How well do you remember your childhood? Are you sure you’re remembering it correctly?
Lenny Marks is alive, but she’s not living. She’d be fine with How well do you remember your childhood? Are you sure you’re remembering it correctly?
Lenny Marks is alive, but she’s not living. She’d be fine with that if it weren’t for the fact she knows it makes her mom (well, her former foster mom but the closest thing to a mom she’s had in a long time) upset if she doesn’t at least try and engage with the world around her. If Lenny had it her way she’d keep to her strict routines and schedules, never letting anyone get too close to her or know anything much about her. It’s safer that way. No one can abandon you if you don’t let them in, after all.
The themes of abuse, abandonment, fear, anger, loneliness, and loss are all at the heart of Lenny Marks Gets Away With Murder. If you think this book is lighthearted at all, be forewarned it’s not. I cried more than once. My eyes are unhappy with me.
Debut author Kerryn Mayne has written a book with an extraordinary protagonist who will rip your heart out from your chest, break it, then repair it before placing it back inside and stitching you back up all shiny and new. Lenny Marks is written as a neurodivergent character who also has a large issue with dissociation surrounding a traumatic event from her childhood. Lenny’s type of neurodivergency isn’t explored or explicitly stated, but Mayne did a terrific job of writing a neurodivergent character without coming across as precious or exploitative. If you don’t fall in love with Lenny I don’t know what kind of person you are, because Lenny is so easy to love. I think that’s why this book has been so widely lauded for breaking people’s hearts and making them cry. You just feel so much for Lenny and what she’s been through. And after all she’s been through, she’s still out there trying her best to survive and do right when so many people who should know better choose to do wrong.
The pacing of this book is lovely, with a natural progression and no filler. Mayne’s writing style is sharp and insightful, with a dark sense of humor and a deep well of emotion. Her characters are well-drawn and her plotting is clear and well-rounded. The dialogue in this book is a delight and one of its best features.
This is definitely women’s fiction, but it’s definitely on the lit fic side of women’s fiction. It’s women’s fiction because the book deals with, in a large amount, issues that widely affect women and their children. The take on these issues is more on the darkly humorous side, which I always enjoy. If you love a tale that ultimately results in revenge, then you’ll end up loving this.
TW for child abuse TW for mild animal abuse (one scene) TW for violence TW for child death TW for domestic abuse
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: 5 Star Review/Dark Comedy/Disability Rep/Literary Fiction/Women’s Fiction...more
You can really tell this book was originally published as an Audible Original. It’s a small blessing, but a larger curse.
YoReal Rating: 3.5 / 5 Stars
You can really tell this book was originally published as an Audible Original. It’s a small blessing, but a larger curse.
Young Rich Widows is a multi-POV thriller set in 1985 just after a plane crash that kills all four partners of a law firm. The story itself is about the widows of the four partners and what they have to deal with in the wake of the unexpected disaster that takes a wrecking ball to all of their lives.
I’ve never read a book that was published as an audiobook first, and maybe that has a lot to do with how the book was transitioned to paperback and therefore how I received it as a reader. The reason I think the transition from Audible Original to paperback may be a larger curse than a blessing is because while the book is entertaining it feels rather flat. I didn’t get anything other than surface vibes and emotions from the pages. While the dialogue was well written it didn’t pack any emotion behind it. I just all read like cheap champagne when I imagine it could’ve read like Dom.
So while it’s a fun read, it just felt kind of empty at the end.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
While having various points of views and different angles of storytelling can be really interesting and really effective in some thriller novels, therWhile having various points of views and different angles of storytelling can be really interesting and really effective in some thriller novels, there is such a thing as too much. Watch It Burn is truly an example of too many and too much: too many POVs, too many angles, too much shifting, too many characters, and a major POV character I just wanted to glaze over every time she came on the page.
Some may call this book timely. I call it tired. It was really just below average on every level for me.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Due to a three star or lower rating this review will not be appearing on my social media. Thank you. ...more
Did you have an imaginary friend when you were growing up?
Camille’s daughter, Georgie, has two. Bestie isn’t too much of an issue. Her other one, ImagDid you have an imaginary friend when you were growing up?
Camille’s daughter, Georgie, has two. Bestie isn’t too much of an issue. Her other one, Imaginary? Now, that one’s an issue, because it quickly becomes clear that Imaginary isn’t an imagined friend at all, but rather a teacher’s aide at Georgie’s school who somehow knows things about Camille’s past that she’s never told anyone involved in her life about and has taught them to her daughter. Camille has kept her past buried for a reason, and now she’s afraid it’s caught up to her.
The first and third acts of this book are fast-paced and smartly-written. The beginning of the book really hooks you, with an attention-grabbing opening sequence before slinging you into the present day and the frightening start of the main story. The third act is well-written as well, with an even faster pace than the first act as it careens to a really engaging and captivating ending.
It’s the second act where this book suffers a little. It’s not much, mind you. It’s just the pacing that suffers from some stuttering and a little meandering that feels like it could’ve been tightened up a little.
The timeline on this book is non-linear as it switches between the present and back to Camille’s therapy sessions a few years prior to the events of the book. Normally this might feel like a manner of expositional dump and I’d deride it as such, but in this case it really mutually informs and is informed by the plot, so it fits perfectly without feeling plopped so Kent doesn’t have to explain things.
