🔍 Lookyloo Book Reviews🔎

  Rating :  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 🐕   River Love: The True Story of a Wayward Sheltie, a Woman, and a Magical Place Called Rivershire  by  Tricia Frey  is a beautiful, deeply personal memoir. This story is a well-written, direct, concise, and impressively honest account of a woman’s journey to self-acceptance after she meets a little lost dog. It’s also a story about her relationships with family, friends, and the beautiful strip of paradise she lives on, Rivershire . This book is a great summer read to savor. It is cathartic to other lost souls seeking redemption, happiness, peace-authentic self. For animal lovers, this tender, authentic story will pull at your heartstrings in the same way  “Old Yeller”  does. Learning Sheldon , the Sheltie’s history of how he came to be in Rivershire will delight and relieve those who enjoy solving a mystery. This story is particularly poignant for me because I grew up near Rivershire . It pulled every nostalgic heartstrin...

Rating : ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 📲  Long Division by Kiese Laymon is an original work of sparkling creativity. I recommend getting a print copy of the book so you can enjoy the story as it is intended. Part one of the book is printed as expected, but to read the second half of the book, the reader needs to flip it over and read from the end. So, both parts have the last physical page of the story located in the middle of the book. The very end of the book is in the middle. One of the great things about doing reviews in exchange for a book is getting books that you would never choose for yourself. I’m a retired white guy who grew up in a northern state. This story is about a ninth-grader, young black man, “City” from Mississippi.  The adventure is a dreamy, mysterious, time-traveling account of a young man's journey as he reckons with bigotry, self-discovery, sacrifice, and love. There is an intricate mystical ache to the story. Each character in the book fights for self-determination. T...

  Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 🕵️‍♂️  " Catch and Kill " by  Ronan Farrow  is a top-notch true-crime thriller. The research, facts, and sources are beyond reproach. The book is well laid out and expertly written. The novel reads like a spy thriller as Mr. Farrow takes us on his dangerous journey of documenting and publicizing the despicable crimes of Harvey Weinstein and other rich, influential men. The levers of power men like Harvey Weinstein can pull to squash others from reporting the truth about their crimes is astonishing. The lengths they will go to crush anyone they feel threatened by is terrifying. Mr. Farrow's suspenseful journey is successful, but he wagered nearly everything to bring it to us. It is worth the investment, both the time and money. You will remember " Catch and Kill " by Ronan Farrow long after reading the last page . Want to know what other’s think about this book? Please support my Blog by using one of these links to get your copy of the...

Rating : ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 🐉 Kick-start your fantasy adventure with Steffen Larkin’s “ For Fog Adorns Her ” prequel to Veric , and the Swarming Death series. This promises everything lovers of the fantasy genre could want and more; fast-paced page-turning action packed battles, magic, magical items, great beasts, curses and harrowing journeys into mysterious lands. Join Veric as he begins his journey with the mystery of the dragon’s egg and the curse of the deadly fog. Join Veric as he ventures forth to discover secrets to his own mysterious past and what that may mean for his present and future.   After reading this short prequel I’m hooked. This prequel was so entertaining and enticing that I —must—read the next in the series. There are too many questions I must know the answers to like: How are the dragon, Zerina and Veric connected? What is the meaning of the broken triangle symbols? What species of being is Veric anyways? (We know he’s orange and comfortable battling sea monsters un...

Rating: ⭐️  ⭐️  ⭐️  ⭐️  ⭐️  📖 Susan Orlean’s “ The Library Book ” is brilliant and I’m glad to have read it. It’s beautifully written, painstakingly researched. Her storytelling is captivating and masterful. Every time I read about the destruction of what was lost, I felt anguish, even grief. Now I understand how libraries are vital living, breathing entities, places of community, hands-on museums—a place where everyone is equally rich with the treasures therein.  It’s fascinating to me how libraries survived the world’s entry into the digital age. They could have gone the way of dinosaurs and become redundant, unnecessary places. Instead, librarians not only embraced the inevitable march of technology but pressed it further by imagining, reimagining, constantly seeking how to renew, to be relative, and helpful community centers with a heartbeat and breath. They operated in the future a hundred years before the future became the past. That is truly vision...

Rating : ⭐️  💨 “ Life Before Death ” by Matthew William Frend is about a group of young rebels. These friends travel across the Australian outback in search of adventure and the meaning of life and death. They concoct a money-making scheme to fight against the social constructs of a polite, law-abiding society.   Their northward journey from the southern part of Australia to the northern part takes the group through Coober Pedy. Coober Pedy is an opal mining settlement in a hellish desert area of Australia where the residents carve out caves to live underground so they can survive scorching surface temperatures. I found that part of the story fascinating. The primary characters end up at a horse ranch. There are some interesting descriptions of training as one of the characters is a “horse whisperer.” That is the part of the story I most enjoyed.   The theme of the story is living life as you want before dying. The book also touches on the stupidity of bigotry. Thi...

Rating :  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 🗳   Steve Benen’s book “ The Impostor’s ” is excellent. Packed with twenty years of evidence to support his supposition that Republicans only interest  is to gain and keep power through any means necessary. They have lost the ability to govern and legislate in any meaningful way. They exist to serve only as a coalition of opposition to impede progress that benefits “We the People.” Republicans primary goal is to provide tax cuts for rich and powerful corporations and to release these entities from all legal liability and responsibility. This is evidenced by the fact that they hire staffs of marketing and communications experts rather than legislative lawyers. These marketing and communication experts create fear and conflict by laser focusing messaging on cultural hot topics. In general the apex of this messaging focuses on God, guns, gays, immigrants, reproductive and minority rights and of late, Dr. Seuss. While the GOP stirs the emotional conflicts...

Rating : ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 👹  Chains  by M. Todd  is a perfectly plotted and masterfully, even beautifully written, psychological thriller about a terrifying monster of myth.  The Kludde.  An ancient, mysterious evil. An ancient horror. An ancient demon. This riveting page turner will keep you up as you follow Max, his family and friends as they battle the fiendish Kludde. Follow the Kludde as he relentlessly pursues his victims. Will Max, his family and friends save themselves? Will they overcome a sadistic curse, a deal made with the devil generations ago? This book is filled with twists and turns and mounting suspense sure to rival the horrors of Stephen King and psychological thrillers of Tana French. M. Todd is just a great writer. The ghoulish tale is inventive, dangerous, filled with epic symbolism and even philosophy! It’s an action packed, five-star story from a five-star writer that will keep you turning the pages and on the edge of your seat into the long s...

Rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️  I highly recommend this book!  “ Bee People and the Bugs they Love   by Frank Mortimer  is a delightful, heartwarming, joyful, inspiring journey of discovery. You’ll fall in love with nature’s most fascinating six-legged creatures—Bees. Besides telling great stories about the quirky, mostly wonderful people who become beekeepers, readers have an opportunity to learn whether or not the world of beekeeping is right for them or not. This book is marvelous for many reasons but one of them is because it’s packed with “Bee Nerd Alerts” and amazing scientific facts about bees like: 🐝 Bees can count to four.  🐝 Bees have five eyes. 🐝 Bees beat their wings up to 240 times/second and fly up to 20 mph. 🐝 The unending battle between beekeepers and the Varroa Destructor—a deadly Darth Vader mite that endangers honeybees. 🐝 Bees talk to each other by doing what’s called the waggle dance. The waggle dance communicates the direction, distance, and qual...