UNIVERSITY REVOLUTION: Artificial Intelligence and the Transformation of Learning, AI...ugh

UNIVERSITY REVOLUTION: Artificial Intelligence and the Transformation of Learning
KEVIN P. HALLINAN
Self-publisher (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$9.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: AI is reshaping education—are universities ready to evolve? The future of education is here, and AI is changing the way we teach, learn, and measure understanding.

Higher education stands at a turning point. AI is transforming classrooms, offering personalized learning, expanding access to knowledge, and reshaping the role of educators.

As AI advances, universities cling to outdated models instead of embracing its potential to improve education. A system built for today’s learners would use AI to strengthen learning, not replace it.

In University Revolution, Dr. Kevin Hallinan explores how AI is already transforming learning at every level, from early education to higher education and beyond.

AI isn’t something to fear—it’s a chance to rethink how we connect with students, support teachers, and prepare learners for a changing world. This shift is already underway. Whether you’re a teacher, administrator, parent, or student, this book offers valuable insights into the future of education.

If you enjoyed Brave New Words by Salman Khan {another rah-rah-AI tome, non-affiliate Amazon link}, don’t miss this timely and thought-provoking exploration of AI’s role in shaping the future of learning. The classroom is evolving—are we evolving with it?

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: The author's Amazon bio, clearly sourced from here:

Dr. Kevin Hallinan is Emeritus Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Dayton and Director of Impact Mining at Synota.io, where he advances solar micro-grids and AI-driven eduction in sub-Saharan Africa. A NASA researcher early in his career, he later founded UD's ETHOS program and Renewable and Clean Energy Program, focusing on engineering for social impact. Known for pioneering transdisciplinary learning, his recent work explores big data, machine learning, and the role of AI in education. This book reflects his ongoing experiments with equitable AI. All proceeds support the AI 4 All movement.

His website, linked from University of Dayton's page for him (linked above) contains a tab entitled "My AI Agents."

This gent is a true believer. I don't agree with him on the uses of AI in education. Work harder for it than you've ever worked in your life is more my speed. However, he is aware of problems that normies have with AI's developers' theft of intellectual property enough to have an AI Agent called "Ethical AI Mentor". I myownself do not believe such a concept carries any meaning whatsoever until all AI developers assign all...100%...of all past and future income from any and all sources, personal or professional, to a reparations fund that fully supports artists, journalists, writers, actors, and ad-copy-writing hacks...but zero for executives, investors, or other capitalists...the world over, to the AI thieves' desired standard of living while they subsist in The Felonious Yam's Salvadoran prisons with no internet access.

That being up there with guillotines for billionaires in the likelihood sweeps, realistic acceptance of the way LLMs are going to be used demands understanding what the plan is for that use.

There isn't one. There's about a hundred. Flood the field, boys, pick their pockets while they're whirling around in confusion!

Making yourself aware of the parameters of the grift and what a possible decent case for use and development of it is can very profitably start here. This gent clearly thinks there's a case for moving ahead in this direction, believing the owners of AI will actually allow fair and equitable access to the technology, and allow it to close massive advantage gaps that it could undeniably do. That being the same kind of naïve thinking that gave us engagement maximization algorithms back in the "internet can be good" era, I'm confident crushing regulatory burdens and confiscatory levels of taxation around the globe are clearly going to be required to stop this hideous future from coming to be.

As that would require actual forethought and cooperation among nations, I suppose the thieves are safe. I refer you the the UN for an example of what this concept looks like.

Being a tiny, trivially easy to swat nobody, I expect to be targeted and punished for daring not to be on board with this crap. If I vanish, you'll know why.

SEEKER, the first book of The Sentinel Archives, indie fantasy novels with an edge

SEEKER (The Sentinel Archives #1)
SAMUEL GRIFFIN
Panthe Press (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$5.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: "Today I am equipped with the knowledge that my future was to be far greater, more exciting, and more disturbing than anything so simple as my young imagination could then conjure. Indeed, looking back, my forecast was positively quaint. I ask myself a question often, and it is this: if I had understood all that was to befall me, would I have run, that day, or exulted?

