Book / Podcast / Script Reviews

A Scroll column where writer Ella Hayes posts reviews for books and podcasts she has recently read and listened to, and takes suggestions for more books and podcasts to review for future columns.

Book/Podcast/Script Rating and Reviews

By Ella Hayes & Sean Glover

Dear readers of The Scroll. . .

Hello and welcome back to the Book Review Column! First of all, I would like to thank everybody who submitted book, podcast, and author recommendations over the last couple of months! I have been reviewing and taking note of every recommendation, and you can expect to see those reviews over the next couple of months. For this month, I’ve got a few new books and podcasts for you to learn about (3 books and 2 podcasts). In this issue, I've got a very wide variety of interests and genres, such as a nonfiction crime show and fictional horror stories for the podcasts, and mythology, fantasy and science fiction for the books. As always, feel free to add suggestions of books OR podcasts for me to read or listen to, then review! Thank you for joining me this month, and I hope you all had a great start to the new year!

-Ella Hayes; Writer and Reporter

Hi Scroll readers! Don't be frightened by the fact that, for some reason, I'm in this column too. This month (and possibly the following months), I've begun to write reviews on scripts that I've read from various plays. Just recently, I got back into script reading, and I've grown quite the collection. Since I'm a talkative person, and I like to share my views about everything, Ella and I decided to partner up, and I'll be writing the script review portion of this column. Thank you very much for your patience as I tinker with a column I'm not used to, and enjoy our opinions on the nerdy stuff we like to read and talk about!

-Sean Glover; Video/Photo Editor and Writer

Where I Get my Books and Podcasts

Other than buying physical copies of books at local stores, I also check lots of books out online through the Josephine Community Library. Additionally, the GPHS Library has great ways to get library books as well. (See the library page on the GPHS website!)

I use the app Overdrive and use my local library card to sign in. (If you have a library card with the Josephine Community Library, you can do this, too!) The online library has thousands of books for you to choose from. It’s also easy to find exactly what you are looking for; using the search engine and filters, you can find books easily by their title, genre, or format. You can check out books straight from your phone with the app, and read them on your phone, as well. If you prefer audiobooks, you can also check those out and listen to them with the app, too. If the book you want is unavailable, then you can recommend the book or place a hold.

This is a great way to have access to many books for free (if you have a library card)!

Additionally, I’d like to mention the site Goodreads as a resource that you can use. This isn’t a place to buy books, but a good website to find new books and read reviews of books you are planning to read. Goodreads has thousands of reviews on many books, and it’s a great resource to use when searching for a book that you might enjoy. Additionally, with a Goodreads account, you can write your own reviews for books, or just keep track of your books read and make reading goals. Altogether, it’s a fantastic source to use when searching for new books to read.

As for podcasts, I listen to every podcast on Spotify, though you can find any episode on each podcast’s website (linked down below).

Podcast Reviews

Once again, I’m back with some new podcasts to review! This month, I’ve got some great new material to cover, PLUS a podcast recommendation from The Scroll’s very own president! As I know, not all readers of The Scroll are dedicated avid readers, but there’s always alternatives to sitting down and reading a novel cover-to-cover. To cater to all individuals reading this, I’ve decided to start including podcasts I’ve listened to and enjoyed, so that if reading isn’t your thing--totally okay-- you have another chance to learn new things and listen to informative and interesting stories.

This month’s podcasts are based on more eerie content and horror stories, but if you’re anything like me, these stories are the ones that make you the most intrigued! So, without further ado, here are these month’s reviews!

Morbid:

A True Crime Podcast

The Magnus Archives

Title: Morbid: A True Crime Podcast

Writer(s): Ashley and Alaina

Focus: True Crime

Review: I have been listening to this podcast for a long while now, and for good reason. This true crime podcast, hosted by hairstylist Ash and autopsy technician Alaina, combines true crime stories and spooky tales with a touch of humor and commentary. What I love about this podcast is, though their research is detailed and thorough, our hosts are able to present their stories in engaging and humorous ways. Their true podcasting voice is what keeps these stories alive, and they cover a wide variety of subjects, such as serial killers, unsolved mysteries, spooky history, paranormal happenings, conspiracy theories, and anything else that “sends a shiver down your spine,” according to the Morbid webpage. If you’re looking for spooky-- and true!-- crime stories, this podcast is for you.

