Sloths get a bad rap, and I'm not sure this story will help.
340227
As the newest entry in the inappropriate pet genre, Sparky! takes its place alongside Jon Agree's&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/My-Rhinoceros/dp/054529441X/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">My Rhinoceros</a>&nbsp;on the ASPCA-unapproved bookshelf. In reality, sloths don't make good pets because of many species-specific challenges, including unique diet requirements and sensitivity to temperature changes. According to zoologist Lucy Cooke, most zoos in the U.S. refuse to keep sloths because they require such specialized care. She thus questions how untrained pet owners can suitably provide for such an animal. "Sloths make lousy pets. Their highly specialized biology makes sloths largely unable to survive outside the rainforest. So, the idea that any old Joe could just keep one as a pet is a bit of a fantasy, really." Know-it-all Mary Potts may have been right.

I'm also not thrilled that the sloth here looks, well, unhappy. Particularly considering a sloth's natural expression is a smile--a fact which leads some to mistakenly believe they are perpetually happy. I therefore cannot help but wonder if we are to understand that Sparky doesn't enjoy being a pet. (Being shipped arms- and legs-out in an Express Mail box probably wasn't an auspicious start to the owner-pet relationship.) Then his new owner is poking him with a stick to stay awake--after reading in an encyclopedia that sloths sleep sixteen hours a day. That's unkind and unfunny. For the record, the very last illustration in the book shows Sparky smiling; it's very sweet, but it's too little, too late.

Sloths are the pet du jour in America. Celebrities such as Anderson Cooper and Kristen Bell sing (and sometimes cry) their praises. Yet, a captivating children's story about a sloth doesn't just happen lying around like a sloth. The author should have found a creative way to take advantage of the sloth's natural tendencies to save the day or at the very least make an emotional impact with the reader. As it is, I'm not convinced the sloth is a pet who has more to offer than meets the eye. I actually find Sparky kinda cute, but I'm not sure his owner does. As I have said before, I'm all for the ugly duckling motif, but the ugly duckling needs to have some hidden talent or redeeming quality. And maybe it's because I'm as worked up as long-tailed lemur in a room full of rocking chairs, but I don't see why one of the words of parrot-speak had to be "God." That seemed out of place, literary criticisms notwithstanding.

If Sparky's story didn't do it for me, the artwork certainly did. Chris Appelhans is a talent to watch. His watercolor-and-pencil work is lovely. There's something about his shading and texturing which recalls the classic charcoals from the Golden Age of children's books as well as recent bestsellers from Jon Klassen (<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/I-Want-My-Hat-Back/dp/0763655988/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">I Want My Hat Back</a>). Appelhans' typeface is also a win. It is said to be a hand-lettered design of the artist, though I noticed multiple variations of most letters, so kudos for the extra detail.

As a story, however, I cannot recommend this book. It makes me sad every time I read it. I don't think that was the intent, nor does it work well as a cautionary tale. My kids haven't asked for it again, either. I know the author's work is&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/polarizing/dp/0375866019/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">polarizing</a>, so perhaps Sparky! will have its share of supporters, too.

Rest assured, there's a place in this world for atypical pet stories. Look for&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/This-Moose-Belongs-to-Me/dp/0399161031/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">This Moose Belongs to Me</a>&nbsp;instead.

[The reviewer was provided with a complimentary copy of the book.]
2049281
Incredibly, the writer has managed to make the existence of a mythological creature in the modern worldboring. This book's focus seems to be the grind of daily life. On occasion, the author waxes poetic, and those passages shine, but these literary gems are few. At no point did this book excite me. I kept waiting for some kind of payoff, and instead got a corn dog cart. The minotaur's prison is a labyrinth of banality. To quote the protagonist, "Ungh."
82799
As post-apocalypse fiction goes, this book seriously strains believability at times. How, with modern technology suddenly non-functional, do the heroes keep running into people who just happen to be experts at horsemanship, archery, medieval-style sword fighting, chain mail-making, non-mechanical agriculture, etc.? Even the most dedicated escapists will soon be rolling their eyes at all the convenient coincidences. Also, it's a little bit of a stretch to imagine a medieval history professor, however skilled with a sword, taking over Portland as a bad-dude dictator.

