The Good Wife

Patty's husband Tommy and his accomplice Gary break into an old woman's home to steal money. They end up killing her and torching the place. As the escape outside the house, they are caught by the police. Gary turns on Tommy and accuses him of the murder. Tommy gets a 25 to life sentence. Patty is pregnant with Tommy's baby.

Patty initially moves in with her sister. But once her son Casey is born, she moves in with her mom. Mom takes care of the baby. Casey asks Tommy's old coworker Russ to get her a job. They work on road upkeep. This involves plowing snow, patching holes, and such. It is tough work but the pay is good. Patty gets into good shape due to the physical demands of work.

Initially Patty visits Tommy in a jail that is a few hours away. She usually brought her son. Then Tommy gets moved to an upstate facility that is 12 hours away. She needs to take a bus to get there. Patty rotates through assorted jobs at places like Montgomery Wards, Ruby Tuesdays, and eventually a nursing home. She needs to sell her Dodge car. Eventually Tommy's pickup truck breaks down beyond repair.

Patty toys with the idea of being with a local NASCAR up and coming star. However he seems to have a beauty pageant girlfriend. She ends up remaining loyal to Tommy. Tommy gets denied parole a couple times. Eventually when he gets out, she arranges for a job for him at her work. He hates it and switches to Best Buy.

Casey is grown up, a college grad, and moved out West to work before his dad is released from prison.

Gamer Army

Rogan is a 12 year old gamer in the virtual reality world. He is a bit distant from his parents. His dad plays other games in VR. His mom is a VR rights advocate. Rogan has trouble paying his monthly rent for his VR apartment. He is a pretty decent gamer in one of the VR games.

Rogan gets an invite from the pioneer of VR, who is conducting a championship tournament to identify the best gamer in the VR game he plays in. He is up against 4 other gamers. He actually knows one of them online.

Little by little, the other gamers get eliminated. But there is something suspicious going on with the VR founder. Rogan gets down to the last two in the gaming contest. He gets alerted that the contest games are him actually controlling real world avatars to do the dirty work of the founder.

We Are The Nerds

This book tells the story of the co-founders of the Internet site Reddit. There is Steve Huffman, who was the programmer. Then there was Alexis OHanian. These guys had initially pitched the idea of a kiosk for gas station food offerings. They wanted to join startup incubator Y Combinator. There were initially denied.

Later the head of Y Combinator offered to let both guys in the cohort if they changed their company idea to the original Reddit. They agreed and the rest was history. Both guys seemed to exit once the company got some money. They both became millionaires.

Both guys returned to the company. Huffman eventually became CEO. And Ohanian became a sales man of sort. As an aside, this book track Ohanian meeting and eventually marrying tennis star Serena Williams. This book is the first one by author Christine Lagorio-Chafkin.