A Bad Day For Voodoo by Jeff Strand

This hilarious novel starts off innocent enough with Tyler being furious with his history teacher for giving him an F on his test because someone cheated off his paper without his knowledge after he had spent a week studying for the test and not spending time with his hot, and brilliant, girlfriend, Kelley.  But it isn't just that, the man is evil. He makes history boring and gets great glee in announcing each person's grade aloud to the class and he seems to be happiest when someone fails.

Adam, Tyler's very weird and bizarre friend decides to do him a favor and goes to a store downtown and gets him a voodoo doll of Mr. Click the history teacher for Adam to have a little fun with before he goes to the Principal about the test.  Tyler doesn't believe it will actually work but when Mr. Click has his back turned from the class, he reaches into his backpack and sticks his leg with the needle and suddenly Mr. Click's leg goes flying off his body.  Kelley performs first aid on him and he is taken to the hospital.  At the end of the school day, Tyler and Adam go to Tyler's house and they get into a shoving match while the doll is still in Tyler's backpack on his back tossing the doll around.  Then Tyler hears the news a little later and learns that Mr. Click has died on the table of a broken neck.  When Tyler looks at the doll its neck is tilted.  Adam has long since left scared that the police will find out what they've done and come for them.

Tyler calls Kelley for help in figuring out what to do with the doll when she asks what is Adam up to because Adam has a way of making things worse. They finally hear back from Adam who has made a doll of Tyler to protect himself in case Tyler goes to the police. Once they make it clear to Adam that Tyler would never do that Adam feels pretty bad and stupid for making the doll but now they have a doll of Tyler that needs to be uncreated.  So they hop in Tyler's mom's car and punch in the GPS for the store and find themselves going through a bad neighborhood.

While stopped at a photograph stoplight a man comes up to the window and Tyler doesn't feel like he can just drive off without getting a ticket so he rolls down the window to see what the man wants and finds himself facing a gun and being told to get out of the car.  They try to get the doll out of the trunk but are not successful.  They find a taxi driver named Felix who is up for a chase who takes them to where the car is being chopped up.

So Tyler goes inside to bargain with the gangsters and when they find out it's a voodoo doll they don't believe it works until they try it out for themselves and cut off two of Tyler's toes.  Then they get into an argument over the doll and things get deadly.  Tyler escapes but then the Felix demands his fee of the cab ride once he finds out that Tyler is bleeding in his car and he wants them out.  When they explain that their parents can pay it but they can't Felix demands the doll as a downpayment.  And from there things go from bad to worse as something comes running down the street to meet them and when they knock on the doors of houses they encounter weird and dangerous things.

Will they ever get the doll back?  Will they survive the night?  Tyler is a funny narrator who while he does get quite angry at Adam and threaten to end the friendship many times you know he won't because Adam will somehow redeem himself.  Kelley is the one rational, intelligent person there. She is the planner even if the plans don't always work.  She's a tough young woman.  This was a fantastic book that's filled with gore and humor and a motley crew of bizarre characters.  I loved this book and I give it five out of five stars.

Quotes

My cat’s communication was simple: Any noise it made meant either “Feed me” or “I hate you.”

-Jeff Strand (A Bad Day For Voodoo p 104)

I wished my life came with a musical soundtrack to help me figure out how to behave.

-Jeff Strand (A Bad Day For Voodoo p 116)

And why don’t they sell Girl Scout cookies in stores?  Why do you take a product that people actually want to buy and put a stranglehold on it like that? Tell you what what, you find me a box of Thin frickin’ Mints and you can use my phone to call 1-800 horoscope numbers for all I care.

-Jeff Strand (A Bad Day For Voodoo p 144)

That’s enough! Young lady as long as you live in our house, you will respect our rules, ans when we say that there will be no human sacrifices tonight, well, that’s exactly what we mean…You’re way too old for us to keep having to treat you this way.  Keep up the attitude problem, and I promise we will take away the pizza cutter, the spider venom, the daggers—all of them, even the one with the hidden compartment—those special pliers that Grandma made for you, your TV, everything. All of it, gone into storage until you go to college!

-Jeff Strand (A Bad Day For Voodoo p 176-7)

I also have to say that vampires are lying to you about kissing with blood on your lips being arousing.  It’s really kind of gross. Don’t try it.

-Jeff Strand (A Bad Day For Voodoo p 186)

Listed On Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Day-Voodoo-Jeff-Strand-ebook/dp/B007SOL2BM/ref=sr_1_3?crid=IVRLB768TPU4&keywords=a+bad+day+for+voodoo&qid=1572436869&sprefix=a+bad+day+for+voo%2Caps%2C178&sr=8-3

Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel

I read this book for one of my book clubs, but I did pick it to read among a list of choices because I thought it was going to be about Galileo's interesting daughter who was intelligent and contributed to the world in some grand way just as her father did.  I was wrong.  The book is all about Galileo and his life, but does include some letters from his daughter on such exciting matters as sewing a tablecloth for him or collars for her brother or to ask for money for a cell of her own as she was a nun in a convent, which is where illegitimate daughters were sent with their dowries since they couldn't marry.  He had two illegitimate daughters, Marie Celeste, whom he corresponded with and Arcangela and one illegitimate son Vincenzio who was made legitimate.  He couldn't marry the mother because she was of a different class, but she would eventually marry after Vincenzio was born.

Marie Celeste's letters were boring to the extreme with her talk of sewing and prayer and her need for money for various things.  Marie Celeste's life was I suppose interesting for a nun in that she while she mostly spent it praying and sewing, she also worked in the apothecary shop and teaching Gregorian chants.  Her sister did very little we are led to believe.  But she did not help people like Mother Theresa did or do anything completely worthwhile with her life.  There were intelligent women at that time like the Grand Duke of Milan's grandmother who argued with Galileo himself over his Compernician thoughts about a heliocentric worldview.  But Marie Celeste, who read her father's work because she recopied it for him since she had lovely penmanship never once discussed his work with him.  His daughter Arcangela was mentally unbalanced either because she was being forced into the life of being a nun or because she truly was crazy.  And his son Vincenzio was a pain in the ass who was always letting him down.

