Why Do We Love Memoirs?

Take a look back at many of the books published over the past several years. You will probably notice a huge amount of memoirs. Most of them are by celebrities, but others are by nobodies and still manage Goodreads choice nominations. Sometimes I wonder why everyone needs a life story so badly...but then again, I am fascinated by people's lives, and continue to pick something up.

So why do we love them so much? I have a few ideas.

They humanize people.

When we read a book by someone well-known, it puts us in their shoes. I just finished reading Michella Obama's book. She was a completely normal girl on Chicago's South Side, and still tries to raise her kids to be normal people as well. You stop viewing them as "a celebrity" and see them as a regular person that is easier to relate to. Plus, once I read one, I think differently of the person when I see them on a talk show or doing a public appearance (in a good way). It's like: "hey, I know her!" 

They remind us we all have a story to tell.

These aren't fictional, but the challenges and characters featured could be seen in any novel. After all, don't novels tell us about life? Memoirs can arguably be an even better version of fiction because they're real and about people we actually know. 

They tell us more about people we like or admire.

At their most basic level, memoirs tell us a little more about their lives. Did you know that Rainn Wilson is just as much of an oddball as his TV character? You'll also learn more about his charity initiatives, an important part of his current work. It gives us more insight into some of our favorite people and help us to feel more connected.

They inspire us to reach to new heights. 

If these people can change the world, implement new policies, or create significant change in a community that needs it, why can't we? Many authors touch on issues that are important to them and can speak candidly about how they were affected. We can understand other people better by listening to their stories. By listening to a political figure, we may get inspired to make change and look at a situation from a new perspective...if we have the open minds to do so. 

Memoirs I Recommend

Is Everybody Hanging Out Without Me? And Other Stories: Mindy Kaling

Becoming: Michelle Obama

Yes, My Accent is Real: Kunal Nayaar

Hyperbole and a Half: Allie Brosh

The Bassoon King: Rainn Wilson
The Rocket Boys: Homer Hickam Jr. 

Becoming: Michelle Obama

Becoming: Michelle Obama
Genre: Memoir
Published: 2018
Pages: 421

Michelle Robinson grew up on Chicago's South Side, surrounded by the love of her family in a neighborhood that was destined to fail. Given her background, and living in a United States that was just moving out of segregation and still dealing with pressing civil rights issues on a regular basis, it seemed unlikely that she would ever become America's First Lady.

But become she did. This book chronicles her humble beginnings and recounts the teachers and adults who helped nurture Michelle's talent in the classroom, two Ivy League schools, and ultimately at work. Not thrilled with practicing law, Michelle would struggle to find her purpose. As she was "checking off the boxes" of success, she would meet Barack Obama, and her plans would be thrown into disarray. Suddenly thrust into politics and starting a family, eventually she would become First Lady. But she doesn't tell her story without asking us the question: who do we as people, and as a country, want to become?



All I have to say is: This book. What a step up from the last, a 1-star rating that I just couldn't stand to finish. I need to thank Michelle for bringing me out of somewhat of a "book slump." Just by telling her life story, she is a better writer than several of the last I've read! But is this book truly worth all this hype? My answer is yes.

What I love about memoirs is that they humanize people. Right off the bat, Michelle and I had several things in common. As kids, we both liked to settle our stuffed animals around us at bedtime. We took piano lessons at age 4 (her with great aunt Robbie, me with Miss Sarah). We met a love interest in the same way--by one of us mentoring/training the other at work. We even reacted to the 2016 election in the same way: going to bed before the winner was announced so we could avoid hearing the outcome. This kind of humanization is especially important, and now probably necessary, when it comes to politics. Michelle is just as real as any of us.

The first third touches on Michelle's early childhood and paints a vivid picture of her Chicago childhood before introducing us to political life and finally life in the White House. Even as a student, she noticed the inequalities between students with privilege and those without, and wanted to do something more about it. I also quickly fell in love with her parents, brother, and grandparents. In a way, it's a tribute to all the people who helped to nurture her talent and an appreciation for tight-knit family culture. You may recall how "chill" the president could be at times, which is something talked about on Tumblr occasionally. This attitude shines through in Michelle, too. She isn't afraid to poke fun at her husband--the first mention of him literally reads "Barack Obama was late on day one"--and mentions the tough time she has getting him to be on time. Of course, there are politics too., but not before Michelle gives us her background and shows us that she is relatable.

