Killers of a Certain Age - Book Review

 

The book choice for my book club over the last month was Killers of a Certain Age. This is a book about a group of women who are paid assassins who have been working for "The Museum" for 40 years and are told they are being forced into retirement. However, they find out that they are not quietly going into retirement. They have a bounty placed on their heads. Through the book we are taken through the process of finding out why they have a bounty on their heads and what they do about it. 

When I was told the basic plot of the book, I was quite excited to read this book. For the most part, it is a good book. My main complaint is that the flash backs in the first half of the book are not in good places. Through the flashbacks, we learn how they are recruited, trained, and build relationships within the company. These are important bits of information, but I feel like it would have been better had they been at the beginning of the book and used a flash forward type of thing as the book went on. Another thing that may have worked would have been somehow including the recruiting and training into the dialog. I'm not a writer, so I don't even know if that would work. I just didn't like how the author would have a cliff hanger at the end of a chapter then suddenly change to something from the past. Again, this is only a criticism of the first half of the book. In the second half of the book, flashbacks were used to show the relationship between the main characters and the people they were perusing. This felt like a good use of flashbacks. (I'm not a total hater of the flashbacks. I just think it is used wrong or too much in a lot of novels now days.) The good part of the book is that the basics of the plot move along at a good pace. The imagery was perfect with not too much description but enough to really know, understand, and feel a part of what was going on. Overall, I gave this book 3 stars on Goodreads. I will probably not read the second book because I was satisfied with the ending of the book and don't feel the need to. One person in my book club read it and said it was ok but not as good as the first one. 

It took me almost 2 weeks longer to read than it should have (my deadline was July 16, but I finished today). This was not because it was a bad book. I have traveled over the last month which slowed me down, and I spent way too much time on my phone over the last few months. One of these days, I will give myself more time to read like I did at the beginning of the year. 

Life Changing Book

 

The book The Law of Love is such a wonderful book about how to love without the expectation of getting anything in return. He talks about how to implement it in all aspects of life using personal stories and inspirational quotes. Each time I opened this book, I felt edified. I love this book so much that I am planning to buy it for several people for Christmas. 

Investing

I have been reading The Automatic Millionaire since last week. Chad’s brother gave it and a few other financial advice books to the kids for Christmas to try to help them have a more successful future than their parents. (He did the same for his other nephew and nieces.) I only gave one interested in possibly reading one of the right now, but Chad and I could definitely use the help. 

I am only a few chapters in, but I have read enough to know that he is not talking about a get rich quick scheme, he is talking about using automated systems to help save and invest. From what I have read so far, Chad and I have decided to make a few changes to help us have a better future. First, we looked at how we spent our money to see where we could make some cuts. We already cut out Door Dash and don’t go out to eat as often which is helping with the day-to-day stuff. We decided that our soda habit was what could change to give us more money to invest. We have been buying three twelve packs of Dr. Pepper Zero of various flavors for quite a while. It currently costs about $8.00 per twelve pack when on sale, so we could save at least $24.00 per week if we stop buying it. This money can be invested into our Robinhood accounts. It’s not automatic yet, but s could be set up that way. If we can stick to this, we can make it automatic. Next, we checked each of our 401(k)s to see what we were investing and how much we had. The book suggests we have 10% invested from each paycheck. He was set at 7%, and I was at 3%. We were comfortable with his, but we decided I needed to invest more. I changed my contribution to 5%. I’m not comfortable with going all the way up to 10% yet. That will come with time. 

I’m not sure if we have the time to become millionaires by the time we want to retire since we are already 45 and almost 50. I am willing to put a greater effort into it. However, I am hoping we have enough to retire with some kind of dignity. Let’s face it, there will probably never be that inheritance that we all hope for. 

Tatting? Sure

 

The more needlework I do, the more I want to learn. I had thought I would be happy with knitting and crocheting, and I have been. I cross stitched here and there growing up, but it was never something I enjoyed as much as my dad or grandma. I’m not going to say that I would never do it again, but it does not grab my attention right now. Macrame has yet to appeal to me. Tatting has never quite been on my radar. 

Before I left a few days ago, my stepmom asked me if I had thought about learning because she had a book she wanted to give me. As I thumbed through the book, my first thought was, “I haven’t considered this, but I really want to learn to make that heart.” Guess what I am now excited to learn when I have my 7 week school break? How to tat!

The One Where You Buy a Book

Sometimes you buy the book

because you want the sweater.

Now, I need to come up with the money to buy all of the yarn needed. It looks like it will be about $90. Maybe someone will be generous for my birthday.