Not bad.

Without Merit (2017) is a contemporary young adult novel written by Colleen Hoover.

Unlike many of her viral romance hits, this book shifts its primary focus away from a central love story to explore heavy family dynamics, mental health, depression, and the burden of keeping secrets.

The story follows 17-year-old Merit Voss, who considers herself the invisible outcast of her incredibly bizarre family. The Voss family lives in a repurposed church affectionately dubbed “Dollar Voss”.

The living situation is highly dysfunctional: Merit’s father lives upstairs with his new wife (who was formerly his ex-wife’s nurse), while Merit’s biological mother lives downstairs in the basement recovering from severe anxiety and agoraphobia.

It sounds depressing. But Merit is an interesting and funny character.

She collects unearned trophies. 😀

Hang in there. The book concludes on a hopeful note centered around reconciliation, mental health treatment, and open communication.

From Potter’s Field is a 1995 crime fiction novel written by American author Patricia Cornwell.

The sixth book in her highly popular, long-running Dr. Kay Scarpetta series.

The story opens during a grim Christmas season. Dr. Kay Scarpetta, Virginia’s Chief Medical Examiner and a consulting pathologist for the FBI, is called to New York City’s Central Park. A naked woman’s body has been discovered propped against a fountain in the freezing cold.

Scarpetta immediately recognizes the gruesome trademark methods—including a specific gunshot wound and excised sections of skin—of her elusive nemesis, the brilliant serial killer Temple Brooks Gault.

As more victims emerge, including a transit officer in a subway tunnel, Scarpetta realizes that Gault’s trail of violence is a personal game intentionally designed to lure and destroy her. The novel reaches an electrifying, high-tech climax within the dark, menacing labyrinth of the New York City subway system.

Temple Brooks Gault is one of the more terrifying villains in fiction.

Best psychological thriller / murder mystery I’ve read in a while.

David Ellis really knows how to write these things.

He’s actually a an American Appellate Court Judge. And writes books in his spare time.

Keep Them Close (2026) centers on two fiercely loyal siblings, Allison and Luke, whose tight bond begins to fracture when Allison’s husband, Finley, is brutally murdered.

As the police investigation intensifies, it threatens to dig up a web of dangerous, long-buried secrets that the siblings share, including:

• An illicit affair.
• A decades-old accident that permanently altered their lives.
• Layers of stunning deception.

Told through multiple points of view with fast-paced, short chapters, the novel forces both the characters and the reader to question exactly how far the siblings will go to keep their secrets hidden—and whether they can even trust each other anymore.

Like his previous book, I thought the ending was terrific. Uplifting and unexpected.

Steinbeck is a writer of prose. A wordsmith.

This short read is a good example.

The Pearl is a 1947 novella by acclaimed American author John Steinbeck that explores human nature, greed, and the corrupting influence of wealth.

Formatted as a timeless, fable-like parable, the story is based on a Mexican folk tale from La Paz, Baja California Sur, which Steinbeck heard during a visit to the region in 1940.

The narrative focuses on Kino, a poor indigenous pearl diver, his wife Juana, and their infant son Coyotito.

Kino happens to find an extraordinarily massive gem that he names the “Pearl of the World“. 

His life is ruined shortly after.

Thought provoking.

A darker, more cynical sequel to his groundbreaking 2000 debut, The Tipping Point.

While the original book focused optimistically on how positive trends or behaviors spread like viruses, this follow-up examines the deliberate manipulation of social epidemics and how the laws of contagion are engineered for self-serving or harmful purposes.

Core Themes & Concepts

• The Dark Side of Contagion: Rather than looking at how small adjustments can make the world better, Gladwell dives into negative “wildfires,” including the opioid epidemic, Covid-19 response, and Ivy League admissions gaming. 
• Overstories: This central concept refers to the overarching cultural narratives, institutional rules, or systemic structures that dictate how individuals behave within an ecosystem, often acting as a hidden hand shaping epidemic outcomes. 
• Social Engineering: Gladwell frames modern epidemic management not as accidental phenomena, but as intentional, top-down engineering where actors actively manipulate environments to cross a threshold.

Case studies include Covid, Ivy League Admissions, Los Angeles Bank Robberies.

The 2025 debut novel by Rachel Paris — See How They Fall — is a hit.

