Tag: 5 Rating

Kate’s Review: “With A Vengeance”

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Book: “With A Vengeance” by Riley Sager

Publishing Info: Dutton, June 2025

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: One train. No stops. A deadly game of survival and revenge.

In 1942, six people destroyed Anna Matheson’s family. Twelve years later, she’s ready for retribution.

Under false pretenses, Anna has lured those responsible for her family’s downfall onto a luxury train from Philadelphia to Chicago, an overnight journey of fourteen hours. Her goal? Confront the people who’ve wronged her, get them to confess their crimes, and deliver them into the hands of authorities waiting at the end of the line. Justice will at last be served.

But Anna’s plan is quickly derailed by the murder of one of the passengers. As the train barrels through the night, it becomes clear that someone else on board is enacting their own form of revenge—and that they won’t stop until everyone else is dead.

With time running out before the train reaches its destination, Anna is forced to hunt the killer in their midst while protecting the people she hates the most. In order to destroy her enemies, she must first save them—even though it means putting her own life at risk.

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this novel!

For me, summer has some guarantees that I can always count on, and one of those things is a new Riley Sager book. I’ve been reading a Riley Sager book every summer for the past eight years, starting with “Final Girls” and going with a new book every year from there. It’s just a staple of the season to me. And because of this it was obvious that I was going to read his newest novel “With A Vengeance”. It’s just what summer brings. I know that Sager has his fans and his detractors, but I haven’t had a bad experience with any of his books, finding all of them at the very least entertaining and ultimately good reads. That is, until now.

Hey, eight out of nine ain’t bad, right? (source)

But first the good. I an always respect and author who wants to switch things up in their writing, and “With A Vengeance” is a huge tone shift for Sager, as the sub-genre is an Agatha Christie-esque locked door mystery and the time period if post-WWII 1950s America. It’s a huge shift from his previous works, and I definitely applaud him taking this risk. I also think that he has the bare bone foundation of a solid locked room mystery, with a dubious cast of characters who could all be suspects, and with a pretty well thought out motivation at the heart of Anna wanting revenge for her brother’s and father’s deaths and her ruined life, as well as having pretty clear reasons for many of the conspirators that sought to take her father down. Sager has a solid set up here, I can’t deny that.

But the execution was off. There were so many twists and turns that were supposed to be interesting and scandalous, but they were either predictable, or they just felt like they were too many things going on at once. We’d have one solution, only to have another new solution, only to backtrack on ANOTHER solution, with a few obvious red herrings thrown in that didn’t really work. By the time we got to the third or fourth shocking twist, I was pretty much over it, and I was just ready for the train to pull into the station so that it could all be over and done with. On top of that, while I thought that the characters had believable motivations to want to set up Anna’s father to take a pretty horrendous fall, I didn’t feel like I got to know ANY of them beyond their villainy (with one possible exception I won’t spoil here, but their reasoning was at least humanizing to the character which made them a bit more interesting), or their need for revenge in Anna’s case. Anna also didn’t do much for mer, as her rage and desire to get her vengeance was understandble, but there wasn’t much else to her, which made her less interesting and made her less likable because of it. I know that Sager can be pretty hit or miss for lots of people when it comes to his protagonists, but this was the first time I just really didn’t care about a main character in one of his books. I really and truly wanted more and it just sputtered out.

“With A Vengeance” had so much potential but never quite reached it. I’m not giving up on Sager after one misstep, but as someone who has been a staunch defender of him in the past, it was a disappointment to be sure.

Rating 5: While I appreciate Sager experimenting with other sub-genres of thrillers, “With A Vengeance” was too muddled and didn’t have enough well developed characters to really endear me to the story.

Reader’s Advisory:

“With a Vengeance” is included on the Goodreads list “Haunting Books For A Stormy Night”.

Serena’s Review: “The Knight and the Moth”

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Book: “The Knight and the Moth” by Rachel Gillig

Publishing Info: Orbit, May 2025

Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: Sybil Delling has spent nine years dreaming of having no dreams at all. Like the other foundling girls who traded a decade of service for a home in the great cathedral, Sybil is a Diviner. In her dreams she receives visions from six unearthly figures known as Omens. From them, she can predict terrible things before they occur, and lords and common folk alike travel across the kingdom of Traum’s windswept moors to learn their futures by her dreams.

Just as she and her sister Diviners near the end of their service, a mysterious knight arrives at the cathedral. Rude, heretical, and devilishly handsome, the knight Rodrick has no respect for Sybil’s visions. But when Sybil’s fellow Diviners begin to vanish one by one, she has no choice but to seek his help in finding them. For the world outside the cathedral’s cloister is wrought with peril. Only the gods have the answers she is seeking, and as much as she’d rather avoid Rodrick’s dark eyes and sharp tongue, only a heretic can defeat a god.

Review: Some may have noticed that I didn’t review the “One Dark Window” duology back when it came out a few years ago. Well, I tried! But it was one of those book that I just couldn’t get into to, struggling through the entire reading experience. Sometimes I’ll post reviews for books like this if I feel like I have anything constructive to contribute to the conversation or if it’s a title I committed to covering for a publicist. But the rest of time, I usually just pass them by. Well, over the last several years, that duology has exploded in popularity! So much so that I began to question my initial judgement of the book I read. Was I, perhaps, just not in the right mood for it? Did the second book (which I didn’t read) massively improve on the first? People seemed to universally love this series! That being the case, when I saw that Gillig was coming out with her debut adult romantasy title, I was excited to give it a chance! Perhaps I would finally get to hitch a ride on this hype train!