Title: The Magnus Archives

Writer(s): Jonathan Sims

Director: Alexander J Newall

Focus: fiction, horror

Review: Follow The Archivist (Jonathon Sims) as he explores through the archives of the Magnus Institute, an institute dedicated to researching the esoteric and weird, and converts these reports to audio, and supplementing them with follow-up from his dedicated team of researchers. This podcast, recommended to me by The Scroll's president, Milan Geurin, is one I've just started listening to. This type of podcast is a first for me; this is my first fiction podcast that I’ve listened to (as opposed to a non-fiction one), but I am loving it so far. These chilling stories will keep listeners on the edge of their seats, and hooked from the very first sentence. If you are less interested in true stories, and would rather listen to an ongoing fiction plot line, The Magnus Archives is a perfect fit for you.

Book Reviews

This month, I’ve got a variety of fiction books to review for you all. For this article, I have three books to review. The first is a new genre that I haven't explored before through The Scroll: a mythology fiction novel. The second is the first in a fantasy series, set in a world based on the mountainous terrain of the Himalayas. And, finally, the last is a beginning book to a dystopian, science fiction novel. I hope you all enjoy!

Lifestyles of Gods and Monsters

Title: Lifestyles of Gods and Monsters

Author: Emily Roberson

Rating: ✰✰✰✰(4 stars)

Genre: fiction, fantasy, mythology, retelling

Quote: “Roberson largely sticks to the original myth, and its more twisted aspects fit neatly into the cutthroat contemporary reality TV universe, where exploitation is the name of the game and ratings are everything. . .A fresh new twist on an enduring myth.” ―Kirkus Reviews

Review: This modern retelling of the Greek myth of the minotaur was quite the interesting take on this famous myth. Though the facts of this novel were accurate as compared to the minotaur myth, this young adult story was set in a contemporary world, and retold this famous myth on the grounds of a reality tv show. You heard that right; in this novel, our author, Roberson, illustrates a world where the royalty of Crete is the subject of a world-famous reality tv show, "The Labyrinth Contest", where teen contestants are lead one to one to fight the minotaur in hopes to bring themselves glory and fame. The twist? Our main character, Ariande, is the keeper of the maze, and she doesn’t want anybody to win and defeat the minotaur. However, when the tenth season of The Labyrinth contest rolls around, Ariadne’s father, the king, is starting to get desperate for views. Though with every loss from the teen contestants, a life is lost, Ariadne is faced with a choice, where she must tear herself from her destiny, or continue to watch innocent lives being taken from them as they face the minotaur.

I found this to be a quick and, occasionally, humorous read that kept me wanting more (similar to a reality tv show. . .) Our main character, Ariadne’s, voice is humorous and relatable, and I thought her point of view was a fantastic way to illustrate the horror behind the glory of television. This book dived into tough topics like social media and its effects on people’s behavior, especially when looking at Ariadne’s family. Even though this story was, obviously, fictional, I really felt as though many themes found here can relate back to modern online appearances, and how they can be quite deceiving. All in all, though I would consider this a more light and entertaining read, it contains many valuable and deep messages.

*This novel is the start to a series, though this is only a review of the first installment!

