Frustrating

This one started out okay, then quickly devolved into an exercise in eye-rolling. I liked the protagonist until I really, really didn't. The premise of the book is that everyone she dates (swipes), ends up dead. Enter the loveable detective and the chase is afoot. The problem arises when our main girl cannot, to save her life, follow the simplest of directions or tell the dang truth. Furthermore, I guessed the killer (easily), and that was the icing on the soggy cake for me. It was definitely a quick read, but I won't be looking for more by this author.

Mind-Blowing

I've read lots of the hard-hitting books on race, and they have all been good. Really good. Thought-provoking, life-changing, and shelf-worthy keepers, all of them. But at the end, I'm still left with a flailing, floating sense of "Okay, but why?" After reading Caste, that question has been answered for me. I think it's one of the best books I've ever read on the topic of race, and probably one of the best books I've ever read, period. While most of these most talked-about books are good, they are sometimes a bit hard to digest, not just because of the subject matter, but because they are such a deep dive. Somehow, Isabel is so dang smart and such a fantastic writer, that she made this horrific topic readable. I plowed right through that book, marking passages, pages, thoughts--and I never ever do that. I would read it again. There were so many times I actually stopped and gasped that people around me stopped reacting. This book should be required reading in every school and for every elected official in this country. I will keep it, have recommended it dozens of times already, and am immensely grateful for her efforts to educate the masses, despite the pain she was experiencing through the process of writing a book about such a laden topic. She is wise and brilliant. Read it.

And She's a Bad Axe Herself

Heidi is the interim sheriff in hardscrabble Bad Axe County, where locals know the way and ways of the terrain and folks. And tradition, as well as loyalties, run deep. A girl is missing, and as Heidi tries to solve that case, she finds overlapping references to her own trauma--the murder of her parents when she was a teenage "Dairy Queen", doing the rounds and representing. As both cases unravel, Heidi begins to uncover some secrets that seem impossible to face. I loved the heroines, and author John Galligan does a good job writing from a woman's perspective.