Daddy's Little Earner

Daddy's Little Earner: A Heartbreaking True Story Of A Brave Little Girl's Escape From Violence by Maria Landon
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

note - some may find my rating and review of this book harsh but I feel that as a person giving my 2 cents worth of a review I should be truthful and critical of everything. ( I am with every other book so why should I turn soft with this book?) If you don't like it leave it in the comments and I may/not read them. Freedom of speech is a right and what a perfect place to exercise that right than on a book review site...moving on.............

As the reviews before me have stated it was heartbreaking and sad and blah blah blah blah blah... cry me a freakin' river. Sure you feel horrible for the author her father sexually abuses her, treats her like a living piece of garbage and all she wants is to be loved by her father. It's depressing. Brings your mood down. Makes you think what kind of an asshole her father really is... Also, introspectively makes you think what are the social services doing to help this girl. They are bouncing her around from place to place hoping she will stay but they are not providing any therapy or help to resolve the hidden daddy issues that keep the author running. If you ask me this is a perfect example of a broken system trying to help a broken child. While the book did have a lot of sensitive material in it, some of it was ruined by the fact that things were repeated over and over and over again (a HUGE pet peeve of mine). There were quite a few editing errors that should have been picked up because they were clear as day. While I believe the ending of this story has something to be said for the author's story and her journey, I feel that she needed to polish her work more. It was almost like she was trying to write a Cathy Glass story but came nowhere near except in content. I gave the book a 2 star rating for the author going the distance and trying to write her story in a way similar to Glass, but mostly the stars go to her journey and recovery. She made a huge turn around with her life and kudos to her for being strong enough to do it. Writing about the journey is one thing, living it is the hardest thing.

View all my reviews

Panic In Level 4

Panic in Level 4: Cannibals, Killer Viruses, and Other Journeys to the Edge of Science by Richard Preston
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Disappointed does not even begin to explain how let down I was by this book. I was expecting interesting, slightly disgusting and disturbing stories about viruses that had ravaged people, similar to Preston's book the Hot Zone. Man did this ever fall short. While the 'stories' are actually essays which means they are written in a totally different style, which some people may consider the first point of contention, the MAJOR point of contention for me is that not all the essays are related to matters involving issues that would be considered a biosafety level 4 issue.

Ie. The Mountains of Pi - is about 2 guys trying to find the ending numbers for Pi....
A Death in the Forest - is about a bug native to China that is killing Hemlock trees in North America....
Blood Kiss- is about Ebola (which is a biosafety level 4 infectious disease so that fits the title)
The Human Kabbalah - is about reading human genomes and determining what is missing etc......
The Lost Unicorn - is about the Unicorn Tapestries from the 1800's and their preservation....
The Self-Cannibals - is about Lesch Nyhan disease while not biosafety threat quite interesting

So now that I have named what the essays are about are you wondering why, as I am, the book is titled to be more scary then it really is.

WHY RICHARD PRESTON WHY!!!

View all my reviews