Kent apparently got the idea for this book after reading something about how 1 in 25 people are sociopaths, and that might be true, but it’s important to remember sociopathy is a spectrum of antisocial behaviors and disorders. Camille is a made sociopath, and that’s part of the reason why she resonated with me so much as a character and why this book works so well. Camille still remembers a time when she wasn’t a sociopath. There is an echo of those years in her, a memory of those days and what she wanted and what she went through. She remembers what it was like to want to be loved and seen. This book works because she doesn’t want that life for her kids and will do anything to protect them from it. She’s beyond a mama bear: she’s a mama bear without restraints.
The ending of this book is fantastic, with a great twist. I saw it coming but not until late in the book. I thought I had the whodunit called two other times before I finally called it correct. I always like when I can be surprised by a book these days. I enjoyed it a good deal.
I was provided a copy of this title by Netgalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: Book Series/Kidnapping/Psychological Fiction/Psychological Thriller/Suspense Thriller/Women’s Fiction ...more
If Katy Brent writes a third brilliant book I’m going to declare her an auto-buy author, because I loved this book almost as much as I did her 2023 reIf Katy Brent writes a third brilliant book I’m going to declare her an auto-buy author, because I loved this book almost as much as I did her 2023 release, How to Kill Men and Get Away With It. Though the two books are as different as night and day, they’re both flavored with Brent’s distinctive feminist prose and sharp, satirical sociocultural commentary.
This book is smart, thoughtful, emotionally provocative, and morbidly funny. Molly Monroe wakes up one morning after a work party with a strange man in her bed. She doesn’t remember much of anything from the night before. The guy’s name is Jack and he tells her he rescued her after he found her crying and wailing but not able to tell him why somewhere near his house in Vauxhall the night before. He brought her home in an Uber and just stayed with her because he was afraid she’d choke on her own vomit. She’s fully dressed. So is he. She feels fine, except she feels mostly dead from a hangover. He leaves her his number in case she needs to get in touch with him and she reluctantly goes into work, despite the strange looks and weird name-calling she gets from people on the way.
But that’s just the start of a few weeks of the weirdest and most heartbreaking weeks of her life.
The sociocultural commentary is hard and fierce in this book: social media and how it automatically focuses on fetishizing and shaming females who obviously are out of it when they are unknowingly filmed or papped, wives who automatically go after the other woman when they should go after their husbands first, best friends who scream at one another over their habits instead of just automatically helping, and mostly all of the men who dismiss and deride women whenever they have the chance of taking an out.
Katy Brent has more talent in her little finger for straddling that fine line between satire and mockery than most authors in the business. It would be easy for her to dip a toe fully into blaming men for everything, but Brent fully acknowledges that women can sometimes be just as awful. Internal misogyny is a beast and sometimes even the best of women can succumb when they’re weak.
It was brilliant, quick-witted, and sharp. Watch out for TW/CWs, please.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
Have you ever felt like it took you a long time to get to where you were meant to be? Like you didn’t mean to take the scenic route, but you did and nHave you ever felt like it took you a long time to get to where you were meant to be? Like you didn’t mean to take the scenic route, but you did and now you know you were meant to take that route the whole time? Like you would have missed something vital if you hadn’t?
That feeling, combined with an oversaturation of Gen X nostalgia, makes up the majority of the sentiment, story, and romance of Slow Dance.
(Yeah, I can say that because I’m Gen X and I not only had friends just like these characters but I could’ve lived lives similar to theirs if I didn’t grow up in a town smaller than even Omaha (though I don’t live in Nebraska)).
I’m normally a huge fan of Rainbow Rowell. I’ve read almost everything else she’s written and I own most of it, too. Her strengths tend to be dialogue, character building, character arcs, and emotions. These are all things I have always loved and admired about her writing. Everyone in her books is messy, vulnerable, and terribly human. No one looks perfect and no one’s okay. I love how Rowell isn’t afraid to write incredibly mundane people falling in love in the most haphazard, dazzling ways. The issue I had with Slow Dance was that I really disliked Shiloh and Cary read much like her other male characters from her contemporary novels.
So while the dialogue was sharp and witty and the emotional messiness was alive and well, I just wasn’t invested in the romantic relationship between Shiloh and Cary. I also felt like the ending was a bit rushed and left a few loose ends flapping.
What I do think is that this book might be a lot better in audiobook format. This seems like the type of book that would read well that way. I don’t listen to audiobooks, but for some reason I kept coming back to that thought. I also think if I had liked Shiloh more I would’ve rated this book higher.
I was provided a copy of this title by Netgalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. A rating of three stars or lower means this review will not be appearing on my social media. Thank you.
File Under: Coming of Age/Contemporary Romance/Spice Level 1/Women’s Fiction ...more
If there’s one topic that simultaneously scares me to death and enrages me, it’s eugenics. Combine eugenics with the additional evils of capitalism, aIf there’s one topic that simultaneously scares me to death and enrages me, it’s eugenics. Combine eugenics with the additional evils of capitalism, and I’ll get sick with anxiety. So, mix eugenics, capitalism, and the type of feminism practiced by the likes of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (you know, the kind where only cisgendered, rich, smart, childbearing, white women are the ones truly deserving of equality) up together in a part and that’s what terrifies me about Yours for the Taking.