But, if you can get past that, Stirling tells an entertaining enough story. Despite the high pulp factor of the writing, I didn't lose interest. It's clear that he put a lot of research and thought into how people might survive and reorganize if deprived of electricity, engines, and guns, even if he assumes a lot of good luck for his protagonists before brutal desperation really hits them. I don't know much about Wiccans, so I don't know if his portrayal of a group of them was very accurate, but the use of their mythology was an interesting (if sometimes cheesy) addition. By the latter third of the book, during which Stirling's new agrarian/tribal society takes shape, and the bad guys and good guys battle in earnest, I was pretty involved in the story and its alternate reality. I might even read the next entry in the series.

The audiobook narrator does a passable job. His treatment of accents and female/child voices could be a bit grating, but it takes a pretty awful reader to ruin a book for me, and that wasn't the case here.
1516681
A group of six nearly identical Siamese cats are sent from heaven back to one of their former owners on a temporary basis. Their mission is to cheer up Mary, who is now a widow after her husband Bob has joined their deceased pets in heaven.

If that description doesn't make much sense, it's because this book makes even less sense.

While at first it might sound like a nice fantasy pet story, it quickly becomes a muddled mess as the group of six cats are sent not only to Mary, their widowed former owner, but to several other of her neighbors in nearby apartments. A game of musical chairs, errr cats, then ensues as they are transported in pairs from one apartment and owner to the next, all without the unwitting, new temporary owners realizing that the cats are different ones each time. And to make things even more confused there are an additional two non-heaven-sent Siamese cats still living with Mary, making eight cats in all for the reader to try to keep track of.

Somehow in all of the cat-swapping and transporting, it is never made clear exactly what special thing it is that these heavenly cats are supposed to be doing for Mary or her neighbors to cheer them up or make their lives better. If Mary already had two of the cats, why would interchangeable unearthly cats moving in and out be any better?

The narrative is difficult to follow as is the very thin plot. Besides the tally of which pair of cats is with which neighbor and which cat is the leader on any given day as the cats keep in touch telepathically, there is not much story here at all.

Not recommended.
1253953
The story starts by using animal characters with biblical names. They have unbelievably bad behavior and are argumentative with each other. I get they are trying to build a story, but do we have to add talking animals with horrid behavior to tell the story?  Some of the voices for the people are done with strange accents, so hokey!  Stick to the Bible story, that's all we need!  My husband and I previewed the first 10 minutes and had to turn it off! Not for our kids. I'm surprised this got decent ratings;  in my opinion people watch so much garbage on TV they don't know a good show anymore.
2988939
More of a technical book than a book on sloth. If you have sloth, you're gonna find this a hard read!
3732806
This is an interesting story, about a young woman learning about a crime that happened around the time of her birth. It's a sad and violent story, partially based on an historic truth, and it is a story that is worth telling. Unfortunately, it was not told very well.

This book is a hodge-podge of stream-of-conscientiousness meanderings, tangents that go off into nowhere, mixed metaphors, and excruciatingly long run-on sentences. I counted one sentence at over 400 words. The voice constantly changes from first person to third person in a confusing way.

There is no time continuity. There are constant flash-backs that are hard to follow, until the last chapter flashes forward six years, making the parts of the story that are told in a "here-and-now" voice invalid. The protagonist hears voices, sees ghosts, and seems to be schizophrenic, except the voices she hears are telling her truths about her past. Only it turns out they are not currently telling her things, even though they are speaking in a current voice. They told her that stuff six years ago. While they were telling her that, she was remembering times she spent with her boyfriend, reliving scenes from her childhood. So we have flashbacks within flashbacks within flashbacks. It is kind of a mess, and painful to read.