Galileo was very progressive for his time and both lauded for his scientific findings and hated for going against Aristotle who reigned supreme for some.  He also had to deal with the Church and going against Church doctrine.  Other scientists in other countries at the time weren't so hampered and made great strides forward.  But it was his work Dialogues that really got him in trouble. It was approved by the Church to be published and was a play about a man who espouses the Copernican thought and one, a stupid one who espouses the Aristotelian point of view and Galileo who is the narrator.  It came out to great praise, but then a group of people began to hate it and say it was heretical. The Pope Urban VIII who was on good terms with Galileo had been raked over the coals over the way he was handling the Thirty Years War and he didn't need another scandal so while he didn't read the book, he listened to others who had and believed them when they said it was heretical and brought Galileo to trial.

Frankly, this book just wasn't that interesting.  I'm not interested in religious matters or complex scientific ones.  And I was feeling pretty pissed and that I had been lied to about what the book was about.  I was expecting a book about his daughter and instead got a book about Galileo which I wouldn't have picked up if I'd known that was what it was about.  I give it two stars out of five stars.

Quotes

As he had once heard the late Vatican librarian Cesare Cardinal Varonio remark, the Bible was a book about how one goes to Heaven—not how Heaven goes.

-Dava Sobel (Galileo’s Daughter p 65)

Listed on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Galileos-Daughter-Historical-Memoir-Science/dp/0802779654/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1RY2671IVJQCN&keywords=gallileo%27s+daughter&qid=1572273828&sprefix=gallileo%27s+dau%2Caps%2C177&sr=8-1

Locke and Key Vol 2: Head Games by Joe Hill (Writer), Gabriel Rodriguez (Artist), Jay Folos (Colorist), Robbie Robbins (Letterer)

The Locke family, which includes the mother, Nina, and her three kids Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode and Nina's dead husband's brother Duncan move across the country when two teens, Sam Lesser and Al Grubb shoot and kill Rendell Locke, the husband, and father because he wouldn't give them something they wanted.  He had always told them to go and live in the Keyhouse in Massachusetts with Duncan if anything ever happened so they packed up and did.  The Keyhouse is Duncan and Rendell's childhood home and a place of great mystery. In this previous comic it tells the story of the day the horrible tragedy happened in flashbacks as it moves the current story in Lovecraft, Massachusettes forward.  Ty is trying to work himself to death in order to not think about what happened and Kinsey has changed her free-spirited appearance to something staider in order for no one to notice her.  Bode has discovered the magic of the place by placing a certain key into a certain door so that when he walks through it he can "die" and become a ghost and travel all over the house and watch people without them knowing it.  He also discovers the mysterious lady in the well who seems to know a lot and might have an agenda of her own.

In this comic, Zach a new kid at school makes friends with Ty, but one of the teachers recognizes him as the kid who went missing years ago named Luke.  Zach is staying with his "Aunt" Emily who has a mentally challenged kid.  Her mind is being controlled by Zach through the use of one of those keys.  Duncan knows who Zach really is and knows he must warn Ty, but Zach gets to him first with a key that Bode has discovered that allows you to take out or put in anything into your brain.  Ty uses it to put inside his school books and Kinsey uses it to put all her fears and tears into a glass jar.  i
It is also keeping her from being warned off of Zach.  Zach uses it to sneak off to where Duncan is teaching an art class in another city to take out his memories of Luke.

Zach also kills off the teacher who remembers him making it look like a suicide.  I don't know what Zach/Luke's endgame is but he's taking care to make sure no one remembers him. He's a pretty scary character.  And the three children trust him.  But not everyone does.  How many keys are there and what do they all do?  Will Zach get them all and use them for nefarious purposes?  This is a great comic that intrigues as well as thrills.  I can't wait to find out what happens next.  I give this a four out of five stars.

Listed On Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Locke-Key-Vol-Head-Games/dp/1600104835/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=2IEB0YC4CQYCN&keywords=locke+and+key+volume+2&qid=1572006346&sprefix=locke+and+key%2Caps%2C182&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExMDFBSzY5MDhMVDY4JmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwODk3Njc2MzM3NFdMTUY4TFVFNyZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwMTIxMjE2MU42QjBTVlpaUkZUVyZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2F0ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=

Stiletto by Daniel O'Malley

In this sequel to The Rook, the merger between the Grafters and the Checquy is taking place.  The Grafters are believers in science and are way far ahead of today's scienctists to the point that they are deemed unnatural by the Checquy and the Checquy have supernatural abilities that make them seem scary to the Grafters.  Both sides hate each other going back to the 1600s when the Grafters invaded England and lost and King Charles II had them all killed off and their research burned.  However, some escaped with some research and remained in hiding until now.

Ernst, the head of the Grafters is hiding something.  There is a group out there hunting down his people and it turns out that they have followed them to England.  He doesn't want to tell Rook Thomas who is brokering the deal because he is afraid it will destroy the deal so he plans on dealing with it himself.  He sends his best soldiers after them and they all get killed.

His descendant, Odette, is a bit of a mess. She can't seem to go a day without destroying an outfit.  The first one gets blood on it when she tries to help someone in the medical area where she was touring when someone came in injured. As she is a surgeon she jumped in to help to hold onto a blood vessel.  He was going to lose a foot but she said she could save it. That's when they found out she was a Grafter and the mood turned sour and she was taken from the room.  The next day her dress got ruined by someone who emitted a smoke of some sort onto it while he told her off.  The next day her and her new minder Felicity Clemmens who has the ability to touch an object and see inside it and know its history are sent to look at a giant whale-like creature that Felicity needs to see inside of.  Of course, Odette grabs at the chance to go inside the creature through one of its blowholes.  Then the animal wakes up and both Felicity and Odette and the group she's with are stuck inside the animal and they must be blasted out with fire.  Her next outfit gets bloody from trying to help her Uncle Marcel try to save Rook Thomas's life at the Ascot.

Someone keeps trying to grab Odette, but Felicity stops them every time.  Odette's friends and Uncle were all killed by the group called the Antagonists who are the ones that are after the Grafters and are also now going after the Checquy and are the ones trying to kidnap Odette.  Who are these Antagonists?  Can the Grafters be trusted?  They're not being honest with the Checquy.   The Antagonists will make a huge statement harming many people all over the United Kingdom.  They don't care who they hurt.  They want to disrupt the negotiations between the Checquy and the Grafters.

