Mid-Month Update February 2025

I meant to do this the other day, but life began lifing and I didn't get to it. Here are the books I've read so far in February.

Blood In the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson - It took me about 3 weeks to read this book. Not because it wasn't fascinating, but because it is long, large, and practically marginless. Oh! And it had small print. The actual uprising only takes up the first third of the book. After that it's about the court cases that followed. The state chose to only pursue charges against prisoners and not the people who went in with guns blazing and killed prisoners and civilians indiscriminately, nor the corrections officers who tortured the prisoners afterward, nor the people in charge who allowed it to happen. 20 plus years after the event, people other than prisoners began to be charged and held accountable, even though some of them had died in the interim. Well into the 21st century, there are still cases waiting to be heard.

You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life by Jen Sincero - I started this because it sounded cool. I kept reading because Sincero is funny. It is way too woo woo for me. She talks about raising your vibration to match that of whatever it is you want. I'm not sure what that means, or how to go about finding out the vibration level of something. Otherwise, I don't feel like there was a whole lot new here.

Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer - This was really fun. Our main character, Evie, is walking in the woods one day, bemoaning her lack of employment, when she finds a bleeding man hiding in some brush. He is being hunted by the king's guards. They escape and he takes her to his mansion in the woods where she learns he is The Villain; the man who everyone is afraid of and the kind is hunting because he keeps wrecking the king's plans. He gives her a job as his assistant and the story takes off. She finds she enjoys the job even though severed heads regularly appear hanging in the foyer. Evie appears to lack the capacity to be upset by the torture of the prisoners in the dungeon or the dead bodies that appear. And of course, she starts to fall for the boss. But there is a traitor in their midst, and her job is to find out who it is. I really liked this one.

So that's it. That's what I've finished so far.