This isn't a book about politics or a presidential biography, so she doesn't go much in-depth on a lot of issues or what Barack did on a daily basis. Instead, it touches on what the important issues were at the time, especially to her. We also hear a lot about Michelle's initiatives as First Lady, including projects to decrease childhood obesity and help military families. These projects were inspired by her own life and experiences, including her visits at military hospitals and her daughter not getting enough nutrition due to their busy schedule. These were things I certainly knew about, but I didn't know a lot of the details at the time, and I was interested to know more.

I also enjoyed her portrait of White House life, which she does talk a lot about. Living in the White House isn't always as glamorous as one may think and it presents certain challenges. (Yes, the president and his family do get charged for expenses!) Michelle got along with Secret Service agents and even saw some as friends, but that didn't mean that being tailed by them was easy. She could barely even leave the building without permission, as shown in her recount of the night that same-sex marriage was legalized. She and daughter Malia had to stage an escape just to get outside and see the lights and the crowds. I had to laugh, as I remembered her sharing the same story on the Ellen show. Many aspects are discussed, from the anxious anticipation of election night, to meetings with the Queen and Nelson Mandela, to dealing with criticism, to the Thanksgiving turkey pardon. There is something for everyone here; she never lingers too long on any particular topic but spends just enough time on everything, ensuring the book flows nicely.

She is also pretty straightforward about saying that she is not happy with the current administration, and sometimes it seems like she is going after Republicans. But before you call "partisan!", readers should keep in mind that the Obamas had to work with one of the worst, most partisan Congresses of all time and ended up leaving the White House as a bully was coming in. She is just telling it like it is. (This, and Trump, are something I, she, and many others should not be afraid to speak out about. This is not normal politics, as Michelle put it.) As she shares her frustrations about Congress blocking many bills and measures, and her frustrations about Trump, maybe skeptical readers will understand where that frustration is coming from. She doesn't go on a lot of Trump rants or anything, but does feel the need to acknowledge the problems the administration is causing. But her message fits in nicely: keep working at it.

Tying the book together is the theme of "becoming." It shows us what Michelle is becoming, and what the country can become as well. She often looks toward a vision of "what can be" while working with what the reality is in order to inspire change, and she encourages us to do the same. Progress and change are slow, she reminds us, but we should never lose hope and stop working for change.

Even if you didn't always agree with Barack's policies, I would recommend picking up Becoming. It's an exciting yet intimate look into the life of an admirable woman and also an interesting look at what political life entails. It's very well-paced and flows nicely, one of those books that makes you want to go slowly and concentrate on every word. You will laugh, you will cry, and you will have hope for the future. And perhaps the most important message of all? To become, we have to come together and lay our partisan differences aside. (Please? I'm so tired of petty politics, and it doesn't need to be this way.)

5 stars

Fictionistas Unite Book Survey

Feel free to answer these in your own blog post and include a link in the comments, or post the answers in the comments as well. 

My Survey Answers

1. I have two. The first that comes to mind is Lucille from the Junie B. Jones series. She was pretty, rich, and had good dress sense. But then again, Junie B. was the one with the fun grandparents. Hmm...it was quite a dilemma. The other one was Abby from the Abby Hayes series. She liked to write, like me, and I thought her journal was a genius idea. Plus, her world was so true-to-life, and I liked being able to "be" another character for a while. 

2. Favorites? Realistic fiction, psychological thriller (especially domestic noir), and chick lit as long as it isn't TOO sappy. Least favorites are science fiction and dystopia. I don't care for most fantasy either. 

3. I DID technically write books, but they aren't actually in print- either on Wattpad or in draft mode. But if I had to seriously think about another book to write, I had this idea in mind: something about a girl who meets a semi-friend at camp and they fall out of touch. Then the semi-friend starts acting creepy and needy all of a sudden, and it eventually turns into a non-romantic thriller. It's based on my life (the concept, not the thriller part). 

4. I have several I wrote about in an entry about my book pet peeves. The latest one that bugs me is missing fathers. UGH. It's been done to death over the past few years. Another is YA love triangles. I don't understand why every YA book these days needs a romance to begin with; not everyone is interested in that. It was so overused and so much the same every time that I gave up on the genre. 