Whelp. Not so much. I really struggled to enjoy this book and was reminded strongly why I didn’t connect with the first one. They both had similar struggles with writing structure and characterization. But let’s start with some positives! The book started on a strong note, with the introduction of this world and the set up for themes regarding religion and prophesy. Some of these initial scenes were incredibly compelling, and it was all the more disappointing seeing some of this early strong work flail under weak characters as the story continued. I also have to give a shout-out to the fun gargoyle companion, the only character who actually seemed to, you know, have a personality? Due to how out-of-step I was with my opinion of Gillig’s other book, I won’t be surprised to find myself on the opposite side of this one as well. But I can almost guarantee that the other reviewers who may, like me, struggle with this book will ALSO love the gargoyle!

I think I would have enjoyed the gargoyle on its own, but it did end up standing out in stark contrast to our main character and the love interest, only highlighting just how little THERE was there for either of them! I couldn’t tell you a single fact about either of these characters, other than things that were strictly having to do with the actual plot points of this story. She is a seer, he is a knight. Yes, yes, and? As we follow Sybil, she was by far the worse of the two. Her “voice,” such as it was, was incredibly bland and dull. This carried over to the romance. We were never given any reason why these two would even like each other, let alone fall in love. It was like reading about to cardboard cut outs of people snark badly at each other and then suddenly declare their deep feelings. Chemistry is a hard thing to peg, but man, when it’s lacking, it’s obvious. And that was definitely the case here!

I was also reminded why I struggled to enjoy the previous book I read by this author. I simply do not enjoy her writing style. There’s a very odd mix of purple prose woven in alongside incredibly modern vernacular. She’s also way too fond of writing incomplete sentences. Every once in a while, this choice can make sense to add emphasis or weight to particular scene or moment. But Gillig uses it constantly and to an overwhelming degree. Here’s a quick example of what I’m talking about: “I shivered. Turned to the gargoyle.” Why not just put an “and” in there? Or simply put a comma after “shivered.” There are many options, but again and again this structure is utilized, making the writing feel choppy and, I think, contributing to the sense of distance I felt from the characters. Often it’s these little style choices that give readers the clues to pick up on the personality of the characters they’re following. And when the writing is choppy and inconsistent, so, too, the characters feel lacking.

The story was also incredibly predictable. And anything the reader couldn’t guess based on any previous exposure to typical fantasy plot points is almost spoon fed to them by the author herself. By the end of the book, I felt like not only had this one followed a familiar structure (very similar to “One Dark Window” in fact) but that I could easily guess the conclusion of the duology as a whole, without even picking up the second book.

I don’t really know how to conclude this review. Obviously, this was a complete miss for me. But I also know that Gillig is a fairly beloved author at this point, and that this book in particular is incredibly hyped in the genre. So, I guess if you’re a huge fan of her previous duology, this one might work for you. However, if you struggled to connect to this author’s style before, this was more of the same, in all of the worst ways.

Rating 5: Choppy sentences, purple prose, and characters who read like wet cardboard; unfortunately, not the book for me.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Knight and the Moth” can be found on these Goodreads lists: Epic High Fantasy/Romance/Mythology in 2025 and Gothic Fantasy.

Serena’s Review: “A Crown So Silver”

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Book: “A Crown So Silver” by Lyra Selene

Publishing Info: Orbit, January 2025

Where Did I Get this Book: Netgalley!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: After her sacrifice on the Ember Moon, Fia is flush with powerful magic and eager to rush into battle against her murderous sister, Eala. However, Fia’s new husband Irian suggests they bide their time and retreat to the Silver Isle, a snowy island at the edge of the fae world.

Ruled by the cunning smith-king, the Silver Isle proves far from a safe haven. Fia and Irian become embroiled in the Tournament of Kings competing for a magical forging of immense power. Their relationship will be put to the test as they navigate their conflicting motivations, shifting allegiances, and ancient magic.

With the end of the tournament looming and Eala’s threat growing, Fia must decide just how much she’s willing to sacrifice to defeat her sister.

Previously Reviewed: “A Feather So Black”

Review: This was a highly anticipated sequel for me going into 2025! I absolutely loved the first book, “A Feather So Black,” as it took me completely by surprise with its perfectly tuned fairytale vibes and ability to present both a competent heroine as well as a non-cringeworthy love triangle that resolved in a believable manner. There was also the set up for an excellent villain with the twist that came towards the end. And, well…alas.

I’m really going to try to restrain myself from devolving into an incoherent rant with this one. But man, it’s going to be hard! I would have disliked this book on its own, but as a sequel to one that I enjoyed so much?! It’s hard to swallow. To start from the more broad view, I think this is a perfect example of a series that was unnecessarily extended into a trilogy. I’m not sure if it was the publisher or this was always the author’s plan, but something went very wrong with the pacing and story-structure of this series when we got to this book.

Simply put: nothing much happens! We barely see some of the major characters from the first book (including the original love interest who by his own rights seemed to have an interesting arc set up to follow) or even much of the villain. What plot we do have devolves into what feels like an extended side quest with stakes largely disconnected from the greater conflict as a whole. And that’s not even touching the fact that the first third of this book seems to be one long string of spicy scenes, which could be fine on their own if it wasn’t for the incredibly disjointed feeling this brings to the pacing of this novel, to start so heavily in this and only this area.

This point gets to one of my major gripes, which is with the way the romance was handled. Which is to say, it wasn’t handled well at all. I will acknowledge that perhaps it is more challenging to write a romantic pairing after they have committed themselves to one another, but it is by no means impossible! Especially if you’ve already established your characters as individuals with thoughts, fears, and goals outside of the romance, as well as a greater overall threat that they must face together. Relationships don’t simply become smooth sailing the moment they get together, but at the same time, more and more romantasy authors seem to contort their characters into the most contrived positions possible all in pursuit of “tension” while at the the same time forfeiting all believability or consistency within the character themselves.

