The Campout Cookbook by Marnie Hanel and Jen Stevenson

4/5 stars

I live close to the beach and one of my families’ favorite things to do is go to the beach late in the day, make a fire and have dinner and stay until late in the evening.  We normally roast hot dogs over the fire (veggie hot dogs for my younger daughter and I), eat chips and make s’mores later.  When I saw this book, I was excited to get some other recipes and not just rely on hot dogs every time we do this.  Because, you know, hot dogs…

I appreciate the forager’s guide to pernicious plants, even though I would be using this book more on the beach than in the woods, I still thought it was a really cool addition to the book.

I wish there were more recipes that you did not have to prepare at home, but there were several fish recipes that could be prepared completely on site around the fire and since we would be at the beach and I do eat fish, I was pretty stoked for those!

I thought the campfire cookery toolkit was a GREAT idea and my husband was so excited by it that he has already started putting one together.

Excellent takes on the traditional s’mores recipes that we are excited to try!  Also, a recipe for homemade marshmallows — if you have never made marshmallows, they are freaking killer and well worth the effort to make them!

My husband appreciated the thermos cocktail recipes.

I thought the drawings were really cute and overall this was an interesting book.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Artisan books for my copy in exchange for my honest review.

 

 

What Happened That Night by Sandra Block

I was very fortunate to get this book from Netgalley and Sourcebooks Landmark in exchange for my honest review.

Description:

From “a promising new thriller writer” (Booklist) comes a dark, addictive story about a woman’s hunt for revenge and the awful truths she never saw coming. 

One moment Dahlia is a successful Harvard student. The next, she wakes up from a party, the victim of a brutal assault. Her life veers into a tailspin, and what’s worse, her memory of the attack has been ripped away, leaving a cold rage in its wake.

Now, years later, Dahlia is a tattooed paralegal suffering from PTSD, still haunted by that night. Until one day, a video surfaces online, and Dahlia sees her attack for the first time. Now she knows what happened to her. And she knows who to blame. Her rage is no longer cold, but burning, red hot.

And she is about to make everyone pay.

My Review:

5/5 stars

Holy Mother!  This book was above and beyond.  It was INTENSE!

As a mom of two teenage daughters who are both about to start college in the fall, I was worried about reading this book that it would put thoughts in my head.  But I am so glad that I read it.

This is an important book.  I am so happy to find so many authors tackling really difficult topics and using their voice to discuss politics through fiction.

There is nothing EVER that a woman does that makes her deserve to be raped.  EVER.  Not her clothing.  Not how much she drinks.  Not if she has done drugs.  Not flirting.  Not going to parties.  Not going out alone.  NOTHING.  There is never justification for violating any person EVER.

Dahlia was raped at a party when she was in college and it changed this once promising student’s life.  She went to the authorities when she was raped but they questioned how much she had to drink and if she had taken drugs.  They asked her where she was when she got raped and she did not know because the trauma of the rape and the drugs the frat boys had put in her drink had made it hard for her to think.  The authorities used this against her.  So she has no faith in the police and when the video of her rape goes online, she vows to get revenge on her multiple rapists with the help of her friend from work.

The video has been posted on a pro-male, anti-female website that believes rape is ok and that women should not have any power and that men should dominate women and can treat them however they want.  Don’t believe there are such websites?  Check out this monster who is running for Congress in Virginia.

I have been watching The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu with my daughters.  My 18 year old doesn’t like it, it scares her and makes her uncomfortable.  My husband asked why I felt it was so important that the girls watch it and I told him because Margaret Atwood did not put anything in the Handmaid’s Tale that has not already been tried somewhere in the world.  We, as women, can not be complacent.  We need to be informed and aware so that people like that monster in Virginia don’t get into power. There are men that feel as the men in this book do (not all men and not even most men, but there are men who feel that way) and as women we need to stick together and stay informed and not ever accept that it is ever okay for another person to be treated this way.

If you like thrillers, read this book.  If you are a woman, read this book.  It’s powerful.  It’s unforgettable.  It’s intense.  It’s unique.  And it’s very well written with a dynamic plot and well-developed characters.

White Lies by Lucy Dawson

4/5 stars

Who is lying and who is telling the truth? A wild ride of a book!

Alexandra Inglis is a very likable, flawed character. She is a family doctor. Weeks before her planned girls trip to Ibiza, her husband confesses to a one-night stand with a colleague. One drunken night on the Ibiza trip with her girlfriends, she makes a mistake and has what she thinks is a one night stand. Only the guy she slept with turns out to be someone who lives in her community and he wants more from her.

The characters are well-developed, the plot is tight, the writing style kept me riveted. The writing was simple and flowed, making the book easy to read quickly to find out what the heck was going on. I enjoyed this book and I recommend it. It was like Caroline Kepnes “You” meets Fatal Attraction, but even more intense.