5. I don't have a reading routine necessarily, but I do like to read before bed, even if it's not a book. I'll even read yearbooks or old writing projects.

6. One of my first books was Pig William. It was very graphic and colorful and follows a day or so in the life of a pig. Pigs in Hiding was also great, but lacked text.

7. I'm reading a memoir right now, so that's probably not going to work given the context. But for the last book I fully read, Obsession, a great song would be Stranger by Hilary Duff. One of the main characters isn't herself and they're all playing games with each other, possibly trying to make others look bad. This song fits the bill.

8.  I unfortunately do not see a ton of movies based on books I've read, so this is a hard one.My mind wants to go to Harry Potter for a favorite movie adaptation because I think it gets the setting and characters right. I did like seeing Freedom Writers play out on screen, but back to annoying tropes- Patrick Dempsey was utterly useless. Other than this movie being a prime example of including a romance just to include one, it was good and inspiring. 

9. Octavian Country Day School from The Clique series always sounded like a good school. The cafeteria was chill-looking and you could take yoga for a gym class- very awesome. 

10. In college I really enjoyed the Maus graphic novels. Very entertaining and thought provoking. 

11. Someone I have a crush on. Hmmm. I guess Austin is pretty cute from the Cupcake Cafe series by Jenny Colgan. I also like Lucas from A Dog's Way Home. 

Don't forget to check out my second post, a more general survey, if you want to know your book blogger a little bit more! And please post your answers in the comments, or provide us a link to a post with your answers. I would love to see!

How to Fix Garfield

As I said in my last Garfield post about the evolution of Jon Arbuckle, I still like this comic strip no matter how simple it gets. That's part of the charm of the strip: they live in a simple world with recognizable characters and charm. Maybe it's too simple for some people who claim the comic strip loses appeal as they get older. But you know? I will never stop loving Garfield.

But even I have to admit that, as much as I love it, the strip has faltered a bit over the last 5 or so years and is almost becoming the fan art it's so good at selling. How could it be improved to its original charm? I have some suggestions.

Add more weeklong storylines

Whatever happened to the days when Garfield and Jon would visit their family on the farm? I miss those days. Adding more storylines would help with the lack of stories and text that have been occurring lately. They could go visit Irma at the diner, or Garfield could do a show on the fence. Take Jon on a golf outing. Keep readers wanting to find out what happens next sometimes. The strip even broke barriers to do a spooky, existential plotline for Halloween at one point, and that was really cool.

Do a longer storyline once in a while, too. Remember the one where Garfield ran away from home and joined the circus? Remember when he reunited with his mother? Storylines make the comic more than just a witty (or these days, even cliche) quip. 

...with the exception of the spider smashing

Yep. Just dump them. There's nothing funny about finding out you're about to get a week's worth of comics featuring all different ways Garfield can kill a spider. Or rather, a week's worth of items that Garfield can use to smash a spider.

Have things happen

I probably should have started with this one. There is so few dialogue and action in so many strips these days which is probably one of the main reasons I feel it's not quite as good. Some of the dialogue and gags are very bare-bones. Some of the time, it is a joke we've heard before all over the internet. Take a recent strip: Garfield says that life has ups and downs. He then looks at Pooky, his bear, and says that Pooky is an "up." Not a lot of humor or charm or laughter; we all know Garfield likes his teddy bear. I like the simple world, but it is sometimes too simple, like saying something about how he likes Pooky. This is especially true in the past 2-3 years.

The events don't have to be real events, either. Another thing that could be done is having Garfield return to his lively imagination. Remember the weeklong story where he was Amoeba Man? Or the Caped Avenger? Sometimes he could even get sort of philosophical. Garfield's imagination really helped to give him some personality.

A little less of Jon; more of Garfield

We all know Jon: that lovable geek that only got geekier over the years. It's not that he's not entertaining, but he does often take the focus away from Garfield with antics that to some may be too over-the-top. He's got a girlfriend now, we can probably make him a little more sane. Let Garfield's quirks take center stage more often. In the older days, Jon wasn't nearly as goofy as he is now, and the strip still worked very well.

Bring back old features of yore

There are some things that modern Garfield just doesn't mention anymore. Remember his sunbeam? Remember nights spent dancing on the fence? Remember Jon going on vacation or golfing? Remember him sucking up to Arlene? We don't even see the love of lasagna too much these days. These are good, vintage gags we need more of. EDIT: I actually did see a fence instance not long ago. Still, we need more of these things that made Garfield Garfield. 