We have both main character behaving absolutely terribly to one another (often completely out of character on their own) and then, worst of all, we have the introduction of ANOTHER LOVE TRIANGLE! Look, book one got extra props for handling a love triangle in a good way. But now this one gets extra negatives for the sheer gall and lack of creativity on display in going back to the same well twice (not even the same love triangle, mind you! A completely new character is introduced!!) I almost put the book down for good once I saw this happening.

Fia also read as almost completely unrecognizable from the character we met in the first book. There, she had worked hard to gain the abilities she had, and she was aware of her limitations. Here, in one of the very first action scenes we get, we see her behaving like the most foolish of fools, complete with “snarky” comments of bravado followed by immediate regret as she realizes the idiocy of her decisions. In many ways, she suddenly read like the worst of teenage YA protagonists, rather than the adult woman she came across as in the first book.

I’m honestly not sure what happened here. My best guess still goes all the way back to what I said in the beginning, that there simply wasn’t enough story to justify this book. And, lacking any true plot, the author instead stuffed it full of angst between characters (much of which could have been resolved with frank discussions and empathy for one another) and added another ridiculous love triangle into the mix to boot.

If you enjoyed the first book, buckle in for this one! I guess if you really enjoy love triangles and romantic angst in the form of miscommunication, than you may enjoy this more than me. All I can say is that now I’m going into the third book pretty much peeping between my fingers. Will we get the hat trick of a THIRD love triangle??

Rating 5: Maybe it would have been a “6” on its own, but as it’s a massive letdown from the first book…well, here we are.

Reader’s Advisory:

“A Crown so Silver” isn’t on any Goodreads lists yet, but it should be on Upcoming Sequels.

Ripley’s Reviews: “Ripley Under Water”

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“Ripley’s Reviews” is an ongoing series where I will review every book in Patricia Highsmith’s “Ripley” Series, as well as multiple screen adaptations of the novels. I will post my reviews on the first Thursday of the month, and delve into the twisted mind of one Tom Ripley and all the various interpretations that he has come to life within. Up next is the final book in the series, “Ripley Under Water”.

Book: “Ripley Under Water” by Patricia Highsmith

Publishing Info: Alfred A Knopf, October 1991

Where Did I Get This Book: The library!

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: Tom Ripley passes his leisured days at his French country estate tending the dahlias, practicing the harpsichord, and enjoying the company of his lovely wife, Heloise. Never mind the bloodstains on the basement floor.

But some new neighbors have moved to Villeperce: the Pritchards, just arrived from America. they are a ghastly pair, with vulgar manners and even more vulgar taste. Most inconvenient, though, is their curiosity. Ripley does, after all, have a few things to hide. When menacing coincidences begin to occur, a spiraling contest of sinister hints and mutual terrorism ensues, resulting in one of Patricia Highsmith’s most elegantly harrowing novels to date.

Review: Happy 2025! I guess? New Year, new me, etcetera, and while I’m feeling pretty nervous about what this year has in store, I feel like we have the perfect transition here about to begin with my “Ripley’s Reviews” series. For you see, in the spirit of out with the old and in with the new, we are ending the first phase of this ongoing blog romp, as we have reached the end of the Tom Ripley books with “Ripley Under Water”! Patricia Highsmith published this book in 1991 and then passed away four years later, and therefore we are at a crossroads for how we follow Ripley as my series continues. I was hoping we’d get a pretty slamdunk ending to Ripley’s adventures after some shaky twists and turns. Unfortunately, that isn’t really what we got here.

Me in the final pages of this novel (source).

I found this to be more of the same from this series. Tom Ripley is still living at Belle Ombre with Heloise (oh Heloise. I enjoy her, she’s so daffy), just trying to tend to his garden and live life in relative comfort and opulence. And once again someone enters his life potentially threatening his comfort and stature, this time in the form of a boorish American couple called The Pritchards, who know a lot about his past and plan to make him suffer for it because… reasons? I did like the idea of Tom being on the receiving end of a little bit of torment for once, though the Pritchards were pretty two dimensional as villains, and I felt like we sleep walked through the story as Ripley attempts to outmaneuver them and keep his secrets hidden, even as they escalate and a literal body end up on Ripley’s literal doorstep. It’s entertaining, but nothing really stood out as unique or original. At least in “The Boy Who Followed Ripley” we had some really campy moments to even out the drudgery of Tom playing cat and mouse again. Here it’s just the same old song and dance, and while I enjoy Ripley very much and find him to be quite a character, I’ve realized that he needs supporting characters to play off of for his stories to really be successful. But I feel like as the series has gone on we’ve just gotten roadblocks and warm bodies that we know aren’t going to succeed in outwitting him.

And the saddest part of this book is that while it’s the final book in the series, it just kind of ends. I don’t know if this was because Highsmith had more plans for Tom but then died before she could bring them to life, or if it was because she knew that it would be a payday for her should she keep writing Ripley books and this one was merely a vessel to get said payday. I hope it wasn’t anything as cynical as that. But man, this just kind of ended without much fanfare. Maybe it’s a statement about how people like Tom Ripley just get to keep getting away with things. But as a narrative ending for Tom Ripley as a character, it just wasn’t very satisfying. I don’t know if I wanted him to get caught. It’s something I’m struggling with as the Joe Goldberg series goes on as well. But I wanted more than this.