This book is largely a conspiracy thriller set in a dystopian future that deals mainly with LGBTQ and women’s issues within a psychological context. That’s more or less the construct we’ve got going on here. You can read about the plot of the book in the blurb, but know that the blurb isn’t quite as clear as it seems. The narrative structure for the book is from multiple POV’s played out in third person: Ava, Jacqueline, Shelby, Olympia, and more all have chapters told from their perspective. It is a linear timeline structure, which is very nice because between the plot and the multiple narrators it would definitely feel unnecessarily complicated to manipulate the timeline.
While the book is very well-written, I did feel at times that the book did veer from its seeming mission to aim for scathing social commentary on non-intersectional feminism, transphobia, and queer erasure into the territory of being almost satirical or too on the nose. If you’re going to write satire then you need to lean all the way into it for the whole book. However, the terrors of eugenics were portrayed all too well, as were the horrors of mind control.
My most common complaint that resounded in my mind again and again as I read this book came from my geography degree: The premise that anyone would build a shelter to house the chosen ones of North America for the unforeseeable future–possibly forever–on the island of Manhattan in a world after global climate change has melted the ice caps makes absolutely no sense. The island of Manhattan is unstable. It’s mostly made up of infill dirt. It’s largely an artificial island. It was a swamp before it was colonized. If a shelter like the one in the book were to be built, it would have been built on the mainland, not on Manhattan Island.
Other than that, it’s an excellent book that asks great questions about nature versus nurture, the patriarchy, feminism, parenthood, sisterhood, and where will humans go when the tide finally rises.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. This review was written without compensation. Thank you.
This was a lovely, if terribly sad, book. Even with how sad it is, I found it almost impossible to put down because the writing is just so elegant andThis was a lovely, if terribly sad, book. Even with how sad it is, I found it almost impossible to put down because the writing is just so elegant and the story is engrossing.
It’s interesting how sometimes the same old story can captivate you just being packaged in a slightly different way. Here, Morgan takes a basic plot we’ve definitely seen before: two women who are both running from their own kinds of ghosts and end up fighting them together in some sort of way, and keeps one woman’s ghosts mundane and turns the other woman’s ghosts supernatural. I also found myself surprised to be as invested in the story as I was, given I knew what was coming most of the time and knew most of what was going to happen in this book. Did I know it all? No. But I knew enough that there were few surprises. Usually, this would make me whine and moan, but I kept on being just as invested as I was from the beginning. I think that may have been because the writing was just that good and because I cared about the characters that much.
Two things that I loved so much about this book: One, the time period this book is set in. I love a good historical fantasy setting, and books set in the late 1960’s are some of my favorites. It was a time of so much social, political, and religious upheaval. It makes for excellent storytelling fodder. The second thing is the geographical setting of this book. The isolated, gothic-like setting of a very isolated island somewhere (I’m guessing from the text) in Puget Sound made not only for picturesque passages full of evocative imagery, but it also matched the mood of our protagonists and gave the story the supernatural feeling of liminal space that I found to be essential to the story being told.
There’s this ribbon woven through the text of this story about the spirit world and whether or not it’s tied to religion and faith or not, or whether it matters at all. Is it a gift or a curse? Burden or blessing? This question goes unanswered and I believe that’s the moral of the story. It’s all in what you carry with you.
I recommend this for fans of elegant prose, books about women fighting back without violence, books about unlikely and fast female friendships, and fans of 1960’s historical fantasy.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. This review was written without compensation.
I should begin by saying I might be a bit biased because Ava Reid is one of my auto-buy authors. I love everything she has written so far, and I lovedI should begin by saying I might be a bit biased because Ava Reid is one of my auto-buy authors. I love everything she has written so far, and I loved A Study in Drowning, too, even if my love for it is more complicated than the love I feel for, say, Juniper & Thorn.
I’ve seen numerous reviews from people who’ve said this book gives them all the “fall feelings”. Well, then I feel sorry for what you think fall is, because this book made me feel incredibly sad, heavy, and emotional. I felt as weighed down as all of Hireath (the Myrrdin family home mentioned in the book’s blurb) feels in all its waterlogged sorrow. (Interestingly enough, I know the word Hireath from its Welsh origins, and while there is no direct English translation, to the Welsh, it’s a feelings that mixes longing, yearning, nostalgia, wistfulness or an earnest desire for what–or how–something used to be).
Wales plays more than one part in this story, as Emrys Myrddin was the name of Merlin, King Arthur’s court magician, in the oldest known Welsh texts. Sadly, in those old texts, Merlin was just as atrocious a figure as Emrys is in this book, in the worst of ways. Also, notably, A woman named Angharad James was quite a notable poet in Wales from the mid 17th to mid 18th century. Both her son and husband died before her, and she wrote a beautiful elegy for her son. The manuscript survived and you can find it online.
I think my complicated feelings with this book begin with how much I identify with Effy, our female protagonist. It’s in her struggles to be taken seriously in academia, her mental illness issues, and her trauma. (BTW, here is a good place to suggest that you look up a list of TW/CWs before you read this book, if you’re the type of person who wants to know what they’re getting into before they start a darker book). For Effy, books have been her only friends and her only escape for her whole life, and I feel that sentiment in my bones. Books never leave like people do. Books never die. Books never physically harm you. Books are reliable, a portal out of here. And Effy, well, Effy has needed something to rely on her whole life because she’s had no one else to rely on. The only problem is she ended up relying on a single book to hold onto everything for her.