This book was a worthy successor to the first book.  I love Felicity. She would rather fight off ten attackers than go to a fancy party.  Odette, you feel sorry for because she just wants to help people with her surgeon's skills which are quite excellent and she isn't allowed to do so very often because of people's ignorance of science.  It's also nice to see Rook Thomas again.  I do hope that O'Malley writes another book in this series. This was a fabulous book and I give it five out of five stars.

Quotes

Fine. Go, then. Strive not to get killed.  You’ve no idea how much it would inconvenience me.

-Daniel O’Malley (Stiletto p 56)

The difference between a security guard and a prison guard is one order from the boss.

-Daniel O’Malley (Stiletto p 90)

Oh, I’m sure you think you do, but you’re still young. It takes decades to really hate someone.

-Daniel O’Malley (Stiletto p 232)

“So you clone things?” “We can,” said Marcel. “We don’t, though, not usually. Of course, we grow bits of people, but we don’t make whole people.” “Why not?” asked Eckhart. “We prefer to have sex,” said Ernst. “Plus, anyone who wants to clone himself is usually an asshole. You don’t want any more of those running around than absolutely necessary.”

-Daniel O’Malley (Stiletto p 408)

“I hate to say it, but his dress is the worst crime against nature I have ever seen in my life.” Felicty cringed a little. The dress lay on the bed, malignant and resentful, like an angry jellyfish. It was technically an evening gown, in the same way that dirt is technically edible.  The benighted designer was apparently committed to the principle of “accentuate the negative” and had made the assumption that whoever wore it would have cubical breasts. There were folds and pleats where God and decreed that no folds or pleats ought ever to be, and some sort of structure had been built into the back giving the impression of a prolapsed bustle. The Color could perhaps have been described as sky blue, but it was the blue of a sky that would drive even the cheeriest and most tuneful of novice nuns to slash her wrists. It was a blue that had given up.

-Daniel O’Malley (Stiletto p 461)

Good to see combat, anyways. Do me proud. Endeavor not to get killed or eaten. Oh, and don’t forget to wear your coat.

-Daniel O’Malley (Stiletto p 500)

Listed On Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Stiletto-Novel-Rook-Files-Book-ebook/dp/B00KVK33J4/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2U1XM4M01KAJ7&keywords=daniel+o%27malley&qid=1571764860&sprefix=daniel+o%27malley%2Caps%2C177&sr=8-1

DC Universe Rebirth Wonder Woman Vol 5: Hear of the Amazon by Shea Fontana (Writer), Tim Seeley (Writer), Vira Ayala (Writer), Micahel Moreci (Writer), Collin Kelly (Writer), Jackson Lanzing (Writer), Mirka Andolfo (Artist), David Messina (Artist), Inaki Miranda (Artist), Christian Duce (Artist), Claire Roe (Artist), Stephanie Hans (Artist, Colorist), David Lafuente (Artist), Romulo Fajardo Jr. (Colorist), ALlen Passalaqua (Colorist), Jordie Bellaire (Colorist), John Rauch (Colorist), Saida Temofonte (Letterer), Josh Reed (Letterer), Dave Sharpe (Letterer), Jodi Wynne (Letterer)

In the previous comic, Dr. Minerva clues in Etta and Steve on Godwatch who are behind everything including making Minerva Cheetah.  There's Dr. Veronica Cale who is behind it all because two gods Phobos and Deimos stole her daughter's face away seven years ago.  They want to go to Themyscira and the only way to get there is through Diana.  They will give her her daughter's face back if she does this.  So her and her business partner Dr. Adrianna Anderson built Cyberwalk, a creation that allows the wearer to get close to someone and pick up memories and thoughts from someone it touches.  The suit killed Anderson, but Cale brought her back to life as Doctor Cyber, an all-knowing computer AI system.  Then there's the muscle: Poison and Colonel Maru's mercenary team. Steve and Etta go to break Diana out of the mental hospital while Minerva goes to try to talk some sense to Cale.  While Minerva is there she agrees to become the Cheetah again.  Diana decides its time to stop hiding out and return to Themylscira for real this time and fight the evil that is threatening it and try to save Barbara Ann.

In this comic Wonder Woman is forced to get a physical after going through so many missions in a row.  She is checked out by Dr. Crawford at the military hospital.  Etta asks Diana to go to her brother's wedding that night.  As Diana is playing with a child under the table the child finds some explosives that Diana has just a second to cover with her body to prevent as much damage as possible. But still her friend Etta, Commander Candy, is injured and she quickly flies her to the military hospital where Dr. Crawford is working.  Dr. Crawford sedates Wonder Woman and takes some of her blood and injects it inside her because she has a disease that will kill her and she believes that Wonder Woman's blood will save her and make her superhuman.  Now Wonder Woman must find a way to stop someone with her powers.

Word on the street is out about Dr. Crawford's research into Wonder Woman's blood and someone is willing to pay big money for Wonder Woman's body.  Etta and Wonder Woman are fighting them off at Etta's place and take care of them by the time Steve Trevor shows up.  Geneticist Hamilton Revere is the one behind the bounty hunters and he says he wants to cure many diseases. Diana wants to turn herself into him and work with him to cure these diseases.  But is that really what he's up to? Can he be trusted?  She'll be going in alone, but not to fear her trusted back up team of Etta and Steve won't be far behind even if they are ordered not to be.

At the end of this book, there are several short comics including one about Steve going to help his old buddies in A.R.G.U.S.'s ODDFELLOWS program that investigated odd things, and Wonder Woman coming to King Shark's aid, and a village with a curse and an ancient monster come to attack a city.  This was an intriguing comic in that it explored Diana's need to help others with her divine blood and what that could mean for humanity.  The short comics look at a variety of topics that Wonder Woman and Steve must deal with as part of their daily lives.  Things that make them think.  This was a wonderful comic.  I give it five out of five stars.   

Listed On Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Wonder-Woman-Vol-Rebirth-Universe/dp/1401277349/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=dc+rebirth+wonder+woman+vol+5&qid=1571659664&sr=8-3

Daredevil: Born Again by Frank Miller (Writer), David Mazzucchelli (Artist), Dennis Janke (Artist), Christie Scheele (Colorist), Richmond Lewis (Colorist), and Joe Rosen (Letterer)

This collection of comics opens with Karen Page selling Matt Murdoch's name as Daredevil for a fix to some bad guys in Mexico.  It goes up the chain of command until it reaches Mr. Fisk, or Kingpin as he is widely known.  Fisk decides to go after Matt and destroy his life.  He makes it so that he is two months late on his mortgage and the IRS is doing an audit on him and had frozen his accounts.

