Book Review: David Massie and the Quantum Flux

David Massie and the Quantum Flux. Andrew M. Nehring, IngramSpark, 2021, Trade Paperback and E-book, 134 pages.

Reviewed by Kelly Fumiko Weiss.

Andrew M. Nehring’s middle-grade science fiction novel, David Massie and the Quantum Flux is the first in a series of David Massie books. In the Quantum Flux novel, the protagonist, David, is haunted by the mysterious disappearance of his genius brother, Morgan. The pressure is on when the reader finds out that David is the only one who knows that Morgan left to pursue something otherworldly. In the five years since his departure, David has done his best to learn as much as he can about the technology that Morgan left behind while also trying to live up to his brother’s legacy. 

Unbeknownst to David, a seemingly evil and dark figure has a plan for him. One day, as David and his friend Rory walk home, a dark figure casts them in a purple light that will forever change their lives. David and Rory are thrown into an adventure that involves aliens, reality portals, technology beyond imagination, and a whole new world of people, like Time Cops, all of which David never knew existed. As the story progresses, David and a Time Cop called “C.P.” decide their mission is to restore David’s life back to normal. However, it quickly becomes clear to them that they may not be the ones making decisions. 

Nehring does a wonderful job of world-building and detailing his vision for the locations, creatures, and situations in this novel in ways that readers of all ages can enjoy. The chapters are well-paced and keep you wanting to turn the pages. The book’s vivid imagery will keep your imagination engaged. My only regret about reading this book is the cliffhanger at the end! Nehring does a great job of ensuring that you will pick up the next book in the series, as you absolutely will want to know what happens next.

Lovers of science fiction will appreciate Nehring’s storytelling in David Massie and the Quantum Flux. Young readers who are new to the genre will get pulled in by the relatable characters, the fun storylines, the dazzle of the tech, and the imaginative secret worlds Nehring creates. This book deserves the highest praise. I even plan to pass this book along to my daughter because I know she will thoroughly enjoy it too.

Book Review: The F Words

The F Words. Barbara Gregorich, Cross Your Heart, imprint of City of Light Publishing, Buffalo NY, September 1, 2021, Electronic, Paper, approx. 380 pages.

Reviewed by Lisa Lickel.

It is completely refreshing to read a book about a good kid making restitution for doing a bad thing while figuring out constructive ways to deal with injustice. Chicago high school sophomore Cole Renner comes to grips with the fact that he is not going to change the world all at once, but that he can and should make a difference in his own environment.

Barbara Gregorich uses her experience as an activist and lover of sports to create a marvelous cast of eclectic teachers, staff, students, and parents in this street-level view of precarious teen life in contemporary Chicago. Cole is beyond frustrated when his father receives jail time for leading a protest against closing a local public elementary school. All this over a grade school, Cole thinks. It’s one more event in a long list of frustrations over inequality, petty revenge, getting dumped by his girlfriend, and upside-down thinking he encounters in his life.

Taking out his anger at the “system” by tagging the school with a vulgarity one night at the beginning of the school year, he’s caught in the act by his English teacher who happens to be in the neighborhood. Quick and creative thinking combine to form an unusual punishment. Cole shows his quality of character by taking to heart and learning from this unique assignment of creating at least two poems a week featuring a word that begins with the letter F for the remainder of the school year.

Cole’s journey of self-discovery involves applying cross-country running advice from an empathetic coach, the deep love of his parents, the experience of visiting his father in the Cook County jail, watching his mother learn how to cope with brief single parenting, and from his boss at his afterschool job at a greenhouse. During an event in which Cole supports his friend Felipe’s class presidency campaign, Cole observes that Felipe is breathing “like he’s in a race. Then I realize he is. Not an actual race, but a race to represent tenth graders. To argue for what he believes in.”

The F Words is an enlightening book for middle and high school. While it does contain limited and mild appropriately situational cursing, I recommend it, especially to foment family discussions on social justice and youth activism.

Book Review: Taking the Cape Off: How to Lead Through Mental Illness, Unimaginable Grief and Loss

Taking the Cape Off: How to Lead Through Mental Illness, Unimaginable Grief and Loss. Patrick J. Kenny. Global Wellness Media/Strategic Edge Innovations Publishing, November 18, 2020, Trade Paperback and Kindle, 311 pages.