This book has a lot to say about misogyny, r@pe culture, victim blaming, grooming, the theft of women’s intellectual property for the sake of putting a man’s name on the work, prejudice against women in academia, philosophies behind what you believe and what you know, unwanted children, folklore, mythology, the younger generation changing the power structures, and more.
But what I find I enjoy more than anything when I read an Ava Reid book is the writing itself. The prose. The atmosphere. The imagery. The sentence structure. The way you can almost smell the sea, feel the ocean spray, shiver in the cold, smell the damp, feel the wood flooring bow beneath your feet, see the termite holes in the baseboards. Her books are immersive and evocative. You can feel the heavy doors and freezing water. You can see the trees flying through the air and the curving roads. And this is why I can’t help but love Ava Reid: her writing, just pure and undiluted, is magical all on its own.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: 5 Star Review/College Romance/Dark Academia/Dark Fantasy/Disability Rep/Romantasy/Gothic/Standalone Novel/Spice Level 1/Women’s Fiction/YA Fantasy/YA Fantasy Romance
Merged review:
I should begin by saying I might be a bit biased because Ava Reid is one of my auto-buy authors. I love everything she has written so far, and I loved A Study in Drowning, too, even if my love for it is more complicated than the love I feel for, say, Juniper & Thorn.
I’ve seen numerous reviews from people who’ve said this book gives them all the “fall feelings”. Well, then I feel sorry for what you think fall is, because this book made me feel incredibly sad, heavy, and emotional. I felt as weighed down as all of Hireath (the Myrrdin family home mentioned in the book’s blurb) feels in all its waterlogged sorrow. (Interestingly enough, I know the word Hireath from its Welsh origins, and while there is no direct English translation, to the Welsh, it’s a feelings that mixes longing, yearning, nostalgia, wistfulness or an earnest desire for what–or how–something used to be).
Wales plays more than one part in this story, as Emrys Myrddin was the name of Merlin, King Arthur’s court magician, in the oldest known Welsh texts. Sadly, in those old texts, Merlin was just as atrocious a figure as Emrys is in this book, in the worst of ways. Also, notably, A woman named Angharad James was quite a notable poet in Wales from the mid 17th to mid 18th century. Both her son and husband died before her, and she wrote a beautiful elegy for her son. The manuscript survived and you can find it online.
I think my complicated feelings with this book begin with how much I identify with Effy, our female protagonist. It’s in her struggles to be taken seriously in academia, her mental illness issues, and her trauma. (BTW, here is a good place to suggest that you look up a list of TW/CWs before you read this book, if you’re the type of person who wants to know what they’re getting into before they start a darker book). For Effy, books have been her only friends and her only escape for her whole life, and I feel that sentiment in my bones. Books never leave like people do. Books never die. Books never physically harm you. Books are reliable, a portal out of here. And Effy, well, Effy has needed something to rely on her whole life because she’s had no one else to rely on. The only problem is she ended up relying on a single book to hold onto everything for her.
This book has a lot to say about misogyny, r@pe culture, victim blaming, grooming, the theft of women’s intellectual property for the sake of putting a man’s name on the work, prejudice against women in academia, philosophies behind what you believe and what you know, unwanted children, folklore, mythology, the younger generation changing the power structures, and more.
But what I find I enjoy more than anything when I read an Ava Reid book is the writing itself. The prose. The atmosphere. The imagery. The sentence structure. The way you can almost smell the sea, feel the ocean spray, shiver in the cold, smell the damp, feel the wood flooring bow beneath your feet, see the termite holes in the baseboards. Her books are immersive and evocative. You can feel the heavy doors and freezing water. You can see the trees flying through the air and the curving roads. And this is why I can’t help but love Ava Reid: her writing, just pure and undiluted, is magical all on its own.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: 5 Star Review/College Romance/Dark Academia/Dark Fantasy/Disability Rep/Romantasy/Gothic/Standalone Novel/Spice Level 1/Women’s Fiction/YA Fantasy/YA Fantasy Romance...more
I love hiking, but I didn’t like this book. I thought the premise was neat, but the way it was carried out was absolutely ridiculous and required me tI love hiking, but I didn’t like this book. I thought the premise was neat, but the way it was carried out was absolutely ridiculous and required me to suspend too much disbelief.
Instead of the female friendships coming across as sincere and heartfelt, their bonds felt contrived and shallow. The book was predictable and absolutely dry.
I can’t say I recommend it at all.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Personal policy dictates that since this title received a rating of three stars or lower it will not appear on social media or bookseller websites. ...more
Women’s fiction is one of those genres I’m picky about reading. Most of the time it doesn’t appeal to me; However, when Rachel Kapelke-Dale writes it Women’s fiction is one of those genres I’m picky about reading. Most of the time it doesn’t appeal to me; However, when Rachel Kapelke-Dale writes it I’m guaranteed to read it. I’ve been a fan since The Ballerinas. In my opinion, The Fortune Seller is her best book yet.
In The Fortune Seller we go back to the familiar ground of important female friendships, like in The Ballerinas. Those important friendships had been formed in youth, while these were formed at Yale. As in The Ballerinas, these ties of friendship are also based on an expensive and focused talent: EQ, or equitation. They are all equitation riders for Yale University and everyone knows horse girls are a special breed of girl.