I find I do not know."

Ancient leviathans have stirred from their long slumber. Their scent song marks where they might be found but only to those who have the means to somewhat hear it: Sentinel Archivists.

Shay Bluefaltlow finds herself training to become such a specialist when she is forced into indentured servitude. Her new home, the city of Fivedock, is strange and unfamiliar, as are her new companions: a belligerent surgeon, a remarkable little boy, and a formidable Sentinel Archivist tasked with teaching Shay the terrifying ways of the trade.

Her unanticipated position requires rigorous training, diligent study and a strong constitution. Shay, afraid she is unequal to the prodigious task but desperate to impress her superior, struggles to prove herself.

When war breaks out across the Concord, the office of the Sentinel Archivist is threatened by a terrible betrayal. And Shay has secrets of her own.

Packed with era detail to bring the world to vivid life, realistic, but with strong fantastical elements, a rich regency voice, and a bewitching touch of strangeness, Seeker is an immersive first-person fantasy for adults.

Griffin does for regency era fantasy what Robin Hobb did for medieval: this isn’t just a fiction, this is a living and breathing world you dunk yourself in. An intimate journey with real characters. With incredibly accomplished, enchanting prose, and a beating heart of a story.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: You like fantasy novels more than I do. I promise you this is true. So why did I get a DRC of this title?

To see if there are cracks in my walls of resistance. And, well, I like this novel just fine. The ideas don't cause me to roll my eyes...the worldbuilding, in other words, does iits job with reasonable facility...but neither did the idea of an orphan-special-chosen-one meets scoobygroup cause me to get all excited. Executed well, or I'd've made tracks for the door; still, not the most energizing choice for this fantasy agnostic.

The faux-archaic tone, for some reason, hit me the right way. I was surprised by this, honestly because I usually find it arch and/or tedious. Author Griffin did a good job finding a middle ground between those unpleasant poles. As a result, I really enjoyed the read.

It moves slowly. The first half of the book is just not paced correctly, in that there were many times scenes went on way too long, and I was sorely tempted to shut the Kindle and move on to other things. That I didn't is honestly a little miracle. The Archivists kept me going. I wanted to know what the heck this was all connected to. But keep in mind I'm not a fantasy-novel reader as a rule. Maybe you fantasy aficionados will respond differently. Those who like the trend towards library- and archive-centered stories could, in particular, find something special.

Why I think you should give it a chance really boils down to that. You read the genre? Read widely! Wider than usual, for you "high-fantasy" folks. Much on a par for those who loved Susanna Clarke's magisterial Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Magic and fantasy, books and lore, people and quests, just belong together. Come get some more.

A SECOND HARVEST & TENDER MERCIES, the two "Men of Lancaster County" QUILTBAG novels

A SECOND HARVEST
ELI EASTON (Men of Lancaster County #1)
Self-republished ebook (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$3.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: David Fisher has lived by the rules all his life. Born to a Mennonite family, he obeyed his father and took over the family farm, married, and had two children. Now with both his kids in college and his wife deceased, he runs his farm alone and without joy, counting off the days of a life half-lived.

Christie Landon, graphic designer, Manhattanite, and fierce gay party boy, needs a change. Now thirty, he figures it's time to grow up and think about his future. When his best friend overdoses, Christie resolves to take a break from the city. He heads to a small house in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to rest, recoup, and reflect.

But life in the country is boring despite glimpses of the hunky silver fox next door. When Christie's creativity latches on to cooking, he decides to approach his widower neighbor with a plan to share meals and grocery expenses. David agrees, and soon the odd couple finds they really enjoy spending time together.

Christie challenges the boundaries of David's closed world and brings out feelings he buried long ago. If he can break free of the past, he might find a second chance at happiness.