Also, bring Lyman back. For those of you who don't know, Lyman was Jon's roommate back in the comic's infancy. A reunion would be a fantastic idea, even if only for a week or two. It would also add a great storyline! 

Don't be afraid to up the humor... once in a while

In the younger years Garfield wasn't afraid to not try too hard to appeal to a certain age group. Nowadays, many strips seem mainly for young kids. They're a punch line, and some I've heard plenty of times before that strip was even published. Make the humor come from Garfield himself a bit more by using his personality. And it's okay if the humor appeals to adults. Sometimes. Even in the early years, they never made too many "adult joke only" strips. As a regular reader of a comic, I would hate to see it get downgraded for more child appeal. This actually did happen to me once with a magazine I subscribed to. It used to be much more mature, then it seemed to slowly cater to teens who were younger and younger after some kids wrote in because they were offended about the subject material. That's frustrating. Pick an audience and stay with it. 

Now some people might say this would never work as they won't really want to get rid of this new audience. But it worked with Peanuts, especially when converted into animated specials. And kids certainly won't understand every single one of those strips. Still, its characters are such that kids love them anyway and are still able to get the gist of 95% of the stories and jokes. Garfield shouldn't be afraid to steer clear of a few jokes that all ages wouldn't get. 

Don't be so rigid and precise with the artwork

I used to be a member of a Spongebob fansite, and people said that the show had the same problem: the character designs had become stiff and rigid, making the design less appealing and the character less quirky. I think there's something to be said for Garfield's earlier designs with folds of fat all around. Now, even his modern look...as in the past 4 years... looks more rigid and hi-def than it used to, and he loses something that way. The old design added more to Garfield's personality. I don't have anything against the new design, which has been used for decades now, but lately he's looking a little too perky.

Stop trying to make it sell

I have heard a rumor going around that Garfield was created to be something that sells, and I can see that. Look at are the specials and artwork of Garfield out there. However, that doesn't mean the quality has to go down. It has gotten so basic that sometimes all it does is maintain a profitable character by having Garfield making half-baked smart remarks without anything especially interesting happening. Bottom line: don't make things...comics, books with popular plotlines, anything... JUST so they can sell. Garfield got away with it, but it's not trying as hard anymore, and people are noticing. 

It may seem like I hate Garfield after you read this, but I don't at all. I check up on it every day, but in the last few years, I really think it could be better too. 

The Kiss Quotient: Helen Hoang (DNF)

The Kiss Quotient: Helen Hoang
Genre: Romance/Fiction
Pages: 314
Published: 2018

Stella is in her thirties with barely any dating experience, to the chagrin of her mother. She knows a lot about creating algorithms that help customers decide what to purchase. But because of her mild autism, she has more difficulty with human interactions. So to please her parents, she decides to hire an escort to show her the ropes of what a relationship is like. Enter Michael, who does this for a living. But Stella was expecting practice, not someone to fall in love with. And Michael was expecting a one-night affair, not someone who wanted practice. But as the two get to know one another, maybe they'll realize there's more to life than logic.


Without consulting a review, I was told so many great things about this book that I heard through Goodreads and Instagram. Plus it was a Goodreads Choice Winner. What a cute romance, people said. So fresh! So fun! And that cover! (Okay, you're not supposed to judge by the cover, but still, it's a good book design...but not for the type of book that it is.) So I had to pick it up.

Only to find that this is not a "quirky romance". This is almost straight-up erotica. At least for the first half.

Isn't it strange when everything you see about a book is wrong? And, quite frankly, you wouldn't know that this is that type of book.

It may have been my fault for not reading the description more carefully. When I saw that Stella was hiring an escort, I thought it was literally going to be that: an escort. Someone to help her navigate relationships and accompany her to events to make it look as if she's in a relationship. And that sounded really interesting--someone teaching someone else how to navigate romance. Where it lost me was that he was only teaching her sexual things. Sex and romance don't necessarily equate. I was also disappointed that Stella is only doing this entire thing to impress her naggy mother. You'd think the mother would be a little more understanding of the fact she has autism. And her mother's needs just seem to be forgotten about after the first chapter anyway. So where's the motivation for her needing a relationship?

