PositiveUSA TodayKamala\'s Way isn\'t particularly revelatory, dryly detailing her early days in the Alameda County district attorney\'s office in California, as well as the political allies and adversaries she encountered during her rise. Although meticulously reported, it occasionally reads like a slapdash Wikipedia page rather than a compelling narrative. But after the circus of the outgoing presidential administration, there is a level of comfort reading an exhaustive account of a lawmaker just putting in the work. It isn\'t a mere puff piece either, as Morain rightfully holds Harris accountable for her past support of capital punishment and mass incarceration policies.
Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan
MixedUSA Today... gripping but slight ... A dark spirit driving people to murder is the premise of countless horror mysteries, and Hollow Ones unfortunately offers little new to this well-worn subject ... Efforts to deepen Hardwicke and Blackwood\'s backstories are also only surface level, as each wrestle with respective personal demons involving an estranged father and lost love. Their partnership is similarly riddled with cliches – she\'s green and asks too many questions, he\'s broody and difficult to work with – although the novel\'s open-ended conclusion suggests more Hardwicke & Blackwood stories are possible, hopefully enlivening their relationship ... All that said, The Hollow Ones is never dull, dropping readers right into the action and deftly switching between timelines. At just over 300 pages, the book is a lean and macabre page-turner, as del Toro and Hogan spare no bloody details in describing heinous murders and occult rituals. (Passages told from the perspective of the demon, named Obediah, are among the most ferociously fun) ... But for all its entertaining chills, The Hollow Ones never really gets under your skin. Much like a malevolent spirit being exorcised, it won\'t linger long in readers\' minds.
Jay Duplass and Mark Duplass
PositiveUSA Today...the book playfully darts between personal essays, pop-culture tributes and self-help tips. Need \'unsolicited advice\' about roommates, cars and the stock market? They have some. Wonder why Hoop Dreams and Dumb and Dumber rub shoulders on their best-ever movies ranking? They\'ll explain. While you don\'t have to be an aspiring filmmaker or cinephile to enjoy what they have to say, you\'ll certainly get the most out of Like Brothers if you are ... what sets Like Brothers apart from other celebrity essay collections is the uncanny bond between its authors. For those of you who don’t have close siblings, the Duplasses’ relationship may seem almost too good to be true, at times irritatingly so ... Like Brothers is ultimately a fascinating window into the creative process, showing the complexities that come with being so inextricably linked.
David Lagercrantz
MixedUSA TodayThat Salander feels like an afterthought is the most frustrating thing about the exhaustingly titled Eye, which otherwise delivers an engrossing, if low-stakes, mystery ... it’s when Lisbeth is released from prison that she unfortunately goes M.I.A., with much of the novel’s second half devoted to subplots involving identical twin brothers Leo and Daniel, and Faria, whose strict Muslim family comes between her and the love of her life. Neither story has great emotional payoff and both distract from the central duo of Lisbeth and Mikael, whom readers have been invested in for four prior books ... Where Lagercrantz succeeds is in diving further into Lisbeth’s backstory, revealing the heartbreaking origins of her emblematic dragon tattoo and fleshing out her father-daughter relationship with ailing former guardian Holger Palmgren, in a passage that is genuinely moving. And while there may not be nearly enough of her in the story, the glimpses we do see are imbued with a grit and gumption that would make Larsson, who died in 2004 before the series' staggering success, proud.
