Roger Hyttinen

Review of The City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare

November 13, 2018 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

The City of Lost Souls is the fifth book in the Mortal Instruments series. I told myself that I wanted to finish this series this year so I have only one more to go after this one. Again, it’s difficult to say too much about this book without spoiling the series for those of you who might not have read it.

I did like this one — I’ve enjoyed all of them, truth be told, though I do find the romancey scenes a bit much at times….there’s a lot of “Oh Jace…”, “Oh Clary” which gets a tad repetitious at times.

But that aside, there still is plenty of action and surprises to make this well worth the read.

In this book, Jace is in some pretty serious trouble, both from the Clave and from the one who’s holding him hostage against his will and who has a terrible plan which could result in the destruction of the earth.

So now it’s Clary and her Scooby gang to rescue Jace before the Clave does — and before the evil plan can be set into motion. They decide that there’s only one possible way to save Jace but doing so may very well take one of their lives.

Let’s see, what do we have in this story: There’s plenty of demons, interactions with Seelies, the appearance of an angel, a visit to the Iron Sisters, werewolves, revenge, lots of blood and definitely some major betrayal.

I have to hand it to the author; she does a great job of writing shiver-worthy villains. I’m really pleased with how multi-dimensional and well rounded the main bad guy is. It’s genuinely refreshing as so often, the villains are these one dimensional, cardboard-cutouts which is a pet peeve of mine.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and look forward to epic battle which no doubt will occur in the last book in this series, The City of Heavenly Fire.

Purchase the City of Lost Souls at Amazon

Purchase the City of Lost Souls at The Book Depository

Review of The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

November 9, 2018 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

The Well of Ascension is the second book in the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson, so it’s difficult for me to say too much without giving away the first book, which was entitled “Mistborn: The Final Empire.” Let just say that The Well of Ascension takes place one year after the events of Mistborn: The Final Empire and where the kingdom of Luthadel is still in chaos, though the current rulers are slowly getting a handle on things.

Vin, one of the main characters in the first book and also one of the most powerful Mistborns in the kingdom, has really come into her own over the past year. But things go pretty quickly when three armies show up outside of the kingdom walls, each one intent of invading the kingdom and taking it for their own. If this happens, there would no doubt be a lot of bloodshed. So the question is: How can Vin and her companions stop this from happening…or can they?

The story gets even more interesting when Vin encounters another Mistborn like herself named Zane who is from one of the three armies outside of the gates.

Now it bears repeating that magic system in this world is called Allomancy and involves ingesting different types of pure metals and then “burning” them by will in order to temporarily gain enhanced abilities such as increased speed, super hearing and enhanced strength – even the ability to pretty much fly through the air. The majority of Allomancer’s are called Mistings and have the ability to burn only one metal and one metal only. But here is a rare and special type of Allomancer called a Mistborn who has the capacity to burn All the metals, so these are indeed truly powerful individuals, nearly unstoppable. Our Vin is one of these Mistborns.

So this strange new Mistborn slowly wins Vin over and in the process, causes her to question who she really is and whether her loyalties are misplaced. Of course, we have to wonder whether this Mistborn is for real or whether he’s only trying to get under her skin for strategic military purposes? Is his, after all, associated with one of the armies desiring to invade the kingdom.

Oh, it’s also worth mentioning that said Mistborn is quite insane.

You know, often, the second book in a trilogy leaves a lot to be desired, and my experience has shown that they’re often disappointing. Not so with The Well of Ascension. There was plenty of political intrigue and magic which made this an excellent sequel. This was a massive stonker of a book yet I tore through it quick quickly as there are plenty of twists and turns, heart-stopping action, intriguing new characters several surprising revelations.

I can’t wait to delve into the third and final book in this series in the coming days.

Purchase Well of Ascension at The Book Depository

Review of The Art of Invisibility

November 8, 2018 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

The Art of Invisibility is a book that asks the following question: What do you need to do to protect yourself both online and off, and keep your information safe and most of all, private?

This book is written by one of the world’s famous hackers, Kevin Mitnik whose extracurricular activities landed him in some major hot water a while back. In fact, he spent two and a half years as a fugitive from the FBI, wanted for hacking, unauthorized access, and wire fraud. Mr. Mitnik has now moved on to legal, authorized hacking as a security consultant in which corporations pay him to hack into their systems to test their security.

Now, he works to teach people how to protect themselves and their companies in a world of malware, scammers, spammers, hackers, government abuse, keylogging software, microphones and cameras that are always on, and the tracking of our every move online. He knows what information companies collect about us, how they gather that information, how they spy on us and in this book, he shares that knowledge.

