Book Reviews

The Second Mango, The Money Book, The Franchise Affair

The Second Mango – Shira Glassman ★★★★★
A newly-crowned queen and a lady knight go on an adventure to find the queen a girlfriend, and on the way end up rescuing a bunch a people and defeating an evil wizard. It’s super fluffy and super adorable! Everybody is Jewish and the queen has food allergies and it’s great. And for about half of the book I appreciated the humor and the light-heartedness, but then it tried to be more serious and things went awry. Because I was so attached to all the fluff in the beginning, I couldn’t make the transition over into seriousness, and I ultimately didn’t like the writing style/narrative voice as much as I wanted to.
The Money Book – Joseph D’Agnese and Denise Kiernan ★★★★★
This is THE book for people who’re self-employed, work part-time with or without benfits, or who just really need help with basic money stuff like how to set up checking accounts and why you should have a retirement account. I learned a lot about how to build a savings strategy that works with ALL my jobs. Basically, instead of trying to save a set amount each paychek no matter how large or small, I should save a percentage. It’ll expand/contract depending on what I get paid, working WITHIN my budget instead of against it.
The Franchise Affair – Josephine Tey ★★★★★
Why no Inspector Grant in this book? I mean, he’s THERE, but he’s basically the antagonist and deeply unpleasant. The actual protagonist isn’t all that grand, though the mystery was well-written. It’s one of those where people are accused of something unpleasant (not a murder) and it’s a big tangle of lies and alibis and salacious details. It’s a good enough mystery but I hated how the teenage victim/actual antagonist was slut-shamed throughout the book by grown men. Their POV was that because she was sexually active she MUST be the baddie, despite otherwise being a seemingly well-behaved kid, and her being sexually active is disgusting and wrong. It’s a very femme fatale kind of thing that comes off as super creepy because the femme is underaged and the guys judging her are in their 40s. Makes me wonder was Tey was going for with that character.

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