Fisk gets charges brought up against Matt by an honest cop that he got witnesses to purgery themselves on the stand.  Foggy argues his case and keeps him out of jail but he loses his law license.  That's not all he's losing. He's beginning to lose his mind.  He lost his girlfriend Glori who is now working at the Buggle taking pictures.

Reporter Ben Ulrich suspects that something is going on and begins to investigate but even he gets scared off of the story.  And Karen has people trying to kill her and she knows the only person who can save her is Matt and he's in New York and he's also the person she betrayed.  But she has to get there for him.  As Daredevil, Matt has gone rogue and is beating people up badly whether they deserve it or not.

Then he goes after Fisk and Fisk beats him up badly and sets him up in a car to die but he escapes and goes to the Church where Maggie works. Maggie who had helped him when he first found out he was blind.  Maggie nurses him back to health and he meets with Karen and deals with his feelings for her. Also, Nuke the experimental super-soldier who was a bit of a mistake that the government uses on projects outside of the country has been tasked with getting Daredevil and destroying him.

These are amazing comics and Frank Miller and company are the best at what they do.  This is truly one of the best Daredevil stories ever written.  He is brought so low to a point that would break a normal man, but Daredevil, Matt, becomes a man without hope, who is a man without fear and can take on anything.  Even when his friends seem to desert him he can still stand tall and not let Fisk win.  There's also included a comic called Warrior about an old acquaintance of Matt and Foggy's who has gotten himself into trouble that Daredevil must get him out of.  I give this book five out of five stars.

Listed on Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Daredevil-Born-Again-Frank-Miller/dp/0785134816/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=daredevil+born+again&qid=1571406112&sr=8-1

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

Asa Holmes has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  Mostly it's obsessive thinking and she pinches her thumb area causing it to bleed and require a band-aid, but more importantly when it heals she still obsessively cleans it.  His obsessive thoughts involve getting C. Diff, a bacteria that get inside your system usually because you stayed at a hospital or took antibiotics, but this doesn't necessarily have to be true.  In rare cases, you can just get it and Asa is obsessed with getting it among other things.

Asa's best friend since childhood is Daisy who writes fan fiction about Star Wars characters Rey and Chewbacca being in a love relationship.  Daisy comes from a poorer family and she is the talker of the relationship.  It's Daisy's idea to go snooping at Davis Picket's house. His dad skipped town with charges pending on him and there's a reward of $100,000 for information leading to his capture.  Asa remembers that Davis had put stop motion cameras in the back of the house and the police probably don't know about them.  So she and Daisy sneak on the grounds and download the digital files off of the camera and one of them is of a man leaving the grounds that way.  They're about to get caught so Daisy smashes their boat and pretends that they came there for help.

Remeeting Davis after all those years ago when they saw each other at Sad Camp for those who had lost a parent, Asa, her father, and Davis, his mother brings back happy memories of the camp where Asa had a crush on Davis.  Asa will come over again to hang out and she will ask Davis about the evidence and how he would feel if she and Daisy would turn it in. So Davis gives them $100,000 from his father's many stashes that he has around the house.  It's the only way he can be sure she isn't after his money and he won't betray him.

Davis has a younger brother Noah who is getting into trouble at school because he believes that it will bring their dad home.  Davis is trying to raise his brother with the help of a paid housekeeper and a lawyer handling the money, but it isn't easy.  Davis is fascinated with astronomy and points out things in the sky to Asa.  Asa tries to be a girlfriend to Davis but kissing makes her think of all his microbes entering her body and invading it and she can't handle it.  So they hold hands instead even though both of them want to kiss each other.

Things will take a turn for the worse in Daisy and Asa's friendship as their true feelings become evident and something Asa didn't know about comes to light.  Will their friendship survive this calamity?  What about Asa and Davis?  Can they continue going the way they are?  John Green really captures what it's like to have OCD.   Asa is a wonderful character and her friend Daisy is a good compliment to her.  Davis is sweet and understanding to a degree, but he wants more from her than she is capable of giving perhaps.  Her mom is obsessed with her obsessiveness which is almost funny in a sad way. Asa dreams of going away to college but she realizes that that probably isn't realistic.  That she'll probably live with her mom for a long while.  That's hard to come to terms with as a teen.  This book is amazing to read and explores mental illness and how it affects those around them.  I give it five out of five stars.

Quotes

But I was beginning to to learn that your life is a story told about you, not one that you tell.

-John Green (Turtles All the Way Down p 1)

Anybody can look at you. It’s quite rare to find someone who sees the same world you see.

-John Green (Turtles All the Way Down p 9)

“It’s just weird how this is decided by someone I don’t know and then I have to live by it. Like, I live on someone else’s schedule. And I’ve never even met them.” “Yes, well, in that respect and many others, American high schools do rather resemble prisons.” My eyes widened. “Oh my God, Mom, you’re so right. The metal detectors. The cinder-block walls.” “They’re both overcrowded and underfunded,”Mom said. “And both have bells that ring to tell you when to move.” “And you don’t get to choose when you eat lunch,” I said. “And prisons have power-thirsty corrupt guards, just like schools have teachers.”

-John Green (Turtles All the Way Down p 11-12)

The whole problem with boys is that ninety-nine percent of them are, like okay. If you could dress and hygiene them properly, and make them stand up straight and listen to you and not be dumbasses, they’d be totally acceptable.

-John Green (Turtles All the Way Down p 41)

Worrying is the correct worldview. Life is worrisome.

-John Green (Turtles All the Way Down p 52)

I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustainable I am, the more I will respect myself.

-Charlotte Bronte

The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.

-William James

“Ugh, God, now this guy is saying I write bestiality.” “Wait, what?” “Because in my fic, Chewbacca and Rey were in love. He’s saying it is –and I am quoting—‘criminal’ because it’s interspecies romance.  Not sex, even—I keep it rated Ten for the kids out there—just love.” “|But Chewbacca isn’t human,” I said. “It’s not a question of whether Chewie was human, Holmsey, it’s a question of whether he was a person. And he was obviously a person. Like, what even makes you a person? He had a body and a soul and feelings, and he spoke a language, and he was an adult, and if he and Rey were in hot, hairy, communicative love, then let’s just thank God that two consenting sentient adults found each other in a dark and broken galaxy.”

