Serial Didn’t Free Adnan Syed

This is a fun, family of spies book that also tackles important topics. Soon after finding out that her parents work as spies for a world organization, Andréa Hernández-Baldoquín ends up with her first solo assignment. She’s the only person the agency knows who can pass as white and is 14, the age they need to go undercover in a high school to befriend the estranged son of a white nationalist that they need to find. Not only is Andréa going to have the challenges of being in a new school, a new crush and friends, but she’s going to have to drop the accent in her name, pretend to not speak Spanish, and strip her culture from her life.

The audiobook narrated by Victoria Villarreal is great and I really recommend picking this up next time you need some action, spies, friendship, and fandom in your life. It was my pick for The Best Books We Read July-September 2022.

Here’s a true crime and narrative political nonfiction that is my current (as of writing this halfway through) audiobook. In 2016 Seth Rich was walking home drunk from a bar and was shot dead in the street. It was the kind of case that would normally only make local news and devastate his family and friends. Instead because he was a Democratic National Committee staffer, his murder and career was weaponized by Fox news creating ludicrous conspiracy theories, including that a pizza restaurant was involved in a global child-trafficking ring. Rather than Rich’s family getting to mourn him and focus on finding his killer, they were thrown into a world of people trying to use their son’s life and murder for political conspiracies. Kroll lays out the timeline of how the DNC’s leaked emails and Seth Rich’s murder were weaponized to fuel right-wing conspiracy theories and who Seth Rich was as his family tried to find justice for Rich. It’s also a look at how the people fueling these kinds of conspiracy theories operate — including making themselves rich – and how the media and social media has played a huge role in it happening.