Sorry to say that with “Ripley Under Water” we have come to a less than satisfying ending to Patricia Highsmith’s “Ripliad”. I don’t think this was a failed experiment on my part, as now having his full trajectory was interesting to be sure. But I had higher hopes than were warranted.

Well we are officially done with the book series. But we aren’t done yet! We still have a few films and TV adaptations to take on! And my first review of a “Ripley” adaptation is the film “The Talented Mr. Ripley”, which I will review next month! AKA the first movie where I was made aware that Jude Law is a person who exists. Can’t wait to revisit this one.

Rating 5: I’m a bit sad this is how we end the literary adventures of Tom Ripley, as it was more of the same and a weak ending to the series about one of the thriller genre’s MVPs.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Ripley Under Water” is included on the Goodreads list “The Vilest Man in Fiction”.

Serena’s Review: “Fear the Flames”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Fear the Flames” by Olivia Rose Darling

Publishing Info: Delacorte Press, September 2024

Where Did I Get this Book: NetGalley!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: As a child, Elowen Atarah was ripped away from her dragons and imprisoned by her father, King Garrick of Imirath. Years later, Elowen is now a woman determined to free her dragons. Having established a secret kingdom of her own called Aestilian, she’s ready to do what’s necessary to save her people and seek vengeance. Even if that means having to align herself with the Commander of Vareveth, Cayden Veles, the most feared and dangerous man in all the kingdoms of Ravaryn.

Cayden is ruthless, lethal, and secretive, promising to help Elowen if she will stand with him and all of Vareveth in the pending war against Imirath. Despite their contrasting motives, Elowen can’t ignore their undeniable attraction as they combine their efforts and plot to infiltrate the impenetrable castle of Imirath to steal back her dragons and seek revenge on their common enemy.

As the world tries to keep them apart, the pull between Elowen and Cayden becomes impossible to resist. Working together with their crew over clandestine schemes, the threat of war looms, making the imminent heist to free her dragons their most dangerous adventure yet. But for Elowen, her vengeance is a promise signed in blood, and she’ll stop at nothing to see that promise through.

Review: I’ve had a very hit and miss experience with popular dragon romantasy books over the last year or so. I haven’t reviewed either of them here, but over the last year and half I’ve read both “Fourth Wing” and “When the Moon Hatched.” Really hated the former, but, after a rough start, did end up enjoying the latter for the most part. In perusing other fantasy reviewers’ thoughts of these two wildly popular titles, again and again I saw “Fear the Flames” popping up as dragon romantasy title worth checking out. So, armed with my usual caution about BookkTok books (sorry, not sorry), I requested a copy of this when I saw it was being picked up by a trad publisher and re-released this fall. And…oof.

I usually like to start with the good things, but I honestly am having a hard time with this one. I mean, I guess there were the bare bones of good ideas here. But at the same time, those bare bones aren’t creatively unique to this author. Sure, dragons are always a good idea, but you can’t really give any one author tons of credit for simply including them in their book. And in this particular case, the dragons were so wasted as to negate the promise of them to begin with! They’re introduced in the prologue and we are told that our super special protagonist bonded to several dragons as a baby. This later causes her family to harm, reject, and banish her, caging her dragons away from her. But we’re never told any details about this! What does it mean to be bonded to numerous dragons? How rare is this? What abilities does this grant her? And then, said dragons don’t even show up again until the last 100 pages of the book! They are wasted in such a way as to be almost inexcusable, and frankly, it made me feel like I had been sold a bill of false goods on the basic premise of this book.

The incoherent world-building continued throughout. We hear that various nations are at war, but we are never told what drives these conflicts, what the parties involved want, or any history behind it. There are dragons in this world, and some hints at various sorts of magic, but how does any of these fantasy elements actually work? Nothing is fleshed out in any way! It feels as if the author looked into what fantasy tropes were currently popular, and then just threw them all in here. A weird metaphor, but go with me: in a good fantasy novel, an author will combine ingredients that may seem strange on their own, but together they become a lush and rich stew. Here, it’s like the author was a small child who went out in the yard and made “stew” with sticks and stones and tried to pass it off as the same.

The romance was equally disappointing. It pretty much happens instantaneously and then the rest of the book is just the hero saying some variation of “who did this to you” throughout the rest of the book. Oh, and following around the heroine as she shops. And here, too, we had more problems. There is coffee, lingerie, and romance novels in this world, all of which our leading lady loves. Except, oh wait, she’s been living in hiding throughout most of her life and she says early in the book that her only priority is protecting the people of her small, hidden realm. If that’s the case, it’s hard to buy that she’s had much time to focus on these frivolous things. Nothing wrong with these pastimes (heaven knows I enjoy all of these things too!) but it makes no sense in the world that is built here or for this character in particular, a woman who it seems would have had practically zero time for leisure, comfort, or excess.

Honestly, this book made me mad. It feels as if more and more often traditional publishers are combing through the various indie books that have been self-published looking for any that have the currently-popular tropes of the moment and the re-purposing them as fast as possible. And I do mean as fast as possible! The entire point of trad publishing vs. indie publishing is the vast number of resources they have to enhance a book to its best version. But here, and in other similar instances, it feels like the publisher forego any of the professional editing they should be bringing to new titles and instead just threw a new cover on the original version and got it out as fast as possible! Got to if you’re book is nothing but vibes and tropes and who knows when those could change! It’s so disappointing and lets down not only the authors themselves who are now missing out on the crucial edits trad publishers can offer to enhance books, but also to readers who have higher expectations for books published in the traditional manner.