But there are horse girls and there are girls who have horses. Our protagonist, Rosie, is a horse girl. Born in Illinois to veterinarian parents and brought up on 4-H and helping hands from charities who help kids get into horse riding, Rosie is talented enough to get onto Yale’s team but not rich enough to ever go pro. Her three friends are all girls with horses. And then there’s Annelise. Annelise rides like a horse girl, swans about like a girl with horses, but what is she really?
This book is predictable, yes, but I have gotten used to putting that out of the way because I’d never enjoy a book again if I let that get to me at this point. So, putting that aside, this book is fabulous. As always, Kapelke-Dale writes female friendships so well. The complexity, vulnerability, wickedness, beauty, tragedy, and the seeming obliviousness of it all. How it seems like we think we know our friends so well when we don’t know them at all. How female friendships, especially at college-age, can turn on a dime. How vicious we can be.
The story is great because it’s about self-fulling prophecies and the little lies we need to tell ourselves to get through the day that end up leading to larger lies that have the potential to rule us. It’s about complacency in our lives and our silence. It’s a terrific read for sure.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: Coming of Age/Suspense/Women’s Fiction ...more
When this widget crossed my email I decided to pick it up because I’m always intrigued by the lesser-known female Egyptian rReal Rating: 3.5 / 5 Stars
When this widget crossed my email I decided to pick it up because I’m always intrigued by the lesser-known female Egyptian royals and I rarely get a chance to read these ancient historical fiction novels (think like Madeleine Miller’s books). The female Egyptian queens and pharaohs are always intriguing figures, but the daughter of Hapshetsut, whom little is known about? That had the potential to be a great story.
It’s an interesting story, but the execution was average.
Evans, an expert in ancient Egyptian history, clearly knows what she's doing when it comes to world building and imagery. I had no trouble imagining the Egypt of Neferura’s time, from the land to the people. Likewise, her characters were interesting, if a little rote.
The issue I had is that the storytelling was lacking in any kind of flair or color. While readable, it wasn’t special. It was okay for one read, but I wouldn’t read it again. I’d consider it if you’re really digging some ancient Egypt vibes, but not if you’re looking for a dynamic story.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
I really liked this book in the very beginning, because I’m a divorced mom too and I really feel that whole, “I’m a frazzled mom trying to make ends mI really liked this book in the very beginning, because I’m a divorced mom too and I really feel that whole, “I’m a frazzled mom trying to make ends meet and take care of my rambunctious boys” vibe. Sadly, I spent the whole rest of the book wondering what the heck was wrong with everyone while simultaneously remembering why I’ll never move to Texas.
I won’t pretend to know anything about what life is like for an Indian-American, nor for anyone in an arranged marriage. I won’t pretend to know what life is like for any immigrant or person of color. I’m white. Privilege is the word of the day. I chose to have kids and I chose my spouse (bad choice, but hindsight, right), which at least one of these couples didn’t really have an opportunity to do. Everyone in this book is miserable in their own way, for different reasons. (Except Raj, because Raj is pretty awesome).
(Yes, these are unhappy families that are unhappy in their own ways but they all belong to the same family cluster so let me talk).
The story here is actually very cool and lends a whole lot of added suspense to what would be an otherwise standard domestic thriller premise. The titular storm adds to the atmosphere, amps up the stress, ratchets up the anxiety, and ups the stakes at every turn. It’s a great plot device and I love how it was employed here.
Sadly, that was about the only thing I loved out of this whole thing, because it seems like no one in this book has a brain. Anything more on that point would be a spoiler.
I wish I liked it more. I just didn’t.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Due to the 3 star or lower rating this review will not be posted on social media. Thank you. ...more
Slap a ballerina on the cover and I’m bound to want to read it. Sometimes it’s a blessing. Sometimes it’s a curse. This time, it was a blessing becausSlap a ballerina on the cover and I’m bound to want to read it. Sometimes it’s a blessing. Sometimes it’s a curse. This time, it was a blessing because I loved this book!
The Dance of the Dolls is a slow-burn psychological thriller that’s lovingly crafted by Lucy Ashe, who used to be a ballerina with the Royal Ballet. As such, she was not only more than capable of getting into the heads of Clara and Olivia, our two female protagonists (both ballerinas) but was also in possession of a wealth of knowledge when it comes to the inner workings of everything from how pointe shoes are made to what muscles are being used during each position a ballerina makes or what pose she holds. Her deep love and respect for ballet as an art form shows in the extensive research she did to set The Dance of the Dolls in a pivotal time for ballet in Western Europe, going so far as to insert as many real life heroes and heroines from the ballet world into the book almost seamlessly around the events of the book. If one didn’t know these people were real (as a ballet fan, I definitely recognized a great deal of the names), they’d just assume they were characters Ashe made up with a click-clack of her keyboard.
The worldbuilding of early 1930’s London is done impeccably, from the fashions of the time to the political upheaval happening all over. It was a dark time and it was about to get darker, and the British people invested their time and money in the arts just as Americans did, needing pretty diversions from their daily toils and troubles.