This book should have been painful to read because of the story it was telling, not because of the way it was written.
1671235
Premise:  Mother Nature is not nice.  In fact, she is inherently selfish and cruel, interested only in perpetuating her own DNA, and if there is any hope for the future of mankind, it behooves us to rise above our own hard-wired, self-serving instincts to build a better world.

The Good News:  The book itself is  or should be  an example of how technology can improve the experience of reading.  There are links in the text so that, for example, after you read about a wild bird in the Brazilian rainforest, you can click on a link to watch YouTube videos of that very bird in the Brazilian rainforest.

The Bad News:  The links did not work on my Kindle.  Amazon would not take me to the Amazon.

More Bad News:  Riskins decision to link wildlife to humanitys seven deadly sins is often a gimmicky stretch.  Is an insect that eats lots of food truly indulging in gluttony  or is it simply acting on instinct?  Is a monkey really envious of another monkeys bowl of grapes  or does it simply crave the grapes?  Riskins theories are more successful when he likens human behavior to our animal cousins, less successful when he attributes human-like motivations to animal behavior.

Despite the publishers best efforts to convince us that Mother Nature is a unique take on what people are and why they do what they do, this is mostly just a biology book about creepy crawlies.
3837547
From the teaser blurbs, you would think "Caught Stealing" would be a humorous romp of a crime thriller. You would be wrong. I am surprised I even finished the story, because the unrelenting violence and lack of redemption were just too much for me. It's possible I stuck with it because of my concern for the cat, who seemed to have more character development than the many people who ended up dead, which is disturbing in its own right.

This is the first in a trilogy, and while I am interested in Bud the cat's continuing involvement in the story, I can't handle reading more gratuitously violent narrative, so this is it for me.
930203
This book should not be allowed.  When I read it at first, there were only five star reviews.  They must have been friends because its not a very well written book.  I should have had my doubts when she claimed not one but two cops abused her.  I was not fully convinced of her truthfulness even while reading it and I wondered how she won an award, other than having a Latino name and perhaps the chance to get back at the police.  Come to find out that even her kids claim she is not telling the truth.  Her natural children, who he adopted claim she was the instigator more often than not.  And his other children and present wife have never had anything similar occur and one calls her story a complete lie.

So now I feel used.  She wrote this either as a way of making money or out of vindictiveness because no one supports her claims, even her civil claims have failed.  And so she makes a mockery of the true tragedy of domestic violence. Worse, for some strange reason, she is willing to continue the abuse by forcing her own children into the false claims and causing them serious issues for having to choose between them.  I think, if anyone takes the time to investigate the background of this case, they will realize that she is a manipulator, not a writer.
2519281
The author wrote in the Introduction to this 1989 book, "This book is not another catalogue of cruelties... Rather, this is an attempt to look behind such phenomena to establish explanatory links, and to examine the changing relationships between human and nonhuman over the centuries, using history... as a framework for new ideas... I have been at least four people while writing this book---campaigner, psychologist, and 'ideas man' as well as historian."

He observes that many early conservation efforts were "motivated by human self-interest... designed simply to improve sport by creating artificially high populations of game species." (Pg. 214) He suggests that the English Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) "was hampered by individuals in its upper eschelons who had a vested interest" (e.g., in not preventing cruelty to circus animals; pg. 137). In the 1980s, when financial mismanagement was discovered in the RSPCA, "two out of the four key 'whistle-blowers' ... were ignominiously forced out of the society... they received neither apology nor thanks." (Pg. 205)

He observes with alarm that the incidence of complaints to the RSPCA has significantly increased in the 1980s, and comments, "Sociologists will have to analyze in depth ... to determine whether and why the Britain of the 1980s is crueller than for many decades." (Pg. 224)

