Book Reviews

The latest indie book reviews from Self-Publishing Review

Review: Midtown Madhatter by Mateo Monda

Midtown Madhatter by Mateo Monda

An American living in Guadalajara, Mexico travels to New York City to attend a wedding and hang out with his Seattle childhood friends. From beginning to end, the trip is a non-stop drug and alcohol binge. Midtown Madhatter by Mateo Monda tells of a weekend in Peter Walsh’s life along with flashbacks to his relationships with his friends and wife. He’s an unhappy man, and he’s got the addictions to prove it.

Peter’s dissatisfaction with his life comes across with every cigarette he craves, every beer he gulps, and each line of cocaine he hurriedly snorts. Under the surface of […]

2019-05-03T13:35:41+02:00May 1st, 2019|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: |

Review: Colored Armpits: Poems for Social Justice by James Kityo Ssemmanda

Colored Armpits: Poems for Social Justice by James Kityo Ssemmanda

Ugandan born poet Ssemanda casts light on critical issues that we all need to explore in the collection of personal, political, and perceptive works, Colored Armpits: Poems for Social Justice.

Ssemanda’s book of verse is divided in three sections – “The Mzungu,” “The Armpits,” and “The African African.” Each touches on different aspects of the human condition, and particularly, the condition of African and other third world people in connection or confrontation with first world denizens and value systems.

Mzungu is the African language term used in Uganda and elsewhere to designate white people – whether they be colonialists, […]

2019-06-03T08:46:18+02:00May 1st, 2019|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: |

Review: Enemy Immortal by Jim Meeks-Johnson

Enemy Immortal by Jim Meeks-Johnson

Two centuries in the future, our world will look very different, but hopefully it won’t turn out anything like the vision Jim Meeks-Johnson’s presents in Enemy Immortal, his debut work of science fiction.

Two alien empires – the Entanglement and the Immoral Ascendency – are vying for control of the galaxy, and the fate of Earth may hang in the balance. Lieutenant Jade Mahelona works for the Solar Defense Force, and is tasked with investigating a lost colony on a distant world with a motley crew of bizarre companions. Little do any of them know that they are placing […]

Review: Effective Leaders and Leadership by Mildred Stallworth

Effective Leaders and Leadership by Mildred Stallworth

In this straightforward and surefooted guide to becoming an effective leader, author Mildred Stallworth offers a compendium of ideas that can prove helpful to people in all aspects of professional and personal life in Effective Leaders and Leadership.

Leaders, Stallworth says, create a vision that others can then follow. Comparing the leader of an organization to the head of the human body, she suggests that the “head” of a group has the responsibility to think and make decisions to control the actions and directions of the group as a whole. The head literally oversees the body; if the head […]

2019-05-28T11:56:23+02:00April 17th, 2019|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: , , |

Review: The Cufflink by Susan Bolch

The Cufflink by Susan Bolch

Deceit, sacrifice and honor are at the heart of The Cufflink, a riveting multi-generational family saga by Susan Bolch.

Frederick “Fred” Maier Green is the third child born to a Latvian immigrant and his wife in Philadelphia in nineteen twelve. Life for young Fred is a series of resentments aimed at his much older siblings, both musical phenoms, as his parents lavish most of their attention and hopes on them.

However, things take an unexpectedly tragic turn when Fred’s brother dies from tuberculosis, perpetuating his sister’s downward spiral into an abusive marriage. Suddenly, Fred becomes the symbol of hope […]

2019-05-23T10:01:59+02:00April 9th, 2019|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: |

Review: Splitting Bits by Joseph Gelet

Splitting Bits by Joseph Gelet

For the better part of a century, our economic system has remained largely unchanged, and given the dynamic nature of modern society, the evolution of currency was a natural and unavoidable outcome. In Splitting Bits: Understanding Bitcoin and the Blockchain, author Joseph Gelet brings this fascinating and ever-changing new area of finance into clearer focus, and also explains where it is headed.

For many people, Bitcoin registered barely a blip on the radar 5 years ago, and largely remained that way until the past year or so, when this new financial paradigm hit international headlines with massive value increases […]

2019-04-08T08:07:15+02:00April 7th, 2019|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: |

Review: Cajun Chameleon by Jimmie Martinez

Cajun Chameleon: Reflections of a Recovering Racist by Jimmie Martinez

Jax Badeaux slowly finds his way through the complexities of racism while growing up in New Orleans in the Sixties and Seventies. A self-described poor Cajun, he doesn’t expect to amount to much more than his drunken father or beleaguered but loving mother. Yet change begins with his friendship with a young man, Mike Guidry, who suddenly has the race laws labeling him black instead of white.

Cajun Chameleon: Reflections of a Recovering Racist tackles weighty issues with a light, straightforward touch. When best friend Mike suddenly can’t attend the same junior high school as Jax because he lacks a […]

2019-04-08T08:03:18+02:00April 6th, 2019|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: |

Review: Ripple Effect: Because of the War by Jenny Ferns

Ripple Effect: Because of the War (Ripple Effect Book 1) by Jenny Ferns

Some of the most traumatic and impactful events in human history are tied to war, which tears apart families, history, ideas and entire continents with their senseless brutality. In Ripple Effect: Because of the War, the first book in the Ripple Effect series, author Jenny Ferns steps down from the macrocosm of the battlefield to the peripheral effects of violence and chaos away from the frontlines. As this book’s title implies, the long-term results of war go much further than those who were wounded or killed.

Veronica and Rachel are sisters, although they both fell on opposite sides of […]

Go to Top