Review: Becoming

Becoming by Michelle Obama
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Becoming" was this year's celebrity autobiography choice for my book club. It took me a while to get through it, but it was a good read.

I wasn't sure what to expect from a book written by a former First Lady, but was pleasantly surprised to find this wasn't a book about politics. Rather, "Becoming" is a recount of Michelle's life from childhood through meeting and falling in love with Barack through his presidency.

I liked the frank candor in which she told her story. I was surprised to learn about her more humble roots and I found her first impressions of Barack to be hilarious. I love that she didn't sugarcoat her feelings about his political ambitions or the strain his campaigning for lower offices and eventually his two terms as president put on her own ambitions and more than that, their family life. It was interesting to see her initiative for healthier school lunches stemmed from her own daughter and the convenience food lifestyle they had fallen into during the various campaigns.

I did find the section after Barack was elected to be a bit repetitious and at times, it felt like it droned on. It also didn't feel as linear to me as the rest of the book. But as I read what her motivations were and what she and Barack both hoped to achieve, and how Michelle wanted to know the people in the White House as more than employees, I couldn't help but wonder how Melania Trump's autobiography would read and how the permanent staff is being treated now.

Michelle was not shy in her opinion of Trump being elected, so that is sure to offend some people, but those people probably aren't going to pick this up anyway. But she's also very down-to-earth and both humbled and appreciative of the life she has lived, fully admitting that she's been blessed. I don't know if I would have picked it up had it not been a book club book, simply because I generally stay away from anything even remotely pertaining to politics, but I'm glad I read this one.

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Review: Private Vegas

Private Vegas by James Patterson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

2.5 stars. I would probably rate this book higher if I wasn't breaking my rule about not listening to books in the same series back-to-back-to-back as I likely wouldn't have remembered some of the details. I was excited to see that Maxine Paetro was the co-author of this one as I generally like her books.

But alas, I also like continuity. I'm 99% sure that in the last U.S. based book, Justine, who was a pretty focal character had two dogs, not a dog and a cat. But it's apparently been at least 6 months since that one so maybe those dogs died and she got new pets.

That aside, I was expecting more of this book to take place in Vegas since all the other books have taken place in the location of their title, but this one took place primarily in L.A. As always, there were multiple mysteries taking place here: Private finding their hands tied when two suspects have diplomatic immunity, leaving them free to terrorize women (the part that takes place in Vegas), cars are being blown-up in the area where Jack lives (including Jack's) and Private investigator and Jack's best friend, Rick Del Rio, is on trial for the attempted murder of his ex-girlfriend, prompting Jack's twin brother (who apparently is no longer under investigation for murder? Again, what happened there?) to once again to try to buy out Private and merge it with his company, Private Security. Oh, and one of Jack's oldest clients (both in age and tenure) who he inherited with Private is convinced his trophy wife is trying to kill him.

I liked some things about this book: I really like the team in the U.S. office and they seemed pretty true to character, despite another switch in co-author (Paetro did write one of the earlier books as well). I thought the "class" on how to bag a billionaire husband was hysterical. I honestly did not know which way Rick's trial was going to go so that intrigued me. The part that actually took place in Vegas didn't really seem to flow with the rest of the book and didn't hold my interest that much. But the end, when Jack has his suspicions that Justine has started to date someone else confirmed? Let's just say Jack wasn't the only one who didn't see that coming! I'm looking forward to the next book just to see what happens there.

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Review: Private India

Private India by James Patterson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Santosh Wagh is the widowed, alcoholic head of Private India and can't decide between his love the bottle and his not wanting to disappoint his boss Jack Morgan when he gets a call about a murder which makes his choice for him. Not long after the first murder, a second one and then a third and fourth happen, all of which seem to have nothing in common. And then, Jack, who happens to be in India is suspected to be involved in them, which ratchets up the team trying to figure them out, which they of course do. And then there is some weird ending that made me wonder what I missed because it seemed to come out of left field.

So yeah, not my favorite book in this series. I couldn't keep the characters straight and I've come to the conclusion that in order to head up one of Private's overseas offices, you must be a widower. (Or have been involved in some sort of horrible car accident that almost left you widowed).

I don't know how many times I restarted chapters before I finally stopped caring. Maybe if the narrator's voice wasn't so flat, it would have helped, but I just couldn't get into this branch of the agency, which is unfortunate since I see there is another India based book in this series by the same co-author. Hopefully, that one is better!


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Review: Private Down Under

Private Down Under by James Patterson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

2.5 Depending on which list you choose to use, this is either book 6 or book 7. Quite frankly, having listened to both, I'm still not entirely sure, but #7 makes more sense unless James Patterson just really doesn't care about continuity in this series.

Anyway, it's the grand opening for Private's latest office, located in Australia. With Los Angeles's second in command, Justine Smith on hand, Craig Guisto is ready to kick things off - which happens sooner than expected when a corpse literally crashes the party through the building's roof. But before the team can really start to look into the young Asian man's brutal murder, Justine gets a call from her sister (who inexplicably lives in Australia, unless I missed that part) that one of her neighbors has been killed, putting the Private team on the trail of two killers. And naturally, as is the norm, Private's involvement is not overly welcomed by the local police.

Okay, what's the deal with all the dead wives in this series? Once again, lead investigator Craig is widowed, setting the stage for his feud with his police officer cousin (a plot device also used in book-3-or-should-it-have-been-4?). This is the second book in which a plot device is redundant (books 1 and whatever number "Berlin" should really be both have fixed sporting events/gambling story lines), and as with my last review makes we wonder if the entire series is going to end up one redundant story after another.

The mystery of why all of Justine's sisters neighbors were being killed was at least interesting and had a nice twist to it. Though why they kept going out alone when they were getting picked off is a bit mind-boggling. The other story was a bit weak though - enough so that I don't entirely remember how it was ultimately resolved, so clearly, it didn't really captivate me that much.

Basically, so far with this series, I'm finding that I'm loving the books set in Los Angeles and the rest are just okay. And with the non-L.A. books "reading" more like stand alone novels than a part of the series, I'm not experiencing the redundancy in the little details issue that usually prevents me from devouring a series straight through like I am this one. So there are pros and cons and overall, I'm enjoying the books enough to continue listening to them.

(This book is also published as "Private: Oz" in some markets).


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