-John Green (Turtles All the Way Down p 66)

“And why are you using the past tense?” “Because all of this happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Holmsy. You always use the past tense when talking Star Wars. Duh.

-John Green (Turtles All the Way Down p 67)

I feel like I might be driving the bus of my consciousness.

-John Green (Turtles All the Way Down p 86)

One of the challenges with pain—physical of psychic—is that we can really only approach it through metaphor.  It can’t be represented the way a table or a body can. In some ways, pain is the opposite of language.

-John Green (Turtles All the Way Down p 89)

Your now is not forever.

-John Green (Turtles All the Way Down p 93)

Star Wars is the American religion.

-John Green (Turtles All the Way Down p 96)

The question is not yet settled whether madness is to is not loftiest intelligence.

-Edgar Allan Poe

What I love about science is that as you learn, you don’t really get answers. You just get better question.

-John Green (Turtles All the Way Down p 177)

Even the silence/ has a story to tell you.

-Jacqueline Woodson

You know Sejou Sundiata, in a poem, he saidthe most important part of the body “aint the heart or the lungs or the brain. The biggest, most important part of the body is the part that hurts.”

-John Green (Turtles All the Way Down p 224)

Actually, the problem is that I can’t lost my mind. It’s inescapable.

-John Green (Turtles All the Way Down p 240)

People talk like there’s a bright line between imagination and memory, but there isn’t, at least not for me.  I remember what I’ve imagined and imagine what I remember.

-John Green (Turtles All the Way Down p 271)

I missed everybody. To be alive is to be missing.

-John Green (Turtles All the Way Down p 281)

You remember your first love because they show you, prove to you, that you can love and be loved, that nothing in the world is deserved except for love, that love is both how you become a person, and why.

-John Green (Turtles All the Way Down p 285)

No one ever says good-bye unless they want to see you again.

-John Green (Turtles All the Way Down p 286)

Listed On Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Turtles-All-Down-John-Green/dp/0525555374/ref=sr_1_1?crid=RSS90OOGM2O1&keywords=turtle+all+the+way+down+john+green&qid=1571221648&sprefix=turtle+all+%2Caps%2C176&sr=8-1

How to Date Your Dragon by Molly Harper

This first book in a new series that takes place in Mystic Bayou, Louisiana involves a researcher for theInternational League for Interspecies Cooperation, a cooperative organization founded centuries before by a group of shifters and humans hoping to hold on to the secret a little while longer but preparing for the worst.  They want this researcher, Jillian Ramsey to go to Mystic Bayou, a community of shifters and humans who live in harmony and do a study on them.

She first meets Fred, a bear shifter who is really cute and happy-go-lucky and fun to be around.  He's the mayor.  She also meets the sheriff, Bael Boone, who she is not sure what he is only that he's infuriating.  Bael's family seems to own every business in town.  Both men flirt with her.  And while Fred is more easy-going she is more attracted to the hard-headed Bael.

When he takes her to see his horde and dragon form which is a marriage proposal in dragon terms not only is she only interested in it from a historical point of view she treats their sexual encounter as a casual thing.  For Jillian, she is not interested in getting involved in another relationship after her last one blew up so spectacularly.  Besides she isn't staying there for very long. Pretty soon she'll leave and move on to another assignment.

To complicate things someone is killing people in town and some people think it has to do with her research study because they talked to her so people are refusing to talk to her now.  This is just as good as her best friend Sonja whom she works with has uncovered the fact that the bosses are going to ask for an update and she provides the information they will be looking for so Jillian can get her ducks in a row.

This is a delightful book with great characters such as Fred who is much like a teddy bear or Jillian who is obsessed with the fae or Bael who is willing to piss off his family and marry a human.  The whole town is filled with wonderfully eccentric characters that are enjoyable to read about, like the Brownie who can pick out the perfect piece of pie for you to eat that can make your day or give you an orgasm.  I plan on reading the next book in the series, Love and Other Wild Things where Zed falls for someone.  I thoroughly loved this book and give it five out of five stars.

Quotes

Sometimes apathy hurts just as much as cruelty. At least when someone is yelling you can imagine that they care.

-Molly Harper (How to Date Your Dragon p 125)

Listed On Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Date-Your-Dragon-Mystic-Bayou-ebook/dp/B07FTDJNZ3/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1570973883&sr=1-14

Silk Vol 2: The Negative by Robbie Thompson (Writer), Stacey Lee (Artist), Tana Ford (Artist), Ian Herring (Colorist), VC's Travis Lanham (Letterer)

As a teenager, Cindy Moon was bitten by the same spider that bit Peter Parker giving her similar powers such as spidey sense, powers of adhesion, and the ability to weave webs from her fingertips.  To protect Earth from a deadly family of spider-hunters and murderers called the inheritors, Cindy Moon was locked up in a bunker that prevented them from sensing her presence.  Spider-Man opened the bunker, unaware of the danger that revealing Cindy's existence could cause, and set the events of the Spider-Verse in motion.  After fighting side-by-side with countless other spiders against the inheritors and saving the world, Cindy is now back in New York, fighting crime and trying to find her family in a world she hasn't lived in for years.

In the previous comic,  Cindy is attacked by a Pokemon-like dressed villain named Dragonclaw.  She takes her video from their encounter and uses them for her job as an intern at Fact Channel where she works for J. Jonah Jameson who likes Silk and gives Cindy the nickname Analog for using a notebook and pen which he likes.  Dragonclaw has gone to Black Cat who has sent him to a mysterious man who helps him become more of a dragon with the weaponry and he comes back after Silk.  But things don't go as planned and Silk convinces him to turn his life around which does not make Black Cat happy.  But someone else is watching Cindy and someone else wants her for their own reasons. Sometimes it's not good to be wanted.  With help from Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, Cindy must fight off Black Cat and the other bad guys.  On top of which something catastrophic is happening to Earth.  A bad Cindy from another earth is pretending to be her and robbing places.  That Cindy is taken care of but now people think Silk is bad.

Mockingbird of S.H.I.E.L.D. is hoping to help Cindy with this problem by having her go undercover as bad Cindy and make nice with Black Cat.  So she does.  Meanwhile, her friends and her boss at work Lola and Rafferty who are dating are following up on a lead Cindy asked them to which is to find a building.  Silk is asked to hold onto something from inside a safe. Something that would wipe a crime scene of all evidence that someone was there.