Even the Darkest Stars

Title: Even the Darkest Stars

Author: Heather Fawcett

Rating: ✰✰✰✰✰(4.5 stars)

Genre: fiction, fantasy

Quote: "Even the Darkest Stars is a fabulous, dark and snow-filled read with some great characters. . . and leaves you wanting more."―Lauren (reviewer on Goodreads)

Review: This book was actually a reread, a book that I found on my shelf that I remembered liking, though having no memory of what it was about. But I am so glad that I decided to read it again (I mean. . . just look at that gorgeous cover art!) This fantasy novel tells of an empire based on the mountainous terrain of the Himalayas. Kazmin, a girl in her small village perched on a mountainside in the Empire, has wanted all of her life to go on an expedition with the famous Empire’s explorer. However, as she’s always been in the shadow of her sister Lusha’s magic and astrology expertise, she knows that it is Lusha’s destiny to lead the royal explorer, River, up the mountain of Raksha, a feat that only Kazmin and her sister know how to do. However, in an act of supposed betrayal to the Empire, Lusha secretly takes off for the summit of Raksha accompanied by River’s assistant, and River, desperate to beat them to the summit in order to retrieve the mysterious object hidden at the top for the emperor, immediately hires Kazmin to lead his journey to Raksha. This, being everything Kazmin has ever wanted, is all the persuading she needs, and she immediately agrees. However, as their journey begins, Kazmin begins to speculate and question whether this journey is everything she thought it would be. What is the mysterious object they are after, and why doesn’t River want his assistant to find it first? Kazmin begins to realize that she may not be able to trust everyone she thought she could.

Probably what I loved most about this story was the intricate world-building that takes place. This amazing scenery depicts a world with towering mountaintops, and deep forests that contain many mystical creatures. The majority of this book speaks of the journey made into the wilderness as Kazmin’s party treks across the terrain en route to Raksha. I loved the in-depth descriptions of the atmosphere and settings, though the plot line concerning secrets and a questionable past makes readers begin to wonder if there is more to some characters, and their past, than what meets the eye. This whimsical first novel is a beautiful world-builder that will make readers doubt what they may think they know.

*This novel is the first in a duology, though this is only a review of the first installment!

The Darkest Minds

Title: The Darkest Minds

Author: Alexandra Bracken

Rating: ✰✰✰✰✰(4.5 stars)

Genre: dystopia, science fiction, thriller, adventure

Quote: "The Darkest Minds succeeds where I feel 99% of dystopian novels fail in creating a terrifyingly dark yet realistic world that could very much happen tomorrow. Not only was I extremely immersed in the world, but I believed in it."―'Kaylee Magic' (reviewer on Goodreads)

Review: This start to an action-packed trilogy (containing several short stories and bonus book) is a thrilling introduction to a dystopia where the adolescents of the world have been inflicted with an incurable condition that grants them dangerous abilities and supernatural capabilities. The government, afraid for their citizens, proceeds to send all children to camps that claim to “rehabilitate and cure” the afflicted of their abilities, when in reality they are simply finding new and horrible ways to contain and silence these adolescents. Ruby was only ten when she was taken to one of the most frightening camps: Thurmond, and though she passed as one of the harmless ones, the truth that she is a dangerous one, who can barely contain her abilities, is found out when she is sixteen. Ruby knows that she needs to escape, and now. Though Ruby gets out of camp, thanks to a group claiming to only want to help Ruby, she quickly comes to realize that they might not be the “good guys” like she had been dreaming. So, in a quick decision, Ruby escapes again, and ends up joining a rag-tag group of kids fleeing from camps as well. Ruby, with her new group of friends, start their search for the East River, a supposed haven for kids just like them. In this action-filled book, main characters Ruby, Liam, Chubs, and Zu, travel miles across the country in search of this "safe place", and learn about their abilities that they’ve been taught to suppress their entire lives.

This was such a well-written book. The explanation for this dystopian world was clear, and did not leave me questioning (which many dystopias often do for me). The characters were so deep, and I felt like I knew and understood each and every one of them. I can honestly say that the plot line was highly unpredictable; with every sudden plot twist, I was left reeling. In many ways, this book left me heartbroken, especially reading the ending (had to take a break from reading for a while after getting through that conclusion. . .) It’s safe to say that this this book will leave you wishing for more! If you love thrilling adventures, or even just dystopian series, I highly recommend this novel!

