cmzukowski's reviews
704 reviews

I originally chose this book because of my love for dogs and thought it would be interesting to hear someone’s take on the evolution of these amazing creatures we share our lives with. I was also curious about how someone would write a “novel of the first dog” because it seemed to be a rather challenging topic to approach. After a few chapters I found myself amazed at the job W. Bruce Cameron did with telling a story like this. Not only did he do an incredible job in proposing a theory about how a wolf became the first dog, but he also wove a story full of characters that I got emotionally attached to and whose lives I felt I was a part of.

The Dog Master starts off with a modern day professor who is interested in discovering how the first dog came to be and it transitions into a story that takes place 30,000 years ago. The story can be viewed as either the professor’s theory or as what the actual historical account is, which the professor nor any other human will ever know about. There are several tribes introduced, each of which has different lifestyles, views, beliefs, etc. and some even harbor hostility towards one another. The story goes between different narrations, one of which is of a man who discovers an injured mother wolf and pups and how his bond with them grows and how he helps to usher the first dog into existence. Throughout the book the narrations of different characters become intertwined with one another and form one cohesive story which takes us through the evolution of a wolf to the first dog.

In the beginning I was a little overwhelmed with all the characters that were being introduced and I was concerned it would become hard to keep track of everyone. That was not the case. Cameron did a brilliant job of making each character memorable and I was easily able to transition from one character’s narration to another. He was also able to portray the point of view of the wolves perfectly and made their thoughts believable and showed them as being intelligent and sharing similarities with humans such as reasoning, instinct, and emotion. He forms bonds between humans and animals through similar experiences and shows that we really are not much different from one another. Cameron starts by showing us the evolution of the first dog but what becomes noticeable throughout the book is how he is also showing us an evolution in humans. As wolves grow to become the first dogs, people also grow to become more accepting of other humans and animals and we see that not only did humans teach animals but that animals also taught humans. Cameron quotes Dr. Temple Grandin by using his famous line “animals make us human.”

This is a book that once you finish it you wish you were still reading it. It pulled me in from the beginning and by the end I was frantically reading with tears welling up in my eyes because of my urge to know what was going to happen and what the outcome would be for the characters, both human and animal, that I had grown to love. I also want to give credit to Cameron for his Afterword in the book where he brings us back to reality and makes us stop to think about the drastic evolution of wolf to dog and the magnitude of it all. He also cleared up any little instances in the book that I was curious about, such as why the language of the tribes was so understandable and similar to modern English (which I won’t give the answer to, you will just have to read to find out!) Cameron puts the overall idea of the book perfectly when he states “The Dog Master is a work of fiction based on an indisputable fact: dogs are our companions, their fates inexplicable bound to ours.” As I said in the beginning, I originally chose this book because of my love for dogs, but it ended up to be more than just the story of dogs. It is also a story of humans and humanity and the bond we share with an animal that has grown from being a companion to being a part of our families.

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I was so torn on the rating for this book. I did enjoy it but between the first half and the second half it seemed as if I were reading two different books; the first I wanted to give three stars and the second four stars (If only we could give half star ratings!). I was incredibly excited to read the book for several reasons. When I was younger it was my dream to become a war correspondent and to this day I regret not following that dream. I thought it would be so hard to be respected in that field as a woman so I was immediately pulled towards this book. Also, I am a sucker for war books and for books about women who are all about kicking the rules to the curb and showing they can do anything that men can do.

The story is based on real life events portrayed by fictional characters. The narrator is a journalist named Jane and the story follows her experiences with Liv, a female photographer, and a male photographer named Fletcher. The women, grown tired of all the rejection they receive to their requests to go to the front, decide to go AWOL and they meet up with Fletcher (a friend of Liv’s husband) who aids them on their quest to become the first to photograph Paris at the moment cease-fire is declared. The issue I ran into early in the book is how slow it was progressing. It bordered on slightly boring sometimes and seemed to drag on quite a bit. A lot of time was spent on the characters earlier lives, a love triangle, and jealousy that I feel could have been portrayed in a more intriguing way. Instead a lot of it fell flat. The book definitely picks up halfway through when they reach Paris and the second half of the book I found too exciting to put down. I only wish the entire book had been like that.

