I'm a practicing lawyer born and raised in Louisiana who graduated from Dartmouth College and then became the Editor-in-Chief of The University of Chicago Law Review. My 20-plus career has included a one-year clerkship for the appellate court with jurisdiction over Louisiana federal trial courts and 16 years of civil litigation. Defense of an Other is my debut novel. As a reader, my tastes are contemporary, and I read far more fiction than nonfiction. I don't upload anything to Goodreads to which I'd give less than a four-star rating so that all the books I've shelved are ones that I recommend for anyone interested in that genre. I suspect only about a quarter to a third of the books I begin receive a four star rating or higher. I follow what I've gleaned is Publisher's Weekly's approach over the years—I try to evaluate a book based on what it aspires to be. Five stars may not mean it's the most thought-provoking read ever, but simply that it's a heckuva a science fiction book or lescom.