This is a psychological thriller, but it builds slowly. The ballet Coppelia, about a man falling in love with a perfect doll, is not only the name of the ballet Olivia and Clara are dancing in, but it’s also a metaphor for the two of them in different ways. Olivia is a perfect ballerina, the type to go all the way in the world of ballet and become a prima ballerina. As such, she captures the eye of the ballet’s pointe shoe maker and becomes his muse for designing costumes and tutus as he watches her from afar, fearing her perfection is not for him. Clara is wilder and more free, a stunning dancer but not as perfect as her twin. Olivia belongs to the ballet, and Clara doesn’t want to belong to anyone. But in the 1930s is it too much to ask for a woman to retain her freedom? Can she just be who she is and not belong to anyone but herself?
I’m not usually one for slow-building anything in books, but there was so much else going on in this book that I wasn’t bored for one second. It was entertaining, page-turning, interesting, informing, and engrossing. I highly recommend it.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, ideas, and views expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
Eenee, meenee, minee, mo…Which one of the people closest to Mia Anderson is hiding a massive amount of secrets from her? WhiReal Rating: 3.5 / 5 Stars
Eenee, meenee, minee, mo…Which one of the people closest to Mia Anderson is hiding a massive amount of secrets from her? Which one is secretly turning her whole life upside down? It was nice to be seen a little bit, for a little while, but then admiration turns into control and all Mia wants to do is to go back. Only she’s no longer in control of her own life.
You Look Beautiful Tonight was an okay read: it was diverting and engaging in a lot of ways, but the ending was one of the worst I’ve read recently in a thriller and a lot of the characters (including Mia, our protagonist) were written either too flat or problematically.
The most entertaining aspect of this book was the way Mia (and by extension, us readers) constantly examines the motivations, honesty, actions, and words of everyone in her life out of the paranoia created by a man she met online who seems to know everything about her even though they’ve never met. She can’t figure out how he’s getting all this information about her and her life. Is it her bestie? Is it her closest co-worker? Who knows?
It’s the characterizations, character development, and the ending that bring the book down to a 3.5 star rating and make the book just an okay read. Mia is treated like a dowdy librarian who, if she removes her glasses, lets her hair down, and starts wearing pretty clothes she’s all of a sudden worth attention and is taking control of her life. That’s problematic to me. Having her male co-worker and good friend approach her more than once about maybe trying dating again during work hours is problematic. Portraying her as a spoiled brat when she doesn’t get the promotion she was up for instead of maturely filing a complaint with HR is problematic.
The characters are all just a little problematic.
Would I say I recommend this book? Not really, but I’m not going to tell anyone not to read it. Like I said, it’s engaging enough, but be ready to suspend disbelief.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All opinions, thoughts, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
This book made me so happy in my bookworm pants! It gave me yummy cottagecore vibes, magical realism, speculative fiction, swoony romance, a creepy myThis book made me so happy in my bookworm pants! It gave me yummy cottagecore vibes, magical realism, speculative fiction, swoony romance, a creepy mystery, the coziest of vibes, and all of the feels. I haven’t felt so spoiled by a book in a long while. I may have taken a few breaks during the day because I kept getting pulled away by other stuff, but I still devoured this book in less than five hours. I just couldn’t read it fast enough. I was truly and utterly transfixed.
The blurb doesn’t uncover enough of the plot for me to go over a lot of stuff because SPOILERS. That puts me in a bind because the one tiny bone I have to pick with this book would be under said spoiler banner. But that’s okay. We’ll go somewhere else.
Cottagecore: I usually prefer dark cottagecore because regular cottagecore can get old or overdone quickly, but Young really nailed the vibe and didn’t let it get out of control in this book. June’s family owns a large (some would say it’s almost magical) flower farm, so we’ve got all of those lovely flowers, coveralls, and soil-covered clothes. They live next to the Adeline River so there’s plenty of riparian river valley habitat: trees, bushes, fruits, vegetables, and tall grasses. It’s all very Appalachia, very verdant, and very cozy.
Magical Realism: Are the Farrow women witches or are they just extremely good with plants and pass this ability down the line by passing on the knowledge? Could be both. Could be either. People are literally drawn to have their weddings in the small town of Jasper specifically so they can use the Farrow Flower Farm flowers as fresh as possible. They grow flowers prettier and larger than the best flower markets in New York. This is tied to those cozy cottagecore vibes and lead into my next point…
Speculative Fiction: Okay, so I confess, magical realism and speculative fiction are my top two genres. Pairing them together is like hitting my literary g-spot. The curse that affects the Farrow women (spoilers) is fascinating, and I’ve come to think it must be the cost for their spectacular green thumbs. Everything comes with a price. Telling you more than that is ruining the fun.
I can’t tell you about the swoony romance because it involves spoilers. I can’t tell you about the creepy mystery (which gives me the yucks), but I can tell you I cried several times while reading this book. Not great, big, sobbing tears; but the gentle tears. The kind of tears that track down your face one at a time that you can wipe away before they reach your pillow. The tears of someone who was emotionally moved but not broken-hearted.
It’s a magical read and I can’t recommend it enough.
I was provided a copy of this book by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: 5 Star Review/Magical Realism/Romantasy/Mystery/Speculative Fiction/Suspense Mystery/Women’s Fiction ...more
This book has a split personality. The first half is full of splendid storytelling told either from the POV oOh, what highs! But then, oh, what lows.