*This novel is the start to a series, though this is only a review of the first installment!

Movie Trailer - The Darkest Minds

In 2018, six years after the book The Darkest Minds was originally released, a movie with the identical title was released based on the first book of the series. Attached here is the trailer to this movie adaption.

Script Reviews

Kicking off the script rating/review debut, I'll be giving Goodreads rating out of 5 stars, and then my own rating out of five stars. Then, I'll review the three different scripts I have picked out. These all are just personal picks of mine, and I found them all very enjoyable to read. As my script collection is growing, if any of you have any recommendations of plays that you've seen and liked, let me know and I'll look into them!

Thank you, and enjoy!

On Golden Pond

Title: On Golden Pond

Author: Ernest Thompson

Goodreads Rating: ✰✰✰✰✰ (4.1 stars)

Personal Rating: ✰✰✰✰✰ (4.8 stars)

Synopsis: This is the love story of Ethel and Normal Thayer, who are returning to their summer home on Golden Pond for the forty-eighth year. He is a retired professor, nearing eighty, with heart palpitations and a failing memory—but still as tart-tongued, observant and eager for life as ever. Ethel, ten years younger, and the perfect foil for Norman, delights in all the small things that have enriched and continue to enrich their long life together. They are visited by their divorced, middle-aged daughter and her dentist fiancé, who then go off to Europe, leaving his teenage son behind for the summer. The boy quickly becomes the “grandchild” the elderly couple have longed for, and as Norman revels in taking his ward fishing and thrusting good books at him, he also learns some lessons about modern teenage awareness—and slang—in return. In the end, as the summer wanes, so does their brief idyll, and the final, deeply moving moments of the play, Normal and Ethel are brought even close together by the incidence of a mild heart attack. Time, they know, is now against them, but the years have been good, and perhaps, another summer on Golden Pond still awaits.

Review: This story is one of the most intricate, personal, and heart-felt stories that I’ve ever read with only six characters. The importance of every character’s backstory is highlighted, and they all serve a bigger purpose to Norman and Ethel’s story than what’s written on the pages. For example, Charlie Martin, the man who delivers the mail and packages around the lake, serves as one of the main foils towards Ethel (besides Chelsea) as she reminisces the days of being a little girl and spending the summer at “Camp Koochakiyi” on the lake. Billy Ray Jr, the son of Chelsea’s fiancé, brings out the sweet, knowledgeable father out of Norman that we would have never seen if Billy didn’t stay the summer on Golden Pond.

Overall, this tightly-knit group of family and friends brings out the soft side in me, as it dwells into the strengths and weaknesses that these characters must face to get through to each other-- like Ethel’s idealism, and Norman’s indifferent, insensitive demeanor towards his detachment with his daughter. This play would have been given five stars, but there were parts within the play where I felt they were just restating earlier concerns and events that had already been touched on before-- and some of the dialogue was a bit too choppy and hard to follow, which I assume could have been fixed when putting it together on stage.

Overall, this play really touched my heart and had fantastic story-telling, and for anyone considering a deep-dive into script-reading, or just simply looking for a play to project onto the stage, this definitely deserves a read-through or two.

PICNIC

Title: Picnic

Author: William Inge

Goodreads Rating: ✰✰✰✰ (3.8 stars)

Personal Rating: ✰✰✰✰✰ (4.3 stars)

Synopsis: The play takes place on Labor Day weekend in the joint backyards of two widows. One house belongs to Flo Owens, who lives there with her two daughters, Madge and Millie, and a schoolteacher boarder. The other house belongs to Helen Potts, who lives with her elderly and invalid mother. Into this female atmosphere comes a young man named Hal Carter, whose animal vitality seriously upsets the entire group.