Reviewed by eMMe (Deb) Lecos.

Patrick Kenny’s book, Taking the Cape Off: How to Lead Through Mental Illness, Unimaginable Grief and Loss, is an open invitation to normalize mental illness so that it is treated like any other physical illness.

I found this book an inspirational switch for the fleet of helpers to champion those living with difficult mental statuses, as well as their family members, friends, and coworkers. It includes a fierce message to leadership—those in political positions, community and business organizations, as well as other institutions—to don their “capes” and crusade for and assist people experiencing mental and/or emotional crises.

Written in a presentational style mingled with personally honest memoir, the material is a courageous account of the suicide of Kenny’s son and the wrenching death of his spouse. It includes suggestions and resources to propel the author’s and his family’s message of moving forward after grievous loss. Every chapter ends with the author’s cumulative lessons learned, which provide an excellent after-the-read guide for those in leadership to use as bullet points for creating organizational change.

As someone living with PTSD, I have high regard for Kenny’s book. The difficulty in living with a complicated brain, one that doesn’t operate in what might be thought of as normal, can be made exponentially worse by feeling othered through interactions with people. Kenny understands what this hardship is like from his own background as a teen who experienced depression when his father died unexpectedly shortly after recovering from his own severe injuries from an accident and throughout supporting his son through the devastating effects of early-onset mental illness.

After his son’s tragic death, the author used cancer as a metaphor to better explain the effects of mental illness as a brain struggling with tumors or chemical misfiring that is engaged in a physically life-threatening experience. When that same metaphor became a reality and his wife passed away after fighting brain cancer, he wrote this book to offer what he had learned to help others lead through mental illness, unimaginable grief, and loss.

As a firefighter, literally putting out fires is the job. Raising a child living with a diagnosis of terminal depression and supporting a life partner battling incurable cancer is also a frequent series of personal fires. The author believed it his duty to “put his cape on” and rescue his son and wife, Eileen, similarly to how he had rescued people from burning buildings.

Taking the Cape Off is another metaphor for learning how to practice self-care and conscientiously be of service while creating better ways of providing support. And it is an illustration on how to be less stoic and reactionary, to discard “get over it” approaches, and to instead embrace the vital honesty of our spiritually and emotionally thoughtful selves.

Book Review: Coyote Loop

Coyote Loop, L.C. Fiore. Adelaide Books, New York, January 30, 2021, Paperback and Kindle, 336 pages.

Review by Dennis Hetzel.

There are two things you should know about Coyote Loop.

First, it’s an exquisitely written tale about relationships that evolves into a special sort of love story. It’s not a love story in either the physical or romantic sense, but a deeper, more interesting one; about what love should mean between best friends and between a father and his teenage daughter. When worlds are exploding, the damage done by taking either bond for granted is hard to repair, a lesson that our hard-to-love protagonist is destined to learn.

Second, Coyote Loop feels like Chicago. The Windy City takes the stage as a character, breathing and heaving with both its beauty and warts. The city’s essence swirls like a gust around the city’s iconic Picasso sculpture or a stiff, chilly breeze over an outfield wall at a White Sox game.

If those two things got your attention, L.C. Fiore’s new novel belongs on your must-read list.

You certainly won’t meet a grittier and more interesting literary character anytime soon than John Andrew Ganzi, whom his co-workers call “JAG.” Ganzi came up the blue-collar hard way, starting as a clerk at age 18 at the options exchange.

As the book opens, he’s a self-absorbed, profanely successful whiz of an options trader, all 5’6” inches of him, complete with a beer belly and nicotine-stained fingers. He leads a team of equally irreverent alpha males whose potty mouths and sexist barbs would surely get them canceled in 2021. The book is set in 2008, a year when options trading was transitioning to digital, requiring less human intervention at the same time as markets began tumbling down. Ganzi sees the future. He knows that not everyone on his team will survive the coming carnage, and he might not either.