I really disliked this book. And even more so, I really dislike the trend that this book perfectly highlights. Books are more than tropes or vibes, and sooner or later, readers are going to pick up on the fact that that’s all certain books/publishers/authors have on offer anymore. I can’t recommend this one. Perhaps if you’re a die-hard romantasy fan, but even then, the market is so flooded right now that it’s impossible to throw a stone in any direction and not hit a million other titles just like it, some much better than this.

Rating 5: An incoherent mess that feels like it was picked up just because its tropes matched the ones currently popular.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Fear the Flames” isn’t on any relevant Goodreads lists currently but it should be on Dragon Lovers’ Books.

Kate’s Review: “You Will Never Be Me”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “You Will Never Be Me” by Jesse Q. Sutanto

Publishing Info: Berkley, August 2024

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley.

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: When cracks start forming in an influencer’s curated life, she finds out that jealousy is just as viral as a video in this riveting suspense novel by bestselling author Jesse Q. Sutanto.

Influencer Meredith Lee didn’t teach Aspen Palmer how to blossom on social media just to be ditched as soon as Aspen became big. So can anyone really blame Mer for doing a little stalking? Nothing serious, more like Stalking Lite.

Then Mer gets lucky; she finds one of Aspen’s kids’ iPads and swipes it. Now she has access to the family calendar and Aspen’s social media accounts. Would anyone else be able to resist tweaking things a little here and there, showing up in Aspen’s place for meetings with potential sponsors? Mer’s only taking back what she deserves—what should have been hers. 

Meanwhile, Aspen doesn’t understand why her perfectly filtered life is falling apart. Sponsors are dropping her, fellow influencers are ghosting her, and even her own husband seems to find her repulsive. If she doesn’t find out who’s behind everything, she might just lose it all. But what everyone seems to forget is that Aspen didn’t become one of TikTok’s biggest momfluencers by being naive.

When Meredith suddenly goes missing, Aspen’s world is upended and mysterious threats begin to arrive—but she won’t let anything get in the way of her perfect life again.

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this novel!

I’m really happy to see that more and more family influencers are getting called out, or at the very least more scrutinized, as of late. I think that the very public fall of Ruby Franke helped with this shift, but it’s been a long time coming. It’s probably not too shocking that as more of this has been in the public eye, more books involving family vloggers and family influencers have been cropping up. And I’ve been reaping the benefits, as this kind of plot is catnip for me. So I was obviously very interested in reading “You Will Never Be Me” by Jesse Q. Sutanto, which involves two mommy influencer frenemies named Mer and Aspen, who used to be tight but had a huge falling out that leads to Mer trying to wreck Aspen’s very curated public image. It all sounds great on paper. Sadly, in execution it didn’t get to the level I was hoping for.

You all know that I always start with the good when it comes to a book that I didn’t really connect with, and this time is no different. And the good is REALLY good and something that I don’t get to say too often: THERE IS A FANTASTIC TWIST THAT I DIDN’T SEE COMING IN THIS BOOK! I feel like so much of the time when I take on a thriller of a certain kind I have to complain about a twist that is either unearned, or thrown in at the last moment for shock value, or was easy to spot a mile away. None of these things happen in the big twist in “You Will Never Be Me”. In fact the moment it was revealed I said to myself ‘wait…. HOLD UP!?’, and jumped back to the beginning of the chapter to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. I’m not going to say anything here details wise, but Sutanto so expertly dropped it in in such an unexpected place and moment with such a subtle set up that I set my Kindle down for a moment just to process what I had just read. And it’s a bit of a one two punch as well, with a couple dimensions to the twist that made it all the more satisfying. This is how it’s done!

But unfortunately, well executed twist or not, there were a number of aspects to this book that didn’t work for me. For one, Mommy Blog and Influencer satire is starting to be seen more in books, with more and more scandals coming out about these kinds of accounts and more people starting to question what this kind of exposure and exploitation does to the children involved. Always pertinent points, and it can be really well done satire as well as social commentary on something that is becoming more and more talked about. But the problem here is that the examples in this are very heavy handed, even if I don’t necessarily disagree with them. One such example that sticks out is Meredith at one point admitting that she had her child via a sperm donor because she knew that the engagement would go up if she shifted from her initial platform into a mommy influencer like Aspen was. Again, I don’t doubt that on some level family influencers do view their children as content and the more content you have the more engagement you have (I think about the family that adopted an autistic boy from China to use it as a story their followers could keep up with, and then ‘rehomed’ him because he was too difficult and burst their perfect family ideal as presented to their followers). But I had a hard time believing that Mer would be so up front and flippant about it, and it just felt like it was just another way to show how awful she was. Which segues into my other gripe fairly well; both Mer and Aspen, the characters whose POVs we follow, are just really unsympathetic characters with not much depth, which makes it very hard to follow them. I am one hundred percent down for having unlikable characters as protagonists, especially in thrillers and ESPECIALLY if they are women (lord knows male characters get more passes in this way). But I want them to be at least interesting and rounded in their villainy. In this book they felt more like caricatures. Aspen had a little more depth as she feels the need to carry the financial burden in her home, especially since one of her children is diabetic, but we only barely scratched the surface with her. Mer felt like a full cartoon villain at times. I think that had there been a bit more exploration and complexity I could have swallowed it better, but as it was, it just didn’t ever click.

“You Will Never Be Me” didn’t quite live up to the high hopes I had for it. It was refreshing having such a stellar twist, but that wasn’t enough to save it.

Rating 5: A fantastic twist that came earlier than anticipated was well done, but it can’t save the facts that all of the characters are terrible and in a fun way and the satire doesn’t have much bite.

Reader’s Advisory:

“You Will Never Be Me” is included on the Goodreads list “Thrillers You Must Read!”.

