ASK Musings

No matter where you go, there you are.

Daily Archive: 08/01/2015

Thursday

8

January 2015

0

COMMENTS

Dirty Wars by Jeremy Scahill

Written by , Posted in Politics, Reviews

Four Stars

Dirty_Wars_book_cover_US_Final

This audio book is TWENTY-FOUR HOURS LONG. Yeah. I mean, I think one of the Song of Ice and Fire audio books is like 48 hours, but following a non-fiction book for 24 hours is a challenge for me. Mr. Scahill does a great job of creating a narrative story in the 680 pages of the book, but there are names of people and places that are unfamiliar, which increased the challenge of keeping up.

I bought this because I had an audible subscription with some extra credits, and the book received great reviews among the political folks I know. Plus, Mr. Scahill wrote Blackwater, which I reviewed last year. He is a journalist who is interested in the war on terror and all the ways it has affected (or perhaps revealed) U.S. military values. Coming on the heels of the release of the torture report at the end of 2014, I can’t help but continue to question nearly everything we are told about this war, the need for it, and how ethically the U.S. military and CIA are acting.

Can we justify assassinating U.S. citizens, killing them without a trial? Can we justify drone strikes that definitely kill innocent civilians because it (might) kill a person who wishes harm to the U.S.? Can we justify the fear that people living in countries like Yemen have as they hear the hum of drones over their heads? And even if we can find a way to justify these actions, should we? What does it say about us that we elect leaders who implement or continue such policies? What does it say about our military leaders that they are willing to take these actions, or about our judicial system if it allows it?

I don’t have the answers. I know that much of what I heard was disturbing. I know that while President Obama has done some great things for this country, his record in this area is deeply, deeply troubling. I also know that there are some people who are acting in despicable ways and yet are utterly convinced that they are saviors on earth, a sort of second coming sent to save the U.S. That should worry us all.

Thursday

8

January 2015

0

COMMENTS

Slumber Party

Written by , Posted in Reviews

Three Stars

slumber

So I think I’ve decided that thrillers set before cell phones and Internet research work well. It’s a lot easier to accept that someone going missing might just be them out on a walk if they can’t be reached by text message. As this book was written in 1986, it makes sense that when, say, one member of the group disappears, it’s totally reasonable that she’s just gone somewhere else. Or when someone seems suspicious, it makes sense to just feel things out, because you can’t exactly Google them to see if their story checks out.

I definitely remember reading this book when I was younger. So it’s hard for me to say whether the book is super predictable, or it was predictable because somewhere in my mind I remembered what happened when I read it 20 years ago or so. The premise is a bunch of high school ‘friends’ (in Mr. Pike’s world, young women always seem to be more like frenemies than true friends) go to a giant house in a ski area for a weekend away from their parents. Skiing and meeting boys are the two main objectives. Oh, and one other thing – Nell, the one whose parents own the house, was burned during a freak accident about eight years prior, when the same group of girls were together at a sleepover. Nell’s younger sister Nicole was killed in that same accident.

Nell’s face was pretty badly burned, so there’s that underlying issue. And of course her dead sister (although she is apparently rarely discussed). There’s Rachel, who is blond and gorgeous (but also mean, because of course); Mindy, Rachel’s dim-witted friend who chews a lot of gun (excellent character development); Dawn, who is a bit pudgy (again, that’s about all we get); and Lara, whose third person perspective is the view we get in the book. Lara and Dawn are clearly close, as are Mindy and Rachel. Lara also brings along Celeste, a new girl at school who is a couple of years younger than the girls.

Things happen. Lara and Rachel end up interested in the same guy, Percy, who is friends with Cal, a guy who apparently got way too fresh with Dawn when they were alone together. There is a party, there is a disappearance, and there is the fear of murder.

When the twist comes, you will either go DUH, saw it coming from a mile away, or you will smack yourself because you SHOULD have seen it coming a mile away. This is not Shakespeare, it is not deep, there is not any sort of serious character development. But it was fun to read on the elliptical this morning.