My Review: An enormously resonant story for my elderly self. I knew and tricked with these men most of my life. Had one terrible relationship with one of them, a horrible, painful experience of being the agony and the release from it at the same time. He died of liver cancer after over two decades of alcohol abuse, and a few months later I moved to New York City.

Because life wasn’t worth much before Christie appeared, and it would be worse having had this and lost it. The mere thought ripped his guts out.

Yes, exactly that. So David's story, his wretchedness, moved me deeply. Christie's part I lived in reverse...after getting to Paradise I was a busy, busy boy for a few years. Over a decade, in fact, and I adored all but the last 18 months. When my life unravels, it does the job with verve and gusto. Anyway, Christie deciding to move to Auntie's place made perfect sense to me...I ran back to Austin...and his ultimate fate there mirrored my own, if mine was less painful.

Every time he said no he thought about how much of himself he’d given away all those years. This was a life he definitely didn’t want to return to. But if things with David didn’t work out, he could see himself getting sucked back into this because… what else was there, really?

I left Austin because, after one night of gay-barring, I was followed home by two tradies (google it) who'd been somewhat unsettlingly focused on me. The truck they drove had a gun rack.

It wasn't empty.

Nothing happened.

I don't care. I am never, ever again in all my life going to live in a place where guns are anything other than tightly regulated. I'm also deeply averse to going west of the Hudson or north of the Bronx. When home doesn't want you, it's not home, so here I stay.

This book made all the same feelings as I felt then come roaring back, strong as ever, nauseating as ever. The highest function of storytelling is catharsis, it's why myths are evergreen and stage/screen drama has such a tenacious hold on human psyches. Author Easton has, in each of her stories I've read, given me a safe catharsis, a world built to experience and survive the strong negative emotions parts of her tale evokes.

He’d seen stillbirths before, and they were unsettling. It simply seemed wrong that nature could put so much effort into forming a creature from nothing, and yet fail to breathe in the last important component: life.

It takes skill to do this well. It requires convincing your readers that this *is* a world, this space is in fact telling truths to your emotional core. That takes talent and courage, which Author Easton has and uses for our benefit.

And here I was looking for a light, fun read. Haw. Instead I got a deep and thorough dose of spiritual salts. And, mirabile dictu, was made to enjoy it.

Congratulations, Eli Easton, and to you readers not squicked out by gay men making love to each other, this is a fine and satisfying read. And only two instances of the loathsome w-verb. (Both gratuitous and unnecessary, of course.)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

TENDER MERCIES
ELI EASTON (Men of Lancatser County #2)
Self-published (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$3.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Eddie Graber’s dream of a sanctuary for rescued farm animals was about to come true when his partner backed out at the last minute. Now Eddie risks losing the twenty-five acre property in Lancaster County—and all the hopes he held for it—before the project even gets off the ground. He needs help, he needs money, but most importantly, he needs to rediscover the belief in a higher purpose that brought him here in the first place.

Samuel Miller worked hard to fit into his Amish community despite his club foot. But when his father learns Samuel is gay, he is whipped and shunned. With just a few hundred dollars to his name, Samuel responds to an ad for a farmhand and finds himself employed by a city guy who has strange ideas about animals, no clue how to run his small farm, and a gentle heart.

Samuel isn’t the only lost soul to serendipitously find his way to Meadow Lake Farm. There’s Fred and Ginger, two cows who’d been living in a garage, a gang of sheep, and a little black pig named Benedict who might be the key to life, love, money—and even a happily ever after for two castoffs.

NOTE: This title is set in the same region as book #1 but features a new couple. It can be read as a stand-alone.

My Review: It isn't up to the standard set by A Second Harvest, but it's a good, solid, enjoyable novel of the harrowing, horrible things religion makes people do to each other. Any accidental good the religious might do will never erase the hateful and damaging effects the institution of religion has had on billions and billions of people yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Men who, like Eddie, don't deserve a single second of the hatred and the disgust flung at them:

Eddie made up a small bowl with some pieces of bread with peanut butter and a cut-up apple. Not for the first time, Eddie was aware of the preparation and offering of food as a service and an obligation. When you gave an animal food, you weren’t just saying, You look hungry, and I have pity for you at this moment. You were saying, I see you. I acknowledge that you exist, that you are not invisible to me.