Think of The Art of Invisibility as a how-to guide for avoiding hackers and other malicious activity both in your online life as well as when you’re offline.

If you’ve thought that you were relatively safe online, this book will shatter that illusion of security pretty quickly, as he goes through all of our devices, online services, and conveniences, explaining their vulnerabilities and how easily they can be exploited. Quite eye-opening!

The author covers a wealth of information based on his experience and past encounters with law enforcement. Some of the most interesting topics covered in this book have to do with:

software vulnerabilities
password security
ransomware
email
text message and file encryption
using bitcoin
wiretapping
surveillance mechanisms
device and software backdoors
our social media presence
geo-location metadata such as that which is stored in every image we take

Some of Mr. Mitnik’s recommendations are relatively basic, such as using strong passwords, using a password manager and being careful to set up your home Wifi using the strongest and most recent security protocols. Speaking of Wi-Fi, one thing which was really stressed in the book and that I found particularly interesting was the use of public Wi-Fi and how the author claims that it was not designed with online banking or e-commerce in mind — meaning that it is highly unsecure. If you do need to perform financial transactions online when you’re away from home, the author advises us to use Cellular Data or our phone’s hotspot when possible.

So one of the big takeaways from the Art of Invisibility was that basically, there is no privacy anymore and we live in a society where practically everything we do is tracked, monitored and stored, sometimes for years if not forever. But you can become less visible but depending on how far you want to go, though it is not necessarily straightforward or easy — and most of the time not very convenient.

To become truly invisible is more than challenging and takes an incredible amount of work. But there are simple things you can do such as creating long passwords and never using the same password more than once.

When I’ve spoken about privacy in the past to the people in my life, some have often responded by saying “I have nothing to hide.” The book, however, points out repeatedly that even if we’re not working on classified government secrets or are not on the lam as a criminal, we still may not want private-third parties or nefarious hackers snooping through your computer files or into your personal data, or as I like to call it: having strangers rifling through your knickers drawer.

And even then, there may be those times where you are might be in a dispute with your boss or with a coworker, going through a messy divorce, being sued by a neighbor or anything of that nature, and in these cases, you will want to make sure there are no traces of your searches left behind that could be used against you, even if you are an ordinary law-abiding citizen. It’s surprising what can be used against you in court: text messages, emails, Uber rides, even purchases at the grocery store.

There were also a plethora of more advanced recommendations for people who need extreme online privacy, like at the Edward Snowden level. Some tactics include things such as using “burner” phones, paid for with cash and purchased for you by strangers, and using encryption tools to hide the data on our laptop.

There are so many fantastic recommendations in this book to get started, no matter what level of privacy and invisibility you want to achieve. What I found especially helpful, was that the author provides names of desktop and phone/tablet applications that can help us, tells us which online services to use (and which ones to avoid) and what to be aware of both in our online lives and our private lives. It really is pretty easy to get started with all this, but it does take vigilance and discipline.

I think that this is an important book that everyone should read because online security and privacy is something we all should be aware of and concerned about, and the strategies detailed in The Art of Invisibility provide the necessary guidance to get us started.

Purchase The Art of Invisibility at Amazon

Purchase The Art of Invisibility at The Book Depository

Review of The President is Missing by Bill Clinton and James Patterson

October 12, 2018 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

This is a book that I normally wouldn’t pick up as the political thriller isn’t usually a genre that I read. But when I learned that this was to be a collaboration between James Patterson and President Clinton, I figured I’d give it a go, especially since I’ve heard so many great things about it.

First off, I listened to this on Audible, and it was amazing! Dennis Quaid performed the voice of the president, and many other actors joined in to create a truly impressive and immersive collaboration. This was more like a radio play than the reading of a novel. I’m so glad I went with the Audible version.

A threat to the country

So The President is Missing revolves around the President of the United States, James Duncan, who is under attack by the Speaker of the House, Lester Rhodes. Rhodes and the House Committee are pushing for impeachment hearings because it has come to the country’s attention that President Duncan has had contact with a terrorist organization called the Sons of Jihad, and he refuses to divulge the contents of that communication.

As the story unfolds, we learn that it has come to the President’s attention that the Sons of Jihad is planning on releasing a devastating computer virus that will infect every computer, server, network and electronic device in America and in so doing, will ultimately destroy the infrastructure of the United States, most likely resulting in the deaths of a lot of people — possibly millions.

