Russell Atkinson's Blog, page 6
March 12, 2025
There Is No Ethan by Anna Akbari
There Is No Ethan: How Three Women Caught America’s Biggest Catfish by Anna Akbari
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was fascinating in the way a train wreck is in real time. It’s horrible but captivating. Three intelligent, educated women fall in love with someone going by the name Ethan (“E”). They meet on dating apps but only texting at first. E provided pictures, but no live video chat. E was witty, articulate, responsive to texts and emails, and good-looking in the photos. Of course the photos were of someone else. E is indeed a sick, manipulative person who victimized these women. The author, a professor, confesses her own obsession with E despite weeks of canceled dates or other in-person meetings, broken promises, implausible excuses, and other red flags. It took guts for her to put her own vulnerability out there.
The book was fascinating to me in another way. Through it I experienced a sample of online dating, which is something I’ve never done IRL. I’m a senior citizen and married (45 years now) long before personal computers even existed. Reading how people do this is like an explorer coming across a new civilization in some remote island with a bizarre culture. In fact, I envied the author and her fellow victims in a way because I had a very hard time dating as a young person since I don’t drink or smoke and couldn’t stand being around those activities, so that barred going to bars or parties. I literally went for year-long stretches without a date at one point when I was transferred to a new city three times in three years and didn’t know anyone in each. Still, this book does not make it seem appealing.
I loathe the idea of victim-blaming and I don’t blame these women, but I still find in hard to get my head around how they fell down this rabbit hole. The elderly women who fall for the scammers imitating their grandsons stuck in jail and needing bail money are also true victims, but you can’t help but think of it a bit as a Darwinian process. Still, those victims were of diminished mental abilities, whereas the victims in this case were sharp and accomplished and at the top of their game. One of the victims was obsessed for years. Men also get catfished as we know from the football player case mentioned in the book, but I don’t buy the idea that it can happen to anyone. Some women reading this review will probably be outraged at that. Oh well.
The author writes well and overall I enjoyed the book, but it is quite repetitive, consisting mostly of quotes or summaries of long online chats between E and the victims and the disruptions to their lives, e.g. taking leave from work, spending tons of money on international texts or calls (E was in Ireland at times), staying up late for hours, flunking classes, etc. I skipped liberally and recommend you do, too. Best of all, though, is that E is eventually identified and forced into a sort of atonement and real-life consequences. I was very surprised to find out the real identity of E. The ending is mostly satisfying, though not entirely so.
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March 8, 2025
Baby X by Kira Peikoff
Baby X by Kira Peikoff
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The book is set in the future, perhaps 50 years or so, where genetic engineering and designer babies is the way most people have children. The story is told from the viewpoint of three different women: a professional surrogate (a woman who carries babies for others), a scientist who works for a rock star, and an aspiring writer tracking down a story about “Selected” children (ones chosen for their genetic attributes) and the class discrimination against the “Unforeseen” (all others). The author has devised a clever suspense-filled plot centered around celebrity genes and how that could be used for extortion and other forms of misuse. The author knows her stuff with regard to the bioethics and the process of surrogacy and making embryos in the lab. I was impressed with that and how she used that not only to build a good plot, but also to highlight both the positive and negative aspects of genetic engineering, i.e. the utopian as well as dystopian aspects. I know something about this and see the recent scientific breakthroughs as a positive.
My own extended family is good example of why you should not fear the technology. I have a female relative who donated her eggs to a gay male couple. She was a penniless grad student who had just broken up with her latest boyfriend and was despairing of ever being married and having children, although she wanted them. She was in no position to raise one on her own, but her donation was successful and two beautiful baby girls were born to the gay couple. My relative did not carry the babies, that was done by surrogates, but the girls, years later, met their biological mom and hugged her, calling her mom. She is FB friends with the parents. Fortunately my relative did later marry and have a daughter of her own, although it turned out she was only able to have one. So the process allowed her to have three healthy beautiful children. Of course the clinic did DNA testing on the embryos to make sure they were free of horrible diseases, but they were not screened or selected for traits. Rather, the gay men chose my relative to donate the eggs based on her traits, not the embryos’. She was a beautiful blond, an excellent athlete, and a Phi Beta Kappa grad student in a technical field, i.e. brilliant. The men became fathers of two great kids they couldn’t have any other way. It was a win-win.
