, where the next generation of humanity's overlords struggle for power. He will be forced to compete for his life and the very future of civilization against the best and most brutal of Society's ruling class. There, he will stop at nothing to bring down his enemies... even if it means he has to become one of them to do so.

This book is so far out of my comfort zone that I was in two minds about reading it but in the end I was swayed by so many positive reviews that I went against my niggling doubts. It turned out that my niggles were correct and this book wasn't to my taste. I noted that a lot of reviewers had issues with the language used and way the story was laid out. I can't say that I had any issues with the way the book was written or the writer style, to be honest, though I can see why it annoyed some people. But my first issue was with Darrow. I just didn't much like him. I didn't hate him or anything but I pretty much felt nothing each time he had to face trouble. I just didn't feel any emotional connection to him as our hero. His wife Eo did annoy me. Her dumb choices made me want to scream and I so much disliked what she chose to do and her reasons for doing it. In the early pages, it was only the drunken uncle that I liked. I felt that and the guy who operates on Darrow were the ones with real personality.

The characters in the Sons of Ares didn't much interest me either. They felt like cardboard cutouts and there was never any warmth from them, especially with what they wanted Darrow to do and I read very mixed reviews about the people he meets later. As much as I wanted to see the games (I was a big Hunger Games fan), I just couldn't persuade myself to plough on through the detailed descriptions and slow plot to actually get there. I found his initial lifestyle and that transformation section way too slow for my personal tastes. I just didn't feel enthused with it. If I had cared more for Darrow and the other characters, maybe I could have ploughed through but I wasn't really interested enough to try. I know a lot of people loved this series and I can see why they did but sadly it didn't work for me.

Read December 2019
DNF 2 star. 

2) Brian Dickinson-Blind Descent
Former Navy rescue swimmer Brian Dickinson was roughly 1,000 feet from the summit of Mount Everest--also known as "the death zone"--when his Sherpa became ill and had to turn back, leaving Brian with a difficult decision: should he continue to push for the summit, or head back down the mountain? After carefully weighing the options, Brian decided to continue toward the summit--alone. Four hours later, Brian solo summited the highest peak in the world. But the celebration was short-lived. After taking a few pictures, Brian radioed his team to let them know he had summited safely, and got ready to begin his descent. Suddenly, his vision became blurry, his eyes started to burn, and within seconds, he was rendered almost completely blind. All alone at 29,035 feet, low on oxygen, and stricken with snow blindness, Brian was forced to inch his way back down the mountain relying only on his Navy survival training, his gut instinct, and his faith. In Blind Descent, Brian recounts--in fantastic detail--his extraordinary experience on Everest, demonstrating that no matter how dire our circumstances, there is no challenge too big for God. 

I'm a big fan of reading mountain expedition books so reading about someone struggling down from the summit virtually snowblind certainly caught my interest. I am actually wishing I had read the very end of the blurb before getting a copy of this book as it would have set off alarm bells in my head about possible religious content. In fact I would say that this book is a third mountain expedition, a third military training and a third religious inspiration. I'm not really a fan of reading books fiction or otherwise that is packed with religious content so when I saw how much was in this book, it certainly put me off. Each chapter begins with a quote from the Bible and the author feels the need to explain every prayer he does, every moment he thinks about God, every religious quote that fits what he does and it was all too much for me, causing me to start skimming past it all. There is also a lot of product placement for all the equipment he is taking there to test for his company and his visit to an orphanage set up by his company was well covered which provoked eye rolling from me.

However, he does not have the same understanding for the Sherpa traditions, faith and superstitions which really annoyed me. First he is told not to shower the first day at Base Camp as the higher altitude 'bath' could make him ill but he knew better and wanted his bath, and was then ill. That's what happens when you don't listen to the experts! He then complains that as a Christian who follows the one true God, he doesn't like having to take part in the Sherpa. He had to be asked by a Sherpa to come and join the ceremony and showed disrespect by sneaking away early and back to his tent. The whole point of the ceremony is to get the mountain to give permission to be climbed and asking for safe passage. Maybe his snow blindness came about by not staying for the whole ceremony. He sort of grudgingly agrees that they have a right to a different belief from him. That's big of him considering that he is a guest in their country! He complains about the pilots, accomodation, hygiene etc which isn't great in Nepal but if you can't put up with it, don't go there! 

He also gets mad when his wife's friends mention to her all the deaths on Everest. I'm not surprised he was mad after telling his wife that more people die on Mount Rainier than Everest to make the trip seem safer. He also is angry that the father of his daughter's friend thought that Brian might die on Everest. You can't get mad at people for having their own opinions on you doing something dangerous especially when you DID come close to dying there. I just got annoyed at his attitude to all these things with every step of the expedition stopping for a religious point or a flashback to aspects of his diving training. It slowed the narrative greatly and it was frustrating to read. It's not a favourite expedition book of mine which is a pity because had he stuck purely to the trek and climb, it had the potential to be good.

Read December 2019
2 stars.

3) Del Quentin Wilber-Rawhide Down
A minute-by-minute account of the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, to coincide with the thirtieth anniversary

On March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan was just seventy days into his first term of office when John Hinckley Jr. opened fire outside the Washington Hilton Hotel, wounding the president, press secretary James Brady, a Secret Service agent, and a D.C. police officer. For years, few people knew the truth about how close the president came to dying, and no one has ever written a detailed narrative of that harrowing day. Now, drawing on exclusive new interviews and never-before-seen documents, photos, and videos, Del Quentin Wilber tells the electrifying story of a moment when the nation faced a terrifying crisis that it had experienced less than twenty years before, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

With cinematic clarity, we see Secret Service agent Jerry Parr, whose fast reflexes saved the president's life; the brilliant surgeons who operated on Reagan as he was losing half his blood; and the small group of White House officials frantically trying to determine whether the country was under attack. Most especially, we encounter the man code-named "Rawhide," a leader of uncommon grace who inspired affection and awe in everyone who worked with him. Ronald Reagan was the only serving U.S. president to survive being shot in an assassination attempt.* Rawhide Down is the first true record of the day and events that literally shaped Reagan's presidency and sealed his image in the modern American political firmament.

I was looking through Google trying to find a Q author for my Alphabet Soup Challenge when I stumbled across this and instantly bought it as I've always been interested in politics and political scandals and assassinations. This book starts with the few days leading up to the shooting and a bit of background on the President and his staff. It let us know a bit about each person in the President's party who were caught up in the drama of the day. Then it switches to pretty much a minute by minute starting with the morning of the shooting-what the President was doing, which of his staff were deciding to go with him or stay at the White House, switching rosters at the last minute, what the shooter was doing, the security getting ready at the hotel. It was setting the scene for what was coming and I was fascinated by it. The tension slowly builds until the shooting itself.

It shows the utter chaos in the situation as the men shot fall to the ground, the men who grabbed the shooter and took him down, the witnesses and the getting the President into the car and away. It then follows the President to the hospital along with the other wounded men, the arrest of the shooter, the reaction of the medical staff, the news breaking at the White House and the aftermath at the scene of the shooting. We are with Nancy's staff as she rushes to the hospital, in with the White House staff as they squabbled, George Bush Senior rushing back to take charge, the police interrogation of the shooter and his obsession with Jodie Foster, and the medical battle to save both the President and James Brady. It was pretty dramatic and it unfolded in the way the film Parkland does, a film I loved, dealing with the murder of JFK. I thought this book covered everything I wanted to know about the shooting and the aftermath and I will be reading this many more times!

Read December 2019
4 stars.