What I Read on Summer Vacation August 2022
Trejo by Danny Trejio This is the memoir of actor Danny Trejo. He was on a fast train to nowhere, drug addicted and a criminal. He served 10 years in the California prison system. Then when he got out he opened several clinics at which addicts could dry out. When an addict he knew was working on a movie set and called him, he went to assist then got cast as an extra on the spot. Then his career playing tough guys in movies took off. Interesting dude.
Reputation by Sara Shepard This was written by the same author who wrote Pretty Little Liars. A university gets hacked and everyone’s emails get shared and it’s disastrous. When Kit’s husband is exposed as a cheater he gets murdered and there are so many people who have secrets with him who could have possibly murdered him. So we have to figure out who did it while wading through all these exposed secrets.
Don’t Call it a Cult by Sarah Berman This was written by a reporter for Vice about the NXIVM cult. It was all about the women of the cult who made of the DOS women’s group and how it eventually ended up leading to Keith Rainiere getting brought down. Completely insane stuff.
The Au Pair by Emma Rous I read for my book club. Seraphine is a twin, but she kinda feels like she isn’t really a twin, something feels off about her family. After her father dies she starts going through old boxes and finds a weird family photo that starts her unraveling a mystery about her family. She tracks down the au pair who worked for her family when she was born and then things start to get weird and murder-y. Then they figure out the truth about her and her twin and it’s all twisted and crazy.
Dark Roads by Chevy Stevens I was completely obsessed with it. Hailey is a teenage girl who lives in rural British Columbia in an area where there’s been a pattern of women getting abducted and killed along a stretch of highway near her town. Her dad just died in an accident. She goes to live with her aunt and uncle, but the uncle is a control freak cop. She learns that he’s involved in some sketchy shit so she decides to live out on her own in a cabin until she’s of age and then can sell her parents’ house and do her own thing. Her best friend helps her fake her death on the highway and she moves into the cabin. But then her new girlfriend gets killed, and now the girlfriend’s sister is trying to figure out who the killer is, all the while Hailey is trying to stay “dead.” The stretch of highway in the book is based upon a real place in Canada where indigenous women get murdered.
The Overnight Guest by Heather Gudenkauf This is the last book I read on my summer vacation. Wylie is a true crime author and she moves into a house in Iowa where a horrific crime took place. Most of a family was killed, the mom and the dad, the daughter escaped and they didn’t know at first what happened to the son. So the story is written in the braided technique in which there are 3 distinct stories building and you know that they are all going to eventually collide. In Wylie’s story she’s caught alone in this house in a terrible snowstorm when she goes outside and finds a child laying in the snow and she has to figure out who the heck this child is. In one of the other stories it’s told from Josie’s point of view, she was the daughter who survived the shooting. Then in the other there’s a woman and her young daughter who are living trapped in a basement. When the three stories eventually it’s pretty awesome. Great Read.
BJ Knapp is the author of Beside the Music, available for purchase here. Please sign up for the Backstage with BJ Knapp mailing list to get updates on events, signings, dog pictures and so much more.
added on 09.07.22