Nickled and Dimed: This Is a Book That Teenagers Should Read Before Attempting To Rule The World

Nickled and Dimed

Overall Rating: This Is a Book That Teenagers Should Read Before Attempting To Rule The World

Typically when you’re taking a college class, and they give you a book and say you must read it by Friday, the reaction is just pure dread. Never having I enjoyed a required reading, but this one isn’t too bad. It’s called Nickled and Dimed by Barabarea Ehrenriech.

The book is non fiction. In the prologue she states that it was nothing more than a journalism project. The journalist went under cover in multiple parts of the country trying to make a living off of minimum wage. She worked as a waitress, house cleaner and then a Wal-Mart employee.

So what was good? Finally it’s a book about the hard boiled truth about making a living in America. The “land of the free” tales and “that you can be anybody you want to be” myths that we hear as kids growing are typically thrown out the window when you’re on your own working a minimum wage job. And the book reflects that greatly. I could relate so much with what she was talking about. She goes from job to job trying to survive under what seems like illegal protocols, but it’s just the way things are.

The bad, chapter three. The chapter when she was a Wal-Mart employee bugged me. She became obsessive with her job. And I’m sorry, I worked in retail for years. If there was anything I was obsessed with, it wasn’t my job. She talks about how working in clothes was so hard having to organize them every day. Here I am, with my own experience saying you don’t have it hard at all. Try working up to seven in the morning with school until one, a half hour for lunch if I got one, five hours of work, managing a warehouse, and stocking shelves, followed by cashiering two hours after that. Then I get home and then spend the whole night doing home work to go to school the next day. And mind you, I’m not including making my website, books and then in the October have to find a way to manage a small haunted house. If I got sleep I’m lucky and then everything is repeated the next day. And the little time I have I might work on my books. So to just hear her complain about working in clothing every day, when it could be so much more work just drove me nuts. I guess it’s one of my biggest pet peeves.

But overall, it’s a good read. I recommend it any American. Especially if you are a parent of teenager, or a high school or college student. And especially those of you who has a friend who says their going to go out to rule the world. Give them this. I swear every high school student should read this before moving out, because I know so many people are struggling right now with their dreams on the back burner right now. Just don’t read chapter three.

3 Smoothies out of Four

P.S. Check out my book and ebook website at Lelue’s Realm. Google it or go directly to http://www.lelue.webs.com/

Sandstorm:A Great Climax, But Not Much Beyond That

Sandstorm By James Rollins

Overall rating: A Great Climax, But Not Much Beyond That

This was interesting. After reading Subterranean by James Rollins, I really did want to read some of his other work. When looking at his other books, they all seemed similar in very stereotypical “Indiana Jones” like set up. So when it came to picking one, it is like pulling a random number out of a hat. So I just picked Sandstorm.
Sandstorm is a odd novel. It’s a adventure novel that starts off with a strange explosion in a museum by a odd floating orb of energy. The explosion destroyed Arabian artifacts that were found and kept safe by close friends Kara and Safia. Meanwhile, a couple of spies from this “Sigma force” in the US investigate. In the explosion remains Kara and Safia find a iron heart in a statue that may be the key to lost city of Ubar. But they quickly find that they are chased by Cassandra. (Who is a archenemy of Painter Crow who is one of the spies investigating) Kara and Safia go on the search for Ubar and are on the run from Cassandra. They are also joined by Danny and Omaha Dunn and a college student named Clay. And from there on it is a adventure that leads to a amazing climax in this great sandstorm. (And I’m not spoiling anything here. I mean if you start reading a book called Sandstorm, it’s obvious a sand storm is a big part of the story.)
So I’ll start with the bad. The book starts with espionage assignment with Painter Crow. Then it jumps to Safia and Kara’s story. Omaha joins in too. But for half of the book, Painter appears to be the central character. But he is so shallow. I couldn’t care less about him. I cared so much for more about the gun fights, battles and tomb raiding. But when Painter comes into the scene, it turns to espionage and I didn’t like it. I didn’t care that much. And I have nothing against spy novels. I usually love spy novels, but not this one. And Painter is so two dimensional. Omaha Dunn (Which really is knock off character of Indiana Jones) is a adventurer but we don’t know any thing about him until the second half. And what we learn then is so little. It was just so focused on Painter. Then it switches to Safia and Omaha who are much more interesting, but in the first half of the book they felt like stand ins. Kara’s character is forgettable. And Clay and Danny, they are there through out the whole book but are hardly ever mentioned. You forget they’re even there. I just couldn’t connect with characters at all. And after all of this, I still ask what is Sigma? Why were they even involved? I think they could have made it a better book with out the Sigma part at all.
The good. It’s the climax. The book has a fantastic climax where action doesn’t stop and managing to have a since of humor while it happens.
So overall, I don’t love it but I don’t hate it. It does have a good and fantastic climax but the way up to the climax is kind of a drag because the characters just aren’t likable. And this is supposed to be the first book in the Sigma Force series, but it doesn’t make me want to read a sequel. Sandstorm gets a very mediocre two smoothies out of four.

2 smoothies out of four.

P.S. check out my book and ebook website Lelue’s realm. Google it or go directly to http://www,freewebs.com/lelue/