Review 691: Still Needs Work

Still Needs Work: A Novel by Ellen Barker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I tend towards books on work, fiction or not, but more towards fiction. This book falls in the fictional category. The book opens with Marianne attending a conference in San Francisco, when she gets a heads up her job, and her entire department is being eliminated. She finished up the conference with this new status and heads back home.

Marriane is living back in Kansas City, her old childhood home, which has now turned into not a great neighborhood. She had been working remotely after her house in California burned down, apparently not long after her husband died.

Now she is trying to find a new job and continue fixing up her house, and now being careful with money. Her neighbors and her dog are prominent in the book. As Marriane tries finding a new job she seems to work well with finding work or business ideas for those around her.

The book is told simply, and on a day to day basis. The book grew on me, despite how often it is brought up what a bad neighborhood, being East of Troost. And yet I still liked the character and the neighbors as portrayed.

After finishing the book I found out there are several books about this character, guess it’s a series, but not labeled as such. In any case this book works as a stand-alone.

Review 690: In Trees

In Trees: An Exploration by Robert Moor
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

This book is somewhat hard for me to categorize other than saying it is a non-fiction book about trees and the human life, well mostly. It’s somewhat philosophical, somewhat scientific, while also being partly autobiographic.

Each chapter, which can be lengthy, focus on different topic. The book doesn’t have a thesis or summation and the subtitle is perhaps very apt as it is an exploration of trees in a variety of ways.

It begins with the author and his personal experiences, first with climbing trees then with bonsai trees. One surprising chapter was genealogy based, looking at how family are like trees branching out, although it is more in-depth there than I’m summarizing here.

There was a chapter on the Korowai people who live in tree houses, and are mostly living as their people have done for thousands of years. The author does visit. There is a chapter on chimpanzees, who make nests in trees and of course Moor has to sleep the night in one. From there we move into tree-sitters and saving old growth. Moor volunteers a few stints then becomes quite involved in becoming an activist to save some old big trees in Canada.

I felt like the trees were more the launching pad for Moor’s discussions than be centrally focused. I didn’t mind some of the explorations, but a few of them I wasn’t too excited about.

Thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.

Review 689: Five

Five by Ilona Bannister
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



A different sort of thriller type book. Takes place in the underground tube of London and the reader is told one of these five main characters are going to die with the next train coming into the station in five minutes.

The five characters are a mother with her uncontrollable child, and a man approaching her, who appears to be shady. Later we find out they do know each other very well. The other two characters are an older lady who ends up having a heart attack and a young man who helps her. There are several other characters in the train station, several others that help out of the catastrophe not just of the woman on the ground, as several people end up on the tracks.

Most of the book is the backstory of each of the five main characters, while in-between is the current moment at the tube station where there is quite a lot of action going on. The book poses morality question for the reader, which of these characters do you want to die? All have flaws that may have the reader rooting for one character to not make it.

With the way it was presented and the author breaking the fourth wall too often, I wasn't much of a fan of the style. It was a quick read.

Review 688: The Madness Pill

The Madness Pill: One Doctor's Quest to Understand Schizophrenia by Justin Garson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Solomon Snyder, or Sol, was on a quest to find a cure of schizophrenia. In order to do that he thought he needed a drug to mimic what the illness does. So he searched in psychedelics for a while, but it wasn't quite right. When speed came about and psychosis from too much speed, well, this drug was closer.

I liked the succinct way the history of psychiatry was explained. Basically two types of approach to mental health, the environmental factors which talk therapy helps; and the biological approach, which is solved with medication. The later helped move the field into a more acceptable scientific field. This book covers many of the medications that were developed.

The book was divided into the two parts: psychedelics then speed, providing a short history and some of the people that were involved in the development. The book did not solely focus on one doctor, Sol, as there was a cadre of people working in this field, but it did keep coming back to Sol’s work. The organizational method of the book made sense, but it also meant that the timeline wasn’t completely linear.

The tail end of the book became a whirlwind of different drugs all with similar sounding names. It was hard to keep that all straight, but otherwise this was a fascinating and informative book.


Thanks to St. Martin's Press, Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.

Review 687: Love Can't Feed You

Love Can't Feed You by Cherry Lou Sy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The book opens with Queenie immigrating from the Philippines to New York City with her father and younger brother. They reunite with her mother after 5 years of being apart. Mom has changed and her father has difficulty accepting how she is now. She is more independent.

It's a turbulent family life. Which culminates in the father leaving the small apartment and never returning. Now Mom takes up with a young doctor from the hospital she works at. Meanwhile, Queenie turns 18 and wants to go to college, but her mom makes her work first, earning the money she went into debt to bring them over.

Their live moves quickly along, and many different topics are brought up in the book, and this is where the book flounders. It started off strong, but meandered and went into too many directions and fell flat in the end.