The main characters were interesting but not well-developed, in my opinion. It was hard to feel any emotional attachment or bond with them and I found myself caring more about the history behind the book than the main characters in it. On a positive note, I admire the amount of research that Meg Waite Clayton put into writing this book. Her portrayal of war, soldiers, and civilians was absolutely brilliant and she was able to make you feel something for what those people were going through at that time. Her account of the moment in Paris where the cease-fire was declared was so brilliant and powerful that it gave me chills.

“Tears streamed down the hollow, stubbled cheeks of old men, the old and the sick brought out from hospitals to greet freedom in the streets. Young women pulled their children tightly to their sinewy legs, watching for their children’s fathers, hoping they might appear in a passing truck and wondering if they would recognize them.”

Overall I think the second half of the book made it worth struggling through the first half. I never knew of what women actually went through during World War II as war correspondents and what they had to do to be allowed the same chances as men. A male photographer or journalist would be given permission immediately to go to the front to cover the war while a female photographer or journalist (in her fitted Saks Fifth Avenue uniform that she was required to wear) needed to go AWOL to get that same opportunity. Even then there was no guarantee their work would be published, because of their AWOL status, unless they allowed a man to take credit or it was published uncredited. The history this books teaches and the glimpse it gives into war from a woman’s viewpoint is fascinating and ultimately, The Race for Paris is worth the read.

“It is quite a job being a woman, isn’t it; you cannot do your work and simply get on with it because that is selfish, you have to be two things at once.” - Journalist Martha Gellhorn in an April 28, 1944, letter to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

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**I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review**

I have been patiently awaiting this book for months now so I was very excited to get the opportunity from NetGalley to review it. I read the book in about a day and it took me another day after I finished it purely to wrap my head around what I had just read. Michael Morrow lives in a secluded farmhouse in the Appalachian area of West Virginia with his family, leading the only life he has ever known, a life that would terrify any other human. He was raised on the adage that blood is thicker than water and was trained to keep the family’s secrets and bring them with him to the grave. However, Michael was never truly happy with this life and when he meets a girl and starts to have experiences that normal teenagers have he begins to question everything he has ever known. But family is family and some things you just can’t escape, and Michael’s brother, Rebel, wants to make sure that Michael never EVER forgets that.

When I was reading this book half of me wanted to make it last and savor it while the other half of me wanted to not take my eyes off of it and just devour it. I was never one for willpower so I read the book in a day. Brother throws you right into the macabre schemes of the Morrow family on the first page and it keeps you there, allowing no respite, until the very last sentence. When I finished the book I had to go back and read the last page several times to fully digest everything, and when I was done I felt I could do nothing else for the night. To move on to reading something else was just impossible and I was completely satisfied to just lie in bed and contemplate everything I had just read.

I think the main brilliance in this book lies in Ahlborn’s ability to create a character that you should, by all means, hate and fear yet you are compelled to love him and take his side throughout the entire story. I found myself in awe of this the entire time I was reading the book. The storyline was wonderfully creepy and the range of emotions I felt while reading this book was rather intense. Anger, sympathy, disgust, heartbreak, satisfaction, I felt them all during the course of reading this book, sometimes all at the same time, and I loved every second of it. This book is basically an emotional roller coaster in all the right ways.

For a sizable portion of the book the story changes between chapters from past to present, giving the readers insight into all the characters. This makes the story seem slightly disjointed at times, but everything in this book is done for a reason and the past is equally as important as the present when it comes to the story of the Morrows. As the family’s history grows more sinister with the passing of years, the reader comes to the grim understanding of how past traumas led to the present evil that is the Morrow clan.

This book does not give you the ability to predict what is going to happen in advance, so don’t go into it thinking you can figure it all out. I found myself blindsided several times by unexpected elements that Ahlborn added into the plot and just when you think the book cannot get more disturbing, it does. Brother combines all the key story elements depicted in a high level of detail from setting to characters to actions to realizations made by the characters in the book. Ahlborn forces the reader to confront nightmarish situations and realize how far humans can go when pushed in certain ways. The book shows that on a basic level human beings are no different than animals, and sometimes they can even be worse.