So why read it? Because men like Samuel escape from the horrible, vicious, vile torturers that victimize them in fiction, and even receive healing after they get themselves away from the poison that is gawd. It doesn't happen near often enough in real life. Look at the devastating statistics on teenaged suicide if you doubt me; look at the trans and lesbian and gay people whose lives are ended or who end their own lives out of despair; in each and every case, religion bears the blame and the religious, one and all, irrespective of personal involvement, are eternally stained with the blood of the innocents they passively allowed or actively wished (aloud, silently, in prayer, whatever) to suffer.

Sometimes Samuel wished he could be like the animals, expecting nothing from life except food and sunshine and another day. They didn’t have the ache of knowing what they could never have.

No one deserves a life spent in such self-loathing. If I've been unclear, I oppose your right to be religious on the same grounds that I oppose someone's right to be racist or Republican: Only bad things happen when y'all get to express those hateful ideas. Stop it.

THE PROBLEM WITH MISTLETOE, proof that distracted reading is real and very troublesome

THE PROBLEM WITH MISTLETOE
KYLE BAXTER (Five Points Stories #1)
Self published (non-affiliate Amazon link)
FREE Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: David Cooper did not believe in happily ever after—he thought he let his chance pass him by—between work, being a single father and planning a Christmas party for his mother’s charity his life is complicated enough. And then he has to ask Alex Capili, an old friend who just returned from the big city, to help run it. Spending weeks working closely together old feelings come up and David wonders if fairy tales really do come true.

Alex came home to help sell off his family’s restaurant, he was not looking for love. And happy endings only happen in movies. But nothing about this return trip home town is quite what he expected and David is still the best man he's ever known. A good father, with a heart as big as all outdoors, and disarmingly handsome.

THIS WAS A HOLIDAY-SEASON FREEBIE.

My Review: I was looking for a "Calgon, take me away" read while the nightmare of this year's bungled and sabotaged transition of presidential power was playing out before my revolted and horrified eyes. A romance, with pretty boys and snow and angst that feels real enough to invest in but not to get in an uproar about, seemed just the ticket.

Eighteen (18) W-bombs. A couple are excusable...parent to child, one intentionally cheeseball one...but when you use a physical defect, I mean gesture, eighteen times in one short book, you're overdoing it. Call this the Cheeseball Test: When you see someone's body language or facial expression described the same way, substitute "fart/ed" and see how you respond.

But that growl of disgust, while it cost the story a star, aside, I found the love of David and Alex very charming. Their second chance at love was a big draw to me. I'm a sucker for second chances. They're not as common in life as in fiction, but that's why I find them so irresistible. Also realistic in my own experience was the homophobic, abusive parent trope. I've had multiple love relationships with men whose upbringings were a lot like Alex's, raging drunk/druggie parents with a major hate for their child's self leading them to beat, belittle, and abuse them. My own mother's rages found their target in my sexuality, as well, though the only substance she abused was tobacco. (Happily enough it's what killed her!)

David's hoity-toity family's lack of acceptance of Alex, misinterpreted by both boys in the moment, was down to his father the drunk; this problem is brought up near the beginning of the book. The source of Alex's abandonment of their hometown and flight to New York City was also his abusive father...a fact that David, whose life trajectory was more conventional than Alex's, has always felt was his own fault for a badly handled kiss under the mistletoe.

Plenty of believable cross-purposes misunderstandings, badly hurt feelings leading to long silences between former friends, a trans character whose friendship with both boys isn't very well explored, several very troubled women whose failings are central to the plot...juicy!