Going underground

In order to thwart the terrorist organization’s effort, the President must go underground for a brief time during which nobody is aware of his whereabouts. Hence the title, “The President is Missing.”

To add to the intrigue, we follow a professional hired assassin — a woman code-named Bach — who seems to be moving closer to the president through we’re not entirely sure whether he is her target.

But there’s a traitor in the house

To make the president’s task even more difficult, he figures out early on that one of his six closest team members — people in charge of departments that are essential to his investigation — is a traitor. This person learned early on about the deadly virus but opted to tell no one.

So in addition to figuring out how to stop the threat, the President has to go it alone because he doesn’t know which of his trusted advisors is the Benedict Arnold so he can’t trust any of them. In doing so, he cuts himself off from access to vital and indispensable resources that are normally available to him

A race against the clock

What follows is a mad race against the clock to figure out how to stop one of the most terrifying and debilitating cyber attacks the world has ever known, with the fate of the entire country at stake. From the moment the President goes off the grid and missing from the White House, the tension in the story is unrelenting. To add to the stress, the president also suffers from a rare, life-threatening blood disorder requiring medical care which could result in his death at any moment if left untreated.

Building intrigue

This was a fast-paced, tense and unsettling political thriller that kept me guessing until the surprising denouement at the end. The intrigue and excitement grow steadily throughout the story along with a perfectly balanced narrative and a complex, compelling plot. Short chapters push the dramatic story along quickly, and by the end, I couldn’t put it down . What made this story especially fun for me was never knowing what was real or who to trust.

Though horrifying at times

Though The President is Missing is exciting and gripping, it is also horrifying. The whole premise of the cyber attack as it was presented in this book struck terror in my heart. The story shows in chilling detail the fallout of such a cyber attack and all I can say is that I hope it never comes to pass. Otherwise, we’re all screwed!

Regardless of your political leanings, I could really see President Clinton’s influence in the story, especially when dealing with the cabinet members, describing the intricate workings of the high level department in the White House, dealing with high ranking officials, the President’s relationship with the secret service agents and those scenes in which President Duncan communicated with other world leaders. These details as presented by someone who actually has served as president added a richness and believability to the story.

Verdict

All in all, a stunning page-turner of a story involving murder, cyberterrorism, Russia, the Middle East, hackers, traitors, treason, assassins, espionage, the media, and a life-threatening illness. I loved this story and was sad to see it end.

Now there is a scene near the end of the book where President Duncan makes a major speech about the current state of the country and of the world, which felt that it could have come directly from the mouth of President Bill Clinton. Now depending on your politics, you may like or dislike this speech. I personally loved it, and it even sent a tear to my eye. This seemed to be the only real apparent partisan element in the story, however, and speech aside, I feel that this book is mostly non-partisan and is a story for anyone, regardless of political party affiliation — at least IMHO. Recommended!

Purchase The President is Missing at Amazon

Purchase The President is Missing at The Book Depository

Review of The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne

October 11, 2018 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

This is the story of Cyril, who is born in Dublin, Ireland in 1945 to an unwed, 16-year-old mother named Catherine Goggin. Catherine was forcibly banished from her small hometown by the local priest because of her pregnancy, and the priest literally dragged her out of the church and into the street, kicking her along with way. Quite a horrifying scene, truth be told. Here, we see firsthand the incredible and harrowing power over people’s lives that the Catholic Church once wielded and how it controlled and manipulated people through fear and intimidation.

So baby Cyril is adopted by a strange and somewhat unconventional couple, Harold and Maude Avery, who, though well-meaning, have very little feelings for this little boy. They even insist that he call them Harold and Maude instead of Mother and Father because after all, he is not a real “Avery.”

As a child, he realizes he is gay, which is not an easy thing to be in ultra-conservative Catholic Ireland. He is also in love with his best friend, Julian. The storyline of him and Julian was at times humorous but also heart-wrenching, as Cyril tried to push his feelings aside. Cyril’s life as a closeted young gay kid is not an easy one.

So this book then spans all the decades of Cyril’s life through seven-year increments covering his loves, losses, tragedies, longings, regrets, his mistakes, and all the lessons he learns along the way.

This book was quite heartbreaking at times in its depiction of what life was like in Ireland, until very recently, for women and gay men. It’s also very much about the culture of Ireland and all of the changes the country the went through from 1945 to 2015, the year the story ends. So in this way, I ended up learning a lot about Ireland.

Now I don’t want to give the impression that the book was overall grim because that’s not the case. Though the story does start out with hypocrisy, hatefulness, and mean-spiritedness that was difficult to read about, it ends with the triumph of sanity. There are also plenty of savagely funny scenes with hysterically humorous, clever and witty dialog.

