Groupies

God this book had so much potential.

I love everything about the concept....

An aspiring photographer following a band she loves, hoping to be let into the cool crowd.

Oh and it's all set in the '70s.

Faun photographs everything from her best friend Josie, to her favorite band Holiday Sun, and of course, the girls, the muses, the groupies. She doesn't shy away from the nitty gritty side of superstardom. She photographs fights, fucks, drugs, and more.

 

Holiday Sun comes to cherish her. Sure she's a little annoying and she definitely just blackmailed her way into shooting the cover of their new album, but for some reason they like her.

 

Which is weird because she's incredibly unlikable.

 

Actually, you know what?

This entire book was unlikable.

I love reading about sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll, but this fictionalized version was just really not it.

Ed Kemper: Conversations with a Killer

Ed Kemper is an interesting lil dude.
And by lil, I mean a massive man nearly 7 feet tall.

I've always been a bit fascinated by Kemper.

It's not a big shock that he's a freaking monster.

But what I find interesting is how instrumental he was while the FBI was starting up their behavioral science division. With an IQ of somewhere between 136-145, Ed Kemper was almost too smart for his own good. He was described as a model prisoner and even began administering psychiatric tests to other inmates. 

While Kemper did play a big part in understanding other serial killers and their mindsets, it doesn't change the fact that he murdered at least 10 people. Known as The Co-Ed Killer, Kemper targeted young college age women who were hitchhiking through California. Most of his murders included necrophilia, decapitation, and dismemberment.

That quick recap of his case is basically what you'll find in this edition of Conversations with a Killer. I was quick to grab this book because I expected it to be written similarly to the Ted Bundy one. Bundy's book was written more has a cut and dry interview process whereas this one was chunks of texts pulled from various interviews. Some areas were hard to follow given the disorganized nature of this book.

Overall, it was okay but it's not the best true crime book I've read.

Looking for other Conversation with a Killer books?

Ted Bundy

Fahrenheit 451

I love this book.

I've always loved it.

So when my friend suggested we re-read it for Banned Books Week, I jumped at the chance.

I haven't read this book since high school, so I went into this just remembering how I felt reading it as a teenager. You guys know the gist of the story right? If not, here's a refresher.

 

Guy Montag is a fireman. But his job isn't to put out fires, it's to set them. Reading and owning books has been outlawed, so when the alarm siren ring the men jump into their truck with firehouses that spray kerosene. When Montag meets the peculiar neighbor girl, he begins to question everything that he had been taking at face value. For years, he's been collecting books from homes he's set ablaze and hiding them in his own home. Technology has taken over and they're constantly interacting with strangers they call relatives.

It blows my mind that this book was originally published in the 1950's while this extreme interconnection is something we witness every single day here in 2023. When I first read this, I didn't even have a smart phone. But now the world has seen rich ass men literally throwing themselves into space.

This book has been challenged and banned all over the world for numerous reasons. What these people are failing to realize it that by banning Fahrenheit 451, they are doing exactly what the firemen did.

Wanna see my original review?

Fahrenheit 451

 

Looking for other books that mention Fahrenheit 451?

Dear Fahrenheit 451

Dead Eleven

This book was so freaking good.

Creepy ass island? Check.

Missing sibling? Check.

Dead kid? Check.

It all starts when Willow goes missing.

After the death of her son, she starts looking for meaning. Anything that might help her cope with the loss of her little boy. After a nightmare from her childhood, she has the overwhelming urge to move the toy box in his room....that's when she sees it.

Clifford Island.

Google hardly recognizes Clifford Island as a real place, but before long she's on a boat to get some answers. But what she finds is even weirder. This island and all its residents seem to be stuck in 1994. The O.J. Simpson Bronco chase plays every single night, there's hardly any modern technology, and there always seems to be something lurking behind the curtains.

This was the perfect book to kick off spooky season.

The secrets, the nostalgia, the dreary weather.

It was just perfectly spooky.

Tangled Vines

I feel like it's safe to say we've all heard of the Murdaugh Family at this point.

I've been following this case since day one. I mean this all happened less than an hour away from where I live. So I have been hardcore invested in this.

 

Tangled Vines does a deep dive into the entire Murdaugh Family. For decades, Murdaugh's ran wild through South Carolina. They literally help create the city and immediately took over the legal system. Every single generation of Murdaugh men have worked within the legal system in some capacity. But for some reason, Alex and his boys decided that meant they ran the city. Buster and Paul could do no wrong. Aside from constantly bailing them out, Alex preyed on families who were already going through some of the worst times of their lives. He saw dollar signs mixing with their tears.

 

I first became invested in this case when I heard about Mallory Beach.

I drive over the bridge where her body was found, regularly for work. Every single time, it reminds me that the Murdaugh's truly got away with everything. Well, almost everything.

 

There's so many conspiracies surrounding this family, that it would be hard to discredit them all. While John Glatt does touch on a handful of theories, he keeps it pretty cut and dry. Overall this was a well written, cohesive book on The Murdaugh Family Murders.

Looking for other books by John Glatt?

The Perfect Father

The Doomsday Mother

The Family Next Door

I Would Leave Me If I Could

I got a little musical bug in my ear the other day and could not stop listening to the album Maniac by Halsey.

I get in the moods where music speaks to me and Halsey's words were like poetry. I listened to the album on repeat for days before deciding I needed to re-read her actually poetry book.

The first time I read I Would Leave Me If I Could, I was in a happy, committed relationship. Since then, I've gotten divorced and experienced the deepest heartbreak I never could have imagined. I knew going into this a second time that I would take away something completely different.

 

It hurt. 

But it felt more like a growing pain.

The anxiety and depression hit me like a ton of bricks but gave me so much hope. It made me realize that heartbreak hits everyone a little differently but we always manage to bounce back. It's okay to be sad. It's okay to ask for help. It's okay to be vulnerable.

Listening to Maniac and reading I Would Love Me If I Could was one of the most therapeutic experiences of my life.

Looking for my original review?

I Would Leave Me If I Could

Sucker

I saw this book and immediately pre-ordered it.

The premise was vague but it sounded a looooooot like Elizabeth Holmes as a vampire. Which hello, that sounds absolutely amazing.

But is that what I got?

I mean.....kind of.

This was the purest form of elitism.

It was set in the Silicon Valley, at a start up company (obviously), with a snotty ass rich kid who opened his own record label with daddy's money. They're barely making ends met, when a woman from Chuck's past shows up to give him the opportunity of a lifetime. Olivia is developing a health and wellness company that could detect all kinds of illnesses with a single drop of blood. And the best part? She wants Charles Grossheart to be her muse.

Olivia Watt's company, Kenosis, is literally just Elizabeth Holmes' Theranos. I'm talking this author put her in the same kind of freaking clothing and everything. It's like this novel wanted to be "Eat the rich!" But just came out more as, I'm an entitled asshole and always will be.

It just really, really did not work for me at all.