Lola and Rafferty figure out that Cindy is Silk and has mixed feelings about it considering that right now Silk is seen in the press as evil.  Black Cat sets a trap to figure out whether or not Silk can be trusted and will Silk pass or fail?  Lola, Rafferty, and Cindy go into the Negative Zone where they meet up with Cindy's mom in a medieval setting fighting to get her dad back assuming he's still alive.  Will Cindy finally get her family back together? Mockingbird offers her a job with S.H.I.E.L.D. but she loves her job with the network.  Which will she choose?  The part that takes place in the Negative Zone is a bit cheesy and immature.  But the not wanting to turn in Black Cat because she can relate to her is good.  The art is great.  I give it four out of five stars.

Listed On Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Silk-Vol-Negative-Robbie-Thompson/dp/0785199586/ref=sr_1_1?crid=UIWGKOFTY8Y5&keywords=silk+vol+2&qid=1570797721&sprefix=silk+vol%2Caps%2C180&sr=8-1

A Better Man by Louise Penny

In the last book, it left Superindent Armand Gamache fired from his job but they offered instead his old job back as Chief Inspector of Homicide and got pissed off at him when he took it after Jean-Guy Beauvoir, who was heading up homicide, decided to leave for Paris to take a job outside the police force.  Isabelle Lacoste still hasn't decided where she wants to work and at the beginning of this book, she is doing interviews to determine where she will land since as a hero she can write her own check.

As a great flood is about to hit Quebec Lysette Cloutier an agent Gamache took from accounting and placed in homicide in order to help hunt down murderers financially has come to both Jean-Guy and Armand who are both running the homicide department until Jean-Guy leaves.  Technically Jean-Guy is in charge, though.  She comes to them for help in finding a friend's daughter who has gone missing.  She is involved in an abusive relationship and she has decided to leave her husband and go to her father but she never showed up to her father's house.

It's obvious that her husband killed her especially when they find the body.  But did he really kill her? Or was it his girlfriend or her boyfriend or someone else altogether?  This will be Jean-Guy's last case which is sad.  On top of all this, someone is slamming Gamache on Twitter questioning his fitness to be on the force and releases a bad video of him on there making it appear that he kills African American kids.  Also, Claire is getting hit with negative reviews from her miniatures that she put on a display that is causing people to rethink her as an artist.  This was an amazing book in that it kept you guessing all the way to the end.  It's sad to think this will be the last time Lacoste, Beauvoir, and Gamache will work together.  This was an excellent book to go out on. I give it five out of five stars.

Quotes

  

It did not seem to Isabelle Lacoste a great addition to the Surete moto. Service, integrity, justice, and occasionally stupidity.

-Louise Penny (A Better Man p 105)

I’m well in body, but considerably rumpled in spirit.

-L. M. Montgomery (Anne Of Green Gables)

Alcohol stole dignity and friends and family and livelihoods before finally taking the life.  Alcohol was a thief. And often a murderer.

-Louise Penny (A Better Man p 170)

Is it true? Is it kind? Does it need to be said?

-Louise Penny (A Better Man p 184)

The Chief would patiently explain that being still and doing nothing were two different things.

-Louise Penny (A Better Man p 226)

Seemed courtesy beat good sense. Almost to death.

-Louise Penny (A Better Man p 234)

It wasn’t years but choices that separated these two women.

-Louise Penny (A Better Man p 259)

Listed On Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Better-Man-Chief-Inspector-Gamache-ebook/dp/B07NTMH6DR/ref=sr_1_1?crid=VM8BCCRPZB3M&keywords=a+better+man+penny&qid=1570622455&sprefix=a+bett%2Caps%2C186&sr=8-1

The Fireman by Joe HIll

  At the beginning of this book there us a global pandemic of a disease called Dragaonscale where you are infected with a spore that causes a quite lovely design to appear on your skin.  At some point, you will ignite and turn to ash.  Nurse Harper Grayson was a school nurse before they closed them down now she has gone to work in the hospital bringing her Mary Poppin's attitude with her.  Her husband is against this.  Then more than one person went up at once and the hospital burned down.  Soon she finds out she is pregnant which her husband, Jakob isn't thrilled with. He's even less thrilled when he finds out she has Dragonscale.  She tells him that he probably hasn't been infected yet and to find a place to stay and wait the two weeks until he can be sure whether or not he has it.   He wants to put his plan into motion which is to kill each other.  She doesn't want to kill herself now that she's pregnant.  Studies show that the baby could be born healthy.  Jakob is convinced that he has it even though Harper is pretty sure that he doesn't. 

Jakob shows up after two weeks ready to kill them.  Earlier in the week, two kids showed up dressed in masks and brought her some prenatal vitamins and gave her a whistle to use to call for help.  Now that Jakob is here with a gun, Harper takes her Portable Mother, a project she has been working on to give to her child when it's born and she likely has to give it up and makes a run for it blowing the whistle.  Jakob comes after her but The Fireman whom she had met at the hospital trying to get a boy admitted who had something wrong with him, is there to help her.  He uses his hand to cause it to catch fire and burn Jakob's throat.   Jakob runs off and The Fireman, John Rookwood, takes Harper Grayson, now Harper Willows to Camp Wyndham a place where people have learned to control the Dragonscale. The place is run by Father Storey and his daughter Carol.  The Fireman warns you don't want to get on the bad side of Carol.  But Carol's happy to finally meet the woman who helped save her nephew, the boy the Fireman had brought into the hospital and she had diagnosed as likely having a burst appendix.   Her nephew, Nick, is nine and deaf. His older sister, Allie, is sixteen and it was the two of them that were dressed in masks that showed up at Harper's house. 

Harper sees a familiar face in the camp. Renee, a sweet middle-aged woman who was a patient in the hospital Harper worked at.  Renee read to the kids and held reading book clubs.  She had been there the longest.  Then one night she started to glow and fearing that she was going to blow up she walked out the doors. But they never found her body.  It turns out she had unlocked the secret to controlling it by accident.   At the camp, you learn to control it by joining the Bright by singing songs together in harmony that cause them to glow and get a little drunk and sometimes paw each other.  For a long time when Harper goes to church with everyone nothing happens.  But then when she's serving in the cafeteria an incident occurs there to inspire the Mary Poppins in her and she begins to sing "A Spoonful of Sugar" and suddenly she starts to glow as do the others there.  Church finally becomes bearable. 