This book has a split personality. The first half is full of splendid storytelling told either from the POV of a woman named Kace or in first-person prescient (which is a little-used narrative POV but one of my favorites). This first half, which takes place in the present day but reads like it takes place in the Old West, starts inside a women’s prison in Arizona with the stories of Florida and Dios, two of the prison’s inmates. It’s the time of COVID, and as much as no one likes the idea of being locked up, being locked up during a pandemic is putting them all even more on edge than usual. The prose is spellbinding, the plot relevant, and the social commentary compelling. I found myself sinking into the book, caught up in this cat and mouse game Dios is playing with Florida, trying to get Florida to admit she’s just the same as Dios and just as angry and violent as her, too. Dios wants to bring Florida down to her level, and she’s not beyond breaking a whole lot of laws in the process. Dios has an obsession, and Florida is it. Florida has an obsession too: getting to Los Angeles and back to her mother’s home to pick up her car and personal belongings before then driving back to Arizona before her first check-in with her parole officer.
I could’ve read that book–this book–just the way it is for the entire novel. Just Dios and Florida playing cat and mouse, catch and release, all over hill and dale as Florida tries to get to her car and Dios keeps dragging her down, down, down and then see how it ends.
But then there had to be part two. And that’s where this book lost me completely.
Up until this point there had been three POV’s: Florida, Kace, and Dios. In part two, all of a sudden, Dios’ POV disappears almost entirely and in its place is the POV of Lobos, a female cop that’s been assigned the case of Florida and Dios since they violated parole and a violent crime was committed during the act. But who committed the act? Was it both of them? One of them? Why was this guy killed anyway?
Like Florida, Dios, and Kace, Lobos has her own damage. Lobos even has a sexist partner that made me grind my teeth. It was established from the beginning that this book was largely about how the system victimizes females no matter their age, race, mental health, socioeconomic background, or line of work and then doesn’t think we have either the right or ability to get angry or violent and to do something about it. Taking it even further, if we dare try and do something about it, we’re somehow less than human to society. Bringing a cop who has a lot of her own issues surrounding anger towards men due to being abused by her husband into the story halfway through and practically letting her take over half of the narrative was not only jarring for the whole plot, but it was upsetting in general because we lost the strong narrative voice of Dios so this cop could amble around Los Angeles investigating the duo and jumping at shadows thinking her husband is around every corner.
Had Pochoda chosen to keep the story contained to Florida, Dios, and Kace, I believe this would’ve been a truly great novel. Her choice to split it down the middle like she did made it mediocre.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Owing to personal policy, all reviews rated three stars or under are not posted to social media or bookseller websites. Thank you. ...more
I love character-driven thrillers. I love that while I was reading this book I was more concerned with the journey than the destination. The most impoI love character-driven thrillers. I love that while I was reading this book I was more concerned with the journey than the destination. The most important thing to me wasn’t “whodunit” but “who were the victims?” Because this book doesn’t hold out a whole lot of hope for an arrest or even a solid suspect when it starts out, but what it does strive for is to put a name to the victims of the crimes that are central to the plot.
It’s a 30-year-old cold case with misplaced and missing paperwork, degraded evidence, and no witnesses. Detective Jean Martinez has transferred to Sierra County’s cold case bureau and wants to clear their department’s oldest cold case, or to at least give the victims their names back. And librarian Laura MacDonald comes across the case on a message board while she’s being treated for breast cancer (the author herself is a breast cancer survivor) and uses her spare time to research the case and then ventures into genealogical research to try and help to achieve the exact thing the detective is doing. Eventually, Laura takes a leap of faith and flies to New Mexico to present everything she has to the detective, and a kindredship is forged.
What I’m saying above doesn’t sound like a thriller, does it? Well, that’s because this book isn’t high-octane. It’s not the type of thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat. This is a simmering thriller, just tiny hot bubbles that keep pricking and poking at you. Maybe it’s even a little bit of a different burn at times, like the antiseptic burn of rubbing alcohol or the blistering heat of a sunburn. Maybe it’s the cold chill that makes you stop in your tracks or that feeling like someone’s just behind you that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. It could even be the feeling that makes you feel like you’re suddenly some sort of prey. Most of the thrill comes from interlude scenes from the POV of the dead victims, who are present in some sort of spirit form, haunting the site where their bodies were found. To say more than that about those scenes, which range from poignant to gross, would be spoiler-iffic.
The separate and then woven together stories of Laura and Jean run parallel in that both women start out this book fighting off what they think is inevitable: Laura’s breast cancer has already taken so much from her and might eventually take more and Jean’s husband is dead set on her retiring in the next year or two, even though she is very clear that she’s not ready to give up her shield. But with her daughter about to give birth to her first child and the cold case bureau about to be cut down to part-time, Jean is starting to run out of time to close out this one case. But then Laura comes along with some new information, along with some new hope.
This is what I mean when I say this thriller is more about the journey than the destination. Of course we readers want to know who’s responsible for these crimes. Of course we want to know who was sick enough to do this. But that’s not the point of this book. The point of this book is about giving victims back their names and their voices. It’s about giving them back their families and their backgrounds. It’s about remembering the victims of crimes whose trails have long gone cold and no one seems to care about them anymore.
To an extent, this book is also about extolling the virtues of forensic genealogy, which has helped catch criminals like the Golden State Killer, but I have very conflicting feelings about this field on a personal level, so I’m not going to go into that here.