Review: Picnic, while being the short play it is, offers a long, detailed story that ties every single character’s relationship with one another. Each character has a separate personality that either coincides with another character, or completely contrasts from another character-- like the relationships between Alan and Hal. Alan is a bookworm who went through all four years of college and got a degree, whereas Hal is a brawny laborer who went to the same school as Alan but never got as far. Despite this, they are best friends. The polar opposite could be said about Rosemary, who’s friends, Christine and Irma, are somewhat exactly like her. The fact that such a tightly compacted play takes the time to regard every character who shows up and fits them into the general story while also having their separate conflicts is extremely admirable, and William Inge flows the story together like no other author that I’ve ever read.

This play takes place somewhere in the 1950’s which, on its own, gets points toward my review, since any play taking place between the 20’s and 60’s has this sort of unbeatable environment that no other play can top.

Something I didn’t necessarily like about this read was probably the usage of some of the characters, and how their purposes were meaningless. Bomber, for example, is a kid who’s Millie’s age and flirts with her only once in the beginning, and then never really shows up again. Rosemary’s friends don’t add that much as well, just gossip within their personal lives that don’t change the conflict whatsoever. I feel that, with a much smaller, tightly-knit cast, this play would be able to improve greater in those areas of weakness. However, besides that point, this play was a really great read, and it captured my emotion into it as well-- which I can’t say is easy when it comes to book or script reading. I’d highly recommend it to anyone looking for a short, but sweet and significant read.

Rocket man

Title: Rocket Man

Author: Steven Dietz

Goodreads Rating: ✰✰✰✰ (3.8 stars)

Personal Rating: ✰✰✰✰ (3.5 stars)

Synopsis: ROCKET MAN is a serious comedy about the road not taken. Donny Rowan has placed everything he owns on his front lawn, along with a sign that reads: “Here’s my life. Make an offer.” He has cut a skylight into his attic and placed his E-Z Boy recliner underneath—where he can sit, staring at the stars. Somewhere in the universe, Donny believes, is a place where all the roads we never chose converge. ROCKET MAN explores one man’s obsessive desire to find this “parallel world”—and the profound effect of his decision on his family and friends.

Review: The story behind this script was entirely different than what I thought it was going to be when I first picked it up. Rocket Man spends its First Act in a world where a middle-aged man is disastrously disconnected from his friends and family-- and even his own home, once he gets to the point of throwing all of his items in his front yard and letting people take what they want.

Then the Second Act takes place immediately after our main protagonist, Donny, sits in his recliner and ends up travelling to a parallel universe of his life where everything is opposite. The way people age is backwards (so his daughter is practically older than him?), what people’s relationships are with one another is (somewhat) backwards as well. The thing that confused me within this story is the fact that the whole “everything is different” conflict didn’t remain consistent, and quite a few things stayed the same from his original timeline. Another thing was that Donny travelled into the parallel timeline, but ended up acting like he was in that timeline the entire time, which leads the audience to believe he was accustomed to it because he wasn’t the actual Donny. But, once they take you back to the original timeline from Act One, Donny isn’t there and is presumed dead-- which makes you wonder what actually happened to the original Donny. In short, the author kept a lot of important pieces of the conflict vague on purpose, but never revealed them or made sense of them later on-- which makes me think that the author didn’t take the audience member’s awareness's into perspective. I assume if I saw a live performance of this show, everything would make a bit more sense, but reading it didn’t do very well for me.

However, despite the confusion of the plot holes and character perspectives in the parallel universes, this story is extremely sweet and pulls on your heartstrings when you realize how much the characters care about each other. After keeping the thoughts and feelings of the characters vague through Act One, the author really pulls through and makes the characters open up to each other in the most human way possible-- and that takes skill. I respect this play a ton, and I think, overall, it’s an amazing read for someone who has the time and patience to process the confusing situations.

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That will be all of the reviews and analyses that I have for you this month! For more podcast and book reviews, make sure to come back next month and check out what other reviews I’ll have prepared. Or, if you are anxious to see a certain book or podcast reviewed, make sure to submit a recommendation! I love hearing back from everyone, and I’m always excited to hear of new things to read or listen to.

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