I feel like I need to say that if you are squeamish or afraid to look into the deepest and darkest areas of human behavior then you may want to think twice about reading this book. But in my opinion this is a must read, especially for any and all horror fans out there. It has been a long time since I have read an amazing horror book and Brother left me feeling so satisfied. I can honestly say it is one of the most chilling and brilliantly terrifying books I have ever read.

“There wasn’t much to fear in places like this. That’s why people moved out to the country. It seemed safe and peaceful and perfect until you caught a lunatic crawling through your bedroom window.”

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**I was given a copy of this book by the author in exchange for an honest review.**

This book was not what I expected it to be, and I say that in a positive way. Jack Joseph is your atypical particle physicist turned pool boy and full-time alcoholic. He is incredibly knowledgeable about the universe and fully aware of the lack of definitive answers to any of the questions in life. This unnerves him to the point of becoming an alcoholic who part-time self-medicates with prescription drugs to quit his addiction. He is a man who is unable to hold an honest relationship, and ultimately a person who just does not understand who he really is. Then he meets Sarah, a woman who does to him what no one else has yet been able to do, she makes him want to change into better person. Through the course of this book we follow Jack, with an insider’s view of his life. Following an ex-physicist pool boy’s life might not sound very intriguing but trust me it is, and you have no idea what’s in store when you tag along with Jack Joseph.

The Pool Boy’s Beatitude is a very intelligent book, from the language to the subject matter to the science, psychology, and philosophy behind it. D.J. Swykert did an amazing job of weaving all these complex ideas together in a smart and entertaining manner. On a base level the book deals with what happens when you give up hope, but on a more complex level it tackles basic human needs, weaknesses, vices and love. Jack knows so much but what he doesn’t know are concrete, scientific answers to the universe and life, and he has a hard time dealing with this. He turns to alcohol as a coping mechanism and seems to sabotage himself over and over again as he struggles to come to terms with himself and reality. There is also a continuous, internal struggle of who is to blame for his actions. We see in him the alcoholic’s tendency to blame others and the world around them for their mistakes and actions, but we also see him blame himself and take responsibility for who he is and where his life has gone. The reader is witness to a man fighting with the good and bad inside himself, a struggle we each go through every day of our lives.

From the beginning I found this book to be reminiscent of Douglas Adams in terms of the style and the humor and intelligence behind it. It also reminded me of philosopher and author Albert Camus, who dealt a lot with coming to terms with the uncertainty and futility of life and how to deal with living. Where the first half of this book deals with Jack’s downfall at the hands of his questions, vices, and self-sabotage, the second half tackles his struggle to better himself, understand the things he can, and rebuild his life.

This book shows us is that not even the smartest people out there, the ones who understand the universe and space and physics, can fully understand themselves and life. It also shows us that it is okay not to understand everything, as long as we can understand what makes us happy. In Pool Boy’s Beatitude, Swykert focuses on human nature and our struggle and desire to understand the universe and ourselves. It is a very smart book and a very human book. I really enjoyed reading it, partly due to my love of the universe and philosophy, but also because it is a well-written and engaging book. It may not be for everyone but if you want a book that touches on deeply philosophical issues, challenges human behavior and our understanding of the world we think we know, then this book would definitely be for you. D.J. Swykert tells a story we can understand and created a character we can relate to. Jack is not a hero, in the heroic sense, and he is not perfect. He is human. He is a person doing the same thing everyone else in the world is doing, trying to be happy.

“I awake believing coincidence solves most problems, answers most questions. Most of science believes we are a cosmological accident and everything was created from an explosion of a primeval atom, a Big Bang, not a lick of which they can prove. This is what we do know: beyond any reasonable doubt our universe began, we are here. Prior to us being here there was nothing; during and after the beginning there was something. This is the state of cosmology, what we believe we know about creation. No wonder billions of us choose to pray.”

