Books I Read and Other Assorted Oddities

I had the privilege of attending the launch party for this novel last November. While I had a blast, I hadn't yet read Skyward , so my excitement for this book was... limited. The hype and the release party have so much more meaning now that I've finished both books. Starsight  by Brandon Sanderson picks up not long after the conclusion of Skyward . Spensa and her friends are still fighting the Krell, whose attacks have seemed to be getting more aggressive. The DDF has also started trying to reclaim Detritus' outer defenses, hoping to be able to protect themselves. An old recording is found from the humans that built the Detritus shell. They are attempting to harness cytonic power, and summon a terrible being from somewhere in space. Cytonics like Spensa are now rare, and yet she manages to call out to one from another planet, who then crash lands on Detritus. Spensa must now take the alien's place at Starsight, the base that's sending the Krell to attack Detritus.

Tess Henry was an addict. But she was also a loving mother, and she also desperately wanted to get clean. Somehow, she ended up dead in Las Vegas, her body dumped in a dumpster just after Christmas. Tess didn't die of an overdose. Her killer hasn't been found. Finding Tess  by Beth Macy follows the story of one of the many people she interviewed for her book Dopesick . Macy follows through Tess's many attempts to get clean, to stop using heroin and prescription pain-killers (oxycontin). It also examines how hospitals, support groups, rehab facilities, and law enforcement all failed her. This book was eye-opening. Some have tried to call the opioid crisis a pandemic, but it always seems to fall on deaf ears. No one seems to want to listen or solve the problem. Meanwhile, many of the victims are not what we stereotypically think of as druggies. They're white, upper class, straight-A students, and athletes. This image doesn't fit the stereotype. It broke my heart to se