All the problems I've had with the unfolding of the plot...we all know David and Alex are going to end up together, it's a romance, and the HEA is de rigueur...stem from rushed resolutions and missed explorations. In order to feel truly satisfied, I'd've needed to see more of the inner workings of their rupture. Their constantly interrupted efforts to talk went on a little too long. If they'd started the conversations then been interrupted during them it would have made for more tension. As it was it never built anything except the annoying sensation of avoidance.

On balance, the reason I wanted to review the book at this length was to find out why I took three weeks to finish an afternoon's entertainment. When it feels to me like the author is not, even in the limited scope of a romance novel's length, focusing on people's interrelatedness, it's not the immersive read I am always eager to find. As a freebie at Christmas, this book came out ahead of my niggling dissatisfaction. A better example of the Holiday romantic read was, for me, A Viking for Yule (q.v.). It dug just that extra fraction deeper than this perfectly fine read did, and got a higher rating from my picky typist's fingers than this book.

THE HANGED MAN'S GHOST, first in a paranormal mystery series enhanced by bisexual male lead

THE HANGED MAN'S GHOST
MISSOURI DALTON
Self-published
$4.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: three fat stars of five

The Publisher Says: Detective Fynn Adder is embarking on the case that will change his life forever. The ghosts of murder victims are leaving him clues, his drinking problem is out of control, and no matter how nepotistic the Chicago Police Department might be, there are some forces his family’s reputation can’t save him from.

Just a few years ago, Fynn’s longtime partner Robert was murdered and the case went unsolved. As he gets deeper into a new investigation, it becomes apparent that somehow the two cases are connected. To make matters worse, it’s clear to Fynn that forces beyond this world have come into play.

Forces like Internal Affairs agent Daniel Voight, who’s determined to make dirt stick to Fynn any which way he can. The only real bright points in Fynn’s day are when he’s with Jack, his unfortunately straight partner. Fynn is going to have to pull himself together—because if the dead don’t kill him, his family will.

Edition includes the short story "A Girl With Two Faces"

My Review: I love series books that allow me to immerse myself in their made-up world. I adore mysteries that enable me to feel that Bad Guys lose, fail, get punished. I am a complete pushover for gay guys as main characters, a sucker for paranormal stuff that makes common sense, EAGER to see bisexual men in relationships...this book, in short, should light every fire in my mental hypocaust.

And it didn't.

I made forty (40) Kindlenotes, which is either Very Very Good or Really Really Bad news. This time it was both. This is a first novel, and begins the ongoing Night Wars series. There's a downside to revising first books, as was done for this one after its first publisher disappeared. The later books add to the series canon; that can require first-book additions. The author says in the Author's Note that the changes are minor. I wonder if one result of this is the strange choppiness of the narrative. As my most WTF-inducing example, why is Fynn's father "Da" sometimes and "Pops" others? In general, people choose a name for their parents and stick to it. My sisters and I called our mother by different names, but never by each others' name for her. (I called her Mama, Sister Old called her Mommy, Sister Middle called her Mom.) It's not A Rule to have your characters do this, but it's a distraction from the story when they don't. I don't like to have to take a moment to wonder who is being addressed.

The feeling of being popped out of the narrative also comes when details arise and disagree with each other but are never reconciled. An example of this is the first murder. The body has three bullet holes, the witness says four shots were fired with great confidence, which attitude is pointed out by the author. And nothing ever reconciles the mismatch. That's frustrating to a seasoned mystery reader accustomed to watching for clues.

A more macro-level issue for me is the damn-near real time narration of (particularly) the first third of the book. Fynn goes to a bar, sits on a stool, talks to the bartender, reaches for his wallet, gets out his money, pays the bartender, gets off the stool, goes out the door...you get what I'm talking about. It's purely a taste thing, not everyone is annoyed by this, but it isn't a narrative strategy I'd encourage anyone to use. Stage directions in a play aren't usually this detailed.