The Fireman has two people that need rescuing. However, they're prisoners.  Father Storey believes they should be rescued so they set up a plan to do so.  Harper goes along because they are injured.  On the rowboat over there, Father Storey says that there is someone dangerous in the community that needs to be taken away.  He would take them away in the sailboat and head for VJ Martha Quinn's island where they are working on a cure and the place is a refuge for those with the disease.  There have been many things stolen at the camp and Harper believes that he is talking about the thief.  Things go wrong with the rescue.  When Harper gets back to the camp after tending to the Fireman's injuries, she finds out that someone attacked Father Storey on the head.  Ben, who has been handling weapons and law enforcement believes the prisoners did it.  They deny this of course.  And Harper remembers the conversation with Storey about the thief and how he was going to take them away and how maybe they didn't want this.

When Carol takes over with Ben the place becomes a cult that a group of them isn't interested in hanging around and seeing where it goes.  They want to head off to find Martha Quinn's island.  Will they make it or will Carol and her followers stop them?  Will the Fireman teach Harper to set herself on fire like he can and shoot fire at people and objects or will he deem it too dangerous for her after he lost his fiancee Sarah that way.   Sarah was Nick and Allie's mother and Carol's sister.   While the Fireman and Harper have feelings for each other it's hard for the Fireman who feels he is betraying Sarah.  Not everyone gets out of this book alive.  You may feel the need to throw it against the wall, but I don't recommend it seeing as how it's 752 pages long and would probably put a hole in your wall.  Maybe just drop it on the floor.  Cause you will be upset.  This was a fantastic book that really hooks you into it.  It shows how humanity acts to those with this disease even after they find out how it's spread.  Of course, the scientists don't put out that that's how it's spread.  The Fireman was a professor before all this started and he studied this sort of thing and he figured out the cause and told Harper.  But even family will turn you away.  And if they didn't, Cremation Crews would come through to collect the infected to take to a medical clinic for those with Dragonscale.  Police were killing them in the open.  Now they have to worry about each other.  Joe Hill has done it again.  This book tells a fabulous story of end times.  I loved this book and give it my highest rating of five stars out of five stars.

Quotes

She felt the English were themselves to blame for her feelings.  They had spent a century relentlessly marketing their detectives and wizards and nannies and they had to live with the results.

-Joe Hill (The Foreman p 14-15)

 It’s so fucking cheap when people say I love you.  It’s a name to stick on a surge on hormones, with a little hint of loyalty thrown in.  I’ve never liked saying it.  Here’s what I say: We’re together, now and until the end. You have everything I need to be happy. You make me happy. You make me feel right.

-Joe Hill (The Fireman p 42)

“There’s a reason things like Facebook and airplanes and all the other great inventions of our time were made by men.” “Yeah,” she said. “So they could get laid.”

-Joe Hill (The Fireman p 103)

You just missed a perfectly good opportunity to toast an awful Coldplay T-shirt. If I ever spontaneously combust, I hope I’m holding a whole stack of their CDs.

-Joe Hill (The Fireman p 153)

” Are you all right,” Renee asked. “You’re making a face.” “That’s my orgasm face,” Harper said, around her last bite of pie. “I don’t think it’s any accident that a slice of pie comes in the exact shape as a slice of pussy,” Allie said.

-Joe Hill (The Fireman p 163)

I wish the guys in Rush snorted coke.  Maybe it would amp ‘em up and they’d try playing real rock and roll for once, instead of that limp-dick prog-rock bullshit.

-Joe Hill (The Fireman p 299)

Carol wanted love to be like a bar of soap; a purifying, hygienic scrub.

-Joe Hill (The Fireman p 319)

The idea of dying while laughing is is more romantic in concept than in reality.

-Joe Hill (The Fireman p 324)

I have news for you, Rookwood. I’m a nurse. We don’t take the Hippocratic oath. That’s for doctors. Nurses really only swear one thing—the patient will take his medicine.

-Joe Hill (The Fireman p 489)

Sometimes I think every man wants to be a writer. They want to invent a world with the perfect imaginary woman, someone they can boss around and undress at will. They can work out their aggressions with a few fictional rape scenes.  Then they can send their fictional surrogate in to save her, a white knight—or a foreman?  Someone with all the power and tiresome interests of their own and won’t follow an outline. 

-Joe Hill (The Fireman p 491-2)

I miss Coca-Cola. That would’ve been so good with a Coke. You know, we might've fucked up the planet, suckin' out all the oil, melting the ice caps, allowin' ska music to flourish, but we made Coca-Cola, so goddamn it, people weren’t all bad.

-Joe Hill (The Fireman p 493)

“Of course I pick the Beatles. IT’s a stupid question. It’s like asking what you like better silk or pubic hair?” “Ah, that’s disappointing.” “Of course, you’d pick the Stones. Anyone who’d walk around pretending to be a fireman when he isn’t--|” “What does that have to do with anything?” “Men who love the Stones are fixated on the cock. I’m sorry, but that’s the only word.  And a firehose is a symbolic fantasy cock. It’s pathetic.  Male Stones fans are frozen at eighteen months old just discovering the thrill of yanking on the rubber band of their own phallus.   Females Stones fans are even worse.  Mick Jagger has a weird gross mouth that makes him look like a cod, and this turns them on.  They’re sexually aroused by fish-men. They’re deviants.  “So what are the Beatles fans fixated on? The glory of pussy?” “Exactly, Strawberry Fields is not just a place in Liverpool, Mr Rookwood.”

-Joe Hill (The Fireman p 495)

It is impossible to go through life without trust; that is to be imprisoned in the worse cell of all, oneself.

-Graham Greene

If she couldn’t have Mary Poppins, she would settle for Hard Day’s Night.  But it turned out life was more like song the Stones wrote: you didn’t get any satisfaction, you took hit to the body after another, if you were a woman you were a bitch who belonged under someone’s thumb, and if you wanted mother’s little helper from your dear doctor you better have the silver, take it or leave it, and don’t come crying for sympathy, that was just for the devil.

