Confessions of a Cartel Hit Man - Martin Corona & Tony Rafael

Overall, I give this book a "good"rating, nothing stellar though.  It takes you through the life of a man and how he ends up as a hit man.  I thought it was interesting to watch the evolution, even though it was a bit slow at times, but that's real life.  This isn't fiction.

I saw some other reviews post-read that complained about the detailed history and focus of the book.  While those people think the emphasis on this is stupid, they've clearly missed the point. 

Complaint A: "This book was mostly about growing up and partying, not being an actual hit man."
That's quite literally what life is. The lifespan of a hit man in incredibly short. There aren't any long-term guys running around who can write stories that go on and on because they end up dead or caught.  If you want fiction, or a story about an assassin, go to that.  A cartel hit man is going to be a boring short story, which is why there is very little about the actual hits in this book, there aren't that many hits any one single guy does before he gets caught or killed.
Complaint B: "There was too much about the people he knew and who they were related to or where they were from."
Again, that's quite literally what this is all about.  People in gangs base their entire identity on where they are from, who they know, and who their family is.  Other readers complained about the uselessness of this but that's what's important to gang members, so that is what the book emphasizes.  Is it boring to others? Yes, but those readers also aren't gang members.

I would recommend this book to people interested in the subject, but if you're not already interested, it's probably too slow for you.

A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

I've seen this book as a play and a movie many times. Those other medias were surprisingly true to the original tale.  Really the only difference were teh little rambling snippets that obviously had to be cut for time.  I really enjoyed most of those because they were filled with snarky musings that we so often forget have always been a part of humanity.  We think of people anytime before the last 40 years as being boring prudes.  That's not true, the thing that's changed is now there's an avenue to get such ideas into the public hands.
An example:  Anyone who's seen any modern version of this story knows it starts out with "Marley was dead as a door nail."  It goes from there to Scrooge's business and jumps right in after maybe a few more sentences.  The book actually continues for a bit on the topic questioning the logic behind this phrase.  "One wonders why a door nail is the deadest kind.  One would think a coffin nail to be the most appropriate word to exemplify deadness, but, in their wisdom, our forefathers did not create that phrase. So as it stands, Marley was dead as a door nail."  etc.
I do love these tidbits to remind us that our ancestors were just as snarky or sarcastic and asked the same questions, exasperatedly, about how stupid the English language is.
This is not a long book and is a great one to read if you don't have the option of going to see it as a play (and dislike most movie interpretations as I do).

Earth Bound - Christine Feehan (A Sea Haven novel, Bk. 4)

This book sucked. I've read early 19th century authors that were more interesting than this book, which is such a shame because the author thought up a great premise, but instead of making the book about "regaining your self-possession" or normality or even revenge, any angle would have made a fun story, she waxes endlessly about how the main character feels towards some guy and vice versa.  90% of this book is "I'm too broken to be loved", "I'm afraid", "He's so wonderful he doesn't deserve to be saddled with me", INTIMATE STARES.  Bitch! Please! Just STFU and get on with the story. It got particularly bad at the end when the dialogue started to repeat itself verbatim.  Not just beating a dead horse to death by regurgitating the same thoughts repeatedly, but the same exact words! Copy and paste!

Because I'm recommending the book to no one ever, I'm not going to worry about spoilers.  So here goes:

Lexi was abducted by a high-level pedophilic cult leader at 8 and he used her sexually until she hit puberty then he abused her more physically cause, you know, he's a pediphile and his "bride" aged out.  But he couldn't kill her off for a younger model because he knew she was the money maker on the farm.  He wasn't sure how, but it was because she's an earth elemental.  She runs away, gets the police to shut that shit down, but pedophile and his bros slip through their fingers.  Lexi goes into witness protection and accidentally finds other elemental women and lives with them on a farm she cares for.  She's walking the perimeter when pedophile n' bros attack her.  They'd tracked her down and were waiting for the right time. Random Russian assassin bolts out of nowhere, kills bad guys, ushers girl home because several of his biological brothers are married to the other elemental women and he needs to warn them that an old Russian politician's son is trying for minister (or whatever) and has put out a hit on all of them to cover up some shady dealings the dad did.  *Cue wasting the rest of the book until the second to last chapter*  After pedo n' friends got dead, people from the cult start calling and leaving threatening messages so Lexi thinks about it and remembers that there was a little-used compound of the cult up in the mountains.  It was raided, but apparently forgotten and has been repopulated by a tiny group of cult members.  The women go to them and use their powers to scare the "normal" people into thinking God is mad at the leaders, so they run away, leaving the leaders alone for Russian assassin to murder at his convenience.  

Sounds like a pretty good book, right? Well what I've detailed above was about 10% of the whole book.  If the author had made this the center point of the book, I would have enjoyed it. But she didn't. It just went on and on.....

Her: "I've got scars on my back and I don't want you to see them."

Him: "I've got scars everywhere. You can look if you like."

Her: "No! I mean, you're a man so it's ok.  I'll heal you."

Him: "I don't need healing."

Her: "Yes, you do.  You're in pain.  You're so broken on the inside. Let me heal you."

Him: "Only if you let me heal you and show you how sexy you are."

Her: "I can't do that. I can't give you what you want."

Him: "That's cool. I don't need it."

Her: "Yes, you do!" <cries, runs away>

Him: <chases her down and holds her> "We'll get through this. I can wait."

Her: <sniffle>  "ok"

GAH!!!!  gag! gag! gag! Me: <Pulls out gun and shoots the phone (audiobook) until there's a foot deep hole in the counter.>

Why did I read this awful book? It had a good number of similarities (superficial) to what I'm trying to write.  We had a magical female running a farm with bad guys out to get her.  I thought, "Oh no! Have I been scooped?!" Nope. No worry of that. I'm writing the story that's exciting, not the one moping about how insecure everyone is. 

In conclusion, in case you didn't already get it: I recommend this book to no one and don't understand how it's on a top anything list.