LOTS of coincidences and unsupported knowledge in here. How does Fynn know where his rescued almost-suicide is? Why is that individual's boss sitting there holding the kid's hand? And what astonishing luck that Fynn's in the same hospital, given that the city of Chicago fairly *bristles* with hospitals and people are triaged to different ones based on injury not on proximity. (This is true for all major metropolitan areas.) The sheer amazing stunning convenience of the existence of some blackmail materials used to manipulate Fynn is unaddressed. Why would these materials exist? In whose possession were they, how did they end up with the blackmailer, and WHY DOES NO ONE ASK THESE QUESTIONS in a POLICE STATION where chain of custody is an ingrained data point to be investigated?!

The latter issue is, I suppose, dealt with by the nature of the series: Paranormal. As in magical, as in manipulating the material world accepted. But this event occurs before the outing, so to speak, of the book's true nature. I can't accept that a cop, especially a senior cop like Fynn's boss, wouldn't bring this up despite the...spooky...nature of the blackmailer. He wants to save Fynn, a good cop from a cop family, from disgrace and dismissal.

Now for the biggest problem I had, and one that came close to closing the book to me for good: Jack, Fynn's cop-partner, serves a fresh-out-of-rehab drunk a drink, *overcomes the drunk's objection to being served a drink*, and proceeds to ply the drunk with four more.

BIG. HONKIN. NO-NO.

It's especially upsetting as this is the same person who expresses loving, tender concern for Fynn's recovery before and after this occurs. It's never mentioned again...like that's realistic!...Jack never asks forgiveness or makes amends. This would be a huge, huge issue in an alcoholic's trust inventory. As would the relationship between Jack and Fynn after this occurs. Not cool. Not realistic.

I hate smoking so I hate the mentions of Fynn lighting up. Personal peeve.

Anyway, from all the above, the question arises: Why'd you bother? What kept you reading, since this isn't a one-star rage review? Because the world the author's building appeals to me, like Charlaine Harris's paranormals appeal to me. I love the world-unseen-by-muggles trope. I grew up gay! In 1970s Texas! Of course I love unnoticed realities, I lived in one. And I understand viscerally the desire of the inhabitants of that world to be left the fuck alone to live as they are. The urgency of adopting a cover story. The skill at verbal deflection. The sensitivity to vibes, to the initiate's gaze identifying Our Own. This book strums my strings the right way in this regard.

I enjoy the Catholic parents of a gay kid making absolutely no waves about his sexuality. Their overbearing controlling behaviors are utterly unrelated to Fynn's man-lovin' just to his whoring around and drinking. Any parent of an addict will look at that and say, "that's exactly it, I love my child and want the self-destruction to stop!" Note the silence about gayness. Refreshing to see religious people portrayed as loving, nurturing, supportive parents. (If a tad on the meddlesome side.)

And last, most importantly, in fact crucially to my pleasure in the read, is the fact that the author dropped two...two!...w-bombs. One of which I felt was appropriate to the situation and was cheekily funny.

Anyone who can make ME, the arch-wink-hater, approve of a w-bomb, is a wizard and deserves a chance to make my eyeblinks focus on their work.

LIZ HERE NOW, an extremely moving and well-written indie book about child abuse

LIZ HERE NOW
TODD CONNOR
Self-published
$19.95 trade paper, available now

Rating: I have no idea

The Publisher Says: A privileged child’s life is forever changed by the bravery of the family’s Black maid when Elizabeth Baxter refuses to silently witness the abuse Todd Connor and his siblings receive at the hands of their wealthy, prominent parents. Overcoming fear for her own safety, Liz endures both prejudice and police brutality in an attempt to protect her “little white babies,” until a lone white police captain believes the truth and becomes her ally. An autobiographical novel set during the tensions of the 1960s civil rights movement, Liz Here Now proves the healing power of love and determination. Only decades later does anyone learn of Liz’s bravery and the horror that had taken place within the Connor’s wealthy home. At Liz’s packed funeral, Todd, the sole white person in the church, is there to give honor to the heroine who loved and saved him, his sister, and brother from the psychotic woman who was a mother in name only, and the complicity of their father, a renowned physician more concerned about protecting his prestige than his own children. Unable to speak through his sorrow, Todd is reminded by Elizabeth’s grieving husband, “Yo’ dark story gonna show off her light. They gonna hear a truth about her fo’ the first time ever.” Those words spur Todd to fulfill Liz’s dying request: “She took my family’s secret to her grave,” he says, “but she asked me to break that silence now.” Liz Here Now is set in the past, but delivers compelling lessons for today: that we all must become aware of the insidious effects of, and speak out against, abuse in any form, whether physical or the humiliating treatment many African-Americans are still subjected to daily.