Kate’s Review: “Crumbs”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Crumbs” by Danie Stirling

Publishing Info: Clarion Books, July 2022

Where Did I Get This Book: The library!

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: Falling in love just got sweeter in this charming, romantic YA graphic novel from WEBTOON, the #1 digital comic platform. Ray, a young seer struggling with her powers, discovers first love and friendship in her town’s magic bakery.

In a very special town, there’s an even more unusual bakery with a selection of baked treats hand-crafted to help your dreams come true. For Ray, a quiet young woman with special powers of her own, the order is always the same: a hot tea with a delicious side of romance.

When Ray meets Laurie, the kind barista who aspires to be a professional musician, she gets a real taste of love for the first time. But even with a spark of magic, romance isn’t so simple. Both Ray and Laurie are chasing their own dreams and even when Ray starts to see the future, she can’t predict her fate with Laurie.

Based on the beloved webcomic from WEBTOON, this sweet coming-of-age story of friendship and first love comes to life in graphic novel format with gorgeous illustrations and exclusive content.

Review: I had seen “Crumbs” by Danie Stirling here and there on my various book related social media accounts, mostly Goodreads. The cover kept showing up and I had to look into it because it was, admittedly, super cute, and by the time I did check it out I was pretty convinced that I should read it. What’s not to like, after all? I like graphic novels, the magical elements sounded cute and serene, and I like a nice feel good romance. And besides, I feel like I’m suffering from massive existential dread in my day to day life, so something fluffy and sweet could be welcome. So I checked it out from the library and gave it a go. To mixed results.

I will say that this book is admittedly very sweet and cozy. I do like that there seems to be a sudden rise in more cozy fantasy novels, with titles like “Legends and Lattes” and “The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches” being pretty well liked by audiences, as sometimes you just need a charming and sweet story and you want it to have fantasy elements to boot. I did find “Crumbs” to be a very easy going read, and I liked the light fantasy tidbits like the magical bakery, the phones with little spirits acting as Siris, and even the hinted at broader magical government system and how even THAT can be a bit of a can of worms. I would absolutely LOVE to spend time at Marigold’s bakery, eating cakes and drinking coffees with various spells and charms cast upon them to help the consumer with things like self confidence and romance (but not in a boundary breaking or violating way). I also really liked that our protagonist Ray is a Seer, but not in the usual sense, in that she can only see things that are happening in the present and are existing in the now. So while she can’t, say, predict a giant storm that is going to be coming in a week’s time, she can see that at this moment there is a rainstorm happening miles away. Usually we think of seers in fantasy as being strictly dabbling in the future, so having it be in the now is SO interesting to me. This of course grows and shifts as Ray hones her powers during her time working for the Grand Council, which helps keep society in place and acts as governing body of sorts, and I enjoyed the ins and outs of it.

But I think that there is a clear flip side to this, and that is the fact that it’s almost TOO cozy and twee when it comes to the romance arc between Ray and her boyfriend Laurie. It starts cute and sweet enough, as Laurie is the barista at her aunt Marigold’s bakery and Ray is a regular customer, going there once a week for tea and a romance pastry, and seeing them tentatively begin a relationship was tender and felt pretty realistic in a number of ways. But I think that what was less interesting to me was that their conflicts, while pretty realistic as well, just didn’t feel very high stakes to me, and therefore felt kind of boring. I don’t need there to be a huge melodramatic problem that leans towards full on dysfunction or toxicity. But at the same time, I really don’t find myself super invested when the problems are about mild trust issues (that we don’t REALLY explore beyond one moment) and someone who is too much of a people pleaser. I can understand that there are people who aren’t comfortable with any kind of high stakes unhealthiness being portrayed in a relationship, but man, I do kind of want a little more conflict in my fiction, because for me fiction is about being able to explore those things in a safe way BECAUSE it is fiction. I know that this is personal preference, and that there are almost certainly people out here who will really love this aspect of the book. But it didn’t gel with me.

Finally, I really liked the artwork. It fits the tone of the story, and I always love seeing how food is drawn in graphic novels because it’s fun to see how tantalizing it can be.

(source: Clarion Books)

“Crumbs” didn’t work for me an all levels, but I definitely know there are people who like cozy fantasy and gentle stories about romance and relationships that will enjoy it.

Rating 5: It’s a sweet and gentle romance with some hints of magical creativity, but “Crumbs” didn’t invest me too much in the central characters and their maneuvering through a relationship.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Crumbs” is included on the Goodreads lists “Cozy Fantasy Romance Reads”, and “Food Themed Romance Comics”.

Serena’s Review: “The Curse of Sins”

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Book: “The Curse of Sins” by Kate Dramis

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Casablanca, June 2024

Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: After discovering she’s prophesied to save the realm, Aya’s duty should be clear: return home with once-sworn enemy Will to serve their queen in the coming war against a rival kingdom…one whose pursuit of dark magic could bring the realm to its knees.

But with part of the prophecy still undiscovered, and their queen’s intentions increasingly suspect, Aya’s very purpose is quickly brought into question. With betrayal lurking around every corner, she and Will are forced to lie, manipulate, and hide what they’ve become to one another as they struggle to learn the truth before dark magic destroys them all.

And with secrets and lies trailing Aya wherever she goes, she has to wonder…do the gods truly want her to save the realm…or simply watch it burn?

Previously Review: “The Curse of Saints”

Review: So, if you go back and read my review of the first book, you’ll see that I gave it a fairly middling review. That said, I distinctly remember filing this one in the “circle back around to” category in my head. Yes, I struggled with aspects of the first book, but I also remembered enjoying the world-building and the bare bones of the characters. I also had high hopes that now that the initial work had been done to introduce these characters and this world, the second installment would be freed up to tell a more complete and satisfying story. So, I requested this sequel. Alas, in this particular case, all of this strategizing was for not, and I ended up just as (in fact, even more!) frustrated with this second outing than I was with the first.

