Welcome

Welcome to my ever-evolving blog. It started out as a blog on Beachbody workouts and products, mainly when I was a Beachbody coach. I no longer coach, not because I don't believe in Beachbody's programs (I subscribe to Beachbody on Demand and use their workouts every day), I am just not a salesperson and hated that aspect of it. I am more than willing to answer questions about my experiences with their products and the various workouts, and I feel freer to do so without the appearance of giving a biased review of something.

I have also started adding reviews for various things I have purchased like movies, books, CDs, and other products. This was brought about by a fight with Amazon in which all of my reviews were removed over a completely bullshit allegation that I posted a review that violated their terms of service. After going back and forth with the morons in the community-reviews department (even after they admitted that my posts did not violate their guidelines) they restored my account (which took them six months to do), but I have been posting my reviews on my blog to have them preserved in case something like that happens again. And here, I will post uncensored reviews so I will swear from time to time and post reviews that may be longer than Amazon's character limit. Everything I post here on any topic or product is my personal opinion, and I take no compensation for any product reviews I post. I am a member of Amazon's vine program and because I get those products for free, I keep those reviews on Amazon only, but everything I have purchased with my own money, whether from Amazon or some other store/website/outlet, I will post here.  

I also plan to do some longer blog posts on various topics, such as how to learn physics, how to get through calculus, and longer reviews of workout programs as I do them. Basically, whatever strikes me as interesting at the time.  As you can see if you navigate around the blog, I had many years in between postings. During that time I was going back to school to get an engineering degree, and learning material that I avoided my first time through college was a different experience and one that gave me a lot of insight into how to do well in those classes, which I will try to impart here for those who are looking to get a science or engineering degree. 

Wednesday, May 4, 2022

Book Review: The Kremlin's Candidate

 


This is the final novel in the Red Sparrow series of spy novels involving the Russian double agent Dominika Egorova. There is a time jump from the end of the second novel, and now Dominika is in the running to become the new head of the SVR. This means she will have unparalleled access to information to feed to the Americans, but it also puts her in more danger as it becomes much harder for her to pass the information along to the CIA. The main plot of the novel is that there is a Russian mole, code-named Magnit, who is in line to become the new director of the CIA after the death of the current director. Of course, if the mole becomes the director, Dominika's identity immediately becomes known to the Russians and she would be sent off to a Gulag and killed. So, there is a race to uncover the identity of the mole and prevent the mole from being confirmed as director, and it, of course, includes the usual spy thriller twists and turns with nearly every main character in danger at some point.

The book clocks in at about 430 pages. It is not an extremely fast read (it took me 21 days to get through it, and I am a fairly quick reader), but how quickly you can get through it really depends on how much time you can devote to reading it. The chapters are fairly short, anywhere from five to ten pages on average, so there are plenty of natural stopping points if you read just an hour or two at a time. There are a few new characters in the book, but the focus is mostly on the established characters, especially Dominika and Nate, and Putin plays a very large role in this novel, much moreso than he did in the prior two. The ending does leave open the possibility of additional stories, but the tone would definitely be changed somewhat because the characters definitely end up in a very different place from where they started. Chances are, it will be the end of the story, however, especially since the Red Sparrow movie pretty much flopped and there is not any pressure to keep a movie franchise alive. If you liked the prior novels, this is definitely worth reading.

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