In addition to me not caring a whim for sex scenes, it was the writing in general. The beginning was love/sex scene after love/sex scene. And not only was it way TMI for a general romance novel (Hoang uses some terminology that is almost strictly for erotic novels, which didn't help), but it was just so boring. I mean, what kind of excitement are you expecting with watching two people make out, or learning a sex position? That's a LOT of this book. Stella herself seems really interesting. Her job and her disability would be great areas for exploration, but they're not explored nearly enough. I think her character should have been explored a lot more than it was; the premise offered a lot of interest that the story itself didn't really provide because it focused so much on the drawn out scenes of intimacy. Even if I did like sex scenes, it was hard to connect to the characters because I didn't learn much about them. Stella seemed so robotic at times. Much of the plot seems to be the author's wish fulfillment. It's almost too much like Michael's so-called "Hot for Teacher" fantasy. I was really hoping for more relationship stuff and less physical intimacy, which doesn't thrill me at all.

Oh, and Michael. He has missing father issues! Gee, I've never seen that in the past two years! Authors need to find a different family drama subplot, because this one is getting so stale. So. Tired. Of. Missing Dads. Now between the two main characters, there is certainly some chemistry potential. Sadly, a lot of it is wasted on instructional sex scenes. I would also like to add in how predictable the love-at-first-sight/forbidden love thing is, but that may not be necessary. It's a romance, and sometimes I guess it's necessary to be a little predictable. Still, the two MCs are super in love right away which just isn't realistic.

Some of these things aren't necessarily Hoang's fault, either. There was clearly a marketing misfire. Many of the initial thoughts I heard were wrong, and it was trying too hard to sell a "fun romance," which isn't necessarily what it is. (Read: sex and romance aren't the same thing and they're kind of robotic at times.) There is a considerable difference between what's in the book and what it says it's about. Still, the writing and lack of action didn't thrill me, and what I saw of the family subplots was bland and cliche. It's nothing we haven't seen before.

If I had to give it some praise, I would say I enjoyed the diverse characters. It was so good seeing different ethnicities represented here, and not just for use as political props. I feel like 85% of the time that people of color play major roles, it's to prove a point about diversity, or their story revolves around racism or tolerance. It shouldn't always be that way. We need more of this; books about people in the USA who just happen to be non-white without always playing the race/diversity card.

If you're not into erotic scenes, you'll be best off skipping this one. Honestly I'm disappointed--the story had so much potential that just didn't translate. I liked what people said the book was, rather than what it actually was. I'd much rather see developed characters in a typical budding relationship doing more actual stuff together. Or maybe my values didn't line up with the ones in the book. I don't think erotic novels work, at least for me, because I have no desire to read sex scene upon sex scene.  I want action, character development, and interesting plotlines, which The Kiss Quotient doesn't really have. I think that it's possible it might have improved later on, but I kept having such a hard time finding motivation to even pick it up--and when I did, I really slogged through it-- that I'll leave it alone for now. On the other hand, maybe I should have looked into the concept more. I'm sorry, but I have to maintain my original unpopular opinion here.

1 star

Obsession: Amanda Robson

Obsession: Amanda Robson

Genre: Thriller (domestic)

Published: 2017

Pages: 454

Carly and Rob. Craig and Jenni. That's the way its been for a while. The two women met while pregnant and have been friends ever since.

Until one night while Carly is on vacation and drunkenly asks Rob who else he would choose to be with given a choice. She didn't expect him to say Jenni. Believing that the two are conspiring, paranoia soon takes over Carly's life as she tries to expose them. But as their lives begin to unravel, is Carly the one to blame? Who can any of them really trust? 

***Warning: there are some mild spoilers.***

This book essentially starts off as a bare-bones cheating scandal with not a lot of new things brought to the table. For a while, I thought that was what I was going to get. Of course, it ended up being a little different. 

First off, the title is a bit misleading. "Obsession" implies an intense longing for a relationship, and that's kind of what we get, but not quite. (There are plenty of sex scenes that I didn't love which I guess is where the "obsession" part comes from. Maybe it's just me, but some chapters were just plain erotica. That's not my thing at all.) It's true that the main characters spend time thinking about each other, but not to the degree that people may think. 