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**I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review**

I want to start off by saying that this story takes place in the same world as The Bone Clocks so you might want to read that book first, but it is not necessary and you can get away with reading this book on its own. This story spans decades and follows multiple characters who all have run-ins with the Slade House and are all linked to one another through their experiences with the house. The black, iron door to the garden of Slade House is child size, unassuming, and not visible to everyone. Every nine years someone encounters the door, and those who find it and go through it wish they never had. From the first people to disappear at Slade House to those who go looking for them, this story follows what happens to each one of them when they try to unravel a decades long mystery of an elusive house and the mysterious and sinister twins who reside there. Take your typical haunted house tale and twist it around and turn it upside-down and Slade House is what you would get.

In this story Mitchell uses the technique that he has come to master, of jumping years and switching between characters seamlessly and telling a perfectly cohesive story in the process (similar to the style he used in Cloud Atlas but not as complex). The story hooks you right from the beginning, even though you have no idea what is going on, and it is almost as if the main appeal of this book is the idea of not knowing. Written in five parts, a mystery is built and slowly unraveled over the decades the book follows and the reader undergoes a rather intense learning process to understand the story.

What is done brilliantly in this book is that each character’s story is akin to one another yet it never gets boring. In most cases, telling a similar story over and over again would come off as redundant but Mitchell was able to avoid that and tell a compelling story for each person. Every character is portrayed in such a way that in a short period of time you cannot help but care for them and feel an emotional attachment to them. I have read longer books that are unable to develop the characters well, so to invoke feelings towards many characters in such a short period of time comes off as quite an accomplishment. The people in the story are also shown with emphasis on their human qualities, ones that seem so mundane but in the end expose why they were the ones chosen to find the Slade House. Mitchell draws upon characteristics we would normally see as negative and shows how these are the things that make people human.

Slade House is a quick read and I was never once bored with it, but a part of me wishes it had not been so quick. I would have liked a slightly longer story because at times I felt the book was a little rushed. Aside from that, I thought this book was very well done and never fell flat once in terms of the story. It is highly imaginative, as are all of Mitchell’s stories, and towards the end it does become rather involved and complex, in all the right ways. Incredibly fantastical ideas are woven throughout the climax of this story and you cannot help but be impressed with the level of creativity it took to come up with the world we encounter in the Slade House.

As a standalone this book is quite successful, but I do believe the knowledge you would gain from reading The Bone Clocks first would be beneficial for the last part of the book. Slade House is beautifully written and tells an eerie and malevolent story. It does not scare you outright but instead it injects an ominous feeling into you and slowly chills your soul as the pieces of the story come together and you learn the secrets of the Slade House.

“Tonight feels like a board game co-designed by M.C. Escher on a bender and Stephen King in a fever.”


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The first thing I want to say is that this book creeped the hell out of me and I loved every second of it! Since the disaster happened, Malorie has lived in fear. Fear of other people, fear of going outside, fear of sight, fear of the things that we have always taken for granted. Something exists in the world and seeing it will drive you mad, turning any human into a frenzied lunatic. Malorie has spent five years in a house with the windows and door blocked, only going outside for water and supplies, always doing so blindfolded. Now it is time to move on, for the sake of her children, and as she embarks on her blind journey every sound around her is a threat and every threat is real. As Malorie travels down a river in an old rowboat, to a salvation that may or may not exist, her only guidance and warnings come from her two children who she has trained to hear without seeing since birth. But in this new, sightless world nothing is as simple as it seems and the only thing between a person and death is the cloth that covers their eyes.

I love dystopia and I love horror so it seemed like a no-brainer for me to read this book. The story starts with a quick introduction to Malorie and a glimpse into the beginning of the new dystopian world. When I say a quick intro I really mean it because only a few pages are given to the start of the disaster and the downfall of the world. The main focus of the story is on Malorie’s stay at an abandoned house that has become her safe haven. Not one chapter of this book goes by without something happening that sends shivers up your spine. Malerman’s ability to creep the reader out is phenomenal and it is always done in such a subtle manner that is so fear inducing. I cannot even count how many times I was reading pages as fast as possible to see what was going to happen next. To me that is always the sign of a well done horror book.

