Underrated Reads

Sweet Undoings – Yanick Lahens (translated by Kaiama L. Glover)

Posted on April 14, 2023 by J D Jung

(Reviewed by JD Jung) #CommissionsEarned “Nowadays, in the cities, you’ve got to drink it all in, the honey and the bile. All in the same cup.” Judge Raymond Berthier has just been murdered, and his nineteen-year-old daughter, Brune, is grieving as she tries to process it all. The same goes for her uncle, the pragmatic…

Posted in Crime, Mystery and Thrillers, Culture, World Issues | Tagged corruption, Crime, culture, Haiti, Haitian literature, murder | Comments Off

An UnderratedRead Revisited:The Final Days of Abbot Montrose: An Asbjørn Krag Mystery – Sven Elvestad and Stein Riverton

Posted on April 10, 2023 by J D Jung

(reviewed by Ann Onymous ) Retired Detective Asbjørn Krag and his police colleague Keller are trying to solve the mystery of the disappearance of Abbot Montrose. But with no photographs, no one really knows what the Abbot looks like. He may have been kidnapped or murdered but with no ransom note and no body…who knows…

Posted in Revisited | Tagged crime fiction, Norwegian literature, thrillers | Comments Off

I’m Not Going Anywhere – Rumena Bužarovska,(translated by Steve Bradbury)

Posted on April 7, 2023 by J D Jung

(Reviewed by JD Jung) #CommissionsEarned “She cried because her son didn’t love her, because her husband didn’t love her, because she felt lost at work, because the country was a total mess and had no future…” These words of desperation are from the short story “The 8th of March” but is emblematic of many of…

Posted in World Literature | Tagged dark, jealousy, Macedonian literature | Comments Off

Lifeline to a Soul: The Life-Changing Perspective I Gained While Teaching Entrepreneurship to Prisoners- John K. McLaughlin

Posted on April 4, 2023 by J D Jung

(Reviewed by Christopher J. Lynch) #CommissionsEarned It’s not often that you read a book that sounds like you might have written it yourself, especially a memoir. But that’s exactly how I felt reading John K. McLaughlin’s brutally honest and heartfelt, Lifeline To A Soul. In it, McLaughlin recalls his experiences teaching entrepreneurship to inmates at…

Posted in Bios and Memoirs | Tagged memoirs, prison | Comments Off

Stay This Day and Night With Me – Belén Gopegui, (translated by Mark Schafer)

Posted on April 2, 2023 by J D Jung

(Reviewed by JD Jung) #CommissionsEarned “Don’t think, Google, that the value of human acts can be measured in visits or by keeping track of how much information or money they generate.” Mateo, a twenty-two-year-old Spanish college student wants to apply for a job with Google. He believes that if he is hired, he can affect…

Posted in Spanish Literature, World Literature | Tagged artificial intellegence, Google, privilege, Spain | Comments Off

Fast Fiction: 101 Stories 101 Words Each – Scotty Cornfield

Posted on March 31, 2023 by J D Jung

(Reviewed by JD Jung) #CommissionsEarned How do you get a story about a serial killer from the prompt “Hot pretzels”? To answer that, we’ll have to dig into the mind of Scotty Cornfield whose Fast Fiction: 101 Stories 101 Words Each, provides readers with an eclectic and entertaining view of the genre of flash fiction.…

Posted in Short stories | Tagged crime fiction, flash fiction | Comments Off

PRIMO—a stageplay: Auschwitz through the lens of time – Ed Davidson

Posted on March 28, 2023 by J D Jung

(Reviewed by Heidi A. Swan) #CommissionsEarned Primo Levi was a writer, chemist, and a survivor of the Holocaust. This tightly written one act play is a fictional account of the last day of his life. As he goes through his day, Primo remembers times in his life from the year he spent in Auschwitz. Primo…

Posted in Historical Fiction | Tagged audio book, Auschwitz, Holocaust, stage play | Comments Off

The Dish Dog – Peter Davidson

Posted on March 24, 2023 by J D Jung

(Reviewed by Don Jung) #CommissionsEarned Kimberly King turned down a golden opportunity to work at her father’s highly successful investment fund company. Instead, she wanted to make her own mark in the world. She now works as a forensic accountant for the FBI, trying to unravel a complicated insider stock trading ring. This is a…

Posted in Crime, Mystery and Thrillers | Tagged crime fiction, FBI, insider trading, New York, Wall Street | Comments Off

Trash – Sylvia Aguilar-Zéleny, (translated by JD Pluecker)

Posted on March 21, 2023 by J D Jung

(Reviewed by JD Jung) #CommissionsEarned “Who is the person who makes a life out of our leftovers? And, more specifically, what makes us who we are?” Griselda, a researcher, studies those who inhabit the Juárez city dump. She balances that with helping to care for her aunt in El Paso who is suffering from dementia.…

Posted in Latin American Literature | Tagged aging, dementia, family dysfunction, gender, love, Mexican literature, transgender, violence | Comments Off

An UnderratedRead Revisited – Taking Down Backpage: Fighting the World’s Largest Sex Trafficker – Maggy Krell

Posted on March 16, 2023 by J D Jung

(Reviewed by JD Jung) “While a commercial sex transaction may seem consensual on the surface, the lopsided power dynamic, the history of trauma and abuse, and the lack of options often make the consent illusory. And sex without consent is rape. The exchange of money doesn’t change that." By 2012, human trafficking was the…

Posted in Revisited | Tagged autobiography, human trafficking, rape, sex trafficking, Sexual abuse | Comments Off