Fascinating and mind twisting from start to finish. In fact, the last chunk of the story I had to binge. Kudos to Blake Crouch for not just writing a good story, but also taking a complex subject and making it easy to follow. My brain needs a rest after this one, but worth it.

Better known as "Stand By Me" for those who didn't know the classic movie was originally a Stephen King novel. A whomping 180 pages to keep you busy for a few minutes. It's the quintessential coming of age story, capturing the rawness of childhood friendships. It's short and sweet, at least as sweet as King could be, and I may have gotten a little watery eyed at the end, even knowing what was coming.

Great over view of the conflict between America and Cuba during the cold war. In some points the characters were frustrating, which detracted from their strength. Sometimes it felt like suspense was building for events where history is already a spoiler, making the story way too predictable when the author was trying to make it interesting. However, there were a few plot loops that succeeded in catching me off guard. I recommend.

Last book of 2019. Have my first book of 2020 picked out. Wonder what adventures I'll go on this year.

This was a good one. World War 1 is severely under represented in literature, and Daniel Mason did a great job capturing the gritty details. The details can be graphic, but that makes it all the better when representing this speck of history.

"If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray." - Matthew 18:12

A gentle story to relax with. A focus on a time period under represented in literature. The duel timelines helped make the point regarding historical authenticity vs. alternative tellings of facts. Unfortunately, the characters were dry, the romance was underwhelming(the couple couldn't even speak to one another until 3/4ths of the way through), and it got slow in parts that didn't really contribute to the story development.

"Yes. The fuhrer decided that he would rule the world with words. "I will never fire a gun", he said. "I will not have to"

"...He was not a stupid man at all. His first plan of attack was to plant the words in as many areas of his homeland as possible. He planted them day and night, and cultivated them. He watched them grow, until eventually, great forests of words had risen throughout Germany. It was a nation of farmed thoughts."

A well written and beautiful story. Lilac Girls is a fictional retelling of real events with characters based on real people. I learned a lot about admirable individuals from history who I didn't know existed. It was a page turner, but handled heavy topics respectfully. I definitely recommend it.