It’s a beautifully written book about a very brutal event and two women who just want to do something helpful with the years they have left in their lives. It’s terrific.
A copy of this title was provided to me by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: 5 Star Read/Crime Thriller/Ghost Story/Murder Thriller/OwnVoices/Suspense Mystery ...more
This is the second meta book about, well, books and readers of said books I’ve read in the last couple of weeks (the last being Taylor Adams’ thrillerThis is the second meta book about, well, books and readers of said books I’ve read in the last couple of weeks (the last being Taylor Adams’ thriller The Last Word) and I’ve got to say I’m not hating it. This one is maybe a little more relatable simply because every time I go to write an ARC review I can see what other reviewers think of the same book I just finished reading and sometimes it seems like they read a totally different book than I did. That’s the thing about art, though: It’s subjective. Art is meant to be seen differently by every person that views it. Books are meant to mean something different to everyone who reads them.
I enjoyed this book a great deal. It’s subdivided into ten different parts, one for the writer of the book, and then nine others for readers of the book and how it affected their lives. At first, this format is enjoyable. Somewhere around the sixth part, though, the format (and the book, really) starts to become less entertaining and begins to lose steam and impact. In my opinion, it begins to quickly lose the resonance that came through so clearly in the earlier parts. Did I like the ending? No. It was wrapped up too neatly for my tastes. It seemed too serendipitous for a book that is full of messy people and messy lives.
That doesn’t change the facts: No Two Persons is a beautifully written book about a very simple and relatable concept that happens every day. It’s about people from different walks of life who somehow all pick up the same book in different ways and it affects them all differently, which causes them to do what all of us do every day: Think, make choices, change plans, make decisions, move on, maybe even get inspired.
And, hey: Maybe you should pick it up, simply because you’ll get something different out of it than I did. That’s the whole point anyway.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All views, ideas, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
It’s not a good house for anyone, actually. Maybe a solitary adult male, but it seems that hypothesis has yet to be tested. Honestly, I think the housIt’s not a good house for anyone, actually. Maybe a solitary adult male, but it seems that hypothesis has yet to be tested. Honestly, I think the house just needs to be left alone. Maybe even knocked down. I don’t care how pretty and old and historic it is.
This book was honestly a creepier read than I thought it would be, but I think that may have something to do with being a mom. (If you aren’t a mom and it still creeped you out, then please feel free to let me know). I don’t creep out easily. I don’t get scared watching most horror films or reading most horror books, but one trigger I do have is my fitness as a mother and/or my capability to keep my children safe. A large part of this book has to do with mothers questioning their ability to keep their children safe and their fitness as a mother.
The setting does nothing but add to this dread. The titular house is called The Reeve, and it’s on a cliff in Dorset County in England. The house was built in the early 19th century, on top of those legendary Jurassic-era cliffsides, and has hardly been updated since. There are woods on one side of the property, and a large garden. In the early timeline, there’s a pond on the grounds. In the later timeline, the pond has been haphazardly filled in and covered with grass. This dwelling is far, far from any major city, sitting on the very southern coast of England where no one but locals and tourists have much interest in coming through because there’s not even a ferry crossing near the area. It’s isolated, on top of a hill, and doesn’t exactly look inviting. Not to mention, the locals all know The Reeve has a history to it, even if they don’t like to talk about it.
In the past timeline, set in the late 1970s, the story is told from the point of view of Lydia, a nanny for a widow named Sara who has four children. When Sara’s husband died, she sold their home in London and moved all of them out to The Reeve, which Sara’s husband had purchased for them as a summer home before he passed away. Sara works from home as an accountant, Lydia cares for the children, and a local lady named Dot comes in and does the cooking and some light cleaning.
In the present timeline, The Reeve is purchased by Nick and Orla, who were looking to move to the countryside and closer to his mom and dad. However, Nick didn’t even consult Orla before purchasing the home, and she felt obligated to go along with his decision. Their son, Sam, has selective mutism, and they have an infant girl as well. Nick promises to be home every weekend as he works during the week in Bristol, to help with the massive amount of repairs the house needs, and to buy Orla a car since he’s taking their only one. Nick, of course, either falls short on these things or doesn’t follow through at all.
Collins writes this book with an incredible sense of atmosphere and imagery. Her imagination is vibrant and she manages to capture on page these scenes filled with a combination of morbid wonder and fascinating dread: ghostly children sitting together on tree branches, ghost-white limbs disappearing around tree trunks, bushes, and through fields of tall grass. Dark hair whipping around a corner. A marble rolling down the stairs. Do ghosts live in a realm that adheres to temporal linearity? Are ghosts trapped only in their present and future, or is it possible that we can see ghosts of people who haven’t died yet?
I saw something that called this a feminist tale, and I have to disagree. Lydia doesn’t fully understand, comprehend, or try to empathize with Sara’s grief. All the women in town know there’s something wrong with Orla, yet they only make a token effort to intervene and support her. In the end, everyone–even the women–give up on Orla and Sara. No one tries to rescue them. It feels as if the mothers pay the price for the children, and that’s not feminist. Not at all.
Sadly, in a lot of cases it is realistic. And then those children are left without their mothers. Who says if they’re better off after that?
This book will creep you out and freak you out, but then it’ll make you think about the sacrifices women make in the name of motherhood and all the additional sacrifices we ask them to make. Ultimately, how much is too much to ask of a woman?
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
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