We always try to start with positives with our reviews, even the more negative ones. But I’ve got to say, it’s a bit of a struggle with this one. Essentially, every single thing that bothered me about the first book was present again here, except somehow, now even worse. That being the case, I guess a positive would be that if you enjoyed the first one, you’ll probably like this one! They are very similar, and if you enjoyed the angstiness of the characters, the long page length, and the arbitrary feel to whether or not certain story elements were crucial to the plot, well…you’ll like this one too! Also, if you like the “misunderstanding” trope in romances, than you’ll enjoy this love story a heck of a lot more than I did. I’ll also add that I don’t think the author’s writing style is bad. She can string together some very nice turns of phrase, and, again, I do think there are a lot of interesting ideas and world-building that went into this series. That said, things are never really pulled together in a coherent manner.

One of the things that annoyed me the most in the first book was the flip/flop relationship between Aya and Will, with them trusting one another one moment, then, bizarrely, swinging the complete other direction and keeping massive secrets from one another (at best!) or trying to kill one another again (at worst!). I was hopeful going into this book that we would leave this element behind. After all, there were some large reveals at the end of the first book, and the characters had, seemingly, grown over the course of that book. So, imagine my dismay when I cracked this one open and found even more of the same! C’mon now! At points it was so bad that it felt like the author was having to manually get into the story and rewind her own characters’ growth and arcs in completely unnatural ways just to increase the “drama” and brooding of it all. When I see this in a book, I begin to question whether the author really has a steady hand on the characters at all. Is there an inability to write them in any other way? Do they have no other inner lives to speak of? I can’t emphasize enough how frustrating it was to see the character work unspun like this, all for the sake of angst, seemingly.

I also continued to be thrown out by the incompetence of these characters. As I noted in my first review, there is a direct conflict between the types of people we are told Aya and Will are and the ones we see on the page. They aren’t just average spies and fighters; no, they are each at the very top, the Queen’s closest advisors, essentially helping her run the entire country. And, like the first book, I saw none of this skill on the page. Again and again, these characters would blunder through scenarios that should have been well within their skillsets. Worse, they failed to pick up on very obvious plots swirling around them in a way that was, frankly, laughable at times.

The book was also way too long for the amount of plot it contained. Again, there were elements of this plot line that I enjoyed, but there were also numerous instances where things seemed to happen for no real reason. And then were forgotten, with a similar lack of concern to cohesion. This book could have been severely edited down, and I think it would have helped every aspect of the story. A shorter page count would have tightened up the plot and, importantly, limited the page time devoted to the characters brooding.

I think this is it for me and this series. I’m glad I gave it another go, as there have been several instances where I’ve come back to a series or an author and been pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately, the author doubled down on everything that frustrated me about the first book here in the second, killing any interest I might have had in the third. However, if you did enjoy the first one, you’ll likely enjoy this one more than me!

Rating 5: Overly long and lacking in substance, this book didn’t seem to know what to do with its characters other than regress them into brooding messes.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Curse of Sins” isn’t on any Goodreads lists yet, but it should be on SFF Spy Books.

Serena’s Review: “How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying”

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Book: “How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying” by Django Wexler

Publishing Info: Orbit, May 2024

Where Did I Get this Book: from the publisher!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: Davi has done this all before. She’s tried to be the hero and take down the all-powerful Dark Lord. A hundred times she’s rallied humanity and made the final charge. But the time loop always gets her in the end. Sometimes she’s killed quickly. Sometimes it takes a while. But she’s been defeated every time.

This time? She’s done being the hero and done being stuck in this endless time loop. If the Dark Lord always wins, then maybe that’s who she needs to be. It’s Davi’s turn to play on the winning side.

Review: This book had a lot of things going for it when I first picked it up. For one thing, I’ve really enjoyed all of the books I’ve read from Django Wexler in the past, including his most recent trilogy which just finished up a year or so ago. So he’s an author I’ve read recently and enjoyed. Secondly, I typically enjoy fantasy novels that take a comedic, tongue-in-cheek approach to storytelling. T. Kingfisher, for example, is one of my current favorite authors, and all of her books have a distinct humorous aspect to them. All of this to say, when I actually started reading this one, I had high hopes. But by the time I’d finished the last page (a feat unto itself, honestly), those hopes had thoroughly crashed and burned.

I can see the bones of a good story here, and I know that Wexler is a capable author, able to create unique worlds and people them with characters with whom readers can become invested. However, this book seemed to fall into one simple problem in almost every arena: excess. Take any single good idea, but then see that thing multiplied by a million. This applies to every area, but the first and most obvious has to do with the humor itself. It simply doesn’t let up! It’s joke after joke after joke in what quickly becomes an exhausting exercise of pure endurance. The reader is never given the necessary moments to really sit with the characters, to take any sort of breath and find a reason to actually care about the people and what they’re going through. Instead, it’s just a barrage of quips and takes.

One clear example is the use of footnotes. Now, I think this technique can be very successful if used well. But one of the key parts, in my opinion, is knowing exactly when and how to use a good footnote. Here, not only did these fall into the same category of used to excess, but the notes themselves were simply the same sorts of jokes found in the narrative. There was no rhyme or reason to why certain quips warranted a foot note and why another would simply be inserted into the body of the story.

Other than the sheer amount of humor that was packed into this book, much of it failed to land on its own merits. I don’t consider myself prudish by any means, but right off the bat, many of the jokes felt overly crude and crass. At many points, it felt like shock value was being prioritized over actual humor, and I found myself cringing more than anything through much of this.