He ultimately reports that "more evidence accrues to suggest that nonhumans are conscious and feel pain... It matters not if an animal... is intelligent or communicative, or has an immortal soul. All that matters is that it is conscious." (Pg. 324-325)

This is an interesting and unique discussion of many of the key issues in the "Animal Rights" movement.
4867326
How could anyone reward this piece of garbage?  I read a few pages of this trash - loaned to me of course - and I found it nothing more than an excuse to blame others, use racism, and drugs as the reason that this garbage did what he did.  I'm a vegeterian so I would never call him an animal, so for me,  a piece of excrement would be the most just description. Perhaps he should become a nanny for Jessie's illegitimate child?
2840309
So there were a couple of stories that worked. Then there are several that are not about being alpha. They are not hot. They are simply violent and bordering on abuse. The first one like that I thought was an oddity. Not so much. Bossy doesn't work for me when it's malicious. I digress. When I first hit a story like that I thought-maybe this is someone's kink, whatever. But after the third I was over it. The guys in those stories are monsters. No rough sex with a little aftercare. Oh no. In one the guy just hurts the girl and leaves her crying as he steps over her body in the shower. It makes me wonder about the opinion of women that the writer has. I don't like to write bad things about someone's preferences but most of this book made me nauseous. Also, the only stories where the woman was treated with any respect at all the "woman" was always 18. Super creepy.
1807744
I was expecting this to be good- and honestly the writing wasn't terrible. I Don't understand how this would work- other than their looks, these
"pets" were not genetically modified in any other way- so they were still humans treated like dogs. It wasn't well thought out or well explained- these laws that were passed for "pets" and how it came about that people began owning other people. No explanation. There was strong suggestion that "pets" were being sexually abused. The main character  has a chance to talk to another pet, Missy- and doesn't ask any questions. It was very loosely strung together. Not a convincing story. Nothing to really pull you in or make you feel that it was real. I was disappointed thinking maybe it would be a bit more like Cinder- in the modifications of humans- something that made them dangerous or mentally modified in someway that made sense for them to become "pets" not just prettier people. Total bummer
4856184
I feel sorry for any pets that had her as a caretaker. Throwing a dog with open wounds into a chlorinated pool?? You might as well have poured bleach directly onto them. It is incomprehensible to me why anyone would out themselves so spectacularly when they are still in the business. Well, I guess it's really not considering the author seems to think this was all just one big joyride.
1652498
The main thing I do share with Easterly is his disdain for the rockers and the dreamers.

However, beyond that, the main theme of this book is a simple tautology--if it works according to whatever criteria he stipulates, it's a "Seeker," if it doesn't, it's a "Planner." And lo and behold, the Planners are the bad boys, because they never succeed. There is nary a recognition of the fact that if you want to "seek" to help the poor somewhere, there are always those pesky governments to deal with. Just one example: he argues that the amounts of money that have been spent on roads in developing countries have ultimately had little impact in many situations, because roads deteriorate. So he recommends that donors need to build maintenance into their programs. Alas, in many parts of the world road maintenance is a job for the local government (which he acknowledges by citing how he deals with a pothole in the States). Now is his recommendation tantamount to suggesting that donors build up local government in developing countries, run by -- what, contractors? Interesting concept.

The basic issue remains: the poor tend to be poor on a large scale largely because they live in countries with bad governments at all levels. The Seekers (sometimes known as do-gooders) can help provide bandaids, but lasting solutions depend on ratcheting up government performance in those countries. How to accomplish that? There are some answers to that, but don't turn to Easterly for guidance.
3369296
I was only able to get a few pages read before I abandoned it.  I don't like rats, but I also don't like reading about rats suffering.  And since there was a dog nearby, I could only imagine it getting worse.

The entire premise of the story is unbelievable.  I am willing to believe there are government employees who are not always careful about their jobs.  But I am unwilling to believe that they would not ensure that a dangerous virus was destroyed.