Darkness Plays Favoritesby Casey Renee Kiser is a book of poetry. In all fairness, I am not the biggest fan or reader of poetry. I appreciate the form but it’s not my thing. But, I received the book as a Goodreads First Read (as in the case with The Fourth Player and Hit Woman) and wanted to give it my best. Kiser lays her heart out in her poetry and I related to more to her dark subject matter than I care to admit. My favorite poems were Ragdoll Holiday and the title poem, Darkness Plays Favorites.
Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton was handed down to me by my brother-in-law after vacation. He told me it was only “all right” so my expectations weren’t high. I needed a break from Hit Woman and this certainly offered it. I sort of regret reading it, though. Pirate Latitudes was published after Crichton died and it’s not his best work. I don’t know if he would have published it had he lived or, if he had, what condition the story would have been in at publication. Fortunately, it’s a pretty forgettable book and I can remember Crichton for the books I liked better like Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain.
I read Hit Woman by Susan Hamilton because I received it as a Goodreads First Read and it was accompanied by a lovely note by Hamilton. I was determined to finish it, but it’s also taking me a great deal of restraint to give my opinion of the book.
Nicely, I will say that Susan Hamilton experienced her own Peggy Olsen career track by moving up very quickly in the music business at a very young age and at a time when women were not in positions of power. I assume she had to be able to talk her way to the table for many decisions and it was important that she know just how good she was.
More critically, 400 hundred pages of a person telling you just how good they are / were gets old. I’ve never heard of Hamilton before but I know she’s famous because she told me so over and over. I’ve never heard of most of the people in the book but she made sure I knew they were famous. When I gratefully closed the book after the last page, I felt confident that Hamilton really was good at her job and that I would never, ever want to meet or hang out with her.