Ganzi’s dysfunctional marriage has turned Code Red, too. His wife, Azita, has had enough. She’s got a boyfriend. She’s moving, not only out of the house but out of town. Ganzi realizes he hasn’t been much of a father either. Their daughter, Jeanie, is a bright, witty high school senior with considerable potential as a basketball player. She claims to have discovered Jesus to add meaning to her life, but Ganzi wonders if Jeanie learned some deceptive arts from her dad.

Here is Fiore, writing in the first-person voice of Ganzi:

Jeanie’s waiting for me in the breezeway below the Board of Trade, wearing a winter jacket the color of pink bubblegum. She looks tiny against the late-morning bustle and all the black overcoats brushing past, like a diamond on felt.

There’s a gold cross around her neck, a fragile-looking thing. I run it between my fingers. It’s cool and smooth. The two rectangles shine like they’ve been polished. “What is this?”

“Oh.” She stuffs her hands in her coat pockets. “I got confirmed.”

I pat my jacket, hunting for cigarettes. “Aren’t you a little old to be confirmed?”

“Well, I wasn’t exactly raised religious.” We briefly make eye contact. “I have some catching up to do.”

Jeanie stays in Chicago with Ganzi to finish her senior year, requiring him to become an attentive parent while navigating dramatic (and occasionally humorous) challenges at the office. He also must confront his relationship with Pasternak, his assistant and best friend from childhood who wants more from Ganzi than he’s willing to give. And that turns out to be a huge, tragic mistake.

None of this would work so well, including the story’s powerful climax and enigmatic ending, without a talented author as a guide, and Fiore delivers. In his hands, Coyote Loop is like a Chicago wind in April that can’t forget the dark, cold winter and brings only hints of better weather for the relationships that matter most in our lives.

Book Review: A Dangerous Freedom

A Dangerous Freedom, John Ruane. Permuted Press, March 31, 2021, Print and Kindle, 236 pages.

Reviewed by Sue Merrell.

John Ruane’s latest book, A Dangerous Freedom, is a tale for our times. Mass shootings, so realistic they appear pulled from the nightly news, dot scene after scene in the book. This provides a pretty convincing background for the book’s central question: Is it time to get a gun?

The book opens on 9/11/2001 when the main character, Dylan Reilly, is a sophomore at a Chicago Catholic High School. It’s a great way to instantly grab the reader’s attention because there isn’t an American over 25 who doesn’t have vivid memories of where they were that day.

Then the tale fast forwards more than a decade to the day when Dylan and his wife Darlene are in New York visiting the recently opened 9/11 museum. Almost instantly, they find themselves caught in one of the senseless mass shootings that seem to have become a daily occurrence. As common as such shootings are, most of us have never actually seen one. Yet, in a matter of months, this unlucky couple manages to be caught in three. It’s the kind of unlikely coincidence central to most thrillers and mysteries, and it provides the necessary motivation for a religious peace lover like Dylan to grab a gun and start shooting back.

Actually, Dylan grabs a pair of guns, pearl-handled Smith & Wesson six-shooters that are so out-of-step with today’s high-magazine automatics that his magical transformation becomes more fantasy than bloody revenge. In each of the book’s remaining mass shooting scenes, Dylan shows up at just the right moment, a cross between Wyatt Earp and Superman, offering the bad guys a chance to throw down their weapons and surrender. When they refuse, he blasts them away with lightning speed. He is lauded as America’s hero and the fastest shooter in the world.

Everything about the new Dylan is just a bit over-the-top, including his perfect marksmanship. However, this exaggeration is a wise choice on the author’s part because it paints the “good guys with guns” scenario as the victory we want to imagine instead of weighing the story down with the inevitable angst and mistakes a world of armed good guys could create.

In addition to Dylan, the book follows three other stories. Haydon Huff is the troubled son of a famous 1960s activist (ala one of the Chicago Seven). Arman Fazan is the American-born son of Persian immigrants facing school bullies. And then there’s a group of irredeemable jihadists. All the stories intersect eventually. It’s an ambitious project difficult to pull off well. Unfortunately, too many lengthy scene-setting pages get in the way of the action.

Despite these rough spots, I think Dylan Reilly might just have the chutzpah to become an American hero.