My Review: I suspect the middle child of my "family" is going to be sorry she sent me this book with a request to review it.

My sisters were teenagers before I knew them at all. I was, in effect, an only child with live-in aunts, and not even that after I was eight. I had an insane, emotionally and sexually abusive mother, a weak and selfish absent father, and no one to turn to. My stepmother (and how it angers my sisters when I call her that!) lived in California, which might as well have been the Moon for all the good it did me. She was, however, the only...ONLY...person who understood me. Her ex-husband had fucked their oldest daughter. Her mother was an insane, abusive religious nut just like mine...and oh so holy that no one inquired why her daughters were so rebellious, so disrespectful. No one wondered why I was so taciturn, so sharp-tongued when I could be bothered to talk to them. No one wondered why I didn't go to school for most of eighth grade, or why my GPA fell from the low 90s to the high 60s (out of 100, okay eldest sister dear, you love to make sure I've given all the relevant facts so much) in the 10th. My stepmother knew, called me, tried to help long-distance...until Mama caught me talking to her and moved us to a different neighborhood, changed our phone number, put out paranoid insane bullshit to all the people we knew that my dad was coming to steal me away...no one ever asked, no one checked, no action was ever taken by anyone except the non-marital partner of a weakling who tried, with no standing at all, to help the best way she could. Even *directly*telling* my father, in so many words, "your ex is fucking that boy" made no dent in his selfishness. His response? "Old Vicious will make my life a living hell if I try to keep the kid."

How do I know? I heard him. They were talking in their bedroom, I was in the room below, and the windows were open.

So "Todd" and I have different details, but the same story. We were both invisible in our agony. "Todd" had Liz, I had my stepmother; neither was related to us and both were motivated by deep and abiding love to do something, anything, to rescue innocents from torture.

His succeeded. Mine failed.

There are no different kinds of abuse. Abuse is abuse. Perpetrators (like my mother, like her mother and her father before her, my weak and useless father, my nasty-tempered and unsympathetic sisters) are controlling the abused and making them as near to invisible as possible, perpetuating their power by the most horrible means imaginable: Robbing a person of personhood. Whoever I might have been absent the rage-storm I lived through either died or was never born. The twisted, miserable man I have always been was the direct creation of my loving family, all of them, all with sharp tongues, no empathy, and not a shred of kindness among them.

So "thanks" sister mine for picking this scab off an unhealable wound. I hated reading this book, I hated "Todd" for surviving so handily, and I sure as hell hate my past and everything that was in it more than ever. Merry fucking christmas.

UNASHAMED, rapper Lecrae's memoir of Being Saved, and my vote for 2016 Goodreads Choice Awards in Memoir

UNASHAMED
LECRAE (MOORE)
B & H Books
$24.99 hardcover, available now

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Two-time Grammy winning rap artist, Lecrae, learned this lesson through more than his share of adversity—childhood abuse, drugs and alcoholism, a stint in rehab, an abortion, and an unsuccessful suicide attempt.

Along the way, Lecrae attained an unwavering faith in Jesus and began looking to God for affirmation. Now as a chart-topping industry anomaly, he has learned to ignore the haters and make peace with his craft. The rap artist holds nothing back as he divulges the most sensitive details of his life, answers his critics, shares intimate handwritten journal entries, and powerfully models how to be a Christian in a secular age.

This is the story of one man's journey to faith and freedom.

