I Am Ozzy by Ozzy Osbourne - 5 Stars

 "John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne is the lead vocalist of the pioneering English heavy metal band Black Sabbath, a multi-platinum, award winning successful solo artist and the star of the reality show, The Osbournes. Considered by many to be the "Godfather of Heavy Metal," Ozzy has enjoyed a career that has now spanned four decades."

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I had been wanting to read this one and finally picked it up after seeing a couple of episodes of Ozzy & Jack's World Detour. I absolutely loved it! I looked into the audiobook with hopes that Ozzy was the one narrating it, but he wasn't. It's probably a good thing, though, because I probably would have wet myself more than a few times hearing him actually tell the stories instead of reading them in my head. The book is written exactly how Ozzy talks and he holds nothing back. The man really does have 9 lives like a cat. It's a miracle he is still alive. 

Hell House by Richard Matheson - 3 Stars

 

"Rolf Rudolph Deutsch is going die. But when Deutsch, a wealthy magazine and newspaper publisher, starts thinking seriously about his impending death, he offers to pay a physicist and two mediums, one physical and one mental, $100,000 each to establish the facts of life after death.

Dr. Lionel Barrett, the physicist, accompanied by the mediums, travel to the Belasco House in Maine, which has been abandoned and sealed since 1949 after a decade of drug addiction, alcoholism, and debauchery. For one night, Barrett and his colleagues investigate the Belasco House and learn exactly why the townfolks refer to it as the Hell House."

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For someone like Stephen King to say this is the scariest haunted house novel ever written (granted it was back in the 70's), I was really disappointed in this one. I kept waiting for something crazy scary to happen. I'm not sure if I'm immune to horror books or what, since I watch a lot of horror movies, but I have yet to find a book that actually scares me.

Finlay Donovan is Killing It by Elle Cosimano - 3 Stars

 "Finlay Donovan is killing it . . . except, she’s really not. She’s a stressed-out single-mom of two and struggling novelist, Finlay’s life is in the new book she promised her literary agent isn’t written, her ex-husband fired the nanny without telling her, and this morning she had to send her four-year-old to school with hair duct-taped to her head after an incident with scissors.

When Finlay is overheard discussing the plot of her new suspense novel with her agent over lunch, she’s mistaken for a contract killer, and inadvertently accepts an offer to dispose of a problem husband in order to make ends meet . . . Soon, Finlay discovers that crime in real life is a lot more difficult than its fictional counterpart, as she becomes tangled in a real-life murder investigation."

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This one started out with great promise, but let me down about half way into it. The humor in the first part of the book was absolutely hilarious. But the rest of the book felt like a bad attempt at the humor in the Stephanie Plum series. I really doubt I'll pick up the next one in this series. 

No Place for the Weak by Ryan Green - 3 Stars

 "It was a scene from the worst nightmare you've ever had, I don't think any of us was prepared for what we saw." - Snowtown officer On 20 May 1999, the South Australian Police were called to investigate a disused bank in the unassuming town of Snowtown, in connection to the disappearance of multiple missing people. The Police were not prepared for the chilling scene that awaited them. The officers found six barrels within the abandoned bank vault, each filled with acid and the remains of eight individuals. The smell from inside the vault was so stifling that the police required breathing equipment. Accompanying the bodies were numerous everyday tools that pathologists would later confirm were used for prolonged torture, murder and cannibalism. The findings shocked Australia to its core, which deepened still when it was revealed that the torture and murders were committed by not one, but a group of killers. The four men, led by John Bunting, targeted paedophiles, homosexuals, addicts or the ‘weak’ in an attempt to cleanse society.No Place for the Weak is a chilling account of the ‘Snowtown Murders’ ( ‘Bodies in Barrels Murders’), and one of the most disturbing true crime stories in Australia’s history."

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This was the first time I have read an Austrailian true crime book. For me, the description of the book was a lot worse than the actual accounts of the story. I was expecting it to be more gruesome than it was. 

The Girls We Sent Away by Meagan Church - 3 Stars

"A searing book club read for fans of Ellen Marie Wiseman and The Girls with No Names set in the Baby Scoop Era of 1960s and the women of a certain condition swept up in a dark history.

It's the 1960s and Lorraine Delford has it all – an upstanding family, a perfect boyfriend, and a white picket fence home in North Carolina. Yet every time she looks through her father's telescope, she dreams of the stars. It's ambitious, but Lorraine has always been exceptional. 

But when this darling girl-next-door gets pregnant, she's forced to learn firsthand the realities that keep women grounded.  To hide their daughter's secret shame, the Delfords send Lorraine to a maternity home for wayward girls. But this is no safe haven – it's a house with dark secrets and suffocating rules. And as Lorraine begins to piece together a new vision for her life, she must decide if she can fight against the powers that aim to take her child or submit to the rules of a society she once admired."

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This is sad, since it was based on actual history, but I was disappointed in this one. I guess reading that it had "dark secrets", I was expecting something a lot more "dark". 

 

The Woman in Me by Britney Spears - 4 Stars

 "In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice—her truth—was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. The Woman in Me reveals for the first time her incredible journey—and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history.

Written with remarkable candor and humor, Spears’s groundbreaking book illuminates the enduring power of music and love—and the importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms, at last."

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I really enjoyed hearing Britney's side of her life. The media has made her out to be such a loonie in the last several years and with her story, you understand a lot of her actions and behaviors. Her family has really treated her awful for most of her life and it was really sad to read about some of the things they did/said to her. There were times in the book that I just wanted to give her a big hug. 

Top Secret Twenty One by Janet Evanovich - 5 Stars

 "Trenton, New Jersey’s favorite used-car dealer, Jimmy Poletti, was caught selling a lot more than used cars out of his dealerships. Now he’s out on bail and has missed his date in court, and bounty hunter Stephanie Plum is looking to bring him in. Leads are quickly turning into dead ends, and all too frequently into dead bodies. Even Joe Morelli, the city’s hottest cop, is struggling to find a clue to the suspected killer’s whereabouts. These are desperate times, and they call for desperate measures. So Stephanie is going to have to do something she really doesn’t want to do: protect former hospital security guard and general pain in her behind Randy Briggs. Briggs was picking up quick cash as Poletti’s bookkeeper and knows all his boss’s dirty secrets. Now Briggs is next on Poletti’s list of people to put six feet under.

To top things off, Ranger—resident security expert and Stephanie’s greatest temptation—has been the target of an assassination plot. He’s dodged the bullet this time, but if Ranger wants to survive the next attempt on his life, he’ll have to enlist Stephanie’s help and reveal a bit more of his mysterious past.

Death threats, highly trained assassins, highly untrained assassins, and Stark Street being overrun by a pack of feral Chihuahuas are all in a day’s work for Stephanie Plum. The real challenge is dealing with her Grandma Mazur’s wild bucket list. A boob job and getting revenge on Joe Morelli’s Grandma Bella can barely hold a candle to what’s number one on the list—but that’s top secret."

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I think the Stephanie Plum books are getting funnier the further I get into the series. There was a lot of this book where I was laughing so much! Evanovich has a good way of describing these scenes to where you can picture it and that makes it even funnier.