As for the plot mechanics, I liked the overall idea of a “Groundhog’s Day”/video game scenario where whenever the main character dies she “respawns” at the same starting point and must make her way forward from there once again. But this quickly became tiresome, and in the beginning of the book, much of this history is simply presented to the reader, something our main character is already resigned to. Again, the reader has very few opportunities to truly become invested in her situation.

By the time I finished this book, all that remained was sheer exhaustion. I know that Wexler can write good fantasy; I even know that he can write humorously, as most of his novels included good, quippy characters who made me laugh. I’m not sure what went wrong here. It’s almost like he set out with the goal to right a comedic book and got so carried away with this one feature that he left out all of the rest. I honestly can’t recommend this one to most readers. Perhaps if you read the first page or so and the style of humor is working for you? But for most readers, I think this is a severe departure from the quality of Wexler’s previous books.

Rating 5: The jokes didn’t land and there were too many of them; a very disappointing read.

Reader’s Advisory:

“How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying” can be found on this Goodreads list: Best Outside-the-box Speculative Fiction (maybe not “best” though).

Serena’s Review: “The Encanto’s Daughter”

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Book: “The Encanto’s Daughter” by Melissa de la Cruz

Publishing Info: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers, March 2024

Where Did I Get this Book: NetGalley

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: A young woman claims the throne of a realm inspired by Filipino mythology in this YA romantic fantasy, the first in an enchanting new duet by #1 New York Times bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz.

MJ Rodriguez has spent her life hiding in the human world, keeping a heavy secret. She’s half-encanto. As the only child of King Vivencio of the Sirena Court, she’s also next in line for the throne. And now, upon her estranged father’s sudden death, MJ must claim her place as rightful heir.

In wondrous Biringan, the road to the throne is paved with thorns. Without a reigning monarch, the realm has spiraled into disarray. MJ has to win over a backstabbing council that objects to a half-human ruler. And when it looks like her father’s passing wasn’t natural but possibly inflicted by a curse, she must hunt down the sorceress behind this merciless magic.

In a bind, MJ forges an unlikely alliance with the striking Sir Lucas of the feared Sigbin Court, and soon, she loses her heart to the mysterious knight. But with peril looming over Biringan, the princess must decide if she can both open herself to love and carry the weight of the crown.

Review: So, I’m going to just say this up front: I mistook this author for another “Melissa” author when I initially requested this book on NetGalley. I’ve only read one other book by de la Cruz, and to say it wasn’t a favorite is probably an over-statement. I think it might be one of my lowest rated books on the blog, actually. That said, even after I realized, I still wanted to give this one a shot. Over the last year or so, I can think of a few examples where I’ve really loved books by authors who didn’t work for me the first time around. So, who knows? This could have been another situation where, with a new project, my mind could be changed.

All of that nice intro just to find out…nope, turns out everything that I disliked about the first de la Cruz book was more a feature of her writing than a bug. Ah, well, worth the shot I guess! But, as always, let’s talk a bit at first about the things that did work for me. Really, not much did. But I can see more where things would work for other readers whose tastes differ from mine. I did like the elements that were drawn from Filipino mythology (I especially appreciated the author’s note about this), and I wish there had been even more of these elements included on the whole. By the end, I still felt like we’d only scratched the surface of what could have been a rich fantasy tapestry. I also think that many of the choices made with regards to characterization and plot will appeal more to younger YA readers, so they may find more to like in this book than I did.

But for me, this was really a disaster of a read. Both the characters and the plot felt like cardboard cut outs of the most stereotypical elements of storytelling that on could cobble together. From the ridiculousness of the “magical royal school” setting, to the plot quickly devolving from MJ taking seriously her task to learn to take the throne in only a month’s time to instead partaking in juvenile bickering and drama. And to people these scenes, we have all of the stereotypes you can imagine: quirky best friend? Check. Mysterious romantic interest? Check. Hot girl that the main girl must hate? Check. This last one was most disappointing to see. I vaguely remember having problems with this in the other book by de la Cruz I read, this propensity to making the main female character seem special by degrading the other women around her. It was distasteful then, and it’s pretty depressing to still see it popping up here in YA fiction years later.

Beyond this, it felt like the book didn’t know what it wanted to be. You have, of course, the boarding school aspect. But the story also has elements of a fantasy thriller and then a murder mystery is introduced. And yet, even with all of these elements, I found myself so, so bored while reading this. Not being able to connect to any of the characters is always an uphill battle as far as engagement with a book goes, but it also felt like the pacing of this one was simply very slow. It felt like nothing was really happening for large chunks of the story. And as it went, it was easy to guess exactly where every plot line was going which sucked any tension out of the experience. And then we get to the end and what do we get? A cliffhanger!

I really disliked this book. The writing felt limited, the plotting was questionable, and the characterization could be reduced to stereotypes. All of that said, I know this author is popular with a lot of readers, so if you’re a fan of her previous books, take all of this with a massive grain of salt. Also, if you’re very dedicated to checking out a book that draws from Filipino mythology this might be worth a shot, though, I have to say, I feel like there have to be better examples out there than this. Overall, while I’m glad I gave this author another shot in the service of not having fixed opinions of an author based on one reading experience, after finishing this one, I’ll think I’ll call it quits.

Rating 5: At best it doesn’t stand out from the pack of other YA fantasy stories, and at worst, it’s a muddled mess of stereotypes and predictable plot lines.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Encanto’s Daughter” can be found on this Goodreads list: Asian YA/NA Books 2024: