Kat scratch Reviews

  The Selection follows America Singer a 17-year-old Performer from Caste 5. IN a future where the US was ravaged by war and then put back together again allowing Illea (the current name of the country) to clean up the mess and divide everyone into 1 of 8 castes, identified by number alone (8 being the homeless and 1 being the Royal family). America Singer has been convinced by her mother and secret boyfriend, Aspen to apply for "The Selection" where 35 young women all meet the Prince and compete for his heart and the chance to become Queen. America is convinced she won't get picked and is too in love with Aspen to care about wealthy and unrelatable Maxon anyway. That is until Aspen breaks up with her. A Synopsis (Spoilers): After the announcement that she is one of the Selected, America makes it her business to forget about Aspen, make a few friends and enjoy as much of the fine food as she can. Meeting the Prince on her first night there she declares that she doesn...

  An autobiography of comedian and host of the Daily Show, Trevor Noah. However, before he was any of those things, he was a troublemaker from Johannesburg. Trevor talks about his childhood under apartheid, being mixed raced and his struggles with personal identity in a society where specific labels didn't apply to him. Too dark to be white, too light to be black but also to "black" for the colored people trying to deny their African heritage and traits. He takes you on a journey throughout his childhood as he tries to find his way in a system that makes it theoretically impossible for him to exists. He faces danger from the government because he could be taken away from his family, danger from the black community for having a rule-defying outspoken mother, and just the overall stumbling of childhood and adolescence we all face. My thoughts: If you can, you should listen to the audiobook where Trevor Noah personally narrates everything. There are a few passages wher...

  Can you say convoluted chaos? The second in the Hercule Poirot series follows the Belgian detective as he travels to France with Captain Hastings. I've read this book, skimmed it, and then looked up the plot summary online and I'm still struggling to tell you what happened. What did happen? Way too many murder mystery tropes! Black mail? Check. False Identities? Check. Twins? Check. Kidnapping? Check. A son getting disinherited? Check. Now if you would like a plot summary, I will not do that this time since to summarize what happens would take 6 paragraphs. So, I encourage you to look it up on Wikipedia or just read this 228-page book.   My thoughts: I am a big fan of murder mysteries and a fan of Agatha Christie however I'm not crazy about this particular work of hers. It felt like she tried to put too much in a small book to the point where one couldn't keep the facts straight unless you drew a chart of some kind. There was the main plot then two subplots ...