The main brilliance in this book is the ability of Malerman to tell a story and make you feel as sightless as the characters when they are blindfolded. He is able to explain a situation to you without describing anything you would see. Instead he relies on feel, smell, and sound to describe the world to us and we experience things the way the characters in the book do. It is hard to describe being made to feel like you are blind when you are reading but that is, in a way, what it is like when reading Bird Box. To convey the feeling of fear and also making the reader feel like they cannot see is no easy feat, yet it was executed perfectly in Bird Box.

There are numerous scenes in this book that are downright terrifying and brilliantly written. Malerman does not use the typical horror tactics to induce fear either, he weaves together psychological fear, suspense, and mystery to build a story that is unnerving and just plain scary. He also touches on the age old fear of being afraid of the dark, something all people experienced in their childhood and a fear that we can all understand. Add in the concept of the unknown and we have a mix of terrifying elements that are the basis for a well told horror story.

Where this book lost a star for me was the ending. The story was so fast paced and there were so many questions and ideas throughout the book and the ending didn’t seem to fit completely with overall tone of the book. After everything I had read in the book I guess I was just anticipating something different. But this is a small complaint and did not take away from the book being enjoyable and very well written. Bird Box is a quick read because it sucks you in from the beginning and makes you yearn for the outcome of the story. If you are looking for a creepy and suspenseful read that is not your ordinary horror story, then definitely give this book a read and prepare to be terrified in the process.

“It's better to face madness with a plan than to sit still and let it take you in pieces.”

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**I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review**

My thoughts on this book? I absolutely adored it! Dottie was that shy little girl who felt out of place until she met Mary, the girl with no fear and no reservations. Separate they were opposite but together they were the perfect match and they became instant friends, doing everything together and sharing the same dreams for the future. What Mary wanted to do Dottie wanted to do and that is how their childhood went. As they grew up they were thrown from the carefree lives of children into the complex lives of adults where they were forced to deal with heartbreak, deception, and tragedy and watch their lives and friendship change forever, as everything always does. Friendships are tested, hearts are broken, and bonds are strengthened as Mary and Dottie grow up and are forced to face the inevitable challenges of life while trying desperately to hold on to one another.

At the beginning of the book the writing seemed a little simplistic but as the story progressed and the girls grew so did the writing style. It was as if Sandy Taylor depicted the growing up of Dottie and Mary not just through the words she told the story with but also through variations and increased maturity in the writing style. This technique helps to bring you through a childhood that you can really feel and allows for you to grow with the two girls. The writing progression and style in this book was done so well and added so much to the story in an underlying way.

What was so great about this book was how easy it was for me (as I am sure it is for most readers) to relate to it. With The Girls from See Saw Lane, Sandy Taylor takes you through the childhood of two best friends and brings you back to the time when you had your first best friend, making you feel as if you can completely empathize with what the girls go through. Both of the main characters are developed so well and you learn their strengths and their flaws and see how these things affect their relationships as they get older. The characters were written as real people, who do not always think the logical way and I often found myself getting frustrated with them and wondering why they didn’t just react in a certain way that seemed so obvious to me. Then I thought back to when I was younger and how I reacted to things and realized the characters in the story were thinking with their hearts and emotions, as any other person would in real life. I found such a brilliance in this portrayal of emotional, not perfect characters and it made the story seem that much more real.

This book was not exciting in the typical sense but it was completely intriguing and nearly impossible to put down. Taylor told a story that could have been out of anyone’s life and made it so enthralling that it was hard to stop reading. I kept catching myself thinking “Okay just one more chapter” and the next thing I knew it was an hour later and I was still reading. For a book to be written about the childhood days and early adulthood of two regular girls and be so thrilling to read, with no action packed plot being involved, takes genuine talent and Taylor executed it all so perfectly.

Something that was so wonderful and so captivating about The Girl’s from See Saw Lane was the book’s portrayal of life and all the love and heartbreak that comes with it. It was both simple and complicated and told a tale full of realism and truth instead of a story full of perfectly resolved scenarios of a fairy tale nature. I find myself missing Dottie and Mary and wondering about their lives, wishing I was still a part of them. This book had sincerity, humor, happiness, sadness; so many different emotions that make up our everyday lives also made up this story and I don’t feel as if it could have been any more incredible.

“You’re a very strange girl, do you know that?”
“Oh I do hope so!” She said, smiling.


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