Another family member with his wife had a baby boy, but he died soon after birth. Sadly, the mother underwent an emergency C-section that rendered her unable to carry another baby. Although that was heartbreaking, they later used an IVF clinic and a surrogate to have another son, a beautiful, healthy little guy. The surrogate, although geographically somewhat distant, is part of their family now, and even expressed a desire to have another child of theirs. As a lawyer, I followed the process of both surrogate and couple selecting each other and writing a contract that protects them both. A bio-escrow agent is used to make sure everyone’s rights are protected. The couple chose the sex, but that’s the only “selection” they did of the embryo. The doctors screened out the embryos that had undesirable mutations but that’s all. The boy is not a “designer baby.” So here again, happiness for all and healthy babies are the only products of the IVF process.
Despite my approval of the clever plot and the attention it brings to the IVF issue, I was disappointed in the too-frequent clunky writing (e.g. “The lock unclicked.” unclicked?) The technological timeline is murky and contradictory. The biology described is on our doorstep and technically available now, yet she has it set decades in the future. Her understanding of tech outside of the bioethics realm is poor; or at least the tech in the story is often ludicrous. People don’t carry devices. They access the internet through their contact lenses. Somehow, despite these incredible electronics packed in wafer thin lenses, they are transparent. They blink the website they want and blink messages to each other. They can be tracked through their retinas by ubiquitous camera drones. What happened to sunglasses and hats? Although I can’t give it five stars, I can recommend this book. I did NOT foresee the ending.
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March 4, 2025
The Extinction Trials by A. G. Riddle
The Extinction Trials by A.G. Riddle
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
This book was a big disappointment to me. It resembled an early video game, only one played by survivors of a global apocalypse. These survivors must solve a series of nonsensical puzzles and challenges in order to survive and get to a safe place. There are warring factions they must avoid, androids, strange drugs and technologies, and so on. I could have accepted it as such I suppose, but the end became absolutely ridiculous, completely laughable in fact, but I wasn’t in a mood to laugh by that point.
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February 23, 2025
Song playlist update
It’s that time again to share my recent music additions. I’ve been exploring older American music such as ragtime, boogie woogie, early swing, gospel, and blues. My main source recently has been Freegal.com, but I’ve found stuff through Free Music Archive and YouTube, among other sources. Most of the modern, i.e. recorded in recent years, music is new recordings of old music. I removed some things that I got tired of, too, but I won’t bother listing those. Here’s the recent list I just added.
SongArtistAnything GoesOriginal Musical castAre You From DixieDanny Davis & The Nashville BrassBallad of HeisenbergLos Cuates de SinaloaBlue Railroad TrainEulalieBoogie Woogie MachineNational Radio StationDig A Little DeeperMahalia JacksonGet Down On Your Knees and PrayMarty StuartGo Where I Send TheeGolden Gate QuartetHonky Tonk TwistScooter LeeJukebox JamboreeChristopher GregoryJust Strollin’Bob CrosbyMoneyEtta JamesNobody’s Fault But MineSister Rosetta TharpeProcrastination RagUnknownRoll Em Mary LouRostyTake Me HomeMy Dear CompanionTravellin ShoesThe Hopeful Gospel QuartetWhen You And I Were Young MaggieEulalieWhite Freightliner BluesTommy Emmanuel and Molly Tuttle
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February 15, 2025
The Sequel by Jean Hanff Korelitz
The Sequel by Jean Hanff Korelitz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Anna is the recent widow of a successful novelist. She resents much of what has happened to her in life, but now she’s wealthy and independent. She has no particular plans, but decides a writers’ workshop might be a fun break from the New York hustle and bustle. She didn’t actually intend to write while there, but she thinks, how hard can it be? Not that hard, it turns out, at least, not for her. Not with her rich life history of tragic loss. We soon find Anna to be a successful writer herself. Her book tour goes swimmingly … until it doesn’t. Someone appears and spitefully reminds her of her past, a past when she wasn’t Anna, literary widow.
That’s a great setup and the writing matched the concept. Anna feels herself undervalued and badly used; she is not one to suffer maltreatment lightly, or at all. I really enjoyed Anna’s dogged pursuit of those trying to take away her newfound happiness … until I didn’t. I should say, I still enjoyed the book, but the ending devolved quickly into a disappointing mishmash of absurdly unbelievable scenes of “justice” being dispensed. Overall, it kept me guessing kept me anxious for the next chapter, and wrapped things up tidily, if more in the realm of satire than fiction.
