Sweetpea

Sweetpea by C.J. Skuse

The lead character works a tedious journalism job by day. She survived a horrendous crime in her youth and had some training for survival by her father. She makes a regular "hit list" of people that have wronged her or others in various ways (from pedophiles to people taking too long in the checkout line.) She becomes the casual serial killer. Easly in the book she castrates a drunk that was coming onto her and pushes him to the river, only to return back as if nothing happens. She gets involved in other crimes. She later frames someone else for the crimes. The book has light, vulgar tone with plenty of dark humor. 

Best Offer Wins: A Novel

Best Offer Wins: A Novel by Marisa Kashino

A couple in DC is trying to buy a house. Alas, they get outbid in all their offers. They want to have a family, but getting the house first is a priority. The book is told primarily from the perspective of the Asian wife. Then they hear from a friend that a house in Maryland is coming on the market. The woman decides to scope it out. She absolutely loves it. She even decides to sneak in the back yard for a look. She stays too long and almost gets caught by the owner. However, she manages to get out just in time, but does run into him. She decides she will try to get the house as a "pre-listing" transaction. She stalks the owners and discovers that they are a gay couple with an adopted Asian daughter. She  tries a yoga class that one attends.  They actually hit it off and end up getting invited to dinner. At dinner she pushes things too far about an offer and end up getting discovered and kicked out. That is still not enough. She hunts for dirt on the couple. She discovers that somebody had bad things to say about one of the men (a university professor who published a book.) She traced all the students in his program at the time to see if she could find who it was. (She had previously been a journalist, so had connections as well as desire to do it.) She travelled distances to find dirt to potentially use it against them. She found he plagiarized a student. However, the student realized that she was a fraud and didn't give her the evidence. She tried to use this against the men. However, they eventually called her bluff.

Then the novel takes a very macabre turn. She realizes that her husband had been having an affair. She kills the woman involved and takes her body to the basement of the house. She framed it as having been done by a friend of hers. (She had the friend tour the house and used the friend's car and dressed like the friend when committing the crime.) Then, right before the police were ready to catch the friend, she gave her various drugs to make it look like she committed suicide. It helped wrap everything up. It also left the house available to them as the only people willing to put in an offer. The book ends with the woman discovering another affair from her husband and makes us wonder what she will be doing.

The book is a fast moving case of desperation in a crazy housing market.

Cyclorama

Cyclorama by Adam Langer

A group of students at a special high school in Evanston, Illinois performs the Diary of Anne Frank play in the 1980s. They have many vices and struggles. The drama teacher seems to have perverted tendencies that the kids want to trace down. The students have their own issues, with relationships, battles with family, drugs and other vices. Some things break out after a performance with multiple "lovers" getting into fights, with the black guy ending up in jail. Later at a party, there is an attempted rape and violence. The story then pivots to a more modern time in the Trump administration. The school is performing a "modern" version of Anne Frank. Some of the original students have children in the play. The students are now older and have different positions in life, but still have some of the same bad characteristics they had as kids. This feels like a dark version of John Hughes comedy that then pivots to see "where they are today." The portrayal of Evanston and North Chicago is well done.

The Witches

The Witches by Roald Dahl

The witches are having a convention a local hotel. They look a lot like normal women, though there are some subtle differences (like the lack of toes). A boy is with his grandmother at the hotel. There is also another snobbish boy with his parents. The witches create a potion to turn them to mice. Even though they have mouse bodies, they still have their brains and can talk. They hatch a plan to take down the witches by putting the potion in their soup. After some harrying mouse moves they do it, and the witches become mice, thus saving the lives of many kids. The book has plenty of Dahl's dark humour. 

Cat's Cradle

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Cat's Cradle is one of Vonnegut's better books. The audiobook also includes a brief interview with the author, though that does not add much to the book. 

The story centers around an author who is trying to write a book about the experience of the nuclear bomb. He contacts the children of the scientist behind the bomb and asks what their experience was when the bomb went off. He received responses and got to know the family better. We learn that the scientist was a rather peculiar man. His wife and children also had their strange traits. The scientist had also been asked by the marines to invent something so they would not have to fight in mud. He had actually done it, though he had not widely shared it. This was "ice-9" a substance that is a "seed" that changes the crystallization and melting point of water, and can pretty much caused instantaneous freezing. Each of his children had a small amount. This would lead to the end of the world. 

The novel also ventures off to a nation where all religion is banned, especially the "national" religion. This religion is quite quirky and extremely contradictory. The leader of the company is on his death bed and a seemingly random outsider is asked to be leader. Leadership pays well and comes with dictatorial responsibilities, but nobody wants it. However, the old leader dies with ice-9 and most of the world gets iced over. The few survivors can survive by melting off ice.

There is some crazy science here (which is not fully explained) as well as plenty of social commentary, and just plaine zaniness.

Player Piano: A Novel

Player Piano: A Novel by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

This is a "futuristic" story written 70 years ago. Machines have taken over much of society. People have many creature comforts, but life is fairly regulated. 

I got pretty lost in the plot, but found many of the random bits to be amusing. In one discussion, we learn that authors have to get their works adopted by the appropriate book clubs with their many members. An author that didn't do what he was supposed to failed to achieve the appropriate position and thus left his family on the lurch. Seems prescient as to mass media today.

In another bit, the Cornel football team is discussed in depth. The team has been providing huge amounts of revenue for the school and wants to have more money to invest in itself.  As for football players going to school? Well, there just isn't time for that anymore. Maybe in past days it would be possible. Vonnegut would not be surprised at all with what college football has become today.

The Everything Box: A Novel

There is a box that can end the world. Some criminals are trying to grab it for aa payday. An angel has also been spending a few millennia trying to locate it. There are plenty of strange things that happen (such as a car getting seriously damaged as it hits a pedestrian angel). In the end the world does not end. However, the plot is of minor importance compared to the bizarre things that happen in the process.

The Visible Man: A Novel

A therapist sees a very unique patient. The patient wants to talk, but is also guarded in what he says. At first he only wants to be seen over telephone. He doesn't reveal his real name or any detailed personal information. He does gradually unfold his history. He was a precocious kid who was very interested in studying people when they are alone. He would observe people in the bushes just to see what they would do when they were not pretending to be something for other people.

He was later part of a project to design an invisibility suit. This would absorb and reflect light in such a way that the wearer could not easily be seen by others. He would use this suit to observe people. He would enter their houses and sit and observe. He trained his body to require minimal inputs or outputs in order to maximize his experience.

In most cases he did just observe. However, he had a few interactions. One woman he observed smoked huge amounts of pot, and ate excessively. Then she exercised excessively to burn off the excess wait. He convinced himself he could help her by lacing her marijuana with some of his stimulants to reduce her appetite. Her appetite was lessened, but her body did not respond well to the cocktail. He called 911 for her and she recovered. In another case, he accidentally killed a man who he thought was being cruel to a man he was observing. He seemed to show no remorse for the death, though did seem to have a little emotion towards the man who was charged with murder.

The therapist and the not-fully-visible man did slowly warm up to each other. He visited her in person and even at times invisible. They gradually got to have some relationship. She would also hide this experience from others. Her husband caught on. Eventually, things culminated with the patient appearing in their house one night. They tried to attack him, but he ended up throwing her husband, causing him to be paralyzed.

The story is framed as a manuscript for a book to be published by the therapist. Was this invisible patient real? Are there other people running around unobserved?  Or was this a delusion from the therapist to attempt to escape from her banal experience?  Was she involved in some of the things she reported him doing? She acknowledged ethical lapses. Was there more?