My Review:I voted for this book in the 2016 Goodreads Choice Awards. There's no obvious reason I'd vote for some christian crapola over the memoir of Gloria Vanderbilt and her gay son Anderson Cooper, except I really can't relate to rich people's problems any more. On the dull side, frankly. Being so desperately wretched that suicide makes sense I can relate to (although in my case it was a thyroid imbalance that tipped the scales).

Lecrae's problems aren't dull. They include a laundry list of every social ill I've been able to dream up. He ticks every box and then, one fine day, gawd reaches down and saves him. My eyes rolled so hard I was dizzy for a week.

But I voted for the book because I felt the sincerity and passion and belief oozing from every bit of this story. That makes up, in my never-humble opinion, for the fact that I oppose every single thing that Religion represents.

Gay Life sixty years ago was a lot like today: Read Tom Baker's FULL FRONTAL

FULL FRONTAL: to make a long story short
TOM BAKER
iUniverse
$20.95 hardcover, $3.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 3.5* of five

The (Self-)Publisher Says: It is August of 1957, and Tim Halladay, a caddie at the Long Shore Country Club, is looking forward to beginning eighth grade at Assumption School. Tim and his best friend and fellow caddie, Jimmy, are oblivious to the fact that they are slowly transforming into young men with secret desires.

As Tim embarks on a journey of emotional and sexual development, he approaches the world around him with a "full frontal" attitude that allows him to somehow not only survive but thrive, beginning with his first gay experiences as a shy teenager in suburban Connecticut and moving through his escapades at a Virginia army base, the Hotel Manhattan, the Museum of Modern Art, the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and lavish suites at various upscale hotels and resorts. As Tim moves from one encounter to the next, he gradually transforms, moving toward a future as a rising star.

Full Frontal shares an intriguing glimpse into the life of a gay man, as told through his eclectic relationships as he eventually discovers that true happiness is all about give and take.

My Review: What happens when history isn't recorded by Official Sources? When the world as it is gets painted and groomed and tarted up for Posterity? Go look in a history book, that's what happens. No juice, no life-as-it's-lived-ness remains, just a skeleton of facts and some fatty tissue about the one-percenters' public actions.

In recent years, historians have discovered the joys of nosing into the private lives of ordinary people via their diaries and their letters. Jeb and Dash, a non-fiction work about two gay men who lived, loved, and larked about between the World Wars, is a fun and interesting look at life otherwise unrecorded and unseen by History-with-a-capital-H.

Then there are books like Full Frontal. Short stories, fictions, that read like entries in your gay uncle's diary, and give you the naughty-naughty sensation of finding the book and sneaking a read of it before he gets home.

The ordinary life of an ordinary young man, coming of age and coming into himself, is usually the stuff of nightmares to read, listen to, or watch. We've all come of age, well most of us have, and we've all had our issues large or small with crafting an identity to suit our sense of self and place in the world.

Here, in these stories, Tom Baker brings a character into focus, sometimes sharp and others soft, whose ordinary lived life as a gay man of the Stonewall generation is vanishing from the earth. This subject isn't utterly fresh and new, goodness knows, since there have been about a Roman Legion of gay-male writers mining the shaft (in joke, don't fuss if you don't get it) in the past 40 years. What makes this book different, and altogether more satisfying on one level, is the absence of angst in the tale.

Tim Halladay was born gay, came of age finding and spending time with other boys who wanted what he wanted, and there's an end to that drama. He's a bit shy, a little bit awkward physically, and pretty much a common-or-garden modestly talented dreamer of dreams.

And that is a lovely thing to find between book covers. I've known Tim Halladays all my life, and liked them, and found their company and their stories engaging and charming. Spending a few hours with this fictional man, now cresting 70 and on the down-slopes of life; looking back over the life he's led; it all gave me, as I slither into my sixties, a happy and wistful glow. Most gay men don't have children to tell their stories to; Tim Halladay, the stand-in for many an actual man, found Tom Baker's pen and made it work for him. It's a pleasure to spend time in his company.