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February 11, 2025
Rough Trade by Todd Robinson
Rough Trade by Todd Robinson
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Boo and Junior are bouncers/security specialists for a tough bar in the Boston area. They and a couple of their friends bonded when they were together in a group home. They like to get in fistfights and swear a lot. That’s about all there is to this book. The author likes hyperbole and obscene insults, the more offensive the better. No plot. All the characters make stupid decisions. I only made it halfway through.
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February 7, 2025
The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn
The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This fictionalized biography of the very real person Mila Pavlichenko, a female Russian sniper during World War II, follows real life fairly closely, or at least the version described in Mila’s own autobiography as well as other historical sources. With over 300 confirmed kills, she was the darling of Washington when she came as part of a “goodwill tour” designed to bring America into the European theater at a time they were only fighting the Japanese. My book club chose this book, but I had read the author’s recent book The Rose Code and greatly enjoyed that so I was among those voting for it, and I’m very glad I did.
It reads very much like a novel, not a biography, with plenty of action scenes and romantic entanglements. While I’m not much of a fan of romance, that part was not forefront in the writing and in any event was largely based on Mila’s autobiography. Do bear in mind that Mila’s book was probably passed by Soviet censors during the Cold War so take it with a grain of salt. Quinn also admits to combining some real-life characters, creating one or two out of whole cloth, and swapping timelines and locations for some events. There is a rather fantastical action scene near the end that defies credibility (and is totally fictional) but doesn’t ruin the story. Don’t nitpick the history; just enjoy the story.
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February 6, 2025
Framed by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey
Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions by John Grisham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The book contains several true stories of innocent people who were framed by police, prosecutors, “expert” witnesses, even judges. The stories are interesting and the writing is good. But I could not finish it or give it five stars because the content is just so depressing and misleading. I have no doubt the facts in the book are true and that these innocent people were framed, not just accidentally caught up in the criminal justice system by happenstance. But the book gives the impression that all police and prosecutors are corrupt and no witnesses should ever be believed. My 26 years in law enforcement allows me to know this is a false impression. The vast majority of police, sheriffs, and others in law enforcement are honest and give defendants their rights. The real danger from books like this is to sow seeds of doubt in the public such that criminals cannot be convicted and crime has no consequences.
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February 1, 2025
I Need You to Read This by Jessa Maxwell
I Need You to Read This by Jessa Maxwell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I needed a print book to read while I was waiting at the doctor’s office, so I grabbed this off the library shelf. It was an easy read and filled the bill, but that’s the best I can say about it. Alex is a skittish young woman with some sort of secret in her past. She lands a dream job at a New York newspaper, filling the vacancy left by the advice columnist she so much admired. The plot from there deteriorates badly, and in fact is outright preposterous. The author clearly did no research into anything she wrote about. Her paper’s newsroom is vacant after 7:00pm! Really? It’s still 4:00pm on the west coast. The paper’s web site has to be updated constantly overnight. Any real big city newsroom is bustling 24/7. She has a police arrest scene where two cops try to make an arrest of a major drug dealer by themselves. No SWAT team, not even any way to get through the door. A real arrest of that type would involve a tactical squad of at least six and battering rams for both front and back doors. The ending got even worse. Everything was predictable – not one of the promised “twists.”
The real problem is that this is chick lit, not that it’s bad to write exclusively for young women. But at least don’t market it as a mystery instead of a coming-of-age story. There was way too much discussion of clothes and fashion brands and some cute guy’s stubble. It’s my fault for not checking the promo material better. There are six praising blurbs on the back cover and every single one is written by a woman. That was a very big clue. In fact, one of those authors, Hank Phillippi Ryan, wrote an equally terrible book I made the error of reading. How do these women get published? Anyway, guys, if you ever see a book cover with all-women blurbs, avoid it like a ten-foot mascara brush.
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January 24, 2025
Havoc by Christopher Bollen
Havoc by Christopher Bollen
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
This book is just plain nasty. The main character, Maggie, is a crazy busybody lady with a mean streak living in a hotel in Egypt because that’s the only place she could go during the Covid lockdowns. She considers it her home now as the longest guest and she takes revenge on anyone who usurps any part of her status there. None of the other characters are quite as nasty as Maggie, but it’s hard to like anyone in the book very much. The writing is pedestrian and the plot deteriorates rapidly all the way to the end.
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