-Joe Hill (The Fireman p 637-8)

Listed on Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Fireman-Novel-Joe-Hill-ebook/dp/B013C5M08O/ref=sr_1_2?crid=LK0BAQ66PZXO&keywords=the+fireman+by+joe+hill&qid=1570450092&sprefix=the+fireman%2Caps%2C179&sr=8-2

          

Black Panther Vol 7: The Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda Part Two by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Writer), Rev Walker (Artist), Marc Deering (Inker), Stephane Paitreau (Colorist), Java Tartaglia (Colorist), Jen Bartel (Artist), Triona Farrell (Colorist), VC"s Joe Sabino (Letterer),

Set in the Intergalactic Empire that the Wakandan's have taken over and mined Vibranium.  The Imperials are the highest caste and claim to be the blood of the descendants of the Empire of Wakanda.  The Miners, aka The Nameless, are the those subjected to work in the mine who have had their memories wiped.  The Askari is both the police force and the arm of the Wakandan slave trade. Hated by the Nameless and looked down on by the Imperials they are made up of different races often conquered by Wakanda.  The Rebels, aka The Maroons, are those who fight back and are made up of the nameless and are led by Captain N'Yami of the Starship Makandal.  The Askari attack the home base in high numbers and they are forced to flee. A powerful slave named Manifold attacked them while they were leaving.  T'Challa grabbed the famous spear and it responded to him which just goes to show that he is the chosen one. N'Yami dies in the battle and years pass and T'Challa is no closer to getting his memories back.  He feels something for Nakia too but can't go forward without knowing his history.

They are after their memories and forcing the Wakandans into giving them to them.  They steal their vibranium and kidnap high ranking officials.  When they steal the vibranium there are refugees on board the ship and T'Challa insists on rescuing them.

But the biggest task will be to go to Agwe, home of the Teku-Maza whose Jengu holds the memories of many societies.  The Wakandans want her too to destroy her to keep her from telling anyone what she knows.  A man named Farouk helps them with this quest.

The King of Wakanda's daughter has appeared to them with the god of Bast controlling her.  The King of Wakanda is a god who has stolen her powers but she aims to steal them back.  Manifold, aka Eden, is on her side and is helping them now.  Will T'Challa ever find out his history and what will it be?  Can they defeat the Wakanda?   This comic takes a sense of identity to a whole new level and how a good society can go bad.  I give it five out of five stars.

Listed On Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Black-Panther-Book-Intergalactic-Wakanda/dp/1302912941/ref=sr_1_5?crid=2CRGGKDQUD5LS&keywords=black+panther+vol+7&qid=1570191275&sprefix=black+panther+vol+%2Caps%2C177&sr=8-5

The Institute by Stephen King

Luke Ellis is a special twelve-year-old boy in that he is really smart and has now outgrown the school his parents have sent him to.  Now he's ready for college.  M.I.T. and Emerson are his choices.  But his family lives in Minneapolis.  The school's trust has found a way to relocate to Massacuttes and find them jobs.   Luke could also do something else. He was able to rattle the plates in the house when he got upset or move the pizza pan off the table when he got excited.  One night after he'd taken the SATs a group of people broke into his house and killed his parents and took him to The Institute in the Maine woods.

When he wakes up it's to a room that looks exactly like his room at home.  He walks out to the hallway and meets an African American girl named Kalisha who tells him he can call her Sha if he wants but to never call her sport because that's what they call her.  She's TP pos or Telepathic positive.  He tells her he's a TK or a Telekinetic but he doesn't know if he's a pos or not.  She says can you do anything without trying?  He says no, he does it by accident. And she says he's pink.  The pink's they try to bring out the opposite ability.

They do this by giving you shots to hopefully get you to see dots.  The shots have different reactions to you.  They can itch, give you a fever, or choke you.  They also stick a rectal thermometer up their buts which is quite painful.  They also dunk them in the tank to bring about the Statsi Lights that would indicate a second ability.

The cafeteria has wonderful food and there are machines where you can use the tokens you earn for being good to buy candy, but also cigarettes and booze, but only enough booze to get buzzed.  There's a playground with lots of equipment to play on such a trampoline and a basketball court.  There are also games to play such as chess.

Some of the other kids are Nick, a TK pos who refuses to cooperate and fights them every step of the way and winds up with black eyes and split lips.  George, a TK pos, believes in getting along to survive.  Iris who is a bit high strung but sweet. Avery, little kid who is very strong TP comes in and Kalisha wants Luke to look after him.  Helen comes in next. She's a punk rock girl with dyed hair and an attitude to match.

They make up the Front Half of the Institute.  But there's a Back Half and then there's a Back Half to the Back Half.  Eventually, you leave the Front Half and go to the Back Half where you watch movies that give you headaches.  The movies are about certain people and their lives.  Once you've worn yourself out in the Back Half you go to the Back Half Back Half never to be seen again.

When Kalisha gets sent to the Back Half and sends the information about it to Avery to tell Luke she also tells him to plan an escape.  Luke is the smartest one of them there and if anyone can do it it's him.  So Luke makes plans to escape.  Will he make it?  And what will happen to the others?  Mrs. Sigby and Stackhouse who run the place have their own agenda.

The government really did experiments on people with TP and TK in the 1950s and 1960s. They gave them LSD to help them with their "powers".  I think King got his idea for his book on those experiments.  This being a Stephen King book, not everyone gets out alive, which will break your heart because you get attached to the characters.  Avery is an adorable kid you want to protect and Luke is someone you see as being wasted in there.  King has created a world that could very well exist.  It's a scary world filled with all sorts of possibilities.  This was an amazing book filled with plenty of thrills and chills and heartbreak.  If I could give it more than five stars I would, since I can't I give it five out of five stars.

Quotes

Between midnight and four, everyone should have permission to speak freely.

-Stephen King (The Institute p 31)

It came to him that life was basically one lone SAT test and instead of four or five choices, you got dozens. Including shit like some of the time and maybe so, maybe not.

-Stephen King (The Institute p 56)

Karl Marx had called religion the opiate of the people, but Stackhouse begged to differ.  He thought Lucky Strikes and Boone’s Farm (greatly favored by their female guests) did the job quite nicely.

-Stephen King (The Institute p 238)

It came to him, with the force of a revelation, that you had to have been imprisoned to fully understand what freedom was.

-Stephen King (The Institute p 267)      

Listed On Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Institute-Novel-Stephen-King-ebook/dp/B07N943MFX/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2J7A27QXJGVV0&keywords=the+institute+stephen+king&qid=1570018940&s=gateway&sprefix=the+ins%2Caps%2C186&sr=8-1







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