Personally, I’m not a fan of rich people behaving badly.

Some of the actions taken by characters are inexplicable.

When Skye married into the wealthy Turner family, she thought she was entering paradise. But now, several years later, she remains uneasy amid the opulence of her husband’s world, struggling with her own secrets and working to maintain a normal life for their young daughter, Tilly.

Skye’s delicate balance is undone when the family patriarch, Sir Campbell Turner, dies suddenly and an illegitimate heir comes forward to stake his claim in the luxury goods empire the old man leaves behind.

This book didn’t do it for me.

Is it a ghost story? Murder mystery?

The characters are unlikable. And make inexplicably dumb decisions.

A Box Full of Darkness (2026) is frustrating.

The narrative alternates perspectives among three adult siblings—Violet, Vail, and Dodie Esmie—who share a traumatic and neglected childhood.

• The Disappearance: Eighteen years prior, their six-year-old brother, Ben, vanished without a trace during an innocent game of hide-and-seek inside their family home. 
• The Call Home: After decades of estrangement and running from their past, the siblings are forced into a reluctant homecoming. The vacant house’s terrified groundskeeper quits after witnessing the ghost of a young boy. 
• The Supernatural Burden: Each sibling has been uniquely tormented by distinct paranormal phenomena since childhood. Violet can see the dead and is haunted by a menacing spirit called “Sister”. Vail is plagued by memories of beaming lights and probing figures. Dodie suffers from violent nightmares of drowning. 
• The Mystery: Back at Fell House, the trio must piece together their fractured memories to uncover what truly happened to Ben. However, they soon realize that an even more ancient, sinister entity is waiting for them in the dark

The conclusion … unsatisfying.

Her 2020 psychological thriller, One by One, is fast-paced with twist & turns.

Simplistic writing. But I enjoyed it.

Try to ignore the plot holes and irrational decisions made by the unlikable characters.

The Premise: Three married couples pack into a minivan for a week of hiking and hot tubs at a remote, luxury wilderness resort.

The Turn: The minivan breaks down on a isolated dirt road with no cell service, forcing them to hike the rest of the way on foot.

The Trap: The group quickly becomes hopelessly lost in the dense forest. As hunger and paranoia set in, secrets unravel and the friends are mysteriously targeted and killed off one by one.

The Perspectives: The narration alternates between Claire Matchett—a stressed mother and special-education teacher trying to fix her rocky marriage—and a deeply unsettling, anonymous killer recounting their childhood

State of Wonder (2011) by Ann Patchett, set in the Amazon, is an interesting book.

Dr. Marina Singh is a 42-year-old research pharmacologist working for Vogel, a large pharmaceutical corporation based in Minnesota.

Her stable, quiet life is upended when she learns that her lab partner and close friend, Anders Eckman, has died of a mysterious fever deep in the Amazon rainforest. Anders had been sent there to investigate the progress of a highly secretive, multi-million-dollar research project funded by Vogel.

The Mission

At the center of this project is Dr. Annick Swenson, a brilliant, uncompromising 73-year-old gynecologist and Marina’s former medical school mentor. Dr. Swenson has cut off all communication with the outside world while living among the remote Lakashi tribe.

The tribe’s women possess a miraculous trait: they remain fertile and can bear children well into their seventies. Vogel wants to harness this trait to create a revolutionary, multi-billion-dollar fertility drug.

Driven by grief and pressured by her boss (with whom she is having a secret affair), Marina is sent to Brazil.

The Journey

When Marina arrives in the sweltering, chaotic port city of Manaus, she finds herself deliberately stonewalled by Dr. Swenson’s eccentric gatekeepers. To get answers, Marina must leave civilization behind and journey into the heart of the Amazon jungle.

Once she reaches the remote Lakashi village, Marina is forced to confront the harsh realities of the rainforest—poisonous insects, treacherous rivers, and overwhelming isolation. More importantly, she must face Dr. Swenson herself, a formidable woman who rules her research camp like a private fiefdom. As Marina embeds herself with the tribe, she uncovers shocking ethical dilemmas, medical secrets, and unexpected truths about her own past that force her to question the true cost of human progress.

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I had Kling.ai create a video of myself doing some pretty impressive street acrobatics.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.