Review: The Power of Your Past & the True calling of Your Soul!

The Power of Your Past & the True calling of Your Soul! by Angelika Schulze
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Self Love Self Worth & Vocation| The Power of Your Past & the True calling of Your Soul!: 23 Highly Effective Exercises - Overcome the Feeling of Low Self Worth & Discover Your Vocation
by Angelika Schulze

Say that title five times fast, I dare ya,

This author's past experience with abuse and dysfunction gives her an extra layer of trustability and makes her an excellent source for this kind of self-improvement. There is an emphasis on both past and present experiences and their impact on our mental health. She writes with clarity and devotion to the subject. It's very clear in the text how strongly she feels about the truth of what she says. I haven't read thousands of books in this genre but based on my limited experience, that feeling coming through that strongly is rare. Who doesn't like a super positive self-help book? I suggest you try this one.

View all my reviews

Review: Life is Big

Life is Big by Kiki Denis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Life is Big
by Kiki Denis

I'll just say it upfront, this book is bizarre. There are characters and places with names that are seemingly unpronounceable and there is a jumpiness about the plot flow that, while sometimes annoying, does seem fitting for this story. I felt like the author went a little overboard with the exclamation points and the dialogue was wanting here and there. Another reviewer said it was like being in someone else's dream, and I agree. The oddities in our own dreams are subliminally understood through personal knowledge and experiences, but here the reader has no such clarification to help decipher the meaning. I think Life is Big is a clever and insightful read if you have the fortitude to focus through the absurdity and confusion.

Death and his brother, the obituary writer, among many others, are brilliant characters, in my opinion. It's not that Death hasn't been a character before but that brother... nice move, Mrs. Denis, you can write.

View all my reviews

Review: You're Retired...Now What?: Discovering & Funding Your Purpose-driven Retirement

You're Retired...Now What?: Discovering & Funding Your Purpose-driven Retirement by Debra Brede
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

You're Retired...Now What?: Discovering & Funding Your Purpose-driven Retirement
by Debra Brede

This 200-page book is selling well in the Wealth Management and Retirement Planning genres and with good reason. It's not so much about planning your retirement as managing your wealth during retirement and that's a key difference from so many other books on the same reading lists. The author is a graduate of Harvard Business School and founder of DK Brede Investment Management Company, so she's definitely got the chops for the subject matter at hand. She gives clear and concise advice on making sure your money lasts as long as you do. She also makes suggestions for making any philanthropic aspirations you might have a safe and smart choice. I might have a way to go before retirement but the earlier you get your financial ducks in a row, well, the richer you'll be. And that's the goal, right?

View all my reviews

Review: Die for Her

Die for Her by R.B. Hilliard
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Die For Her (Steele Raiders MC) Kindle Edition
by RB Hilliard

Romance and motorcycle riding bad boys go hand in hand, right? And with names like Steele and Luciana, you know their characters are gonna be on fire. Trust me, they are. I don't want to give away any of the plot but the suspense here is sometimes so much that it makes you forget the romance part. I don't say that as a negative, I was pleasantly surprised. I've always focused in on the dialogue and MC dialogue can make or break a book for me. Hilliard did well here, I thought. Yes, there is profanity; it's a book about a motorcycle gang, they cuss. Beyond the words used, it's the unique cadence that the author creates for these characters' dialogue that makes it stick with you.

Die For Her is actually the second book in this series and I wish I had read that first, just for knowledge sake. I was able to keep up fine having not read it.

View all my reviews

Review: A Red Sun Rises

A Red Sun Rises by K.D. Van Brunt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A Red Sun Rises (The New Earth Trilogy Book 1) Kindle Edition
by K.D. Van Brunt

Ah, dear readers, we have another 'global pandemic requires post-apocalyptic survival' story. But this one is filled with young adult angst in a dystopian world. Paige and Jake, the main characters, are teenagers, and the way the dialogue is written makes that perfectly clear, which is no easy feat to accomplish.

I appreciated that this story takes place many years after the pandemic and mass deaths that it caused for this book but I do hope the author considers writing a prequel. Van Brunt has written some amazingly imaginative characters and creatures in A Red Sun Rises but where I thought he shined was with the virus itself. The Red does some messed up stuff beyond killing people within an hour of infection and mutating animals in terrifyingly strange ways and that's what I want more of.

By the way, I despise cliffhangers. Book 2 better be worth it.

View all my reviews