The first 120 pages are basically watching everyone cheat on each other and getting mad at each other for it, and there's not a whole lot more. There are some subplots introduced that want to add to the story, like Jenni's mother dying, but they are abandoned within the first 60 pages making me wonder why they are there in the first place. I also found the motivations to be a little confusing. Basically the premise is that one woman gets mad at her husband because she thinks he's cheating, but then she does the same thing with her friend's husband...and then, so does everyone else. So they all find it okay for themselves to cheat, but when their friend or spouse cheats on them it's time to fight to the death?  If the women are so much happier with each other's husbands, why don't they just swap husbands? Hey, that's a great idea! Why not have them both just get together with the other guy and live happily ever after? I guess that would have made for a shorter book. 

EDIT: I think this logic problem got caught in proofreading, because someone at one point quickly brushes it off as "because of their Christianity, they don't want to divorce." I don't buy it. If you were that Christian, you probably wouldn't cheat in the first place. It seemed like a very last-minute, hasty explanation. 

The main problem is just that nobody's a very good person here. Then, when lives are turned upside down, everyone is shocked because they "don't deserve it." Um, okay. Sure you don't. 

Character motivations come out of absolutely nowhere. Told in limited first person through alternating POVs, readers see events from the characters' perspectives. The catch? They might not be telling us everything. This technique sort of works, and sort of doesn't, since we have to make some assumptions for ourselves. I'm especially looking at the court case. We never find out whether the defendant is truly guilty or not because when we are reading from their perspective, they act innocent, but of course that may not be the case. Also, the person behind the initial evil acts shows absolutely no sign of actual evil throughout the book. I don't mean that it was a masterful twist; I mean that the actions they took completely went against their entire personality and thus didn't really make sense. 

The characters also seem to frequently go back and forth with their feelings for each other. When Jenni and Craig reconcile, for example, it seems like they flip back and forth between loyalty and wanting to cheat again. It's like a switch is toggled, and suddenly they're in love with someone else. The switch is toggled again, and they're back to loving their spouse. Rob and Carly do the same thing. One moment, Rob is wanting to protect Carly and seems genuinely in love with her. The next, he's thinking highly of another woman. That was confusing. Is he in love with her, or not?? I guess that's kind of the point, but it seemed like the characters had multiple personalities. 

That said, let's talk about Carly. Halfway through the book it's revealed that her paranoia is a result of some undisclosed mental illness, which is an interesting use of the unreliable narrator. (I'm also glad Robson utilized a different means of unreliability than drinking itself, which these books are apt to do.) Then the switch is toggled again...she's a completely different person...nicer, loving her kids again, loving her husband again. I'm not sure that's how those illnesses work. That also means that her guesses about the cheating behind the scenes are pure coincidence and I wonder if there was even reason for the first half of the book at all...

There are a couple other nitpicks I didn't love. Regarding language, everyone kind of sounds the same. It's kind of strange how Craig and Jenni sound alike, and Rob, and Carly. I didn't love how Carly's daughter Pippa had no personality other than acting like her brothers' mother. But this is REALLY nitpicky, so moving on. 

It seems like I'm complaining, but the last third was when this slow burn really picked up. I read the last quarter in one sitting, but I liked the suspense throughout the whole thing. There are court cases, jail time, and losses of life. Unfortunately, many of these intense scenes are kind of glossed over and I would have liked to see more of the reactions, dialogue, action, etc. (This is where "show, don't tell" could apply.) I also would have liked to see more of the evidence explained. Supposedly one character dressed up like one of the other characters as an alibi, but we never know why or how they accomplished that because they never tell us. I was also able to guess the final act of the book well before it actually happened. 

I do give the book props for making me wonder who was behind everything. It's not as "twisty" as some other related books I've read. It's more straightforward and true to the back summary, but I enjoy the suspense of turning pages knowing that exciting stuff is coming. And even though the characters weren't likable (and I don't think they were meant to be), the plot makes up for that by showing everyone getting their due and warning us how cheating can ruin lives. If you want a happy story, you probably shouldn't look here.

This is a decent first effort by Robson, though it definitely had its issues. A little more reasoning for the events that took place and for the character motivations would have been nice. Sometimes it seems like characters are doing things just to move the plot along. The intense scenes also needed to be slowed down and the long, dry first half could have been sped up. Still, it picks up eventually, and anyone looking for a standard thriller novel might start with it. It's just not unique enough to be one of my favorites. With practice, hopefully we can see more polish from her in the future.

3 stars