I loved the snappy banter between the characters and the eccentric personalities of many of them. That being said, the secondary characters were a delight, and each was well-fleshed out. They felt like real people that each of us might know.

This book grabbed from the first page, and it was nearly unputdownable. The first line, in fact, was hooked me right in:

“Long before we discovered that he had fathered two children by two different women, one in Drimoleague and one in Clonakilty, Father James Monroe stood on the altar of the Church of Our Lady, Star of the Sea, in the parish of Goleen, West Cork, and denounced my mother as a whore.”

I found The Heart’s Invisible Furies exceptionally moving and entertaining, and it took my breath away at times, with its compelling narrative and beautiful, expressive lush prose. This is not just a coming of age story, but also a man’s emotional search for a sense of identity and country. It’s about love, loss, longing — about struggling with who one is.

Cyril’s character though likable is deeply flawed and though good-intentioned, he does do some horrible things and inadvertently ends up hurting people, as we all do at one time or another in our lives.

All in all, a beautiful, heart-warming and poignant book that I’m so glad I read. The Heart’s Invisible Furies was my first John Boyne book, and I look forward to reading more by this author.

Purchase The Heart’s Invisible Furies at Amazon

Purchase the Heart’s Invisible Furies at The Book Depository

Review of Dear Evan Hansen by Val Emmich

October 10, 2018 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

This book was a collaboration by four authors: Val Emmich, Steven Levenson, Benj Pasek, and Justin Paul, which was was originally a Broadway play that I unfortunately, didn’t get a chance to see. But from my understanding, it was quite well received.

Introducing Evan and his letters

So the book follows Evan, a high school senior who has horrible social anxiety. Under the direction of his therapist, he writes a letter to himself each day that starts out with:

Dear Evan Hansen,

Today’s going to be an amazing day and here’s why…

A letter ends up in the wrong hands

But things don’t go so well for Evan one day when one of those letters to himself ends up in the wrong hands. And, it just so happens that this particular classmate commits suicide with a copy of Evan’s letter in his pocket.

Now the letter in question was a rather dark letter, a letter detailing Evan’s doubts, depression and his particularly somber view on life at the time it was written.

Evan meets the parents…and tells a lie

What results is a series of misunderstandings due to one simple lie. We then follow Evan along with the deceased student’s parents on a heart-wrenching journey through grief and mental health.

You see, Evan knew that the student’s parents were hurting deeply, so he chose to tell one little white lie because at the time, he felt it was the right thing to do. It was a simple lie — a lie meant to help rather than to hurt.

And the lie grows….and grows….

But this lie grew and grew and grew, spiraling out of control until it became a social media sensation. It turned into a story that Evan couldn’t put away and ignore. It became…almost a mythology that was way past the point of going away on its own — it becomes a story that Evan can no longer escape from.

Because of this and his strong urge not to cause the student’s parents any more pain or take away their hope, Evan tells even more lies to keep the story going, and he gets in deeper and deeper and deeper.

Thrust into the Spotlight

This book also portrayed in a somewhat frightening way, the power that social media plays in our lives and how it has the capacity to cause real harm as well as promote healing.

So because of this misunderstanding and Evan’s lie, Evan, a boy who preferred to move through his day unnoticed and invisible, is suddenly thrust in the spotlight. Now on the positive side, he does find acceptance among his peers and for the first time, is propelled forward with a new purpose.

On the negative side, this new world of Evan’s is about to unravel and come crashing down, and there’s not a damn thing he can do about it.

My Verdict

I ended up enjoying this book — although I don’t feel “enjoying” is the proper word to use about a book whose subject deals with the aftermath of a suicide. Let’s me just say that it was a compelling read and was very disturbing and heartbreaking at times.

The story dealt with some very tough topics such as suicide, bullying, isolation, mental health, loneliness and lying but it didn’t do so in an After-School-Special hit-you-over-the-head kind of way. Rather, the topics were handled with dignity rather than in a cringy, in-your-face way.

Though…I will say that the situation that Evan found itself in made me cringe on several occasions, but it was a cringe of embarrassment for Evan rather than because the tone of the book was preachy.

All in all, I felt that this was a powerful well-told story that illustrated wonderfully the ups and downs of life in high school and how the course of our life can change from one simple decision, for good or for ill. I ended up giving this book four stars. Recommended!

Purchase Dear Evan Hansen at Amazon

Purchase Dear Evan Hansen at The Book Depository